My (not so) evil witch by Charmane Koch

Hey Everyone! Happy Monday!

Today I want to share with you a layout I have created with a Halloween colour scheme - nice BRIGHT Purple, Orange, Gold & Green - well that's the colours I think of for Halloween!

I have used a photo of my daughter dressed up as a witch for a Halloween Disco she went to last year!

I first started off covering a piece of thick White cardstock with Heavy White Gesso using a metal spatula. I dried with a heat gun.

After the gesso fully dried I sprayed a mix of Colour Artist Ink Spice & Water which I dried using a heat gun. I did a few layers until I was happy with the brightness of the Orange.

I then used Colour Paste Royalty to create the Purple stars using a stencil and the Metal Spatula. I let this dry naturally as I wanted a smoothness rather than if I used the heat gun, which would have made the Paste bubble.

I also decided to use Gesso to create the White Stars...

While waiting for that to dry I coloured some Wood Veneer stars using the Colour Shimmer Gold Silver Brush Marker... by squeezing more of the liquid comes out and it becomes so shimmery once dried...

I decided I needed more stars so used a smaller star stencil...

I also used the pen to outline the White Gesso stars, which actually had a green tinge once dried...

Once everything on my background had dried, I layered the rest of my embellishments, photos and title to the page. I added journalling and created a border using a journalling pen.

Here is what the full page looks like:

Love the glitter and shine!

I hope you've been inspired to create using your Halloween photos!

Thanks for stopping by!

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

What do YOU do when you don't love it?! ~ Scrapbook Process with Melinda

Hello Colour Blasters and welcome to the blog today! Melinda here with you with last share for January!

Funny how I came to this design though because I started with a patterned paper background and decided I just didn't love it, heck I didn't even like it really so I thought I would use what I had done to create something I at least liked!!

First up - patterned paper and White Heavy Gesso. A thick-ish/random, smeary coat in the area where I was going to put my photo's. I left that over night to dry.

When I came back the next day I turned my camera on and you can see my process from here on out over on the Colour Blast YT channel and keep scrolling for my step by steps....

I decided I wanted a dark contrast so grabbed my Dusty Charcoal Colour Paste and a stencil and after I marked where my photos were going I added some paste in 2 different areas. And smeared it on the top left so added a 3rd place with the paste.

Before this dried I knew I wanted an orange/black/gold colour scheme so I grabbed my Bling Colour Embossing Powder and sprinkled a little here and there over my Colour Paste and heat set the lot! Not only does heat setting it set the embossing powder but it also makes the Paste all bubbly and gives more awesome texture!

At this point I was thinking "Hrm, I'll add a bit more colour and maybe I'll start to love it more" so I grabbed my Sunset and Saffron Colour Sprays and some packaging and got to work using the smooshing (yep, that's the techy word ;) ) technique, working a small-ish section at a time and drying in between.

While I was working on that it occurred to me that the reason the 3rd spot of paste wasn't gelling was because I hadn't added gesso first, so I told myself "I'll add some smooshing here too and that will work better". TBH with you, NOPE, just nope! Ok, time to re-think my idea!

I grabbed some circle punches and dies and got to chopping up the paper - I did feel some satisfaction here - and immediately I was liking it better!! White cardstock and clear gesso for the background and I was ready to go again!

I added some ink to both my circles and the thin mat I had applied to my photos using Archival Black ink and placed the circles and photos in a configuration, first horizontally, that I thought would work. Meh, so I tried vertically and was like "Yay!! THIS is it!!"

Remove everything from the page again, grab my black archival ink and a couple of texture stamps and stamp, stamp, stamp!!

Next, I used both my Bling Colour Shimmer Spray and Colour Shimmer Pot to apply lots of pretty gold to the background. I sprayed the mist first, I wanted a fine, light coverage then I used the Bling Colour Shimmer Cube with both the packaging technique and also a paint brush and added colour to my hearts content.

Oh, and of course splatters! I used my paint brush and Colour Shimmer Pot. And Colour Spray in Roadbase also using a brush!

I added some gold stitching with my sewing machine through some of the circles and then it was time to stick, stick, stick!

I did add some more Bling splatters after all the circles were stuck down but before the photo was stuck down.

And lots of close ups! Enjoy!

So, just because you are not loving what you started does not mean that either a) you need to ditch the whole lot or b) you have to "put up with" and keep what you don't love!! Play! I'm sure, like me you have a good stash of awesome product that can sometimes be neglected, pull it out and PLAY!!!

That's it for me for this post and January so see you again next month, I cannot wait to play along with the next challenge, it's a fun one ;)

Melinda

“Happy Halloween” Tag by Amy C

Hello there ColourBlast fans! It’s this time of year, Halloween! 

Bring on the boo! Halloween is of course about history and tradition, and about having fun! Some people like to go trick or treating, have parties, dress ups and wear cool makeup. So, I thought I would make a Halloween tag for the festivities.

 

First, I trimmed a piece of heavy duty white cardstock to a tag size, then fully coated it with ‘Black Heavy Gesso’ and dried it with a heat gun.

 

To create texture, I was able to use the the Colour Blast 'Heavy White Gesso' seeing as it is quite thick. I used a ‘cracked glass’ effect stencil.

If you have a spider’s web or anything else spooky instead – then go for it! 😊 Again, I used a heat gun to dry this – or you can air dry it. It is important though, that this is completely dry before you continue on to the next stage.

To give colour, I sprayed the white surface with Sunset  Colour Spray and Sunshine Colour Shimmer Spray and allowed to dry.

I love a bit of bling, where possible! The Bling Colour Embossing Powder is the bomb! Seeing that Halloween in the US is celebrated in fall, I used a leaf stamp then heat embossed with the Bling embossing powder. You will need a craft heat gun for this step.

 

To add more texture, using a gel medium, I adhered some hand-torn strips of white tissue paper. After I speed dried it (yep, my trusty heat gun again), I sprayed the tissue paper with Rainforest Colour Spray, as I wanted to add some green. Using a permanent black ink, I randomly stamped around the tag with a newspaper script stamp.

Once the background was complete, I set to work on some embellishments.

For the tree (the focal point), I dabbed two coats of 'White Heavy Gesso' to allow for full coverage of the chipboard. 

I sprayed some of the Violet  Colour Spray on my mat, and moved the (upside-down) tree around on it as a way to then fully cover the tree with violet – I hope that makes sense? I then dried this with my heat gun.

Before I assembled my cluster of embellishments, I heat embossed a small wood veneer house. I used the stunning Sienna Colour Embossing Powder: it gives a real copper/metallic appeal. After all the preparations, I assembled my tag, including layering some flowers, medical gauze (used a bit from the first aid kit at home!) and hand cut pumpkins with orange tissue paper.

Here is my final tag and some close ups...

 

 

I hope this puts you in a festive mood!

Happy Halloween! Amy 😊