"Building Memories & Having Fun" by Melissa Struhs

Hello again everyone!

I am really glad to have had lots of time to get creative lately and have been churning out finished projects everywhere. Generally, when we have a new product to inspire the creative mojo, there is no stopping us. And that is what happened for me when I stumbled across this image of Amanda and I last year. I wanted something simple in style but also to keep the focus on us.

For this layout, it was a new set of clear stamps with a hand doodled floral cluster. 

I began by stamping images with a black Staz on ink onto watercolour paper with my stamp platform and then set them aside while I chose my colour palette. It had been quite a while since I had used my Colour Sprays, so I decided that it was time to revisit them.

The layout I envisioned called for a softer, more subtle colour. So I began by adding water into my paint palette and then a few drops of colour at a time until I was happy with the depth of the colour. You can see that I made myself a swatch so I tcould est each of the colours and see how they dried before committing fully. I used the Saffron, Bubblegum, Sapphire and Sunset Colour Sprays

and the true intense colours can bee seen on the tops of the lids. Using a very fine brush, I was able to paint some colour onto the floral patterns. I made sure that I had 2 blooms in all 4 colours, but made sure that one of them a slightly darker for layering the pieces later on.

Once they were dry, I spent time fussy cutting them out.

I made sure that one variation had the leaves removed.

I also opted to remove some of the florals elements

or leaving them as they were. This was done by only cutting some of the images out.

On a Kraft cardstock background, a 12x12 script stencil had the Heavy White Gesso applied over the top. As a reminder, I have left my lid off for several hours to let it thicken to a fabulous consistency that is amazing for stencilled effects.

As always, there is always a part of your stencil that has bent and despite my best efforts, there is a couple of spots that were too messy...these are now considered spots to embellish over the top of.

Here's the first one....The full blue image was glued over the mess and the next layer had some 3D foam dots to give the next later some height.

They were also offset slightly so you could see the lighter or darker version underneath and layered were layered underneath and around a chipboard frame and photo.

After dressing the embellishments with brads and DMC cotton stitching and French knots, it was time to drag out the new Shimmer Brush Marker.

To add a little sparkle to the flowers, the clear version of the Shimmer Brush Marker added just a small touch of shimmer. Simply shake well, squeeze lightly and brush onto the area requiring some glitter. I can happily say that this did not reactivate the Colour Sprays and no colour transferred to the brush.

Here's a couple of close up's to look closer at the layering, the pastel shades of Spray Colours and the Shimmer Brush Marker in action.

Don't be afraid to dilute some of those brighter colours down, it gives you so much more choice when matching it to patterned papers or colours in your photographs.

Thanks for stopping by the blog,

Mel.