truffles anyone?

Hello all my friends! It's Kassi, here with exciting news!!!!

Blog Truffles!

Yup, Molly told me she wants to give one lucky winner 5 jars of Creative Inspirations Paint (in the colors of their choice)!!!

So, how can you win? Well.... Nope, I'm gonna post some inspiration before I tell you. hehehe :)

Today I have some fabulous ideas for taking your flowers from drab to fab! *and you don't even need to have a green thumb.... good thing too, at least for me...*

Adding color and shimmer to your paper and silk flowers is so easy with CI paint!

Let's start out simple... cover your entire flower with the paint of your choice (make sure to shake the jar first for luck... I mean to mix in the sparkles).

Here I have painted a paper flower with Amethyst. Just look at that great color and shine!

quick tip: don't mist your flower before painting... I know I tell you to mist a lot of things first, but not this time. You will loose the texture and depth of the flower if you get it too wet.

Now that you have the basics down, let's shake things up a bit...

Try just brushing the edges of your petals for a soft subtle look... Or, for a bolder look, Start your brush in the center and stroke outwards towards the ends of the petals letting the paint fade... *this one may take a little practice to get the feel for how much paint to use for a nice fade...*

Want to add more depth? Give this one a go...

Lightly rub a dye ink pad over the raised portions of your flower and around the edges.

quick tip: it is important you use a dye based ink for this because of the way it reacts to water.

Now, paint over your flower. The water based paints react with the dye ink.. Some of the dye will mix with the paint giving you a new color, and it will soften and feather the inked areas. Here I used Fairy Dust CI paint to get a nice tone-on-tone look when it blends with the ink.*I forgot to take a close up of this before using the flower... duh! But, a close up is coming!*

This time, instead of inking with an ink pad, I used a finger dauber to highlight the raised areas with a bold sparkly color... Buttercup

Here is a closer look at the last two techniques...

Are these paints only good at altering white flowers? Of course not!!!

Here is a look at several different paints used on the same color of flower to give you an idea of how they alter the look....

In the top row, the middle one is what they all started out looking like. On the left, I used Tutu Pink. On the right, Tanzanite.

On the bottom row... the one on the left is Autumn Wheat, the one on the right is Fairy Dust

Here is something I love to make with these flowers for my niece... ok, I wear them too... hey, they're cute!

Hair clips

Simply paint your flowers then embellish. Finish it off by hot gluing to an alligator clip.

Ok, now, for what you have all been waiting for... How can you win 5 jars of this fabulous paint?

Step 1, become a follower of this blog (if you are already a follower, great!)

Step 2, leave me a comment telling me what your favorite CI paint color is. (if you don't know what colors there are, click here to find out!)

It's that easy! You have until Noon (MST) Monday, July 5 to enter. I'll be back later on Monday with the randomly chosen winner.

Have a sparkly weekend!

Kassi