32 days to do - cheating post

oooowwww, this one is late!!  I know. I was intending to get it in before the clock struck 12, but I feel I may have failed.  What I am saying, I know I've failed...but tomorrow's my cousins wedding, so we had a little family meal tonight before the big event.  I'm really excited, and I will share photo's of the lovely day.  Little Charlie was wonderful as ever this evening.  He met a little girl in the restaurant, who taught him how to jump. And then played the best game with me, where we had to squish our faces into his cot (it's netting, not wood - travel cot style).  Pretty cool to be honest!!

Anyway, I did craft today ready for the blog post...

This is a technique I think I first saw on the Woodware stand at the NEC, and loved it.  It's very effective, but very easy.  At the moment there's a big thing on colouring and mindfulness. And I'm into that.  I find colouring - well lets face it, crafting, relaxing. In fact, I'm going to blame that on why I'm so late doing this post.  haha, any excuse.

The technique is colouring in.. I have used a mask, and stuck it to my card with low tack adhesive spray from Crafters Companion:

I wanted to make sure the mask was stuck down well, as you want to avoid the ink seeping under, as we are attempting to emphasis the white space.  I used the Spectrum Noir watercolour pens, and just started laying down colour.  I used watercolour cardstock, so my ink would move easily without disturbing the card fibres.  The centre I went for a strong yellow, but then I added a little red

which I blended out just using the water brush.  If you haven't got a water brush, just dip a normal paint brush in water.  To be honest, this is sometimes preferable, as you have more control over the amount of water you are adding to the project

Keep colouring the image in.  This is very relaxing.  You can blend the colours, and play with different shades, the watercolour card is very forgiving, so allows you to play.  Just avoid drenching the card with water, as you may find it seeps under the mask, and therefore invades that all important white space

I love blending colours together.  Here you can see I have used the orange and a red.  Just a streak of each, and then blend with the waterbrush

I lifted the mask gently, just to make sure everything looked okay

And then went round all the spaces I had coloured with a find drawing pen.  This really makes the image pop

It would look amazing just as is, but I then decided to add some Texture paste.  I am going for the clear, as I do not want to cover all the colouring I have just done!  

When I was happy that I had a nice smooth finish, I covered the piece in iridescent glitter.  I wanted sparkle, but still needed to see the colour under neath.

I did have to wait for it to dry, so haven't, as yet, managed to make it into a finished piece, however, this was how it was looking when I left this evening.  I love it.  This is such a rewarding and relaxing technique.  Just have a go :)