Playing with Starlight Paints to make an Easy-Peasy Background!

 

Good Morning crafty folk!

I am sure I speak too soon, but it feels mild for November, doesn't it? I haven't felt that wintery-cold feeling yet... I do like those magical days when it is all frosty outside, but dry and bright and you can go for a wintery walk and come home to tea and hot treats...( I do like a nice crumble!).

 

I thought I would start my projects this month with post showing a simple card made using our featured product - Starlight Paints. These little pots of shimmering metallic paint can be used for a variety of things. Throughout my projects this month I have tried a couple of different applications, so I thought I would share by experimentation results with you week-by-week (good and bad!)

 

 

Above you can see my first little play with Cyclamen Starlight Paint. I added a small amount of paint to a dish along with a couple of drops of water. This released the metallic flake contained within the paint (can you can see the silvery effect?). The mixture covered a wide area; I applied with a paintbrush onto Super Smooth Card. Not as intense as using the paint neat, and you do get a slight 'streak'. I later used this method and then proceeded to die-cut shapes from the paper. The paint die-cuts well, both used neat and watered down. Bearing in mind I wanted a background for the card I was making at that moment though, I decided I would try using a brayer this time...

 

I decided here to use 3 paint colours all at once! I used a small amount of each Starlight Paint colour (Cyclamen, Blue and Platinum) and placed in a row at the top of a Heat Resistant Craft Mat. I then used a brayer and pulled all the colours down together. I went back to the top of the mat again, and pulled the colours down again, repeating until they blended nicely, but did not mix too much. I was really pleased  with this effect and found this was one way to blend the colours. All the paints blend well, I think due to the smooth consistency of the paint. Once I was happy I transferred onto paper! The only issue I found with this method was that I was limited to the width of my brayer (otherwise you would start contaminating the colours trying to go left and right). Great for DL cards, but I wanted a wider background for the card I had pictured in my mind, so I played again...  

 

 

This time I cut my card to the size I wanted first. I wanted to use two colours, so I chose a dark and light for contrast. I also wanted them to blend seamlessly. I took the darkest colour (Blue) and applied a few drops to the top of my Heat Resistant Craft Mat. I then brayered a line of the blue at either edge of my cardstock. After cleaning my brayer and my mat, I proceeded to brayer the Platinum Starlight Paint right through the middle. The blue was still wet, so the two began to mix. Not moving my brayer too far over to either side, I brayered up and down a few times to blend in the stripes.

Below you can see the same method, used this time with Cyclamen and Platinum.

 

I rather liked this final effect and the brayer makes the paint coverage even and mixed well (hard to photo with all the sparkle I apologise!)

 

Now with my background completed I decided to stamp my scene. Because the paint is so dense and sparkly, I did not think dainty intricate stamps would work too well, so I went for silhouette-style stamps. I used Jet Black Staz On to ink my stamps and chose fairies and dandelions from the many gorgeous Lavinia stamps there are to play with. The sentiment is from an Imagination stamp plate 'Poppy Elements' by Lisa B.

 

Voila! there you have a product of one of my playing sessions. There were many items to clean, surfaces to wipe, disasters and successes along the way! A tip though: make sure you have a tub of soapy water to hand so that you can chuck your paint-covered items in it along the way, otherwise it will dry and become harder to come off. My kitchen sink is very sparkly at the moment! Do you think the fairies might do some housework for me?

 

Thank you for reading!

 

Lots of love

Martina

xx