Saturday 10 March 2012

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.

10 comments:

Miria said...

Hi, Dee. So happy to hear from you and when you do, you always let me speechless. You made an amazing job with this new product, both on paper and fabric! I do love all your creations!!! Hugs, Miria xx

theboelemas@aol.com said...

Wow - how busy have you been? Amazing samples and what an awesome product.

Oh and I love your PD card too ;D

Enjoy your day

Claire x

Unknown said...

Fab! You have been having a play! Oops, I mean working hard. Looks like a great product. Love, Julia xxx

Karen Petitt said...

You've done lots of 'hard work' and testing with this product with fabulous results - thanks Dee I'll keep an eye open for this hugs Karen x

Alison Horne said...

Fabulous post Dee , yours are always worth waiting for. Might have to pop to Rainbow silks at the weekend now!xx

Kirsten Alicia said...

You have been very busy!!! Love these new creations.

CraftyDaffy said...

Hey Dee. As always, your work is absolutely stunning. You know I love your stuff and you are always so generous with you time / sharing techniques, designing cards etc. Really inspiring. Saying that, I have nominated you for the Versatile Bloggers Award. Pop over to mine if you would like to accept. http://craftydaffy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/versatile-bloggers-award.html

Rachelsmum said...

Just found your blog after watching you on C&C. Great samples - looks like something else I will " need " ! I think this will be great for altering summer t shirts with rubber stamps. Always enjoyed seeing your lovely cards on Clarity shows, always so beautiful. Will keep an eye on your blog from now on, great to see you on C & C. xxsue

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