Life by Suzy Loudon

Hi everyone. I thought it was time to do a "boy" page after all the pretty pages I've shared lately. So here goes.

To begin with I dropped some Rust Artist Ink on my craft mat. Sprayed it with water. Then used some scrunched up cling wrap to dab it onto my page. I then repeated this with Walnut Artis Ink.

I then gave it a spray with Leather Colour Shimmer Spray.

Using a water brush and Walnut Artist Ink I dabbed around the edge of my page. I did small sections at a time then spraying with my water bottle dispersing the ink slightly.

For my chipboard cogs I used my finger to dab on Stormy Weather & Leather Colour Paste, then sprinkled Sienna, Envy & Steel Embossing Powder randomly before heat setting.

Using my finger I smeared Heavy Black Gesso around my photo before backing onto cardboard to elevate.

I painted some white foam letters with Heavy Black Gesso.

When putting my elements together I added some metal cogs as well.

Here's a few close ups...

Thanks for looking,

xxx Suzy

Seriously Cute- Chrissi Mannix

Hi Lovelies So here it is, my first ever Design Team post for Colour Blast!! And let me tell you, it took a while for me to be happy with a project to share with you for my first ever project lol. I made, and started numerous projects before I was happy.

This project actually started off heading in a completely different direction, but I wasn't happy with how it was going, so instead of scrapping the whole thing, I decided to use the background piece I had made and just rip it up.

I started with what would have to be one of my favorite Colour Blast products- Colour Shimmer Dust. I wet my page a little first, then added small amounts of Duke Colour Shimmer Dust to my page. Then I added some water from a mister bottle to spread my colour around.  I love watching it react with the water.

I continued adding water and spreading the colour around. After blasting with my heat gun, I decided to add some more colour. I wanted to try adding some Colour Shimmer Dust to some Gel Medium. Due to the gel medium drying clear, I was hoping to get a vibrant colour. I hadn't done this technique before and was really curious to see the result. I will definitely be doing this again, especially on an art journal page. 

I mixed some gel medium and some Peacock Colour Shimmer Dust together with a pallet knife, on a stamping block. Then using my palette knife, I spread the mixture through a stencil onto my background.

My favorite way to add splatters to my mixed media backgrounds is to use the Colour Blast Heavy Gesso. I find that they stay lovely and opaque and with a little bit of water, make awesome splatters. Be warned, this CAN be a messy technique, but always a staple of mine to use. I have mixed a bit of White Heavy Gesso with a small amount of water onto an acrylic block, and have used a paint brush to throw some splats at my backround.

  Once I let all this dry, I wasn't really  happy with it as a whole, but I did like the parts where I had stenciled my Colour Shimmer dust mixture. So I decided to do something I don't think I have ever done, I decided to use a part of my background as a photo mat onto a whole new piece of plain card stock.

This is where the layout takes a rather dramatic turn, but ends up being something I'm very happy with. Now I'm a very big mixed media scrapper. I'm messy, and like things bright and chaotic. I found that adding this piece to a fresh piece of white cardstock made this project seem a lot cleaner and neater (not something I'm use to lol) But I do like how its something different to my usual style of layout, with still my pops of mixed media and colour.

I decided to off center the piece to the right of my layout, and while I was waiting for the gel medium mixture to dry, I added some cotton thread underneath my photo, which i backed with foam for dimension and added some acrylic chevrons as small embellishments. 

As I was looking at my page, I felt like there was alot of white space left- I'm not usually one for white space lol. So on a whim, I had an idea. I decided to use my left over pieces from the original background to cut out some shapes. Being a photo of my son and I, I went with hearts. I hand drew hearts on the left over scraps, from when I cut down the piece to mat my photo and got some awesome mixed media heart shapes with different shades and textures. It was great to be able to use up the whole background, considering I wasn't happy with how it turned out originally. I cut these out and placed them around my layout. I added a few bits of bling here and there to make little clusters and then added my title using some word thickers I've had in my stash forever.

 In the end, I love how this layout ended up. I sure hope you enjoyed my first ever post, and I cant wait to share more exciting things with you using the fabulous Colour Blast Products.

Chrissi xxx

I like Big Cups by Michelle Henderson

Hi everyone! 

I'm so happy to have been chosen to join this fabulous team, and as the only Kiwi, I'm going to try to do NZ proud!

 I live in Christchurch, in the South Island of NZ, and have been scrapping for nearly 20 years (gulp) with my two sometimes reluctant daughters as the main focus of my pages.
I thought for my first project I would share one of my addictions... (other than crafting!)

Here's my first page...

As I didn't have any gesso to hand, I used watercolour paper as my base, which reacts differently when using inks.

Firstly I covered most of the paper with water, to allow the Colour Artist Inks to flow and mix beautifully. I used a little Citrus firstly, then more of Spice, and finally a touch here and there of Cranberry. I covered about two thirds of the page at the bottom and then a small area at the top to balance it.

I grabbed a coffee ring stamp and used my Versamark stamp pad to make a sticky impression which I then sprinkled with Colour Mica Powder in Espresso. I carefully brushed off the excess.

I also decided at this point to use the Shimmer Brush Marker in Gold and tapped it to spatter a few little spots here and there. I love how shimmery they are, totally live up to their name 💓

I felt it still needed more in the way of coffee stains, so I used a stencil and dabbed on some Colour Artist Ink in Walnut with a wipe. I used the same colour to tint some hessian strip that would be one of my layers.

I thought it was nearly there, just one more thing - so I used a random spotty stencil and added a little Sienna Colour Paste to the left of my photo layer area, and the secondary area at the top of the page.

Things were looking pretty good by this stage, so I assembled my layers and embellie clusters and stuck them down. I almost always include some thread, as it helps to tie everything together. Finally the title went on, along with a spot of journaling.


I hope you like the finished page as much as I do - thanks for visiting!

1, 2, 3 Jump! by Charmane Koch

Hello Everyone! I'm so excited to be sharing with you for the first time here at the Colour Blast blog!

I thought I would go with the traditional scrapbooking layout for my first time here and show you a combination of layering & colouring techniques...

Here is the full layout:

Firstly I have used a combination of Colour Artist Ink Mermaid & Marine using a couple of drops on the page with a couple of squirts of water spray - using a crumpled piece of baking paper I have created the first layer scrunching it over the top of the whole piece of thick white cardstock. 

Using a spatula I have then smeared Deep Water Colour Paste through part of the Stencil Girl Stencil & let it dry naturally.

While waiting for that to dry I have also coloured a piece of Muslin using the Marine Colour Artist Ink & a few sprays of water...

I have positioned and layered my photo & embellishments in the desired position on my layout, starting with layering the coloured Muslin at the bottom.

I added a bit of Glitter to my title, by using the fabulous Clear Shimmer Brush Marker {I LOVE this so much!} & I can see endless possibilities using this brush! I also added Shimmer around the edges of my layout once finished the page too.

I love the shiny, sparkly effects that has been created on my layout using the awesome Colour Blast Paste & Shimmer Marker!

Thanks for checking out my first post & hope you have enjoyed it! Looking forward to sharing more of my creations with you!

XO Charm

"Mermaids" by Amanda H

Welcome to August!

Today I am sharing a mermaid page, because who doesn't love mermaids!?! I was able to create this page background with Colour Artist Inks.

I started with a sheet of 12x12 heavy weighted white cardstock. I got some new cute little mermaid stamps from the Colour Blast stall at the Brisbane Papercraft Expo, so I had to try them out.

I stamped mermaids, fish and even a sandcastle, to create a scene on my page.

I drew the sand bed on the page and then started adding colour. I painted the sand using Colour Artist Inks in Citrus and Cider. It is useful to use a wet brush and have a pot of water handy when you are painting in large areas like this. Then you can add more or less colour or water to get the effects you want.

I painted the little seaweeds with Colour Artist Inks in Lime.

And finally I painted the ocean with Colour Artist Inks in Calypso and Oasis. I used a wet brush and water and added different layers of colour. I also added touches of Colour Artist Ink in Mermaid.

I used some pens to colour in the mermaids and fish. (don't look too closely - it's not perfectly neat!)

Using dimensional magic I added some little pops of it on the water bubbles.

Then I painted the sand using the Clear Shimmer Brush Marker, for a little sparkle.

And I painted the seaweed with the Gold Shimmer Marker Brush.

And here is my final page! I kept it simple by adding just the photo and a title.

 Thanks for looking today.

Amanda

"Living Today" by Anita Enright

Hi fellow Colour Blasters

Anita here with you today and I am so thrilled to have been asked to join this wonderful Design Team for 2018-2019.  I have followed this amazing team of designers for a long time and love using the product when I get to play with it..... and now I do on a very regular basis.

A little about myself..... I have been a paper crafter for a while now and love bright and happy things so Colour Blast is definitely my kind of product.  Being Australian owned is also a huge attraction as I will always support home grown businesses, and I love how the products are so different to others on the market.

I have recently redone my craft 'studio' (and still a work in progress) and love spending time creating anything from cards through to layouts and off the page, and use mixed media techniques in a lot of my creations when I can. I also enjoy sharing my passion and have started teaching classes.

I hope you enjoy the journey that I am on this year and learn as much from me as I will be learning along the way.  I hope you enjoy my first "sunshiney" creation, as it is all about what you do not how much you do to create the end result.

For my first creation I wanted to do a 12x12" layout showcasing the gorgeous Artist Inks in my kind of colours - bright yellows and oranges.

To start my layout I covered the area that I was going to apply my Artist Inks to with some Heavy White Gesso. I really love this product as it dries so quickly which is great for me as I am such an impatient crafter.

I wanted to create a layout that matched the photo of my niece wearing her sunnies last summer holidays so chose the Colour Artist Inks in Citrus and Cider. 

Using the dropper I added droplets of both colours along the diagonal and then using a brush blended them across the page. Next I used my heat gun to dry the inks off.

Once my page was dry I then took a matching orange ink and stamps several images over the artist ink and around the page to add another texture and feature to the page. I also add some splats in the Colour Shimmer Spray Tangareen Dream.

Using one of my many many stencils in my stash and the Snow White Colour Paste I added another layer to my page. I think the Snow White colour paste is my absolute thing EVER!!! I love how once dry the backgrounds colour show through.  So cool!!

Now that my background is done, I then had fun putting it all together with embellishments and flower clusters.  Using embellishments from Charms Creations, Flutterby Designs and D-lish Scraps I finished off my page. My title was from Celebr8 and inked in a matching orange ink, the same as the background stamping.

Here are a couple of closeups of my finished page.

 

Thank you so much for dropping by.

Have a great day and happy creating :)

 Anita

xx