Colour Blast by Bee Arty: Colour Blast Flora and Fauna Prints by Elisa Ablett

Hi Colour Blast friends, Elisa here from the Design Team with my first blog post as part of the Colour Blast team and I am so excited to show you what these amazing Australian products can do!

I decided to make a set of four home décor pieces using the Colour Blast Sprays, Colour Pastes and Colour Embossing Powder in a resist watercolour technique and four 7x7 frames. I used a smooth watercolour paper as my base and made use of the frame matting as well. Here is the finished product, simply so colourful and full of shimmery goodness.

Here is a close up photo of the gorgeous Colour Blast products that I used to complete the project;

and they can be found here - Colour Blast Online Shop

I thought I would post each frame separately first and then post the techniques used underneath -

To start my project I picked four of my favourite stamps (in flora and fauna designs) and a few different stencils. I traced around the inside square of the matting (using it as a template to show the area I had to work within) on my special smooth watercolour paper. Next stamp with Versamark ink and emboss with Snow White embossing powder, repeat this for each frame with your favourite stamp in the theme of your choice. Warning!! the Mica from the powders can remain on your page, so I used a paint brush to clean off the areas where it shouldn't be. I also used a static stamp pad over my paper prior to stamping to clear off dust, dirt etc. I stamped on the mat and embossed the mat as well, as you can see from the close ups below.

Next I used Snow White Colour Paste through a stencil (using a palette knife) on each mat that came with the frame. Just a few small patches on each of the frames, another way to create texture and add interest to your piece, it also is another way to create a resist technique. Dry each mat thoroughly.

Once dry choose the Colour Shimmer sprays you want for each frame, for the above mat I chose two of my fav colours, Envy and Deep Water, also have a spray bottle with water handy as well. Spray quite closely to your project, layering each colour by drying in between. Pay particular attention to where you applied your Colour Paste, that way you get a lovely patch of intense colour and shimmer. Use the water to disperse the colour and tilt your project to create drips and patches of colour.

In the photo below you see the embossed stamped image ready for the next step which is using the Shimmer Sprays as watercolours. Use a tray to separate the your colours (take the lid off each and tip a small amount in the tray or use a pipette or dropper to move your colours to the tray). To start I spray quite close to the embossed image with my water mister then I use a brush to introduce the lighter colour (Rose Petal) to the background of the flower, tapping my brush here and there to create a few splats and drips. Dry each layer thoroughly.

I then introduced the darker colour - Royalty, loading my brush with the colour and tracing around the petals of the flower with the intense colour making the colour pool around the edges of the embossing powdered image. This is your 2nd watercolour resist technique, the first was the Colour paste and spray on the mats.

You can see the intense colour and shine in the above photo, the sprays make a great alternative to metallic watercolours and by using the resist technique you can achieve many different effects with the one product. You can use a lighter embossing powder to achieve a subtle print like I did, you can use the same colour embossing powder as a complimentary colour or use a contrasting colour to make your image really stand out amongst your watercolours. Once dry I used a sepia toned stamp pad and a textured background stamp, covered my main image with spare paper (a mask) and stamped randomly over the edges to give more depth.

Here are some close ups of each project -