Easy-peasy Dylusions Background

Good morning, I hope you all had a great weekend. It was so nice to have sunshine yesterday. Thank you VERY much for all the kind comments & messages about last Friday's classes. As I said in the review blog post yesterday, the feedback has been amazing, everyone seemed to really enjoy making their masterboards. And my blog post today is all about the first one I made, using Dylusions acrylic paints, for the class. 

I have to say that I absolutely love the Dylusions paints. The colours are gorgeous, they blend beautifully, you can achieve great colour mixes, use them as watercolours, mix them with texture pastes & much more. They are also semi-opaque, so you can see the layers underneath. I am definitely hooked on them.

Lisa will be showing you in her blog posts how she used a brayer to apply the paint, which I did for some of my boards, but for this one I used the 

mini circular blending tools & foams. And this is a very simple background, it can be made in minutes.

Making a masterboard is all about building layers of paint & texture & the first thing to do is add a layer of colour. 

 When you first open your pots of paint, there will be paint on the inside of the lid. Use that first, it will be more than enough. The colour I used is London Blue.

I dipped the foam gently into the paint in the lid, then worked it in the foam by rubbing it on my craft sheet, in a circular motion, just as if you were applying Distress inks, for example.................

I applied the paint to a sheet of white Super Smooth card. This card really IS super smooth, the paint glides over it so easily. You can apply layer after layer of paint & the card still feels as smooth as it did at the start & it stays almost completely flat.

Dylusions paint dries very quickly, I used my heat tool for just a few seconds. I squeezed out the excess moisture from a clean baby wipe & swiped a little 

White Linen over the blue. A quick dry with the heat tool, then a little more White Linen.............

The next layer was stenciling. I used White Linen & Fresh Lime, with a blending foam as above, through the Imagination Craft's Diamonds stencil. 

If you're new to applying paint through a stencil, remember; less is more & don't push the foam through the gaps. Use a gentle circular motion & take your time. The first layer will be quite faint, but once it has dried - again, in seconds - you can replace the stencil & apply more paint..............

The next layer is stamping, first with White Linen, then Black Marble. I used the Hobby Art Decorative Backgrounds clear stamp set. 

Stamping with paint takes a little bit of practice. The less is more rule applies here too. You need a tiny amount of paint & you can apply it with blending foam, or your finger & tap, don't rub. I prefer to use my finger, as I can judge the coverage more easily.

When stamping, again a light touch is essential. Press the stamp down on the card too hard & you will get a blurred image - easily rectified with these paints if you move quickly & use a clean baby wipe to gently remove the paint.......

The next step is to add details with the edge of a plastic gift card/old credit card/similar & assorted sizes of plastic bottle caps & White Linen. The caps from small spray bottles are perfect............ 

Add more lines/stamping with Black Marble & this masterboard is finished.............

Here it is cut up............

I used the two larger pieces for two 6x6 cards............

I stamped the Hobby Art Birds on Wire stamp onto scrap card I'd painted with Fresh Lime & cut them out. The Word 'Fly' was stamped onto a die cut circle of white card with Onyx Black Versafine from the Stampendous Vintage Lower Case stamp set.

An important tip when stamping onto Dylusions paint; you need to use a permanent ink compatible with water-based paint, such as Stazon, or Archival. An oil-based ink like Versafine could be used, but you would need to apply embossing powder on top & heat set.

This stamp is from the Pimpernel Elements stamp set from the Floral Collage collection of stamp sets from Imagination Crafts, stamped onto the masterboard piece, then the flowers stamped onto the scrap of card painted with Fresh Lime & cut out. I added the dots by dipping a small embossing tool into White Linen paint.

                 

That's it for today, still with me?? It's a long blog post, but I felt it was important to try to explain everything as clearly as possible. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments below, or on the Lisa B Designs Facebook page.

 Next week, I'll show you what I did with the rest of the pieces from this masterboard. Thanks for visiting the blog today, have a great week.

Kirsten