Choose To Be Happy

Hi everyone! Melissa here with a design team page for the amazing Shimmerz Paints. I love these                                                paints, the colors are so rich and fun to work with!

To make this page I put the layers under the photo together first,including taping water color paper under the image to make it stronger. Below that is a mat of watercolor paper, and at the bottom is corrugated cardboard. I tore off most the paper from the surface of the cardboard, and painted it with gesso. I put two layers of cardboard between each of the layers to add dimension, and taped it to the background paper.

I coated Blue Fern's Jane's Memoirs Mercantile paper with clear gesso, then applied texture paste with a Tim Holtz stencil and an old credit card.

I picked out Reneabouquets Beautiful Board,figured out where it would go on the page, took it off, and prepped it with white gesso. I painted the branches with Precious Metal Shimmerz, and the leaves with a mix of  Steely Blue Eyes, Greener Pastures, and the roses with A Rose ( By Any Other Name) Inklingz. I topped it with a thick layer of Clear Rock Candy Crackle. I "inked" the edges of the whole piece with Oakie Bear Blue Inklingz, by holding a brush full of color up to the edge of the chipboard. The cracks took up the blue color,to show them more clearly.

I painted the mat and corrugated with a mix of Precious Metal, Penny 4 Your Thoughts, and Oakie Bear Blue Inklingz.

I used Blue My Mind and Oakie Bear Blue for the background paper. I also used Dear John Letter, A Rose (By Any Other Name), and Coral Reef Inklingz.

I used gold mica powder around the edges of the mat,wiping it on with my finger, and on different areas all over the page. I also used silver mica powder on the white gesso areas to make it look less flat.

To add visual interest I added micro beads, seed beads, glass shard glitter,glass beads, pearls, Swarovski crystals, rhinestones,sequins,shells,strands of gauze,iridescent wrapping paper, black tulle, pink tulle, gold lace, pressed and dried flowersand leaves, lichen,gold leaf ,flowers from Reneabouquets and Prima,Finnabair Mould pieces, metal from Vintaj,Reneabouquets and Tim Holtz, and bling and metal from my stash. I added small fussy cut pieces from a few collections of Graphic 45 papers. 

Thank you so much for looking, and have a great week!