Fresh Start

Hi friends! Today I'm sharing my first card for the Shimmerz Card Creations team. I fell in love with their beautiful products earlier this year and am so excited to have been selected to join their card creations team! They're a local company, make their beautiful line of paints and sprays in-house, and have just recently launched a stamp line. I had the immense pleasure of having coffee with Stacey, the owner, and talking stamps and life for a couple hours last week! She is such a doll and I'm so excited to be joining this team of talented artists.

I started my card with a simple smooshed background. I cut a 4 x 5.25" panel of tan designer paper, then sprayed a bit of Chocolate Brownie Coloringz (if you're new to Shimmerz, Coloringz are vibrant, highly pigmented sprays with no shimmer) on a piece of acetate packaging and then smooshed onto the designer paper. I love the subtle painterly effect it gives! Would love my walls to have this exact treatment (but wouldn't love to do it myself)! I splattered some of the leftover ink, then sponged around the edges lightly with a new ink releasing soon from Clearsnap.

Next I pulled out the lovely Fresh Start Stampz set. This set has some beautiful multi-step floral imagery as well as sweetly lettered sentiments. I was particularly drawn to the every day is a fresh start sentiment, since I'm starting this new journey with Shimmerz. 😃 So I stamped the sentiment on a die cut circle  and set it aside while I got to work on the flowers.

I started with the solid flower, inking first with clear Versamark ink, then adding Lil' Yellow Skool Bus Coloringz on my craft mat and then picking up with a waterbrush to give the stamp a good coat of yellow. Next I stamped the detailed flower in a salmon color and then the outline flower in brown.  I stamped three flowers all together, then fussy cut them, cutting just the center portion of one in order to add a little dimensional pop to the flower center. I used a makeup brush to sponge up some of the leftover inks and sponge around the edges of my cut flower and the sentiment circle.

Since I had picked an autumn palette, I gathered a few autumn embellishments... leaves from a floral pick from Hobby Lobby, a wooden leaf and some sequins from Target.  The sequins were a shiny gold, but I wanted a more subdued color, so mixed a bit of Tidy Widy Texturez (a fabulous white texture paste) with a few sprays of Chocolate Brownie Coloringz and some Coffee Shimmerz (Shimmerz is a beautiful super sparkly paint), then painted the sequins. I also gave the wooden leaf a coat of Coffee Shimmerz, then  pulled everything together with a raffia bow. I dipped the bow in chocolate brownie ink, then added a few rhinestones and glued everything down. For a little extra shimmer I added a bit of Limoncello Shimmerz to the orange leaf and some highlights on the lower layers of the flowers.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! If you need some Shimmerz in your life, remember to put my name, Julee Tilman, in the comment section when you place your order. 😀 And be sure to use code FALL2018 for 20% off your order through Saturday, 9/22! Happy shopping!

What's in it?
Stamps: Fresh Start (Shimmerz Paints)
Paper: Thankful Heart (Recollections), cream, early espresso
Ink: Chocolate Brownie and Lil' Yellow Skool Bus Coloringz, Coffee and Limoncello Shimmerz (Shimmerz Paints), Salmon, Palomino, Cattail Colorbox Dye-Stress inks (Clearsnap)
Accessories: Tidy Widy Texturez (Shimmerz Paints), autumn wood cuts and floral picks (Hobby Lobby), sequins (Target), rhinestones, raffia

Coloringz - Lil' Yellow Skool Bus [ SHM ] Coloringz - Chocolate Brownie [ SHM ] Texturez - Tidy Widy [ SHM ] Shimmerz - Coffee [ SHM ] Shimmerz - Limoncello [ SHM ] Thankful Heart Paper Pad by... [ MCH ] Spellbinders S4-116 Nestabilities... [ AMZUS ] VersaMark Watermark Stamp Pad - Small... [ SBC ]