PDCC63 I suffer from Attention Deficit Oooooh Shiny!

"In England's* green and pleasant land" [Blake 1804] coming across waterfalls or tiny streams is one of my very favourite things whilst out walking.  I love the movement of the water as it falls, the fresh greenery surrounding it, and best of all, the wonderful sound it makes. 

This photograph brought all this to mind for me, and also suggested the unusual colour combination of gold and silver, which I NeVeR put together. 

But I have to say, I just LoVe how it turned out on my journal page!  In fact, when I'd finished it, it evoked an almost audible "ooooooooooo".

I will explain.  You may have noticed that when you are with friends and admire another's work or see something gorgeous in a shop (especially if you are in a stamp shop when the owner opens a recently arrived box of goodies) you will all, simultaneously, say "oooooooooooooo" in wonderment.  This always, always, always makes me think of the aliens in toy story...

Not that I am in any way suggesting we are all aliens lol!

I decided to do a journal page for this week's challenge as I've never used metallics on a journal page, and I'm not sure it would ever have occurred to me to use embossing powder on my pages!  I'd already decided I'd tackle the silver/gold combo by using silver and white in the background and adding a 'something' in green and gold.  I like green and gold.  I like silver and white.  I do not usually like silver and gold together.

I do now though!!!  I had great fun playing with my metallics Mica Watercolour Palette and my embossing powders.  I also incorporated some paper I'd made at The StampMan using Starburst Stains.  In fact, I'm dedicating this to my crafty, StampMan DT colleague Vixykins as she invited me to be part of the facebook group 

I suffer from A.D.O.S - Attention Deficit Oooooh Shiny

There are lots more shiny projects to be inspired by over at The Play Date Cafe, so don't forget to check out what our other designers made :)

glowing like the moon at The StampMan

Or maybe that post title should be 'shining like a star' as my hands were certainly very shiny after playing with Starburst Stains at The StampMan today lol!  I've had a set of these for a while now so when I got the opportunity to spend the day with one of the Queens of stardust (well, at least two really!)  I jumped at the chance.

 The transformation of the powder (left) to ink (right) can be quite dramatic.

[Of course the most dramatic colour is the one I did before taking photos!!!]  These inks come in powder form then you top them up with hot tap water, stir and leave to stand.

Then you watch the lovely Vix paint one colour of ink onto a sheet of paper [action shot there of Vix shaking the jar of blue as the mica settles at the bottom after a while]...

... add drops of a couple of other colours, before folding the paper in half and scrunching it into a ball...

...which transforms it into this FaBuLouS piece of paper :)  SHiNY :)

You can make a paler piece by putting clean water onto the paper first instead of a colour stain.  I had a wonderful play with this technique and ended up with very blue hands, which Jill took photos of so I'm keeping an eye on her blog lol.

I then had a play in my journal, spraying one of the stains then stamping with paint dabbers before adding punched snowflakes and one of the images from the Butterfly Beauties plate.

Turning this butterfly beauty into a winter one was inspired by a card Vix had made [ok, ok, I nicked the idea off her, but with permission :)]  When I find my small snowflake punch I'm going to add more snowflakes to her hair!!  

The StampMan shop is always crammed with beautiful samples, so I took these photos with Julie in mind, as she'd have loved to have come and played!  Apologies to the other lovely ladies who were demoing, I didn't take any pics as I was distracted by my new inks, but you can find Michelle here and Jill B here.