"Amazing" by Melissa Struhs

Howdy again bloggers! We welcome the 

month with a brand new challenge for July...can you guess what it is?

This challenge is right up my alley as I generally only work on double page layouts and they always have a tonne of photo's incorporated plus any Colour Blast products...too easy! I began with some fabulous images from a night at the theatre and printed 5 of them at a 3x4 size.

I began with a brand new mandala stamp that I was itching to test run after a recent purchase.

With such an intricate pattern, I always reach for my stamp platform in case I need to re ink or restamp.

Several images were printed onto a textured watercolour paper with a Black Staz On ink.

In the meantime, I began to gather the chipboard and metal embellishments that would suit the mini print photo's. A beautiful pastel shade was needed and the Lovely Lilac Colour Embossing Powder

was added over the top a similar coloured chalk ink and heat set over a chipboard title and flourish as well as a metal mandala charm.

To add a little contrast to the intended layers, I reached for the Bling Colour Embossing Powder to dress up a lotus flower chipboard piece.

As I layered these pieces together, I started to see that a bolder splash was needed on the stamped images.

I began with testing some of the Colour Artist Inks and settled on Sunburnt and Rust, they had the rustic colours that were a bold contrast to Bling and Lovely Lilac.

3 images would eventually be fussy cut around but it doesn't really matter if you do it before or after you apply the colour. Using a small paintbrush, I splattered both colours randomly across the mandala's.

I dried them quickly with my heat gun and they soaked them with water from a spray bottle...this gave sections that remained but most of it ran and blurred and pooled.

While it was still wet, Bling Shimmer Spray was spritzed over the image as well. A little more heat to set the colours in place and I was happy with the exotic look.

Now, it was time to layer the elements together with the patterned papers and more metal filigree pieces. Once it was adhered into place, 

I added a little Bling from a Shimmer Cube to add a little splash of colour to the black cardstock edging.

The purple was divine, so I added a little Lovely Lilac Colour Paste over a stencil

to add some dots 

and diamonds in a scattered patch as well.

The chipboard title says it all...the production of Aladdin was just that and so colourful that it could inspire so many beautiful combinations of colours from our product range.

Be sure to take on the challenge this month...let's see how many of you love double page layouts as much as I do!

Till next time,

Mel.