Shimmerz Week

Hi, there, everyone! Leslie, here, to kick off Shimmerz week on the Newsletter! The team has gotten their hands on a few of these delicious little pots of shimmery paint, and we're shining north, south, east and west. You can see all the irresistible Shimmerz colors here.

I've had a great time experimenting with these paints and the many options for using them. Did you know you can even emboss with them? Just sprinkle embossing powder over your image while the paint is still wet, or use a separate container to mix a little clear embossing ink with your Shimmerz paint to insure it stays wet longer. You can stipple a background, or give it a shimmery color wash. You can paint a little shimmer onto your ribbon. Or you can paint right over top of an image you've colored with another medium. That's what I did with the card I'm sharing today.

I used the Peony set and a sentiment from Strawberries. I colored the peony with Copics from the Hollyhock, Evergreen, and Buttercup collections. When that coloring was complete, I painted the pink flower with Orange Sherbet Shimmerz. It gave me a new color and some shimmer to boot. In the areas where I wanted to add shimmer, but didn't want to alter the color, I used Angel Wings, which is clear.



It's difficult to capture the delicate shimmer in a photo and, though I tried, I couldn't manage with just one photo. This angle gives a better idea but, you know, there's nothing like seeing something up close and personal:






Christine has a sample today, too. She's chosen an excellent subject to shimmer up, and did it in a most beautiful manner. She's used the shells from Seaside Life and a sentiment from Beach Life. Here's what she has to say about it:


"I've embossed these pretty shells on our Classic White paper and then painted on the Shimmerz with my water brush. The Shimmerz pots work just like paint (though make sure you shake them really well before you begin so the shimmery material comes to the top). Then I could color in my shell just as I normally would with other coloring mediums. The color in these two selections is lighter (Key Lime and Sky Blue), so it gives it a subtle color with lots of shine. It looks even prettier in person! I also stamped the seaweed on the background with white craft ink, then painted over it with the Key Lime Shimmerz to highlight it. I think it makes it feel more "under the sea". I thought the colors would work perfectly with this BasicGrey Lily Kate paper, a little silk ribbon, and the Kaiser pearls. A soft and delicate feel."




Thank you, Christine! Aren't those shells gorgeous!

Tomorrow the blog team will be sharing samples, and there will be more the rest of the week from the Senior DT. I'm looking forward to seeing all their beautiful cards, and I hope you'll enjoy it, too. Have a wonderful day!

-- Leslie

More Beautiful Peonies

Yes, we have some more beautiful peonies to show you. Everyone is just smitten with this large Peony stamp, so I thought it would be fun to share some more samples and techinques with you.

I'll start with this highly dimensional Peony done by Faith Hofrichter. Many of you are familiar with the fun, vibrant and exciting style of Markie's Mom. Well, she took it to another level with this one!!! Her layered Peony was stamped and gold embossed 6 times, and each of those images was then watercolored with 4 reinkers, before she cut them all out, curled and layered them onto her card!!! What an amazing look!!! The Thank You sentiment is from Flourished Words, and Faith used her go-to Black Dotted Sheer Ribbon. You can read more about how Faith made this card on her Blog here.

The next two Peonies I'd like to show you are both done by Jenn Balcer, who we all know and love from SCS. Jenn stamped both of her Peonies onto a Shimmer White Cardstock and then colored them with her Copic markers, and what an amazing job she did!!! Her Peonies look so lovely and realisitic.


This first card is just striking in it's simplicity. Jenn's color choices make the main image just pop off the page at you, and I really love how she used the Peony blossom to create her lovely background on the green panel. This card needed nothing more -- this beautiful Peony image and Jenn's striking design can stand very well all on their own!

Jenn's second card uses both Shimmer White and Chocolate cardstock and she's added a bit more glitz with Dazzling Diamonds and a sparkly nameplate for the Peony sentiment -- how fun!!! And the Chocolate Sheer Ribbon tied off to the side is the perfect accent for this gorgeous creation!!


And lastly I have a card that I did using the masking technique. I first inked my stamp with ColorBox Chalk Inks and stamped onto white cardstock. I then colored in all the white areas of the Peony with my Inkksentials Opaque White Pen, and accented the leaves in the same way. I then made a Peony mask using my Eclipse Masking Tape and stamped on my scripted background (SU retired). A little sponging, layering, accent pieces and ribbon, and I'm done!!! You may read more details on this card on my personal Blog.

We've done several previous posts on the Peony set and different techniques to use with it -- you may see them here, here and here.

Thanks so much for stopping in to see more of our Peony creations. I hope you are all enjoying your Peonies!!! They are available here.

Sharon Johnson

May I Suggest ...

Hi everyone!!! Today’s May I Suggest… is showing up here a few days late, but better late than never! Today's May I Suggest... is going to be a little different than it has been the past few weeks, but change is good — right? What I am going to suggest today is a technique — masking. Probably one of the first techniques you learned as a beginning stamper, and if you don’t know how to mask, well, we’ve got a video tutorial for you to watch, so you’ll be ready to go in no time at all. Here’s the card I made using Coffee with Friends, which is a sample of quick and easy masking (combined with paper piecing):

To read more detail on the making of my Coffee with Friends card, you can check it out on my Blog (Sharon J).

And here is a card that Susan Roberts did, using Peony, which is still easy masking, only she repeated it many times over for this lovely effect of a huge bouquet of Peonies:

Now, is that a gorgeous bouquet of peonies or what? Just love that Peony!!!! To read more detail on the making of Susan's Peony card, you can check it out on Susan's Blog.

To view a tutorial on masking done by Nancy Kirk, you can click here. She used Cake Decorating 101 to do her video, so if you've never seen that cake and plate come together, this is a great sample of that as well!!!

To view an SCS tutorial on masking done by Beate Johns, you can click here.

Masking -- super simple, fun, with fabulous results giving your project some depth and dimension -- give it a try!!!

Sharon Johnson

Beautiful Peonies

Yesterday as I spent a bit of time cleaning up a flower bed I was inspecting my peonies, which are nowhere near ready to open for quite a while yet. As I was working, I was reminded of all the beautiful Peony cards I've seen this week in the galleries and blogs, and I thought I'd like to share them all with you here -- oh, what a breath of fresh air they are!!!!

As I was gathering all these cards to upload here, I found it rather interesting to note that no two of these cards were created with the same technique. All different, all unique, all beautiful. The only consistent factor is that they were all created using Peony, one of Flourishes latest releases. Would you care to take a look?

This gorgeous card, with a real vintage flair, was created by Leslie Miller. Leslie stamped the image in Creamy Caramel ink and colored it in with chalks. Her design is gorgeous and finished off so beautifully with that gorgeous Chocolate Sheer Ribbon. What a treat for the eyes! Please click on Leslie's name above to get to her blog for more complete details on how she achieved this look.

This beautiful card, again with a distinct vintage and romantic feel, was created by Julie Koerber. Julie's technique was to apply ink directly to the stamp and then after stamping it she used an aquapainter to meld the colors together. Oh my, what a simple, but beautiful technique. Be sure to stop in at Julie's blog to get all the details.

This beautiful peony was created in a somewhat similar fashion to Julie's peony above, but with a bit of a variation. Sharon Doolittle created this simple beauty by first inking the image, direct to polymer, just as Julie did, but Sharon then finished her peony off by coloring it in with Stampin' Up! markers. What a a gorgeous peony Sharon created, and how simply! You can check in at Sharon's Blog for more of her design details.

This bright and bold peony was created by Dee Jackon -- how striking in its cheerful orange tones!!! Dee achieved this look by stamping her peony onto orange cardstock with black ink and then coloring it in with Stampin' Up! markers and then using her Prisma colored pencils to go over it and finish it off. The sentiment Dee used is from Many Sentiments, and how perfect it looks here!

Linda Duke, who is so well known for her dimensional work using a technique called Paper Tole, created this mouth-watering beauty using just that technique. Linda has achieved such a soft and pretty look with her Copic markers for color. Linda's card is large, at 6" x 6". We're hoping Linda can share a few tips and techniques with us in the not too distant future!!! Oh, wouldn't it be fun to learn to do this!!!

And Flourishes own Jan Marie Caruso created this elegant and stunning, classic beauty by stamping her image with the Palette Stamp and Stick Gluepad and brushing on a Pure Mica powder for a rich, gorgeous sheen!!! Her addition of pearls just tops off this formal beauty perfectly!!! Be sure to check out her Blog for more details.

And last, but certainly not least, we have this soft and lovely pink beauty by Julie Koerber. Julie's image is stamped onto vellum and colored on the reverse side with Prisma colored pencils. All of the layers, colors and pretty ribbons on this card just say PRETTY!!!

And with this card from Julie we have a special treat to share with you. Julie has prepared a very clear and concise tutorial explaining exactly what she did here, so each of you can very easily achieve the same results. You can read Julie's turorial here.

As I wait for my own peonies to bloom, I know all of us here at Flourishes anxiously look forward to seeing what type of peonies will be blooming in your gallery or blog!!! Please keep us informed, as we TRULY would love to see all of your creations. And remember, the keyword for uploads using Flourishes images in the SCS gallery is FLLC. We can't wait to see what all of you come up with!!! Happy gardening -- or coloring --whatever the case may be!!!

Sharon Johnson