Wednesday 31 October 2018

Hey Pumpkin! Layout By Chrissi M

Hello Lovely's!
So I thought, being today is Oct 31st, I'd share a Halloween Layout with you. Now in Aus, Halloween isn't a big thing in a lot of areas, but we are lucky in our estate. Lots of costumes and lots of trick or treating in a safe place. Im lucky, when I noticed the date of my next post, I had just taken this awesome photo of my boys. There was a photo setup at our local shopping center and they couldn't wait to have their picture taken. So this is literally the most RECENT picture I have documented lol.
So I printed my photo, and got out my card stock. I had originally intended to just use white card stock, but I didn't want this layout to be like all my other mixed media layouts. I'm trying to mix up my mixed media lol. So I decided to use black and have the white as a focal point/mat behind my photo- with lots of Colour Blast Artist Inks. The bright Artist inks would pop beautifully off the black.


The colours I'm using are, Barley, Berry, Sunburnt and Soot. Quite halloweeny I think. I'm also starting with a wet page- wet on wet helps it to move freely and bleed together. So I have spritzed my page with water and then added drops my of colours straight to the page. I started with Barley and Sunburnt first.
After adding my colours, I spritzed with more water and than just moved my page around to move the ink. It gives a very free flowing, watercolour type of look. I kept adding more colour untill I was happy with the saturation.
Then it was time to add some of my darker colours. I added Soot Colour Artist Ink to my border- again, making sure I had some water down first so it would bleed and flow, and then to help the Soot blend into the Barley and Sunburnt, I added a few small spots of Berry to act as a transitional colour. Then I used the drooper from the Soot Artist Ink to throw some splatters on the page.

This is where my page took a turn, that at first I was not happy with. You may have heard me say that all art journal pieces go through a "Hot Mess" stage. A stage where it looks like, a hot mess lol. I felt that this layout did the same thing. The more I added, the more  I was unhappy lol. So I walked away and left it for the night, and came back to it this morning. When I came back to it, I was alot happier with it, and it just flowed together. It was a lot rougher, and 'Hot Messy' than I originally was going for, but than I realised it was a Halloween layout, and I could totally work with Hot Mess.
I wanted to add some texture to my background, so I got out my Colour Blast Colour Paste in Dusty Charcoal and one of the fabulous Colour Blast Stencils. This one came in my August Colour Blast Kit Club Kit. This is the A4 size 'That Way' Stencil designed by the lovely Michelle Grant exclusively for Colour Blast, and is available in the Colour Blast Store.
I'm using the Dusty Charcoal Colour Paste to add some stars to my background. I like that it is a subtle pop of texture, as you can see on the final piece, they aren't overly noticeable in the Charcoal colour. Take note, the colour of these pastes in the tub IS NOT the colour they will dry. I highly recommend swatching these out before using them. The colours are so vibrant and shimmery when dry and you will be surprised by the difference. 
To  finish off my layout, I matted my photo on some pattern paper from a Halloween collection, added cheesecloth behind it to add to the texture and feel of the layout, than added a few bits and pieces around. My background was my main focus for this page, and what I wanted to stand out the most, so my embellishing was pretty minimal. In the end, despite not liking where it was going to begin with, i love how this turned out. I feel like my background really did turn out perfect for this layout.

I hope you enjoyed my layout. Stop by soon for more awesome inspiration from the fab DT.
Chrissi xxx




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