You by Ros Aggett-Madley

Hi Colour Blast fans, today's share features one of my fur babies and lots of Colour Blast goodness.

I've started out with my normal, a piece of white card stock and swiped a few nice, thick few lines of Colour Blast Black Heavy Gesso right across the middle of the page.  I have just used the end of an old rewards card for this.  It fits in the jar perfectly.

While this was drying, which doesn't take too long, I mixed some water with a little Colour Shimmer Dust in Peacock.  

With a thick brush I've then swiped this along the top and bottom edge of the almost dry gesso.

When my Shimmer Dust arrived in the mail I was so excited and just had to have a quick play.  I did a couple of quick swatches on a scrap of paper.

I got Peacock, Paris and Midnight and they are so pretty and shimmery that I didn't want to waste any of it.

I used the swatches to make my embellishments for the page.

I stamped a few flowers and heat embossed these.  Once fussy cut I've used a black marker to draw around the edges the flowers.  This hides any imperfections in your cutting and if you use a thick marker, it can also add a little shadow and dimension to your fussy cutting.

Before assembling my layout I did a little messy journaling and spattered some more Peacock Shimmer Dust mixed with water.

A little gold thread and a few jewels to finish it off.

Hope you've been inspired.

Butterfly Canvas by Elisa Ablett

Hi everyone!!

Happy Sunday again, grab a cuppa and sit down with me as I share my canvas tutorial.

Just sharing the Butterfly Canvas I created using the awesome Colour Blast Pastes and Shimmer Sprays which can be found here - http://www.colourblastaust.com.au/

The colours that I used include the following - Pastes : Just Blue, Lipstick, Bling and Sprays: Lipstick, Just Blue, Bling, Envy, Deep Water and Royalty.

Let's get started!! Firstly I used a 12 x 12 canvas primed with gesso and lightly sketched a large butterfly, I then rifled through my stencil stash as you can see below and grabbed out a handful of my favourite stencils and of course ...selected the Colour Blast Pastes and sprays that I wanted to use.

Next Step! using Bling Paste and a spatula or palette knife spread your Paste through your stencil on even sides of the butterfly.

Then once dry thoroughly, select another larger stencil and add different colour Pastes using a palette knife, I used Lipstick and Just Blue !

Once your Paste is dry on both sides of the butterfly, take the tops off your co-ordinating sprays and using a paintbrush fill in your butterfly shape using the liquid from the spray bottles as per the photo's above and below.

After I coloured in the butterfly with the co-ordinating sprays to the Pastes I gathered together a few more shimmer sprays to add some more COLOUR!! because by now you should know that I love colour :-) I used Envy, Deep Water, Royalty and Snow White sprays to add more colour to my Butterfly using a paintbrush. I was looking for a watercolour tye-dyed or batik effect.

The finishing touches! as from the photo above you can see I added splashes of bling Shimmer Spray in splats and splotches (totally a technique don't knock it til you try it!) also I added a few dots of an metallic acrylic ink by Daler Rowney which has a thick consistancy, you could probably use a white acrylic paint instead in this part. I dotted the ink on the edges of the butterfly wings and used the bottom of my paint brush to drag the colour out into stripes. Also as you can see from the photo below, part of my finishing touches include using an embossing dauber from Ranger which i dobbed a few dots in the middle of my butterfly and embossed them with Envy, Lipstick, Just Blue, Bling and Royalty Embossing Powders. Also to add some texture and added interest I decided to use rough hessian twine and twirl it into circles as the butterfly body and also on the wings. 

From the photo below you can see some close ups of the twine circles. I used a high tack glue by Helmar to stick them onto the Canvas.

After the canvas had dried completely, I couldn't help myself so I added some MORE! I used a white paint marker pen by Sharpie and traced around the circles and the twine circles, and then used a black thin marker pen to trace unevenly around the Butterfly. And then added some splashes of Envy spray and Bling Spray around the Butterfly to create a  slight shading effect.

Just showing a great close up of the shimmer and shine of the Pastes and Sprays, sometimes its hard to get the right lighting when taking the photos so that we can show you the amazing shimmer and shine from the products so I like to get a few 'along the way' close up's to show what the Canvas is really like in the right light.

Well that's it for me today, I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial and my Canvas but better yet I have shown you another great way to create using Colour Blast Products.

Thanks Elisa xx

"Enjoy Life" by Michelle Logan

Hey everyone Michelle back again with another scrappy layout! 

I have included a step by step showing just how I created it, 

I hope you enjoy it and feel inspired!

So here is the page:

Now lets get on with the process:

I have used chipboard as my base as I want to use a lot of wet medium and layers. Glue scraps of tissue onto the base then coat with Gesso. Rub back sections with a baby wipe to reveal parts of the printed tissue. Leave to dry.

Glue down strips of patterned paper where you are going to place the photo or main focus of the page. Add a few pieces of worn washi tape. Choose a colour scheme to suit your photo.

 

Add some scribble with a paint pen over the strips. Using a stencil and Snow White colour paste add some texture.

 

While the paste is still wet, sprinkle around embossing powder one colour of your scheme at a time. Heat to bring out that lovely shimmer and shine.

 

Use some of the shimmer sprays in the coordinating colours to add to the depth of colour.

Layer papers behind your photo ready to pull the page together. I then keep referring to this as I prepare my chippies and embellishments.  

Time to treat your chippies! I always give a coat of gesso while I decide on colour that best suits the project. Here I ended up using a pigment ink pad to colour and then embossed the "LIFE" part of the title.

  

The surfers looked better left white but I added a little shading with more ink. 

Now its time to put it all together. I glue down my photo and layers, then add the embellishments and some thread.

  

Once all is glued down I then added some elements that cross over the background as well as the layers, this pulls all the page elements together creating a cohesive composition. I have used a combination of sequins, and liquid pearls and the thread placement helps to do this too.

The page is now done, here are a few detailed shots:

 

Colour Blast Products used:

Colour Paste: Snow White

Shimmer Sprays: Singing the Blues, Bling & Steel.

Embossing Powders: Bling, Singing the Blues & Steel.

Thanks so much for sticking with me on what turned out to be a long post!

Hope you enjoyed the process, see you again next month!