Colour Blast Shimmer Dusts & The Gel Press

Hello lovelies... I was inspired to get my Gel Press out after seeing Rachel Dutko's post on the Colour Blast Blog last week and have a play with my Colour Blast stash and share my process with you and hopefully inspire you to make some prints also. 

I love the Gel Press for so many different reasons, but most of all because no print is ever the same and the possibilities are literally endless... hence the name mono-printing. 

You can use a heap of art supplies you already probably have on hand for mark making but also tons of items lying around the house or on their way to the bin... and we all love recycling don't we?

I squeezed some white acrylic paint into my palette and added a little bit of the Colour Shimmer Dust in Sunflower, Amber, Lush & Candy. Any acrylic paint will work, mine was just a cheap one I had lying around for ages. 

Mix the Colour Shimmer Dust into the paint really well until the colour is nice and even. You will end up with beautiful pastel tones and the more dust you add the more intense the colour will be. 

Now its time to get your Gel Press out... 

Add the paint to the Gel Press with a small popsicle stick, a palette knife or the end of a paint brush, just make sure you don't use anything sharp that could scratch the surface of the press. 

Using a brayer, roll out the paint and until you achieve a colour that you are happy with. You pull the print now on a piece of paper, cardstock, deli paper or tissue paper.  

This is the print I pulled from the above images. No mark making.. just the paint and brayer marks. Sometimes prints like these are just perfect if you want a matt for a photo on a layout or for a background for a card... or you can go to town and make some marks :)

Gather your texture stamps, foam stamps (if you don't have foam stamps you could die cut some fun foam using your dies), toilet paper rolls, register rolls, leaves, pencil with a rubber on the end, muslin, calico, stencils, string, ribbon, lace, doilies, scrunched up paper etc... literally anything with a cool texture that is not sharp is worth a try. 

Roll out some paint onto your Gel Press and start making marks. I love stamping off the stamps I press into the press onto a print to layer texture upon texture. Once you have some cool marks on your press, pull a print and repeat the process with another colour combo. 

Cleaning your brayer off onto paper creates a cool start to a print too so just have a stack of paper next to you and just keep playing. Above is a print with brayer marks & stamped off texture stamps. 

Here I have added a few prints after adding marks to the press with stencils. I also used muslin to add a bit more texture through the large opening of the gingko stencil. 

Side note: I have a number of Prima & Kaisercraft texture stamps that I don't mind if they get all messed up with paint and ink, but if you are worried about your stamps, wipe them off before the paint dries. 

I trimmed down my panel to fit into my small Dylusions Art Journal and inked up the edges with a Black Gelato and smudged it with my finger. 

I then gathered some of my favourite Dylusions & Darkroom Door stamps and had some fun. Lastly I got out the Colour Shimmer Cubes and added a little bit of shimmer to the leaves with the Dusty Charcoal. 

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my process and its sparked you to get out your Gel Press and the Colour Shimmer Dusts and have a play.

Ps.. Don't forget to have fun! xx Kasia

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Clean & Simple Colour Blast Cards

Hello lovelies... Kasia here again with a set of cards this time. I was lucky enough to attend Paperific in Melbourne in August and had a little power shop for new background stamps which I bought with this specific project in mind. Can't go past a Darkroom Door background stamp.. and maybe the My Favourite Things background stamps either.. 

With so many amazing colours available in the Colour Embossing Powders the colour combos are endless.

I first cut down a few pieces of watercolour cardstock to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" and used my stamp platform to stamp the background stamp with versa fine ink. 

Shake your shake your little pot of embossing powder first so that the glitter and embossing powder mix well, then cover the stamped area with Bling Colour Embossing Powder & heat set it with my heat tool. Although this is a mixed media embossing powder I find that if I give the pot a good shake I can still get quite detailed results. 

Gather your background stamps and have a play with different colours as your base. Here I've used the Darkroom Door Mesh stamp, Darkroom Door Circles stamp & the MFT Abstract background stamp. 

I used Bling, Snow White, Steel, Dusty Charcoal & Stormy Weather Colour Embossing Powders. Leather & Sienna also look great as a neutral base colour. 

I then got out my.... wait for it... Colour Shimmer Cubes and Colour Mica Powder and painted the embossed backgrounds. Above I used Apple of My Eye, Envy, Deep Water, Singing the Blues & Just Blue Colour Shimmer Cubes and Polar, Cool Mint & Olive GroveColour Mica Powders.

I then gathered some cardstock in complementing colours and cut it down to 4 1/4" x 11" to create a top folding 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card base. Using a cross-stitched rectangle die I cut the embossed and coloured panels and then die cut a heart from the centre. You can use these cute hearts as embellishments on your layouts or other cards. Each of the following cards are based on the same basic design which is super versatile for many different occasions. 

I was also super excited to use the sentiment stamps I designed for Uniquely Creative on these cards. 

This card was coloured with a mix of Tangereen Dream, Fire Engine, Blush, Punch, Rose Petal & Lipstick Colour Shimmer Cubes and embossed with Dusty Charcoal Colour Embossing Powder. The sentiment was stamped on white cardstock and backed with vellum. I also tucked some silver thread behind the sentiment and added some grey rhinestones to finish the card off. 

The Bling Colour Shimmer Cube was used to paint the background of this card and the Bling Colour Embossing Powder for the stamping. I heat embossed the sentiment onto black cardstock and embellished the card with gold sequins, gold thread and black rhinestones. 

Apple of My Eye, Envy, Deep Water, Singing the Blues & Just Blue Colour Shimmer Cubes and Polar, Cool Mint & Olive Grove Colour Mica Powders were used to colour this card. I then added a plain stitched heart to front, stamped the sentiments and added some black enamel dots.  

I left the this background with just the Steel Embossing Powder, backed the heart opening with vellum and heat embossed the sentiment with Fire Engine Colour Embossing Powder, added some pink thread and pink rhinestones.

So thats it from me this week. I hope I have inspired you to get your background stamps and Colour Embossing Powders out and have a go at making these cards and also joining in with the September Colour Blast Challenge - Stamping Gone Crazy. 

Have Fun!  xx Kasia

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