"You're A Star" with Nicole

Happy Thursday Shimmerz Fans!

It's the middle of August and can you believe kids are already starting back to school?! I sure can't! It seems like just yesterday we celebrated the last day!  Well, whether they want to go back or not, my two kiddos are headed back next week. The anxiety of a new, bigger school and a new bus is definately on my oldest sons mind. He's been at my side nearly every day throughout the summer helping me create scrapbook layouts, doing art projects and so much more. I thought, what would be a better way than to create something for him, like he's done for me over the summer months, to sneak in his book bag! Something that would let him know that I'm thinking of him on the first day of his new year. I want him to know that I'm proud of him, so I made him this card that I hope I can sneak into his folder without him seeing!

He's always been very much into Science and Math, so what a better opportunity than to create a space themed card telling him that he's my star!

I began my card with heavy weight water color paper. I chose the Shimmerz colors that I felt best represented "space," which were:

Inklingz Precious Peoney

AcriTonez Pinkadelic

AcriTonez 3 Sheets To the Wind

Vibez Sunset Strip

Vibez Jeni B Bleu

Coloringz Mamma Sings the Blues

Spritz Ruby

Spritz Walkin on a Tight Heliotrope

Original Shimmerz Paint in Coal

There was definately a lot of colors that went on this card, but they went on very easy and there really is no "wrong" way of doing this! I began by spritzing my piece of water color paper with water. It helps color to move more easily and blend when the colors are added. I then began by adding small bits of each of the colors to my piece. Here's what the first layer looked like:

I sprayed a small amount of each of the mists in the pallet on the left so I had more control. I applied each color with my #8 oval brush.  Once the first layer of color was dry, I began with my first layer of black.  I ended up using about 2-3 layers of the black, letting it dry between each layer so it would darken each time.  Here's a look at what it looks like with the final layer of black on it:

Doesn't look the pretties, huh? lol!!  If you make it this far, DON'T GIVE UP! The next step is what really makes it look like a galaxy and pop!  The final stage of painting is adding white splatters!  I used AcritTonez 3 Sheets to the Wind for this step! Self priming paint with gesso makes it great and opaque! I put a little bit of the paint onto my stamping block, added some water, then flicked the paint off the block with my brush to create this effect:

WE HAVE A GALAXY!!

I let this dry for quite a while. A few hours at least because I then used a rectangle die from my stash to cut the exact place on this piece that I wanted to use for my background. I didn't want the paint to not be cured and get messed up when running it thru my die cutting machine.

Once the background was cut, I added a sentiment with some white glittery thread behind it and white glittery embossed stars to the galaxy.  Here's a few close ups of the final project:

I just love all of that shimmer that makes the whole background pop!

I hope you try this background technique! Its very fun and very forgiving!! My kind of style! lol!

Thanks so much for joining me today!

I hope I have inspired you!

Until next time, have a great week and if you have kiddos, good luck on you're first day back to school!

One-Day Travel Junk Journal by Joyce

Put your sunglasses on because this is a bright project!

Sharing with you another junk journal, but this time, it’s for me!  I made it to record events of a one-day train ride to a beach city with my nieces.  It’s a small junk journal to cover a day’s events and enough room to add photos and other ephemera later.  There are tuck spots, and envelopes to hold treasures.  It’s bright and so unlike anything else I’ve created which actually made it even more enjoyable for me during the creative process.  The cover is a remnant from a gift bag I found in a bargain bin.  Since the cover was ornate, I didn’t feel it needed any other embellishment, which will make it easy to tote around too.  Often times, paper collections make half of the work of a project easy, but when you don’t possess any papers that work for your project, you have to improvise and so I did with Shimmerz Paints.

I like how the pages above are cascading revealing each new page.

Journal pages made from printer paper, stencil, Plum Pudding Shimmerz and Bamboo Leaf, and a little stamping.  I really like how these journal pages turned out and will use this technique again.  It’s another option other than tea or coffee staining journal paper.  Instead of spraying a mist over a stencil onto paper, I sprayed on top of the stencil, flipped the stencil over, and slapped it down onto the paper.  This revealed another pattern of the stencil.

Chipboard element above on journal page:  Plum Pudding, Purple Shimmerz and some white embossing powder.  This chipboard element is a tuck spot for receipts, etc.

The above tag features Plum Pudding and Bamboo Leaf Shimmerz.

Inside Covers were covered with patterned napkins with a sealant over the napkin to add stability.

Sometimes when I finish reading a magazine, I cut out little photos the size of postage stamps to use on future projects, and here I did so and added some of those photos to little tags with lacy bits.

The green envelope flips open to reveal a secret pocket and tag for storing and journaling on my travel journey.

I hope I have inspired you to create your own one-day travel journal using Shimmerz Paints to create journaling pages and embellishments.

Thank you for letting me share with you, and I'll see you back here on August 29th.

Queen of the beach | Anna Komenda

Hello everyone. It's Anna here with my August project and process video. Summer is my favourite season and I love creating summery, colorful pages. I am also a big fan of latest flamingo, pineapple and cacti trend. I do not travel to the very exotic places but still I like to use them on my pages.

Today I went crazy with pink and flamingos and I created a whole flamingo background.

I used Silhouette Cameo cut outs as my stencil. It's a really fun way to extend your possibilities. You can use a whole background stencil or just a small elements. This kind of stencil won't last long but let's be honest - how often do you use the same stencil? And I can still use the flamingos in second project :)

With those pretty birdies in the background I had to minimize the composition around my picture. I didin't want to cover too much. I use only small scrap of paper as a frame for my picture and some smaller die cuts to embellish page a little.

I also added some little hearts using a stencil and a Dazzlerz paste. It works perfect with details and I love how shiny it is. It looks like cotton candy. I also add yellow splatters using Shimmerz paint.

As always I have a video for you. The page is very easy and simple to make so the video isn't long. I hope it will inspire you to play with your mists and stencils.

That's all for today. Thank you for stopping by and see you in September with another project and video.

Shimmerz products:

Dazzlerz "Tutti frutti"

Vibez "Razzledazzle berry"

Vibez "Sweet heart"

Shimmerz "Sunny"

XO Anna

Colorful & Whimsical Balloon Scene | Zinia Amoiridou

Hello artsy friends! It's Zinia here and welcome back to the Shimmerz blog!
Today I have a really bright and colorful art journaling spread to share with you using a mix of Shimmerz Sprays and Pastes. 

The star of the show today is the white AcriTonez (3 Sheets to the Wind) which we are going to mix with shimmerz pastes to create custom acrylic paint colors.

The best part is that you can mix all the different colors of pastes to create custom shades that will match the project you are working on. I'm mostly going for some colorful pastel shades but you can make them even more intense by adding a few drops of your sprays or even drops from re-inkers (since they are really strong and concentrated).

The whole process is really simple. I started by adding some color on my background using some of my favorite spray colors in blues and greens. I initially wanted to create a globe/map inspired background but in the end I turned it into a sky.

The inspiration for the page came from the cover of "The Little Price". I decided to draw a little girl standing on a planet (most likely earth :P) and then spread a ton of colorful balloons around her.

I used the same colors for both the balloons and the dress of my little girl to keep the color palette consistent across the whole page. 

I used some markers to add shading and highlights to my balloons and the dress to add more depth and interest to the page.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I really hope you enjoyed the process of this page. If you got inspired and you want to grab some gorgeous Shimmerz goodies make sure to mention my name "Zinia" at the comment section of your order to receive a FREE Shimmerz product! 

Art Journal with Shona

Hello Shimmerz fans!! I decided to start an Art Journal of me and Olaf and this is my first pages in it. Adding Shimmerz color is the best part of this process. The chipboard is from Creative Embellishments and papers from 49 and Market.

I started by using a stencil and some Salt of the Earth Paste-eez. When that was dry it was time to add all of the layers and some background colors with Mama Sings the Blues Coloringz and Jeni B Bleu Vibez.

 

The chipboard pieces are finished with a coat of Tar Tar Acritonez.

I added a few splats of Steely Blue Eyes Inklingz to finish it all off.

Check out our Facebook page for lots of inspiration and share with us what you created with Shimmerz! Look for us on Instagram too! Don’t forget to mention my name at the store checkout for your free sample of Shimmerz!!

Take care and happy scrapping!  

Products used:

Mama Sings the Blues Coloringz

Tar Tar Acritonez

Salt of the Earth Paste-eez

Jeni B Bleu Vibez

Steely Blue Eyes Inklingz