OLW43 - Shimmer....not Glitter or Bling

This week the challenge for the One Layer Wednesday at Simplicity is to use SHIMMER, but NOT glitter or bling on your card. There are lots of ways to add shimmer: Sakura Stardust pens, Twinkling H2Os, pigment powders, Brilliance iridescent inks, eye shadow, shimmery cardstock, or shimmery ribbon.

You know, sometimes I read the challenge rules and an idea comes to me immediately...unfortunately this was NOT one of those times!  I think I try to make it too difficult.  Or maybe my mojo has taken a hike.  Anyway, this is what I finally came up with this week.

The stamp I used is from Flourishes - Gerber Daisies .  I stamped it twice on the card leaving a nice place to put the sentiment.  We have lots of birthdays in our family this month, so I'm trying to get a head start on the cards.  I colored the center of the daisies with Prisma pencils, then blended them a bit with some OMS. This is a new technique for me, and I'm slowly getting the hang of it.  I didn't do a perfect job, but I'm getting there.  Then I colored the stems with Copics.  The petals of the daisies are painted with PearlEx and my water brush.  I couldn't seem to get a good photo of it so that the glimmer would show up, but here's a close up that maybe shows it a little.

Not sure how I feel about the way this turned out, but maybe it'll grow on me! LOL!

I also finished another layout this week that I thought I'd share.  I used the new Hopscotch Line from Basic Grey for this layout of my mother.  The photo was taken in September 2008 when she was 83 years old.

The lamppost was cut with the Silhouette and highlighted with a gold Prisma pencil. I cut the street light with the Silhouette and highlighted with a gold pencil (Prisma colors). I used a brown mat to frame the photo, then used the reverse side to make the squares under it. I round the corners of all the squares and inked them. I did a little faux stitching in the upper left corner of the solid blue background and added three teal bling. The pink scalloped border was punched with an EK Success punch, then topped with a strip of blue that I also "stitched" on. I added a 3-D paint dots to the scalloped edge. The flowers on the bottom left are a stamp from Flourishes, that I stamped in brown then colored with my Prisma pencils. I tried a new technique (new to me) to shade the flowers using odorless mineral spirits to blend the Prisma pencils. I love the way it turned out!. THEN...I hand cut that bunch of flowers...stamping an additional image and cutting just a few of the flowers to pop dot over the original. Let me tell you...that hand cutting was tedious! Title letters are also from the Hopscotch collection. Journaling strips were printed on the same blue as the large mat and read:

We went up to visit your Grandma in September 2008. While we were there, Betty, Sarah, and I decided to take your Grandma down to Barnesville, Georgia for a little photo shoot. We all tried to dress in matching colors and off we went. Grandma was so much fun to watch. She seemed to really enjoy herself. She even posed for us. At one point during all the photo taking, she commented that she had never had a photo shoot before. What a great time we had!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Until next time....

Hugs!