PaperArtsy Topic 5 : Nautical Colours

A wet bank holiday Friday is a good excuse to play in my craft room and catch up with projects I want to do.
The theme for the PaperArtsy Challenge Topic 5 is Nautical Colours and the inspiration on their blog is particularly good again. I was away last weekend so had thinking time but no craft stash with me to start work on this one but I did have several ideas. Strangely, I did not use any of those ideas. I had planned on making a tag but I have ended up with a card using my Scrapcosy sea life stamps from PaperArtsy (ESC10 and ESC12).

I started by making a Gelli print background using Adirondak dye ink : Pool, Denim and Stonewash applied with a brayer. Then I stamped one of the Scrapcosy images in red geranium archival ink and took the print. I added some water with my fingers to bleach out some of the dye ink to make bubbles which were later doodled with a white pen.

The seahorse and shell were stamped and embossed with white Wow embossing powder and painted with a little bit of gold Fresco paint. To finish it off, I used a Woodware stencil around the edges to add some gold embossing powder (metallic brass sparkle by Wow) and stamped and embossed some words. A small gem was added for the seahorse's eye.
All mounted on red and blue cardstock and a 7" by 7" white card.

Here is a close up of the seahorse :

These are such detailed stamps that I thought the embossing might lose that detail but not so, it looks quite nice in natural light as it is shiny.

Happy Easter everybody x

A Postcard Adventure

The challenge on the Country View Crafts Challenge blog for March is Postcards (6x4).
A postcard should have a message so I thought my message would be one of the quotes from the new Tim Holtz Theories stamp set that I purchased recently :
"Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures". I like that quote a lot.

Here is my entry for the March challenge:

I used Distress oxides for the background : Vintage Photo, Fossilised Amber and Candied Apple.
Stamps used :
Tim Holtz : Theories CMS329 and Ornate Trims CMS326.
White dots added with a white gel pen.

I really like the sketchy, grungy silhouettes on the Theories set as well as the quotes and the Ornate Trims set is going to be ever so useful I think.
I am off to play some more.

Have a good week everybody x

Friends in the Garden

PaperArtsy Challenge Blog Topic 4 : Whimsical.

I like the definitions of whimsical, a couple of the dictionary definitions popped out : "playful" and "odd" as well as optimism, hope and innocence. All good words that put you in a happy place.

For this challenge I used a mixture of Jofy and Kay Carley stamps on the same panel which I mounted on a card.

I started with a painted background (Captain Peacock) and stencilled circles in Teresa Green. 

Then stamped Kay's flowers and grasses and added some coloured details using white and dark pink Graphik paint pens. The faces are coloured with Promarks, cut out and added to the flowers. I finished it off with a few small flowers and a butterfly.

Ingredients :

PaperArtsy Eclectica EKC02 by Kay Carley

PaperArtsy Jofy 42

Fresco Paints from FFPA1 Limited Edition : Captain Peacock, Teresa Green and Granny Smith.

I have been having a think about what to do for this challenge all week and the finished result above is miles away from my original idea. Maybe I'll do another one.

I hope you like my little friends in the garden.

Happy Weekend everyone. x

Watercolours

We are not under the sea this week although I was tempted to enter the PaperArtsy challenge with yet another nautical project. The theme for Topic 3 is watercolours.
I had great fun watching YouTube videos so decided to have a go at using watercolour paints as I have a small travel sized tin of them.

I started off playing with a couple of techniques just to experiment.

I rather liked the cling film effect. I've used that in the past with acrylic paint but never watercolours, interesting texture, I like it.

So using a piece of watercolour card I taped it to a craft mat and applied some paint. Then scrunched up some cling film and laid it on top.

I wasn't sure how long to leave it but walked away for a bit, removed the cling film and dried it off with a heat gun. I was quite pleased with that background.

I decided it needed something bold for the focal image so I used a stencil with glitter paste. The stencil is PaperArtsy PS090 by Sara Naumann.

The sentiment is from PA Eclectica ELB29 by Lin Brown which I thought fit with the little birds sitting on the wire.

OK, that's it for today, I'm off to enter this one into the challenge and see what others have done.

Bye x

The Sea .... Again

This afternoon's playtime began with some Gelli prints. I wanted to make some backgrounds for my fish and sea creatures. I didn't really know where I was going with this when I started but I have ended up with three postcards.

I used Distress Ink applied to the gelli plate with a brayer, no oxides this time as I wanted a translucent look.
Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon, Milled Lavender and Dusty Concorde.
Then I stamped the seaweed and fish from PaperArtsy Eclectica ESC10 using Blue Violet and Cornflower Blue archival ink and took a print.
One of the panels has a moon. OK, no moon under the sea but we will call it a reflection I think.

Then I used black Versafine ink to stamp sea creatures and shells on the panels. I used some scrap card to stamp the words and coloured the letters with Distress markers, cut them out and stuck them on. Then I trimmed the panels and added some Dusty Concorde ink around the edges to finish them off.

Here are the three postcards.

I don't think I will ever tire of playing with my PA Scrapcosy sea themed stamps. 

PaperArtsy 2018 Topic 2 : New Seth Apter Fresco Paint

I am still feeling chuffed to bits after my win for Topic 1, the apron arrived and it is fabulous. I encourage you all to join in for a chance to win one.

Now for Topic 2, I don't have any of the new Seth Apter Fresco Paint, but I will get some, oh yes, aren't they lovely. Fortunately for the PaperArtsy Topic 2 Challenge we can use any Fresco paint and I have quite a selection now. I used some of my older ones for this month's offering which is a tag.

Fresco Paint applied to the background using a brayer and an old credit card : Irish Cream, Cinnamon and Chalk.
The door is from PA Hot Picks HP1601EZ, stamped in black archival ink and painted with Irish Cream, Cinnamon and Brown Shed.
The numbers, small doors and words are from HP1605EZ.

Always good fun using paint and stamps, I really enjoyed doing this month's challenge.

Victory

When I saw the new PapaerArtsy releases by Scrapcosy I knew I had to order the ship stamp plate, that ship reminds me of HMS Victory and maybe it is an image of the Victory. 

I played with a few techniques on these two cards and ended up with two similar but different results, one stormy vintage style and the other on a brighter day.

I tried out stencil bumping for the lettering but I used vintage photo distress oxide ink rather than archival ink, the result was quite weird but pleasing. The texture paste I used (Deco Art texture paste) reacted with the distress ink and the colour was absorbed into the paste. I quite like it. Here's a close up. It looks almost like wax in daylight.

The backgrounds for both panels which I have mounted onto cards are a mix of blues from the PaperArtsy Fresco range : Ice Blue, China Blue and Midnight. There is much more Midnight on the stormy version which is also edged with vintage photo distress oxide ink.

I found an old pot of Pinflair glitter paste in copper which I used for the screw heads. I am quite pleased with the rusty look of those.

The ship needed to be painted in HMS Victory colours so I used Nougat for the sails and Pumpkin Soup for the body of the ship. Here is photo of the Victory taken when I visited the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in 2015.

Here is the brighter version of my ship panel;

The images are stamped in black versafine this time. To get the detail of the sails and rigging I used my Tim Holtz stamp platform. I stamped the ship once, then painted the sails and body of the ship then stamped over it again so that the details can be seen. This is an easy way to paint these vintage images, especially when using opaque paints.

A close up;

I have a few more ideas for this stamp set but I have run out of weekend again! Hopefully I will get some more playtime next weekend.

Stamps used : PaperArtsy Eclectica by Scrapcosy ESC11

Stencil : PS094