Primrose Petals in the secret garden... PPA160 colour challenge

I joined Pals Paper Arts PPA160 Colour challenge this week and the colours are:

Gumball Green, Primrose Petals and Whisper White.

I stamped a posie of Secret Garden flowers and watercoloured the petals for a bit of pretty!

Then to add something special I painted parts of the flower with champagne shimmer paint.

In the light it is all gold and shimmery... painted direct from the shimmer paint bottle with an aquapainter.

I stamped the largest flower first then masked it with paper while I stamped the smaller white flower over it.

The masking looks as if the white flower is behind.

Finally I stamped the centre flower and cut it out with the matching framelits.

I do like the champagne shimmer (retiring end of June and I bet its already out of stock).

If there is something you are wanting from the 2012-13 retiring products list you can click on my online store (up on the right hand side of this blog)

 Make sure that you select me as your demonstrator, to get your discounted prices, I am the only Nerida in NSW.

It means you can shop 24/7 (at 3am if you wish) and the products will be delivered direct to your door.  Any problems call my mobile 0468 877 125.  Enjoy!!!

Fine Feathers using two techniques

 A simple one layer card on Naturals white cardstock transformed with coloured markers direct to rubber on the fine feathers stamp. I like this idea to use the feather as a quill signing off the Feel Goods sentiment.

 One of my secret pleasures is to scan through Pinterest when I have the chance for new ideas to use my stamp sets.
I have shown you this thumping marker technique a couple of times lately, in these same colours too. Then I came across the idea of painting the stamped image with champagne shimmer paint with a brush.
It creates a beautiful shimmery effect on the inked colours with out buckling the paper and it dries shiny and pearlescent.

Here is a close up of the fine feathers peacock stamp showing the thumped marker colours and the champagne mist painted over it.
Try this out and enjoy! By the way champagne shimmer paint is retiring from the end of June and may not be available again from Stampin' Up! if you need some lets order it quick as supplies will run out.
Check the retirement list Here:  www.stampinup.com

Champagne mist and embossed Swallow tail

Can you see the embossing?

Can you see the champagne mist shimmer paint?

On page 19 of the Seasonal Catalogue there are instructions on how to get this shimmering embossed look. The one in the caty is Pool party emossed on yellow cardstock it looks amazing.

Mine is more a tone on tone affair and I have cut out the edges with my paper snips. 

What do you think of the matching button and Pool Party satin ribbon?That's right FREE during Sale-a-bration!

Hope you like my Blue Butterfly I am creating more colourful versions to show you soon.

The Open Sea ...

 An excursion out on Sydney harbour with lots of photos from the ferry, stopping at Shark Island for a run around and learning all about early settlement of Sydney and basically what all the landmarks are and making sure not too many hats get blown into the briny blue water.

 The "Open Sea" stampset is a brilliant set for this scrap book page. I teamed it up with Baker's twine (available in the Summer mini) this one is wound with cherry cobbler and white cotton and goes with the reds and blues and razzleberry I have chosen. My title is created with the Timeless type big shot alphabet and attached with two way glue pen.

 What is a page about the water and ships with out a swathe of deep blue ocean made with crumpled Night of Navy cardstock and sprayed with Frost white shimmer paint spray.
Distressing is a great stress release .... give it to the kids to squish and destroy, they will love crushing up mum's special paper!

 Instead of fussy cutting out all the boats I found that the shifp fits beautifully into the 6cm circle punch and so does the world map stamp too.

If you want a smaller circle you can squeeze it onto a 1 3/4" circle, with out losing too much of the ship.
I just love what you can do with the detailed anchor stamp and the compass ... layering and ageing it with inks. The distressing kit comes in handy for roughing, sanding and distressing the edges.

What can you do with shimmer paint?

It comes in Frost white, champagne and Platinum.

Its being sprayed, daubed, sponged and stamped.

 Here's a few quick tutorials on how to use your shimmer paint from Stampin' UP!

SHIMMER SPRAY

You will need:

1. about 3-5 drops of Shimmer paint, 

Rubbing alcohol

a small spray bottle.

 2. 3/4 fill a small spray bottle with Rubbing alcohol

(ask for Isocol at a chemist or pharmacy)

Open your container of Shimmer paint and dip the spray bottle's tube into the paint.

You can do this 3-5 times to add the paint to the isocol in your spray bottle.

You can add more or less depending on how shimmery you want to spray.

 3. Put the spray bottle lid back on and Shake your spray bottle.

4. Spray on your cardstock and leave to dry for a few moments.

Drying time depends on how much you spray the paper.

When you use frost white it looks a bit like sea spray.

Champagne looks like little specks of gold glitter.

Tip: spray the cardstock with shimmer mist BEFORE you stamp, otherwise the ink will run or spread.

 On this sample I have sprayed the Blue cardstock, crumpled and distressed the paper, unfurled it and sprayed again. In the light it is like the deep ocean sparkling with sea spray.

And the sample above shows I have sponge-daubered the edges with  shimmer paint too.

 A REALLY WOW effect on invitations.

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  Shimmer paint stamping!

 What you need:

1. Shimmer paint

a sponge dauber

 a rubber stamp.

 2. Use a sponge dauber to pick up shimmer paint from inside the lid of the shimmer paint bottle.

 3. Then, daub the paint onto the rubber stamp.

Keep dipping the sponge dauber into the lid of the paint and onto the rubber until the stamp is inked.

Tip: You can even mix a few drops of re-inker with the shimmer paint (add the shimmer paint and ink together on a flat plastic lid so that you don't contaminate the bottle).

 4. Lastly, stamp the shimmer daubed rubber stamp onto your dark coloured cardstock.

The Frost white and Platinum are both opaque and look best when you tilt them sideways in thelight.

This effect looks great with snow flakes, ocean, beach and water themed stamps, as well as boats and background stamps.

The card above is stamped with Frost white shimmer paint on the background layer (with the writing from the Open Sea stampset)

 with some sea salt splashes added to the blue layer. (Stamped using the French Folliage splatter stamp).

Scrapbooking the days of Summer

During the holidays we managed to get out into the bush a couple of times for walks, even though it threatened rain with overcast skies. One of the days we visited Girrakool National Park. We walked as far as the caves, crossing stepping stones over rain-filled creeks and had some good conversations along the way.

I really like this stampset: "Kindness matters" because it has butterflies designed to go with vintage style pages. It seems to match a lot of my stampsets at the moment. 

 For a small 6 x 6" page there is a lot going on starting with some

 "flower garden" embossing on the Elegant Eggplant cardstock.

Distressed edges on the patterned paper

Punched flowers from the Boho Blossom punch with added PEARLS

Embossed vellum butterflies (Beautiful wings embosslit)

 and of course the photo that has been cut out with the Beautiful butterflies die.
And the corner has been sprayed with shimmer paint mist for added sparkle.

Its appropriate that I have used the kindness matters stampset from Shelli Gardner's collection as the layout was inspired by one of her gorgeous vintage cards.

Winter ATC swap with Crafters Anonymous

 An ATC is an Artist Trading Card and they are very collectable ... I often put my name down for an ATC swap as you can make 8 or 10 in very short time and you will receive back a selection of cards with different techniques stamps and ideas. These are my ten swap cards for the Winter ATC group.

 My inspiration for winter was the Camelia bush in our front garden.

It puts on a beautiful flowering display right through winter with huge white blooms.

Winter is also naked brown trees and sitting outside in the winter sunshine... when its not raining of course.

 The tree is stamped in Early Espresso ink on Naturals Ivory cardstock.

Then I have used champagne shimmer paint sponged with a sponge dauber for the shimmery sparkle when the sun comes out after rain.

Recipe: 

Stampset- Pendant Park $27.95 Clear mount $37.95 Wood mount.

Cardstock; Early espresso, Naturals ivory.

Ink: Early espresso, Cherry Cobbler

Punches: itty bitty punches

Accessories: Shimmer paint - champagne, sponge dauber, Pearl jewels, Clear Block D, dimensionals.

Pear Pizzazz Pendant Park with a mother of Pearl Shimmer

This is a really pretty technique called mother of pearl.

 It works best on glossy white cardstock and makes a soft mottled background with a gloss and texture that looks like mother of pearl.
On this card I have used the platinum shimmer paint.
Elsewhere you will see this technique using Frost white shimmer paint. But I like this effect which looks a little like silver clouds behind the pendant park tree.

 I really like Pear pizzazz as it goes beautifully with Certainly celery taffeta ribbon.
The tree is stamped in black stazon so that it stands out against the silver platinum shimmer paint.

I think this one is appropriate for a sympathy card, or a get well card, or even just a card to a friend.

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I am still taking orders for my ribbon shares in 1cm taffetta and 2.3cm wide striped grosgrain.
So phone or email if you'd like to go in this share with me.

Shimmer strong and subtle

As a Stampin' up demonstrator every month I receive a newsletter called impressions.

 It is full of ideas to use our stamps, inks and new products. There's almost always a new technique to try
or an old technique done in a new way and I look forward to receiving the inspiration every month.

 For the month of June there are 6 projects to create ... this is my version of the one above.

Shimmer can be Strong . . .
Everyone likes a little shimmer on a card - its like adding jewellery to an outfit.
To create a strong shimmer look you start with a bold image such as the Medallion stamp.
I've stamped it first in Soft Suede,  then inked the stamp in Platinum Shimmer paint using a sponge dauber on to the rubber, and stamped it again.

When ever I CASE a card (that's Copy And Share Everything), I tend to change a few things, and this one I have put velum butterflies flittering across the card. They have been cut and embossed with the big shot machine and the embosslit die: Beautiful wings.

 The sentiment is actually inside the card.
Happy Birtthday from the teeny tiny sentiments set fits perfectly on a cut down label made with the Decorative label punch.

 It opens up to show the stamped label and sentiment, raised on dimensionals so that it locks the card closed when shut.

You get a bold and shimmery effect depending on what angle you look at the card... it gives you so many options for a shimmery look, you can even create your own shimmer spray, to sparkle on anything you want, like ribbons, card, paper, fabric ...
Our shimmer paint comes in three different colours:
Platinum, Champagne and Frost white.

Would you like to receive the impressions magazine every month too?

To find out more, or place an order you can Contact me by email or phone 0468 877 125.

The New Year ...

Christmas may be over for another year, but did you know that the 12th Day of Christmas was only yesterday? (December 25 is the first day of Christmas)

Time to take down those decorations and start to celebrate 2011.

So what do I have to show you today?

A scrap book page that I completed only yesterday, well its holidays and time for creating just for me.

 I find if I start my Christmas scrapbooking while I still have my Christmas stamps out I can capture the moment and "feel" like I am up to date with Scrapbooking for the year. Who said things must be done cronologically? Its more fun to scrap the photos you want, when you want. 

 My title was made in three easy steps:
1. Choose some white textured cardstock
2. Die cut the letters with the Big shot machine using Timeless Type alphabet
3. Sponge the letters with Champagne Mist shimmer paint.
We spend the day with my sister and her family, (we have a very small family) so we recruit in-laws, friends and cousins of cousins to make our family on Christmas day. It was one of those days where we caught up in the morning with my brother, moved on for lunch and getting to spend time with my nephew and his girlfriend, (he does a great fresh trout cream dip by the way).  Masses of prawns and oysters (a la brother in law) and then its hot turkey (my contribution) salads and baked vegies. How we eat desert is always a mystery to me, but we do - Pavlova, cream and  fruit - weve passed on the Christmas pudding these days - there really is a limit.
Page 2 of my Christmas day ...

 We go for an afternoon walk down to the nearest water's edge. Jess paddles, plays in the park and adults snooze and talk in the shade. It was a warm day but does that deter me from stamping snow flakes?
I think it is my sense of humour ... when its hot, do snow flakes ... and reindeers -

 Dasher graces the page with his Rhinestone jewel necklace and antlers.
I think the Soft Suede, White and Sahara Sand with gold shimmer is my favourite combination this Christmas.

Here 's a close up of the distressed flowers that I created for the centres of my snow flakes.

 The background paper is the flocked Christmas Cocoa paper and the flowers are 5 of the XL scallop circles punched from patterns from the same pack, sponged in Champagne shimmer paint. A vintage brad for the centre anchors it to the page.