Shimmery Summer Glow

I was lucky enough to be in my local scrapbooking store, Crop A While, recently when they were unpacking the Nuvo shimmer powders. I jumped at the chance to give them a little test drive, after all they are watercolour powders! I used the summer glow iris from Penny Black and three colours of shimmer powder. I made one sample at the store then played around with the same image and three powders at home.

I embossed ‘summer glow’ in clear powder on two hot pressed watercolour paper panels and one cold pressed panel. My experiments moved from careful ‘stay inside the lines’ painting to free flowing colours all over the panel. The most controlled one I completed by dropping a little violet brocade, blue blitz and solar flare powders on my craft mat so I could pick some up with a damp brush. As with most powders the colour is intense; I was able to pick up a tiny bit, paint it into a petal then blend with water to get the depth I was after. I used violet brocade for the petals and ended up with some pink and blue sections as well as deep purple. To colour the stems and leaves I mixed the blue and yellow, adding more blue where I wanted shading.

I used the cold pressed paper for a looser style and sprinkled some powder directly on the panel. It is tricky to sprinkle tiny amounts at a time but I tried to drop some violet brocade into the flowers and buds. I held my hand over the stems while I spritzed the flowers. The paint activated straight away, some inside and some outside the petals. I used a paintbrush to fill any petals that were too pale but tried not to alter the ‘random magic’ too much. Next I sprinkled the blue blitz and solar flare powders over the stems and leaves and spritzed with water. Again I moved the paint a bit with a paint brush to fill the areas enclosed by embossing.

On the final panel I sprinkled the powders in the same areas and spritzed water liberally over the top so the colours filled the background as well as the embossed iris.

I know the messiness of this one won’t be to everyone’s taste but I think it turned out a little fun and funky.

I popped up the panels with foam on cream card bases.

What you don’t see in the photos is the pretty shimmer in the paint when it dries. ( Since my first experiments I have bought a couple more colours so the fun will continue)

Supplies

Stamp: summer glow 40-610 (PB)

Ink: versamark

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah natural white

Paint: Nuvo shimmer powders blue blitz, violet brocade, solar flare
Also: clear embossing powder