Shimmer grateful

Posted: October 8, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: grateful for everything, Shimmerz | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends. We celebrated both Thanksgiving and my son’s birthday last night as he will be off at the crack of dawn on the actual day to write an exam with another one the next day. Our first Thanksgiving was eighteen years ago after we had been in Canada for seven weeks. After Thanksgiving dinner with a kind and welcoming neighbour we took off for the hospital where our son was born just before midnight! We were reminiscing last night about his sisters coming into our room the next morning to see the new little brother asleep in a basket at the end of the bed! I have so many things to be thankful for including friends who have become like family to us here in Ottawa. Living so far from our family it has been a great blessing to be welcomed into the families of friends.

This subtly coloured card is embossed in silver powder and painted with shimmer paints. Most of the painting was done with Shimmerz sprays; I spritzed a bit of each colour onto my glass mat and picked it up with a paintbrush to fill the leaves and flowers. For some added depth I used bolder colours from my finetec pearlescent watercolour palette. The background is painted with colour from a grey watercolour pencil.

I was happy to find a copper shimmer cardstock in my stash that matched well with the copper highlights from the finetec palette. I matted the panel and added a die-cut sentiment also from Concord & 9th.

Make sure you pop back in tomorrow when I will announce the winners from the gratitude week giveaway I hosted with the Foiled Fox.

Supplies

Stamps: grateful for everything (C&9th)
 
Dies:

Inks: versamark

Paint: Finetec artist mica pearlescent watercolours, Shimmerz jeni b blue walkin’ a tight heliotrope, bamboo leaf, egg noggin’

   

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white, copper shimmer cardstock
 
Also: silver embossing powder

More shimmery leaves

Posted: April 27, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: fine leaves, Shimmerz | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

I have a couple more shimmery leafy cards to share today. I created these with leaf stamps from Darkroom Door and Shimmerz spray paints. The panel started out as a square that I intended to turn into a large square card but when it was complete I decided to slice it up!

I began by stamping the two smallest leaf stamps from the Darkroom Door ‘fine leaves’ set in gold ink on hot pressed watercolour paper. I stamped in gold so I could see where I had stamped, versamark makes it tricky to do that. After I had filled three quarters of the panel I embossed with gold powder and started spritzing the panel with heliotrope shimmerz spritz spray. Can I point out right how that heliotrope’s full name is ‘Walking a Tight Heliotrope’ Shimmerz Spritz Spray! I also spritzed with Bamboo Leaf shimmerz spritz spray and let them blend and pretty much flood the panel. I dried it before adding more spray a couple of times then splattered some droplets over the dried panel.

I wanted the leaves to stand out just a tiny bit more so I used a dark blue and an olive green pencil to shade around each leaf so they appear to be lifting slightly off the paper. Once I’d decided to create two cards I matted both panels in gold shimmer cardstock and added embossed sentiments.

The chipped sapphire ink was exactly what I needed for the little sentiment above so I stamped in versamark first then over the top with chipped sapphire which made it possible to emboss in clear powder and get a blue sentiment.

 

Supplies

Stamps: fine leaves (DD), all occasions (DD)

Ink: versamark, chipped sapphire, encore gold

Shimmerz Sprays: Walkin’ on a tight Heliotrope, Bamboo Leaf

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white,  gold shimmer cardstock

Also: WOW gold metallic rich embossing powder, Faber Castell polychromos pencils

Shimmery leaves

Posted: April 25, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: fine leaves, Shimmerz | Tags: , | 8 Comments

It’s all about experimentation on the blog today. I have some new inky products and some freshly cut stamps. The Foiled Fox team was kind enough to send me some Shimmerz sprays to play with so I teamed them up with the emboss resist techniques and the fine leaves stamps from Darkroom Door.

To make the panel above I embossed the leaves in gunmetal embossing powder; it’s a new one from Ranger which is not as shiny as silver but shinier that just grey. I like it. I sprayed some shimmerz sprays on my craft mat and swiped the embossed panel through it to pick up colour. I dried it then repeated with a couple of different colours which built up some variety and depth around the leaves. I wanted the leaves to be more prominent so I picked up shimmerz blue and yellow with a paint brush and painted inside some of the leaves. The spritzed background was also done with shimmerz, just heliotrope and blue.

I found a scrap of light blue cardstock to mat the panel then added all the layers to a natural white card base.

The sprays are quite strongly pigmented but the colours dry with a softness to them. As I was creating these panels I was wiping excess spray onto a couple of journal pages to build up some background colour. I’m excited to try a few more colours and techniques.

My second panel was completed in a similar way but I added way more shimmerz spray both by swiping off my craft mat and spraying directly on the embossed panel. The leaves and sentiment are embossed with white powder this time.

It’s a shame you can’t see how pretty the shimmer is on the painted panel and also the gold shimmer cardstock I used to mat it. I love the way embossing catches colour in confined spaces making that one central leaf a mix of dark blue, light blue, yellow and green

As you can probably imagine I did more experimenting, so I’ll be back with a few more ideas later in the week.

Supplies

Stamps: fine leaves (DD), all occasions (DD)

Ink: versamark

Shimmerz Sprays: Jen B Blue, Eggnoggin’, Walkin’ on a tight Heliotrope
 

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white,  gold shimmer cardstock, blue cardstock

Also: WOW opaque white embossing powder, Ranger gunmetal embossing powder