Seriously Cute- Chrissi Mannix

Hi Lovelies So here it is, my first ever Design Team post for Colour Blast!! And let me tell you, it took a while for me to be happy with a project to share with you for my first ever project lol. I made, and started numerous projects before I was happy.

This project actually started off heading in a completely different direction, but I wasn't happy with how it was going, so instead of scrapping the whole thing, I decided to use the background piece I had made and just rip it up.

I started with what would have to be one of my favorite Colour Blast products- Colour Shimmer Dust. I wet my page a little first, then added small amounts of Duke Colour Shimmer Dust to my page. Then I added some water from a mister bottle to spread my colour around.  I love watching it react with the water.

I continued adding water and spreading the colour around. After blasting with my heat gun, I decided to add some more colour. I wanted to try adding some Colour Shimmer Dust to some Gel Medium. Due to the gel medium drying clear, I was hoping to get a vibrant colour. I hadn't done this technique before and was really curious to see the result. I will definitely be doing this again, especially on an art journal page. 

I mixed some gel medium and some Peacock Colour Shimmer Dust together with a pallet knife, on a stamping block. Then using my palette knife, I spread the mixture through a stencil onto my background.

My favorite way to add splatters to my mixed media backgrounds is to use the Colour Blast Heavy Gesso. I find that they stay lovely and opaque and with a little bit of water, make awesome splatters. Be warned, this CAN be a messy technique, but always a staple of mine to use. I have mixed a bit of White Heavy Gesso with a small amount of water onto an acrylic block, and have used a paint brush to throw some splats at my backround.

  Once I let all this dry, I wasn't really  happy with it as a whole, but I did like the parts where I had stenciled my Colour Shimmer dust mixture. So I decided to do something I don't think I have ever done, I decided to use a part of my background as a photo mat onto a whole new piece of plain card stock.

This is where the layout takes a rather dramatic turn, but ends up being something I'm very happy with. Now I'm a very big mixed media scrapper. I'm messy, and like things bright and chaotic. I found that adding this piece to a fresh piece of white cardstock made this project seem a lot cleaner and neater (not something I'm use to lol) But I do like how its something different to my usual style of layout, with still my pops of mixed media and colour.

I decided to off center the piece to the right of my layout, and while I was waiting for the gel medium mixture to dry, I added some cotton thread underneath my photo, which i backed with foam for dimension and added some acrylic chevrons as small embellishments. 

As I was looking at my page, I felt like there was alot of white space left- I'm not usually one for white space lol. So on a whim, I had an idea. I decided to use my left over pieces from the original background to cut out some shapes. Being a photo of my son and I, I went with hearts. I hand drew hearts on the left over scraps, from when I cut down the piece to mat my photo and got some awesome mixed media heart shapes with different shades and textures. It was great to be able to use up the whole background, considering I wasn't happy with how it turned out originally. I cut these out and placed them around my layout. I added a few bits of bling here and there to make little clusters and then added my title using some word thickers I've had in my stash forever.

 In the end, I love how this layout ended up. I sure hope you enjoyed my first ever post, and I cant wait to share more exciting things with you using the fabulous Colour Blast Products.

Chrissi xxx