"Top 5 Farewell" by Melissa Struhs

Today will be my farewell post for Colour Blast. It seems that the last few years have zipped by and before I knew it I had spent 2 and half years on the Design Team. I never thought I would stay on for this length of time to be honest, but it has been a fun ride for sure. I thought it might be fun for me to look back at my 5 favourite projects...

Number 5: 24th of June, 2016

"Smile"....here's the original post.

This was a sample that I made for the Brisbane Scrapbook and Papercraft Expo when the Colour Shimmer Dusts were first introduced. Sadly, the image just doesn't do the amazing texture on this canvas any justice.

Number 4: 30th September, 2016

"Adventure" ….here's the original post. 

I do love facing pages when I scrapbook and this was a layout of my boys enjoying a little father and son time. The chipboard pieces and die cuts had some of my favourite and endlessly used Colour Embossing Powders on them.

Number 3: 23rd of June, 2017

"I call her Amity" ….here's the original post.

What I loved most about this? It's hard to pinpoint. Actually, I look at this canvas so many times a day, it has pride of place on my lounge room wall and now has a gorgeous frame to keep her dust free and has photo's of some of the Colour Blast girls attached. I do recall that she took me months to make, no one could use our dining room table during that time. I had the most perfect Gesso stencilled texture all over.

Number 2: 6th of January, 2017

"Making Waves" ….here's the original post.

This was the start of my stash busting phase and the discovery of a glossy resist chipboard was truly the hero piece. I have used rock salt as a technique many time, each and every time it is completely unique. I remember the day that Amanda Hartmann and I were scrapping with friends and we both experimented with this technique....needless to say there was a quite a bit of mess to clean up!

Number 1: 28th January, 2018

"Capture the Moment" ….here's the original post.

There is still something about Colour Blast products and simple black cardstock...it is a match made in heaven! What really had me by surprise was the response to this layout...so much love and personal messages for a single layout with simple stencilling and embossing on chipboard. It really reminded me that the we all love masculine layouts and the industrial look was and is still very popular. 

I have loved my time with the team and am grateful to have had the opportunity to dabble in mixed media products while still remaining true to how I love to scrap. I have spent my time teaching classes in my local area with the products consistently the entire time and we are all complete Colour Blast converts now. 

Here's some fun facts that I found interesting as I round out my last day!

2 and half years, 62 Blog posts and 996 photo's later my time has now come to an end.

A huge thank you to all of the Design Team girls past and present that I have been honoured to work alongside and I will we happily watching to see what the newest recruits have in store for us.

Best wishes for a creative journey,

Mel.

"Amazing" by Melissa Struhs

Howdy again bloggers! We welcome the 

month with a brand new challenge for July...can you guess what it is?

This challenge is right up my alley as I generally only work on double page layouts and they always have a tonne of photo's incorporated plus any Colour Blast products...too easy! I began with some fabulous images from a night at the theatre and printed 5 of them at a 3x4 size.

I began with a brand new mandala stamp that I was itching to test run after a recent purchase.

With such an intricate pattern, I always reach for my stamp platform in case I need to re ink or restamp.

Several images were printed onto a textured watercolour paper with a Black Staz On ink.

In the meantime, I began to gather the chipboard and metal embellishments that would suit the mini print photo's. A beautiful pastel shade was needed and the Lovely Lilac Colour Embossing Powder

was added over the top a similar coloured chalk ink and heat set over a chipboard title and flourish as well as a metal mandala charm.

To add a little contrast to the intended layers, I reached for the Bling Colour Embossing Powder to dress up a lotus flower chipboard piece.

As I layered these pieces together, I started to see that a bolder splash was needed on the stamped images.

I began with testing some of the Colour Artist Inks and settled on Sunburnt and Rust, they had the rustic colours that were a bold contrast to Bling and Lovely Lilac.

3 images would eventually be fussy cut around but it doesn't really matter if you do it before or after you apply the colour. Using a small paintbrush, I splattered both colours randomly across the mandala's.

I dried them quickly with my heat gun and they soaked them with water from a spray bottle...this gave sections that remained but most of it ran and blurred and pooled.

While it was still wet, Bling Shimmer Spray was spritzed over the image as well. A little more heat to set the colours in place and I was happy with the exotic look.

Now, it was time to layer the elements together with the patterned papers and more metal filigree pieces. Once it was adhered into place, 

I added a little Bling from a Shimmer Cube to add a little splash of colour to the black cardstock edging.

The purple was divine, so I added a little Lovely Lilac Colour Paste over a stencil

to add some dots 

and diamonds in a scattered patch as well.

The chipboard title says it all...the production of Aladdin was just that and so colourful that it could inspire so many beautiful combinations of colours from our product range.

Be sure to take on the challenge this month...let's see how many of you love double page layouts as much as I do!

Till next time,

Mel.

"Framed Off the Page Canvas" by Melissa Struhs

This time last year I worked on an off the page canvas that I truly fell in love with but really struggled with how dusty it would get once it was hung on a wall, so it remained wrapped and tucked aside for safe keeping for almost 6 months. 

If you would like a refresh of the full tutorial you can check out Amity here...since then I attached some mini print black and white images of the Colour Blast gang to the canvas as well.

Like most people, that break over Christmas time is a chance to catch up on those bigger projects and with my hubby at home, finally I had the other half of the creative team to help out. There had been some tentative plans for how the canvas would be encased in an enclosed shadow box frame and how it could function and be able to switch on the lights easily.

Firstly, a MDF box frame was built to allow for the height of the embellishments plus the Marquee monogram letters.

To access the battery packs for the lights, the canvas was hinged to the frame so it could flip open and then a small magnetic catch the hold it in place when you wanted to close it.

I had a local business make a custom made silver frame with the glass already in place and this too could be hinged to open as well.

Once all of these elements were screwed into place and functioning as we envisioned, the frame at the front was removed as well as the canvas and the wooden shadow box  this was spray painted silver to match other frames throughout our home. 

After several hours of drying time, it was attached to our lounge room wall and all pieced back together.

So here is how it works...

The lock can be opened on the outer edge of the frame and swung open....

The canvas then swings open too...

to reveal the battery packs and allowing the canvas to still be a light source as well.

Once the lights are on, you can then close it all back over...keeping it dust free as well. We often switch it on for a little ambient light in our lounge room when we curl up for movie nights or when guests are over.

Thanks again for stopping by the blog to see what the Design Team have been up to, hope it inspires some creativity this weekend,

Mel.

"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.