Shimmerz helps out with a little HUG...

Hi everyone! This is Lolly (Shimmerz guest designer for the next couple-o-months)! I am super excited to share my first Shimmerz project with you!!!!

I was torn between sharing something with flowers (which are one of my absolute favorite things)... or a little tree... I decided to go with the flowers for now and we'll do the tree next time (that little tree is gonna steal your shimmery lovin' little hearts... I swears)!
Craft Goodies Used for this Project:
The Paper Studio - Chip Decor Letters
Petaloo - Color Me Crazy Flowers (awesome mega pack with enough flowers for multiple projects)

Cuttlebug - Quilling Flower Folders (Daisy & Chrysanthemum)
Assorted Gems
Shimmerz - Vibez - Sunset Strip & Jeni-B-Bleu
Shimmerz - Spritz - Bed of Roses
Shimmerz Paints - Aqua Marine & Celery
Shimmerz - Pearlz - Carrot Top, Sunny Side Up & Green with EnvyShimmerz Blingz - Hottie Pink (this color totally rocks!!!!)
(shop for Shimmerz HERE)
...I also used an assortment of craft acrylic paints to paint the chipboard letters 3 different colors of green!

Now let's get started for real!
I tend to test and play around with things when starting a project... just to make sure that the way I see it in my head has a fighting chance to become reality.

My initial plan was to cover all of the chipboard letters with quilled flowers, but they looked too packed together and plain... plus they needed way more POP!

So I busted out this awesome pack of Petaloo flowers and laid about them as the foundation for the quilled flowers...

Then once I added a few of those quilled flowers on top of the Petaloo flowers... things really started to take shape!

My Mom dropped by for a visit (she's also known as MomChops over on my blog)... so I put her to work painting all of the Petaloo Flowers with a nice assortment of Shimmerz Paints...

When you come to my house you have to be ready to dig in and do some crafts... especially on Saturdays!
(any man, women or child who enters the craft room on a Saturday is in danger of being handed a pair of scissors or a paint brush)
(even my husband has fallen prey to this phenomenon)

I decided that the color for my quilled flower petals would come entirely from Shimmerz sprays..
I really wanted them to have a nice shimmery shine to them and the best way to do that was to start with plain white paper and spritz the heck out of them!

Once they were nice and dry...
I cut them into one inch strips so they could be run through my Cuttlebug quilling folders!
(if you have never seen the quilling folders in action and want to see a video demonstration... leave a comment here and let me know!)
(I'll put a little video together of how I made the flowers for this project and post it right here on the Shimmerz blog!!!)

MomChops painted the chipboard letters and ALL of the Petaloo flowers for me...
(I took her to lunch to thank her after we were done... she was plum tuckered out!!!)

41 fabulous shimmery quilled flowers and 42 fabulous painted and shimmery Petaloo flowers later...

I started assembling the whole thing!

I filled the centers of those flowers with bright sparkly gems and used some of the quilling leaves under each flower pair.

To get everything to stick together nice and tidy...
I used an assortment of liquid glue, ZipDry and a hot glue gun!

Here is the finished sign of HUGS!

(this little sign is going to be given as a birthday present to the daughter of a very dear friend of mine who likes lots of sparkle and nice bright colors)!!!!

...and here are a coupla more pics so you can check out the details a little better!

Thanks so much for dropping by and big thanks to Stacey and the whole DT for having me over for a visit! I had a blast! I'll be back in about a week with another project!

Have a great day!