I'll never say 'What if'

Time, time, time, who the heck twiddled the big knob to speed it up?  I feel like I only have to blink and a weeks gone by, I have so much to do and so much I want to do, but can I do it? can I flip.  And just to add insult to injury, I'm having all sorts of technology problems at the moment which is getting me rather frustrated.  Some poor cold caller got it both barrels the other day, wrong person and wrong time but I did feel a little guilty after lol.  Mind you some of them do deserve it persistent little .........................

I have some news for you all. On the 31st March I will be on Create and Craft a 2pm with deColourant.  The first (and maybe my last, but not the products) show is going to be demonstrations on fabric.  You know that mad feeling when you're looking forward to something, but at the same time you are scared witless, well that's me now.  However, I believe in trying things when given the opportunity, I may or may not work on screen, who knows, but at least I won't get old wondering 'what if'.

Now, those that know me well know I don't even like having my photo taken, and I certainly don't crave the limelight, but when doors open you have to go through and take a chance, not scurry past like a frightened rabbit.  So deep breath and take that leap of faith!

It's Friday so it's the new challenge over at Polka Doodles.  This week the challenge is make a project with Mum in mind.  The design team have made some gorgeous creations for you all so why not take a look and get some inspiration.  Almost forgot, Nikky also Launched the new Polka Doodles CD Sugarplum Daisy, as always it's brilliant.

Did you see the Kuretake show with Nikky Hall this morning?  Fantabulous products, stunning samples made by the design team and Nikky did some fab demos.

As promised last time here are the Clarity Stamp samples.

I have some Creative Expressions samples, but I'm falling asleep so they will have to wait I'm afraid

A bit of info

Hi all, just to let you all know that I will be demonstrating for Creative Expressions at Squires Garden Centre, Badshot Lea, Farnham this Saturday.

The lovely Enfys one of my DT buddies from Polka Doodles is having a giveaway this week, so why not pop by her blog and have a go.

Did you know that Kuretake are doing monthly challenges on their blog now?   This month it's Doodle Mania and there's some fabby stash to be won so check it out here.

The magic of deColourant

Warning, long post and picture heavy.

I have something quite exciting to show you today, well I think it's exciting anyway.  More of that in a moment, first my Polka Doodles challenge card, the challenge this week was to create a male themed card.   I used the the Pretty Tough CD which allowed me to use my favourite harlequin paper.  All the images and papers are from the CD apart from the bottoms which came from The new Candy Doodles CD, which is jam packed with gorgeous images, backing papers, greetings and so much more.

 

Now onto the new product I have been playing I mean working with, deColourant sold by Mulberry Silks. It's due to be aired on Create and Craft Saturday 31st March at 2pm.  DeColourant is a discharge medium, but not just any discharge medium, oh no indeedy.  This medium can be used on both natural fabrics as well as paper/card.  It's a perfect product for quilters, mixed media artists, fabric artists, altered artists, silk painting artists, stampers, stencillers and journal artists.  

Traditionally discharge mediums have used bleach or other nasties, deColourant is non-toxic with not a whiff of bleach anywhere, in fact it has a rather pleasant citrus smell to it.  If you get some on your clothes, or you don't like what you have done then you can wash it off, as long as you haven't heated it it will wash out of fabric.  It washes off your hands with no problem what so ever and because it's not bleach it doesn't rot the material.

There is also deCourant Plus.  This is the discharge medium with pigment in, so it works the same way taking the colour out but leaves the coloured pigment visible so you get a truer more vibrant colour.  If you were to use a light coloured fabric paint onto a dark fabric you would normally have to apply a thick coat, which can then feel leathery or crack.  Sometimes you may want that texture and that's fine,  but when you use deCourant it does not sit on top of the material like most fabric paints, it penetrates into the fibres so when you wash the piece after activating with an iron ( yes iron you read that correctly, Colin got quite excited when he saw me getting the iron out until he realised it wasn't going to be used on clothes lol) all the residue comes off and you are left with the material feeling like is was produced that way, you can't feel any difference to the original hand of that material.  It comes in over 60 colours including matallics and a gorgeous pearl.  There are also sprays in some of the colours.

As an avid papercrafter I love the way it works on paper and card.  It works particularly well on inked card/paper.  I don't know about you but I have been disappointed by bleach inkpads in the past, I have found this to be much more reliable.  There are still some stubborn cards that don't want to change, but these probably wouldn't change is a nuclear bomb went off.  It works on uncoated cardstock and depending on the underlying colour of the paperpulp and the dyes used you can get some really lovely effects.  Having said that if you ink clarity card or glossy card with your dye based inks or inkpads it does work very well indeed.  It also works with card that has been sprayed with mica spritzers.  You can overstamp with your normal inks so if you like collage work it's perfect.  Enough waffle, below are pics of deColourant and deColourant plus used of paper, card, handmade paper and cotton, poly cotton, silk and denim.

 A card sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer mists, Elusive Images stamps

 Clarity cardstock brayered with big'n'juicy inkpad, Stampendous stamps.

 Card inked with distress inks and inkpads, Creative Expressions stamps.

 More distress inks, deColourant and deColourant plus with Creative Expressions stamps

 Tattered Angel misters with Stampendous stamps

 Distress inks, Stampendous stamps and stickles on the rose

 Clarity cardstock brayered. Clarity Stamps used

 Distress inks and my favourite two cat stamps ever.

 

A silk hanky. I used a stencil for the butterflies and used one of the alium clarity stamps with magenta deColourant plus

 Silk Hankie and red DC plus

 Silk Hankie. There is a very subtle stamped swirl pattern in the background using the DC. Clarity stamps and DC plus

One of Alli's masks and Stampendous stamps with DC plus

 Stencils and stamps with DC plus

 A cushion with stencils and Dc plus

 Another cushion with stencils and stamps with DC and DCplus. A big thanks to Marilyn for sewing these up for me as I was really pushed for time.

 A table runner, stamped with DC and DC plus

 Handmade paper stamped with DC and DC plus

 Distress stains stamped with DC and DC plus

 Carved wood block

 The bottom right has only been half ironed after stamping

Boing, boing, boing time for bed now. Clarity samples next time.