Zingy Colours

Greetings Earthlings!!

I love spring.

Bright, zingy colours fill my garden at this time of year, everything is so fresh and alive, so I've taken that inspiration with my card today.

I've used a selection of images from MFT's Polynesian Paradise, Blissful Blooms and Polar Bear Pals (sentiment) stamp sets and coloured them with my trusty ol' Promarkers.

Having cute lizards like this in the garden would be an added bonus, but that just aint gonna happen in my corner of Blighty.

A Bank Holiday weekend beckons...Yay!

What ever you're doing...have a good'un.

Acrylic Pouring No 3

Welcome back to my 3rd attempt at acrylic pouring. You can see my previous attempts (1 & 2) by clicking on the Acrylic Pouring link in the Labels section in the sidebar.

For this pour I used 2 cheapie blues (above), a Winsor & Newton white, Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and hair serum (for the dimethicone / silicone ingredient).

The initial pour, which was the 'flip-cup' method was perfect...beautiful patterns, colour mix and cells.

Here are some close up photos....but...

 ... it's when I tilted the paper, which was just a regular piece of acrylic paper, that things went wrong and that's where I'm still learning. When the mix spread across the paper, the cells stretched and disappeared and the colours merged together (see above). It was just a blue-splodgy mess.

Fear not...all was not lost. The paint left over in my cup looked amazing and there was enough left to pour out a mini piece.

And here it is..... 

Because it was a smaller piece of paper to fill and therefore less tilting to get the paint to cover it, the patterns remained and cells stayed put.

These are tiny cards, 4 x 4 inch, that I managed to make from the tiny pour.

I love the ocean feel.

Still learning and still loving these experiments.

Hello Sunshine

A quick post from me today.

I love making cards like this, like mini- colouring books or pieces of wallpaper.

I used Altenew's 'Hello Sunshine' stamp set. It's a huge set with lots of flower and leaf images as well as 3 lovely sentiments. I stamped all over my card and then coloured with Promarkers. I used MFT's 'Big Hello' die to cut out my word and then stuck it back in again but with a foam background to give it some dimension.

I hope you can make out the Hello. I went a bit crazy with the stamping...but the recipient is equally crazy, so a match made in heaven. (She's gonna kill me...lol).

Acrylic Pouring No 2

Coooooooooeeeeeey!

Me again....and I'm back with another Acrylic Pouring and this time I've made the finished pourings into cards.

Regular stalkers of my wee bloglet may recall my first attempt at acrylic pouring and the amazing Annemarie Ridderhoff who has inspired thousands off us to give this technique a go (see post here).

Annemarie now has over 100 videos on YouTube and I highly recommend starting at the beginning to see how to start. You will learn about all of the 'ingredients' needed and measurements.  You don't have to watch them all...but....trust me... you will eventually. It's fascinating and highly addictive.

I used 4 colours...3 mega cheapies (pink, purple & gold) and a decent quality white. You need a mix of opaque and transparent paints. Hopefully you can see how much paint I used in each cup. I added Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and a squeeze of a hair product containing Dimethicone (...again, check out Annemarie's videos re dimethicone, which is a type of silicone, used to create the cells, like bubbles). I use a hair product instead of silicone spray as it smells nicer and silicone spray can be toxic if you breathe it in.

Once my paints are mixed in their individual cups to the perfect consistency, I add them one by one, starting with the white, into a fresh cup. I then trickled the paint around my piece of acrylic paper. You can use anything you like, Yupo, canvas, card, stones, shells...whatever you wish to cover. The sky's the limit. I then tipped the paper about, allowing the paints to flow. 

Can you see the cells? That's what the dimethicone / silicone does to the paint...creates those kinda cell / bubble effects.

If you then add heat from a blow torch (cheap creme brule torch), as I did in the photo above, you get even more tinier cells.

Once dry, I cut up my paper and created 4 card centrepieces.

 Here's one of them, it's a 6x6 inch card... 

...and here's another, same measurements.

I had a thinner strip left so cut that up and made 2 4x4 inch cards.

I will add sentiments to the smaller cards as and when they are needed. The backgrounds will be suitable for all sorts of occasions, plus I think it's sometimes nice to frame cards if they are original works of art.

Now, go and make yourself a cuppa and snuggle down for a marathon of Annemarie Ridderhoff videos. 

Enjoy!!