Paper Smooches Chubby Chums: Watercolor with Perfect Pearls

Hello and happy Sunday!  I have been a bit out of the game for the past week or so.  It's crazy how quickly days will pass by when life just gets going!  But I found a little time to try out my brand new Paper Smooches Chubby Chums stamp set so I wanted to share what I created! 

I just love these little characters in this set and I've had my eye on Paper Smooches products for awhile so when the hubby asked if I needed anything from Amazon I seized the opportunity and threw these little guys in the cart!  I love the simplicity of the design - the larger images allow for a variety of coloring techniques without overly complicated shading.  They are also nice and easy to fussy cut!  

I wanted to try using my Perfect Pearls to create a shimmery watercolor effect. I've seen this done in multiple videos on YouTube and it adds a really pretty extra something to your projects.  I started by stamping each of the Chubby Chums on the smooth side of some watercolor paper in VersaMark ink and heat embossing them in black. Next, I spritzed some water on my We R Memory Keepers glass cutting mat.  Using the brush that came with them, I dusted a small amount of Perfect Pearl (just the plain white) next to the water I had applied to my mat.  I made sure not to actually touch the water with my brush to keep it nice and fluffy.  You don't need much Perfect Pearl to achieve a beautiful shimmer.  With my watercolor brush, I swirled the water onto the Perfect Pearls and created a shiny, shimmery pool to use for my watercoloring.

 

I opted for the ink smoosh technique, applying my Distress Ink pads directly to my glass cutting mat and then picking up some shimmery water and adding it to the ink to create the watercolor and color in my images.  I cleaned my brush before going back to my Perfect Pearls pool so that it stayed clear and could be used with every different color.  Once I had colored all my Chums I hit them with my heat tool to be sure they were dry, fussy cut them out, and colored the edges black with my Black Soot Distress Marker.

To create my background I first cut a panel down to 3.5"x5.5" to allow for some of my card base to show on the top and bottom.  I heat embossed the sentiment from the Lawn Fawn Scripty Sayings stamp set in black to match the Chubby Chums.  I then used Pumice Stone Distress Ink to watercolor a shadow to ground my images.  Now comes the really fun part!  I used several different colors of Distress Ink and, using my watercolor paint brush, flicked drops of color all over my panel.  I kept repeating this until I liked the way it looked.

I mounted all of my Chums using foam tape to add dimension.  The Chums in the back have one layer of foam tape while the Chums in the front are really dimensional with two layers of foam tape.  The Perfect Pearls add just the right amount of shimmery fun to these little guys!  To finish off the card I added Ranger Glossy Accents to the eyes of all the Chums.

I have entered this card in the Paper Smooches Sparks Anything Goes Challenge, as well as the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Make Your Own Background.  I hope you enjoyed my project for today!  Please let me know if this post was helpful or inspirational, I love hearing from you!  Have a happy weekend!