Go, SEE, do! By Tracey Campbell

Hello and welcome Colour Blasters, it is my turn again on the blog today and I want to share a layout where I created a fun, funky and messy background with some of the Colour Blast products.  

First up I prepared a sheet of cardstock by painting square in the middle of it with White Heavy Gesso and a very large paint brush.

I apologise for the photo, but I wanted to try and show you how I just painted the Heavy White Gesso in he centre of the cardstock.

Using a thick 1 inch paint brush I dry washed some Mermaid Colour Artist Ink. Dry washing is simply dipping a dry paint brushes edges into a small amount of ink or paint and applying it lightly to your paper. Keep using your lightly inked/painted brush until the ink/paint wears off onto the paper. It gives you a streaky look to your media. As you can see I applied the Colour Artist Ink in a cross hatched messy way, over the top of the square of Heavy White Gesso.

 I adhered a small corner of patterned paper to the bottom left hand corner of the Colour Artist Ink / Heavy White Gesso square. I then used Slipper Colour Artist Ink to apply some messy streaks over the edge of the patterned paper and some random cross hatching on the Mermaid square with a paint brush.

 Then using the bristles of the paint brush I flicked splatters of Slipper Artist Ink over the page.

 Here you can see all of the back ground to give you an idea of what it looks like.

 Once the Artist Ink was dry I applied some Deep Water Colour Paste through a stencil to add some texture to the page.

 Here you can see the positioning of the stencilled Colour Paste.

 Next I add the photo and the embellishments. I wanted to show the funky Colour Blasted background so I grouped my photo and the embellishments in the bottom left hand corner over the top of the pattern paper.

For the title I used a small amount of Colour Shimmer Dust in Duke and Lollipop. Using a dry paint brush I picked up the smallest amount of the Shimmer Dust and lightly tapped it over the top of some white chipboard letters. Once the Colour Shimmer Dust was on the chipboard I simply gave it a light spray with some water to activate.

Here is the finished layout - a funky page which allowed me to get messy and have fun. It is bright and full of elements that remind me of my daughter.

Thanks for dropping by, don't forget that we have daily inspiration on the blog with the Design Team sharing their creativity with you ever single day!

Before I go I do want to point you all in the direction of some of the wonderful blog posts that Tenisha has done recently, where she highlights the Colour Blast Products and gives you an outline, product guide, handy storing hints and some creative ideas. Here is the first link to Day One of Tenisha's posts, you can follow all eight days and eight products.

Hugs

Tracey

"Craft Alive Logan" by Melissa Struhs

Morning Everyone! As I write this a week before you all get to see this on the blog.... It is now the day after Craft Alive in Logan, Brisbane. I am currently bleary eyed, tired and sore and in the post funk show blues. After all of the organisation of packing and planning, the adrenaline and general hype of the show, it can sometimes a flat day afterwards. Instead of my usual project, I thought it might be nice to do a wrap up of all the hard work the team puts into the event.

Three fun filled days in the Colour Blast stand always begins with the initial set up and Tenisha and I are ever thankful that we have that down to a fine art and can achieve all of that in under 4 hours. Think partitions, tablecloths, tiered shelving and demo table all in black and then this massive array of our colourful products. It certainly is eye catching and as you wander the aisles it really does have massive impact. 

One element of our show experience for the customers is the chance to sit and watch the on hand demo's. It gives everyone a chance to ask all of the burning questions they have, as well as new techniques and get to know how some our Design Team Members (past and present) like to play with the Colour Blast products. We are so blessed to have had Tina Connolly, Sue Plumb and Amanda Hartmann as our Demo guru's this past weekend. These girls rocked it and had some fabulous ideas and inspiration to share on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

No doubt, the highlight of the show was the buzz around the Colour Artist Inks.

Visitors to our stand saw the girls experimenting with them, creating stunning hand coloured stamped images, art journal pages and fabulous one of a kind tags. The colour combinations were surprising and unexpected at times, and I am certain what started out as my favourites changed several times over the 3 days. 

By far my favourite part of the show was getting to chat with everyone about the products and all of that they can be used for. Whether it was people we knew well or customers who had never seen our mixed media products before, I hope that they left us happy, inspired and excited to experiment straight away.

And finally, Tenisha, Tina, Sue and Amanda you are just so incredibly giving and a complete riot. We always learn something new about each other and I am eternally grateful to work with you all. xox

Have a colourful weekend,

Til next time

Mel.