"Adventure" by Melissa Struhs

Happy Friday Everyone! As we look forward to the summer months and those weekends, the more I seem to have of a tonne of these beach photo's to scrap. With so many beautiful colours in the product range, there is never a shortage to choose from...here's a double page layout that I recently completed.

 You might recognise this embellishment that I called "Tidal Rock Pools" from a previous post, I was still figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of the layout. Once inspiration strikes, it all came together in an afternoon.

Once all of my patterned papers and photo's were layered and adhered to the background papers, I decided I wanted to replicate some elements from the photo above,

the hessian trim was folded back to create some open space

where I used the Deep Water Colour Paste. 

over a fishing net stencil.

I love that the pattern has a very unstructured rustic look to it.

This gorgeous chipboard piece is quite large and usually when I create a double page spread, I look for way to split the piece and make it more unique.

You can see where I have made my adjustments, now it is 3 separate elements that I can play with.

These pieces have had a white ink layered underneath Snow White Colour Embossing Powder,

it still looks relatively silver with just one coat.

The seaweed element had a versamark ink applied and a Deep Water Colour Embossing Powder was sprinkled lightly over the top.

And finally, Singin the Blues  Colour Embossing Powder was added to a light blue ink on the seashell (heavy in some spots, light in others...but it didn't fill the laser cut lines of the chipboard).

Here's where I wanted to really make the larger starfish stand out...more solid. There have been times when you have seen the Design Team girls do 1 or 2 coats of embossing powder. We have discovered that while the powder is still hot after melting it, you can simply add more and layer it up. In fact, I did 4 coats and  it is so glossy...

and while this layer is still soft, clear micro beads were pushed in to added some bumpy texture.

A little heat from the heat gun softens those beads too!

The smaller starfish was adhered into place with glossy accents, so many layers of embossing powder put a stop to replacing it back into it's original place, now it has a more prominent 3D look.

To finish off the entire double layout, Singin the Blues and Deep Water Colour Shimmer Sprays were spritzed lightly and larger flicks of colour to the lower sections of the layout. Here are some more close up's of the details...

If you loved the other elements on the page and missed them last time, don't forget to follow the link across to the older post so you can see absolutely everything!

Till next time,

Mel.

Watercolouring with Mica Powders by Melinda Sweetman

Hello there fellow Colour Blast lovers! Melinda here with you today sharing this fun pocket page I put together using the awesome Colour Mica Powders for a project I am working on called Learn Something New Every Day. I tell you the name as, as you can see, I have used the letters LSNED on my "cover page" for this project to make this an obvious change of pace as this project will make it's way into our 2016 annual PL album :)

This was super fun project to put together, basically, water colouring and I am super happy with how it came out! You can see my entire (well most of it, somehow I ran out of room on my phone while I thought I was recording!!) process here on the Colour Blast YT channel - make sure to subscribe so you can see all the fun projects that are uploaded!!

Otherwise here is my process!

First up I picked the Colour Mica Powders I wanted to use to match the collection I had decided to use for this project so I pulled out a pattered paper with all the collection colours on it and ended up choosing ALL the colours (which are Watermelon, Wisteria, Peach Nectar, Lemon Zing, Polar, Cool Mint and Olive Grove) except the Espresso. Before I did any painting I did put a quick think coat of clear gesso across my whole page and dried that with my heat tool as I was fairly certain I would be using a lot of water!

Don't they look so, so pretty sitting there all together!! So, as you can see you I have used my water colour brush to pick up the colour from the little pots and apply to the flowers I wanted to colour. I worked with one colour at a time so I didn't get myself confused! I did start by applying some plain water with a paint brush before applying the colour but found that that washed out the colour a bit more than I wanted so I ended up just using the water colour brush and the mica powders.

It's so hard to capture just how shiny and sparkly these powders but you can kind of see it in the above photo!

After I had done most of the page I felt that I needed a couple of other colours so I pulled out some of my sprays - both the Colour Spray (flat colour) and the Colour Shimmer Spray (pretty, shimmery colours!) and mixed and matched to get the best colour matches I could! I can't remember exactly what combination I used but I KNOW that I used the Snow White, Tangereen Dream and Deep Water in the Colour Shimmer Spray and the Bubblegum and Lagoon in the Colour Spray.

Once all the colours were dried I cut down my 12" x 12" paper to 6 4" x 6" pieces to fit into the page protector I had decided to use. I knew all along that I would only decorate the bottom right hand card and here is the finished card.

I pulled in a sticker sheet from the collection pack I'm using, a flair from my stash, some pink alphas for the 2016, a few random enamel dots and also a stamp that says September. The big letters I cut on white card stock on my cameo and then used a 0.7mm pen to give them a sketchy outline.

As you can see in that close up I have also used the awesome Roadbase Colour Spray (I seriously love, love, love this product!) to leave some black sprinkles all across the page.

I will leave you with this photo of my completed page and a close up/different angle where you can see some more of that shimmer! I hope this has inspired you to pull out some of your own powders or even the sprays and give water colouring a go - so easy and so effective!! 

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below or even on the YT vid, I will get back to you ASAP!!

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great scrappy day!

Melinda

Altered Frame by Tina Connolly

Hi everyone, I thought I'd share my altered frame with you today.  Now unfortunately my computer died so I lost all my progress shots, so I'll just describe what I did.  

I found an old frame and sanded it slightly.  I collected lots of charms, chipboard pieces, broken jewelley, old paint brushes, diecuts, and other found items, which I adhered to the frame using heavy gel medium.  I allowed it to dry completely before covering everything with black Gesso.  

I coloured the frame using Just Blue, Stormy Weather and Deep Water Colour Pastes.

White flowers were sprayed with Deep Water Colour Shimmer Spray and then smeared with Colour Paste and attached to the frame.  The raised edges of the diecuts and metal charms were highlighted using Bling Colour Paste.  Using a lighter colour on the high points creates the illusion of greater depth.

More diecuts were heat embossed using Deep Water Colour  Embossing Powder, then attached using heavy gel medium.

Thanks for visiting today, I hope I've inspired you to get creative.

Happy scrapping,

Tina xx

1st Birthday Celebration SALE

Hi Colour Blast Fans,

Can you believe it...... it is our 1st birthday - wow where did the time go.  To celebrate this, we have decided to reward those who have supported us on this journey.

So, here it is SALE TIME

All orders to be placed via our online shop 

Colour Blast Online Shop

Thank you for your support of this 

Australian company

xx

Colour Blast Cute Cute Cutie by Tracey Campbell

Hello and welcome back to the Colour Blast Blog. For this post I want to share a few ideas on using some of the Colour Blast Products whilst producing a layout that's main focus is the photo.  I have a simple process video on how I created the layout which will show you all the details at the top of the post, so please have a look if you have time.   

  
                   

 In the mean time I will take you through how I used the Colour Blast Products on my layout.

First I created the back ground by stamping a few hearts on the cardstock with embossing ink and then pouring some of the Colour Embossing Powder - Stormy Weather on to the wet ink. Next pour the excess Colour Embossing Powder back into the pot.

Using a heat gun I heated up the Colour Embossing Powder until it went liquidly and changed colour. The Colour Embossing Powder is a great high quality product which has an awesome amount of colour it in, so that when you emboss with it the colour turns out bold and bright.

After I embossed the hearts onto the background cardstock I messy painted three of the hearts with some Caribbean Colour Spray.

 Next I mixed some of the Bubblegum Colour Spray with some Iridescent Medium and messy painted over the top of two of the embossed hearts (the painted embossed heart is under the word love in the photo below).

I wanted to create a bold smooth finish to the wood veneer so I used a blending tool to spread a thick layer of Colour Paste in Just Blue over the heart. The Colour Paste is a versatile product that is simply delicious to use. Just as a note for you to know, the Colour Paste dries a darker shade than what the wet paste is, so try a little bit first on a bit of scrap so that you know what the colour turns out like.

 I need a contrasting colour for my other wood veneer hearts but did not have the perfect colour for my layout so I created the colour I needed by mixing some of the Bubblegum Colour Spray with some iridescent medium and then simply painted a thick coat over the wood veneer.

For the title I traced around some chipboard letters and then painted with Masking Fluid which I left sit over night to dry. Once dry I painted over the title with Bubblegum Colour Spray mixed with Iridescent Medium. Once dry rub the Masking Fluid off with your finger to show the unpainted white cardstock through. (Have a look at the video above for more detail on using Colour Blast products with Masking Fluid)

The last finishing touch I added using the Colour Blast products was splatters using Road Base Colour Spray over the background cardstock.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you enjoy my creation and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Hugs

Tracey

Marbeling Memories with Amy Prior

Hi there Colour Blast fans! Amy Prior back with you all again today, this time sharing a pretty shabby chic inspired layout using lots of gorgeous Colour Blast products alongside some BoBunny papers, Dusty Attic chipboard and Scrappers Garden flowers. 

Lots of gorgeous details on this layout include the funky marbled pattern background. See below for a quick step-by-step on how I created this effect.

 

The Dusty Attic Chipboard frame has been covered with some Embossing Paste before a generous sprinkle of Leather, Bling and Snow White Colour Embossing Powders. If you don't like the mottled effect, use just one colour and create an even coat of the powder before melting with your heat tool.

 Lots of beautiful papers and flowers finished this layout off perfectly with some additions of bling as well! Who doesn't love a bit of glitter here and there.

Steps for creating a faux marbled background.

Step 1: Blob various colours of Colour Paste over the top of a stencil, I've used Bling, Leather and Snow White. It is super important that the stencil stays still so stick it down with some Washi Tape to avoid any movement in the stencil.

Step 2: Quickly scrape the colours together but only once up and down then once side to side. If you over work this step you will simply mix the colours together and not get the funky marble pattern detail.

Step 3: Remove the stencil and heat dry that glorious pattern detail. Make sure you clean your stencil quickly also as the Colour Paste dries very quickly.

Well that is it from me today, until next time, happy scrapping!

Amy Prior xx