Best Friend- by Fiona Hughes

Hi everyone, it's Fi here with this months'  
"Metal Madness"- Challenge piece.
This challenge required me to use anything metal and 3 Colourblast  products (#),  on my project.
This page came together fairly easily, with this gorgeous pic of my daughter's Bestie, Sarah & her Alpaca (Bridget, who is her own furry lil Bestie).
Keeping with my usual "thrifty"- (read tight-ass) style, I started this page with a piece of white cardstock and the negative of a cutout sheet. I stuck it down, using wet glue and allowed it to dry completely, before taking my Heavy White Gesso (#1) & generously coating the entire page. 

Once this was dry, I decided on the colour palette for this project. I've been itching to play with these new Colour Blast Artist Inks (#2), and  the blues leaped out at me. I went with - Oasis, Marine & Calypso.

Look at how amazing these lil pots of vivid colour are, (*insert love heart eyes).

Ok, so taking my trusty water spray, I wet down the page in a diamond pattern again.... not too much though, ok?
Then, dipping my already wet watercolour brush into each colour separately (rinsing the brush between colours), i worked the colour, loosely and randomly around the page. Trying not to mix the colours, just letting them move themselves, freely.

I love how the colour pooled in the crevices caused by the packaging negative ...... so cool!
As they dry, these inks, set in a sort of  sharp watermark way, in that, the colour tends to build, I think.

Take a look at how they have dried in this next picture.
Nice, huh?!

I wanted more texture, so I thought I would use some of my favourite Colour Paste in Snow White (#3)
I chose a small dot stencil and moving over the coloured portion of the page, smooshed some of the paste through it, in no particular pattern or design.

I then began to build my page. First, i found my Metal items, (Camera paperclip, leaf,  2 x flair buttons, a filigree panel thingy &  the gold heart).

Mounting my photo on scrap pieces of  bluey-grey coloured patterned papers, I raised it on cardboard from a discarded box to pop it up. I also found complementary coloured cotton, wood veneer pieces, some punchinella and I fussy cut the hearts from a 4x6 pocket page insert.

I was worried about this challenge to begin with, but once i began, I realised I still use a lot of metal on my pages.... I'm sure you will too.

Looking at the page at this point, I knew I HAD to add splatters..... 

I picked Colour Shimmer Spray- in Just Blue  (#4), for this task.

Unscrewing the spray nozzle I flicked the shimmery goodness around the finished page, being careful not to splatter the photo!

I tried to ensure that the sizes of the drops were varied.

And  with that my lovely ColourBlast Fans, I am done. 
Challenge completed!
I hope this was helpful to you all.  It's not that hard, when you have a think about it, and when you have lovely friends to encourage you.
Have an terrific day guys. 
As you look at this post, I will be sunning my buns in Fiji, so just because I care, I promise to drink at least one cocktail for each of you, Ok? 
The pleasure will be all mine I assure you.
Much love,

Cheers, Fi x.