"Explore" by Melissa Struhs

Thanks again for stopping by to check out my blog post for today. You have probably read about me rehashing all of my old supplies as I try to downsize my stash. Here's a great idea for a long forgotten product....

Hands up if you have transparencies in your stash! I have a massive pile in a fold out satchel and I love digging through there to find something that was slightly used or held onto for something special that never happened.

Sometimes simple script stencils can create big impact, as it turns out two complete rows of words fit perfectly in the centre of the film strip.

It was taped in place for two reasons,

1. To hold it securely and

2. So I could mask off a section of the stencil that I did not want to use.

I wanted a really rustic colour and nothing is more perfect that the Sienna Colour Paste. It had tones of orange and gold and brown all in together. Admittedly, it does look a little like muddy terracotta in it's wet form but gosh it is gorgeous when dry.  

Blunder Alert!!!This is exactly what I did with the film strip transparent strips and wait till you see how I covered a massive mistake. Even when being so careful with my stencilling, the slippery surface of a transparency can be a little tricky. This is indeed what happened on the right side of my strip, so I simply took my palette knife and swiped away the messy words and it created this fabulous textured smear. Not exactly what I envisioned but I tucked it aside and waited for it dry. No heat gun for drying off the transparencies so you are forced to wait but often I will shift onto another layout or project while something is left to dry on another flat surface. 

A little contrast colour was needed for the chipboard pieces that I wanted to include so I reached for my Lipstick and Sienna Colour Embossing Powders. By adding a bold red ink onto the word "Explore" and a walnut coloured ink on the arrows, the matching embossing powders had so much more of an intense colour.

By this time, I could see how my original transparency was drying, it had a fabulous look so I decided that I needed another one but in another colour. I knew that Lipstick Colour Paste might end up looking a little pink and knowing that Candy Shimmer Dust would be the easiest way to pop some more red into the paste.

I mixed a tiny bit of the dust into some of the paste, making sure to mash it through thoroughly and then smeared it along a thinner version of the filmstrip transparency. Wait till you see how pretty it looks.

Here are some close up's of the gorgeous height of the stencilling plus the thick glossy layers of the embossing powder.

And the effect on the filmstrips still maintains the translucent look all the way through to the bursts of colour where the paste is far thicker.

That's all from me again, time to move onto another project waiting in the wings...what else can I stash bust and give a Colour Blast makeover to?

Mel.