Gypsy Soul

Did you hear that gypsy Shimmerz Siren call out to you?

Yep, that was me, Joyce. 

I’m going to show you how to apply some gypsy/bohemian style

to your art today using Shimmerz Paints.

 I have been enchanted by Gypsy genre and bohemian art styles lately, 

 so I thought I’d take those  feelings and put them on paper.

I adored the movement in the girls dance!

And, I thought I could create such movement with some art products.

• Applications of stencil and Shimmerz Texturez Tidy Widy were applied over various areas on the 9 x 12 watercolor paper.
• Then a heat gun was applied over the textured product and allowed to rise, bubble and burst which rendered a lacy look. 
• On top of the stenciled work, drops of Shimmerz Paint colors were applied, and I quickly added drops of water over the paint colored drops.  After this application, I allowed the color to dry completely before apply several other colors using the same technique.
• Once all the colors of paint dried thoroughly, I applied a white art pen over the raised stencil work to make it look like a lacy appearance.

And what’s a gypsy girl without her baubles and chains? 

• Some Inglingz Brass Knuckles was applied over the chipboard chains and then some white art pen markings were added to each bead in the chain.
• I gently swiped some Shimmerz Celery over the chain. 
• Some gesso and Shimmerz Key Lime were lightly applied over the metal flower charms.

 Shimmerz Products:

 Spritz – Chance of Rain, 4 Leaf Clover, Plum Pudding

Vibez – Plum Tuckered Out, Blushing Bride

Shimmerz – Celery, Berry-licious, Orchid-stra, Key lime

Inkglingz- Brass Knuckles

Texturez – Tidy Widy

Listen for my Irish Shimmerz Siren call to bring you back on March 15^th,

When it hurts....observe. Life is trying to teach you something.

Did you hear that Shimmerz Siren? Yep, that was me, Joyce. Glad you found your way here to let me share with you the colors of purple.

Over the years, I have kept quotes, poems, and excerpts from books I have read in a little spiral bound book. I now enjoy adding these words of wisdom in my art journals.  Here is a gothic-like photo I found on Pinterest and a quote that reads:  “When it hurts…observe. Life is trying to teach you something.”

Some of my favorite elements on this art journal entry are the following:

1.       Background created by painting the inside pages with white gesso but not adding gesso on the edges of the paper.  This method allows the Shimmerz mists and watercolors to absorb in the natural fibers of the paper.  To achieve this, apply a lacy like stencil around the edges of the pages and apply gesso over the stencil, and then fill in the middle parts of the pages with gesso. I love how the natural fibers of the paper absorb the Shimmerz  mists and watercolors.  When using light colors of mists and watercolors, I use clear gesso on top of the white gesso. This prevents the white gesso from resisting the light colors.  After the gesso dries, I applied Rocka-Fella Blue around the edges of the pages and quickly soaked up excess with a sea sponge and allowed to dry thoroughly.  Use the excess on the sea sponge and lightly dab over areas of the pages. Repeat the next layer using the same method with the color Plum Pudding, allow to completely dry before repeating the next layer using the same method with the color Plum Tuckered Out.  Stamped images were applied with a permanent color ink pad.

2.       White Rayon ribbon:  Cut a long piece of white Rayon ribbon and trim the hard edges so that strands of thread are revealed and the ribbon looks worn and tattered.  Scrunch up the ribbon in a ball and lightly soak the ribbon in various colors of Rocka-Fella Blue, Plum Pudding, and Plum Tuckered out.  Between each soak, allow each color to dry on its own before commencing the next soak.  On the final soak, scrunch up ribbon in a ball and allow to dry in a ball.  As I repeated this method, I would sometimes scrunch up the ball of soaked ribbon and punch it down on a paper towel. The paper towel turned out so pretty with the various colors that I decided I would use it too… and I did.  You will find some tucked in under the Rayon ribbon.

3.       Chipboard elements (small pieces): gesso chipboard, apply Ruby Lost Her Slipper with a small paint brush leaving the white edges of the gesso exposed. Ink edges of the chipboard with a permanent color ink pad.

4.       Chipboard Cross: gesso chipboard, combine Paste-eez Cream and Berry-Licious together and paint on top of cross leaving some areas thicker than others. Outline chipboard with a fine marker to add more interest.

5.       Metal element: clear gesso, and Precious Posey.

The following Shimmerz Products  can be found in the Store:

Vibes- Plum Tuckered Out

Vibes- Blushing Bride

Spritz- Plum Pudding

Spritz- Rocka-Fella Blue

Shimmerz- Berry-Licious

Inglingz – Ruby Lost Her Slipper

Inglingz –Precious Posey

Paste-eez –The “Cream” Team

More Shimmerz Paint inspiration can be found on FACEBOOK.

Listen for my Shimmerz Siren call to bring you back here on January 29th. Until then, turn on some creative soul moving music, gesso up the pages on your thrift shop found old book, apply Shimmerz paints and let the magic happen. 

And, if you like what you see here and would like to try some of the products I have used, place an order, mention my name in your order,  and the Shimmerz Team will send you a free product with your order.  How cool is that?!

Beautiful, or how I love purple (with Karine)

Hi Shimmerz fans,

I hope this post finds you well. 

It's my turn today to share a layout using one of my favorite colors to work with: purple. Here is my layout. 

I started out by a thin coat of clear gesso on my paper. After that, I applied modelling paste through a flower stencil. Where I wanted to create my main cluster, I added doilies glued with gel medium, very heavy gesso and some joint tape. I love the texture it creates.

To add color, I used two of my favorites colors: Vibez in Grape Escape and Spritz in Plum Pudding. I sprayed mainly in the center of my cluster, using my brush to move color a little bit in a few key places. A few stamps to finish off my background.

I also used those two colors to color my chipboard on which I already gave a coat of white gesso.

***

You can order Shimmerz products directly from the Shimmerz Paints Store. If you do, don't forget to mention my name (Karine Gagnon) in the «Instruction to Merchant/seller» part of your order form (just below your name and address). After clicking «add», you'll get a FREE product in the color of your choice. 

Watercolor Card Video Tutorial

Hello friends!  Gabrielle here with you today!  I have a fun and easy little card tutorial to share with you all today.  It's the weekend and I wanted to have a little fun playing with some of my Shimmerz Paint products, and some of my Dusty Attic chipboard.  So I gather up a few supplies, some watercolor paper and got playing!

Here is a quick l'il video tutorial I made up to show how I put it together!  (Note:....my lighting is bright when I film so the card appears softer in color in the video...above is the actual colors)  Enjoy!

Here are a couple of close-ups of the card design: 

I used some old stash for this card, some Prima Hydrangea blooms I had from an old kit.  I also used Martha Stewart leaf punch for the green leaves (just punched from cardstock and given a bit of a wrinkle.

I used one of my stamp designs, the Dandelion, as my center piece.  I used some white embossing powder with it....I would recommend not to press as hard as I did for this card as I feel I lost a lot of my detailing because of this :)

Products Used in this project:

Dusty Attic Chipboard:  Filigree Frame

Shimmerz Paints Products:

~ Moody Mauve Coloringz

~ Don't Citron Me Coloringz

~ Plum Pudding Sprtiz

~ Punked Up Purple Coloringz

~ Blue My Mind Inklingz

I hope you enjoyed watching me create this card today and hope you have some fun just gettin' loose and playing with your Shimmerz Paints!  You can shop for Shimmerz Paints HERE. NOTE:  Don't forget to mention my name "Gabrielle" in the Message to merchant part of your order to get your FREE/Bonus Shimmerz product in the color or your choice!  Go check out the shop, there are lots of amazing deals on Seasonal color groupings going on right now! xo

Beautiful Shimmery Goodness with Amy Prior

Hi everyone! Amy Prior back again with you all today to share a recent scrapbooking layout featuring tonnes of gorgeous Shimmerz products. I seriously cannot get enough Shimmerz Inklingz at the moment eeekk they are so divine and so lush to play with. Don't forget to checkout the new colors that have just been released in the Shimmerz shop here.

For this layout I have used Shimmerz Inklingz in Sun Kissed, Beets Me, Blue My Mind & French Twist on my background white cardstock. This gorgeous effect is easily achieved by wetting your cardstock with water and layering splodges of the inklingz down 1 color at a time, starting with the lightest color first.

When creating the background, to avoid muddying up the colors, I have dried each color before adding a new color. This ensures that there is minimal color mixing. I have then added random gold grid sticker pieces over the shimmery background to add some more texture to it.

The Blue Fern Studio Chipboard title has then been covered with a nice thick and chunky coat of Brick Wall Shimmerz Texturez Paint and followed with a spray of  Shimmerz Plum Pudding Spritz spray to get a multi toned color on the title.  

The gorgeous papers that I have used for this layout are from Authentique, definately a new favorite collection of mine, and they have worked beautifully alongside some Scrappers Garden, Prima & Petaloo flowers.

Don't forget that you can earn a free gift with your order from the Shimmerz store. Just mention my name in the Notes to Seller section when checking out through Paypal. Here is a great little tutorial on how you can claim your freebie!

We are also having a fabulous giveaway over on the Facebook Page here. Check it out for your chance to win some of the gorgeous new Shimmerz paint products!

Until next time, happy scrapping!

A bit of Shabby Chic fun! Video Tutorial!

Hi everyone!  Gabrielle here with you today to share with you another 8x10 canvas I made using a variety of Shimmerz products!  This time around I thought I would go for a Shabby-chic design.  For this project I used the following  Shimmerz products...

As always I thought it would be best to show you all my process by making a video tutorial that shows all the steps in creating this canvas.  I did make the actual corset embellishment that is the centerpiece of the project with some Martha Stewart air dry clay, it's easily made so I figured that you didn't need a tutorial on making the embellishment.  (BTW, I know that many of you asked for a video tutorial on how I made the Mermaids Tail in the last video I made for Shimmerz so I got that done over the weekend, you can find the video tutorial for the Mermaids Tail HERE.  So if you needed that extra little bit of help to make your own mermaid project just click on the link and you've got it :)   So here you go, enjoy! xo

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and will give some of these techniques a try....here are a few close-ups that you can view at your own pace...

I love the deep bronze shimmer the Brass Knuckles Inklingz, it really got me the look of a vintage mirror frame (Dusty Attic's Ornate Frame #3) that I was going for.

The soft pearly look of the Tutti-Frutti dazzlers gives the corset a lovely feminine shabby-chic look.

It's hard to see it in this photo but there are these beautiful shimmery bits of mica in the Sugar Plum Shimmerz paint that adds a subtle amount of glitter to the background design (you can see it better in the video).

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and hope that you will give these wonderful products and fun techniques a try in your mixed media projects!  And don't forget to get your BONUS/Free Shimmerz product in your next order, just put my name "Gabrielle' into the INSTRUCTIONS FOR MERCHANT part of your order and your will receive a FREE Bottle of Shimmerz or Dimensionz or a sample size jar of Dazzlerz or Texturez in the color of your choice!  xo

Chipboard Masks

I love using left over chipboard pieces as masks on my projects. These are chipboard butterflies from Scenic Route....I attached the papers in the center of the page but left the border and photo off so the spritz didn't get on them...........

Positioned the butterflies and Spritzed with Plum Pudding and Ruby Shimmerz Spritz. After it dried I outlined the butterfly masked areas with a white-out pen.....correction fluid........





Then, attached my photo, flowers and borders. I love the way the masking looks over the multiple layers of paper and stitching........so take another look at your left over chipboard pieces for unique masking shapes. Letters, circles, flourishes, stars....all great possibilities.

Thanks and see you soon,
Lucy

Pretty in Pink

Hi everyone! Today is my turn to share my PINK project with you all. They say, humor can be a way of getting across an important message! So, I hope this little hippo can remind someone to make a doctor's appointment or schedule a mammogram. I know I've been guilty of not checking my breasts as often as I should, or going to the doctor regularly. So thank you Shimmerz for supporting this cause and reminding ME to take care of myself.

Okay, so what's this little hippo wearing?........ Well, she totally rockin' it in her bra and tutu, of course. But her outfit wouldn't be complete without her Shimmerz!!! :)

The hippo was sprayed with two light coats of Plum Pudding Spritz first. Then I used a small brush to paint the three feathers on the front of her headdress with Flashee Fushia Blingz, as well as the outline of her necklace. I also painted the wood dowel, used for the flag with the blingz too.

Supplies:

Shimmerz Paints: (Plum Pudding Spritz and Flashee Fushia Blingz)
Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants and Collage Press
Die-cuts: Collage Press
Chipboard Frame (tutu): Creative Cuts & More
Bling flowers: Maya Road
Chipboard wings: Maya Road
Pearls: Kaiser Kraft
Letter Stickers: Making Memories
Tulle ribbon: Bazzill Basics
Other: Raw chipboard, small wood base and feather trim.

Jennifer