Summer Fly

I have today created a lovely project for Kuretake with the theme of Summer!

As I was creating this rather wonderful Kuretake Design Team project, I had a little song playing in my head called "Summerfly" which is a lovely song by Maura O'Connell. Has such lovely, and also quite haunting lyrics. Nonetheless, I was humming and singing as creating, which I think is a good way to craft!

Feeling inspired by the lovely colours of the paints and flowers growing in my garden, I decided to use a giant Peony stamp from IndigoBlu - seriously, it's massive! - and use the wonderful, gorgeously scrumptious Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese watercolour paints. I really love these paints, I can't express how much!

So I started with a sheet of watercolour pape, it's just smaller than an A4 sheet. I covered my paper with a quick swish of water to ensure the paints blended together nicely. Then, using a large brush, I  simply applied diagonally over the paper to create a rainbow effect. I left this to dry. You could also use a heat tool to dry if you wanted to.

I used a waterproof archival ink and stamped the Giant Peony and the Dragonfly stamp to my page. I wanted to add leaves to the flower, so I stamped the Giant Peony stamp onto a piece of scrap card (I only inked the edges of the stamp, this saves ink!) The impression is not what mattered for this - I wanted to make a mask, so I stamped and then cut this out. Cutting is my least favourite thing, so I put on some good music to sing along to!

Now, I wanted to attach the mask to the paper, but I wanted to remove it easily...therefore I'd like to share another great use of the ZIG Memory System 2 Way Glue Pen! I squeezed a few drops on the reverse of the cut out mask, and left it (it just needs to go clear and be tacky, but due to a hectic couple of days, I left it for 2 nights!!) As you can see in this photo, the glue comes out with a blue tint to it. Used immediately, this will stick your project down. BUT if you leave it, it goes tacky, then you have a re-positionable mask!

I popped my mask over the top of the peony and then took the leaf stamp (also from the Giant Peony set) and stamped in the desired position. Here you can see where the stamp is over the top of the flower...It doesn't look good just yet....

But, hey presto!, remove the mask and the leaves are in position and look as though they are behind the original stamped image. I then painted the image using the Gansai Tambi watercolour paints - I'm a little bit obsessed with this particular colour of red - it has a gorgeous pinkness too it!

I wanted to add some words and also to show off how fabulous this next Kuretake product is - the ZIG Emboss pen - now I'm not good calligraphy, so I simply wrote words in, what I hope, is neat writing. I have adjusted the colour hues on this photo just so you can see how the pen looks once used - it has a blue hue to it, which is basically a clear ink, it's waterbased, much like an embossing ink pad would be - but I love this because you can write or draw whatever you want for embossing! I added my embossing powder (I used some ultra-fine ones - see the 'ingredients' below) and then used the heat gun to 'melt' the embossing powder into place.

For those observant humans, you will notice that I've applied glitter to the dragon fly wings... I used the ZIG 2 way glue pen to the wings and then sprinkled a very fine glitter over the top. It's not easy to capture in a photograph (I must buy the Kuretake Wink of Stella pens... I have a feeling they will look awesome on the dragonfly wings!)

And here is the completed project!! I have also used the ZIG Millenium fine liner pen to write a few more words - in fact these are inspired by lyrics from songs. One I mentioned above...I wonder if anyone can recognise the others song I was inspired by? It's an old one!

Thank you for reading my blog. Please feel free to ask any questions. I've listed the ingredients used in this project below for you. I hope you have a play with the Kuretake pens and paints - and I hope you share your projects too!

Peace to all,
Maxine

Products used for the above project were:
Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints
Kuretake ZIG 2 Way Glue Pen
Kuretake ZIG Emboss Calligraphy Pen
Kuretake ZIG Millenium pen
IndigoBlu Giant Peony A5 stamp set
IndigoBlu Dinkie Dragonfly stamp
Ranger Archival Ink Pad
DecoArt Glamour Dust (the glitter)
Cosmic Shimmer Ultrafine Embossing Powders ( various )