Rubber Rubber Everywhere

Today Mark got busy with pressing new stamps. It's so exciting when the first new stamps come out of the press, get trimmed, put on EZ mount, and you can stamp them out for the first time....


When Jo and Lynne arrived around 10am for a day of ArtsyCrafts prep and practise, Jo was convinced I had been on the turps most of the morning already. No I haven't lost the plot and of course I wasn't drunk...high on rubber funes??? LOL. 

Nope. Just very, very excited. I can't help it...I get so buzzy when we give birth to new rubber, and just like new babies, the little details on these stamps had me cooing and gooing. Jo thought I was completely potty. "skippy" I think was the term she used! LOL

A few of the index sheets waiting to partner up with the new rubber.

Piles of Nut and Meg stamps.

Ohhh these look new!!

And these are a couple of new minis which will be released at the Artisan show this weekend!!

These are also 2 more new minis, and if you want these you need to subscribe to Craft Stamper magazine in the month of November. Go to pages 40 & 41 in the November issue of Craft Stamper on sale this week. Subscribe and you will get 4 PaperArtsy minis worth 18.40GBP (INCLUDING ARCHIE HIMSELF!!) as a subscription gift. 

Here are the 4 minis up close.

Squiggly Mini 29

Squiggly Mini 30

Ink & The Dog: Mini 59

Ink & The Dog: Mini 60

Tomorrow I will reveal Ding and Dong. 

They are very very very very very cool.

Did I tell you how excited I am????

Ink, Paint, Clocks and Metal

Well I did promise more photos from the weekend, and so here they are. 

The background is from the Rum and Raisin papers. Ruler stamped on the stripes at the top and bottom, quote stamped in the middle. Clocks stamped on pearl metal, sprayed with blue glimmer.

Background  is stamped onto red paper in black ink. Copper clock puffed some sections and used a wheel on the face. 

Papers again with the elf.

Distress Inks sprayed with glimmer. copper and pearl clocks to accent. A touch of bling.

Viva terra and ferro for texture over-painted with viva precious metal colour paints. Copper accent clocks. 

Close up of ferro on chipboard and painted with precious metal colours.

Like how the pearl clock looks with walnut gold glimmer on top.

The clocks are really fun to emboss with the metal working tools to puff out ridges in the designs.

Love how this mini castle looks so different with a bit of texture added to the metal.

New stamps. 

This looks so oldy worldy. Ferro and terra texture. Painted black. Viva precious metal paints on top. Copper embossed metal accents. 

Distress ink background with viva at the edges. Clock on pearl metal.

Puffy clocks are my fave.

Here's a fun thing. Blue and brown distress inks. Walnut gold and patina glimmer (generous), then a generous dose of marshmellow glimmer. Dry and the whole base collour becomes paler and sparkly. Use a mask to create another level of interest. Pearl clocks.

Last one, more marshmellow on this too, but you can't see the sparkle that much in this light.

5 sleeps till Artisan. 

We have some surprises for you...more NEW stamps to be released at the show.....

all will be revealed soon!!!

Ally Pally Day 2

The day started with more Archies flying the coop, yes they all found lovely Sunday homes to go to. I'm so pleased. The clock stamps went down a storm, and we demoed our socks off for another day.

I didn't take photos of my samples yet, but I will tomorrow when i dig them out of the bag, so here's a bit of what Lin did today.  She was using metal onto the mould, then putting it on the mini arch, adding terra and ferro, then black paint, viva paints, glimmer...and that's just the background! LOL Onto that she put metal (new clocks of course, and a quote and flower to embellish. Really lovely little project, and so much fun! Everybody loved this technique so much. Very clever.

Did you see this on her blog, its superb! 3 arches decorated with that technique - she has decorated with squiggly minis, fleur de lys and nibs from the crowns and castles series.

This is how the show looked during the day. Everyone was saying how busy it was for a Sunday, and we found on the stand we were steady all day long with people interested in all the lovely products Lin had on the stand.

At lunch I hooked up with Lynne Howe (left) and Jo Firth-Young (right) who our very able helpers at ArtsyCrafts, and in the middle is Jo's friend Rachel. 

Here is another of Lin's samples. Same as before but with a die cut/ embossed/ alcohol inked metal dragonfly, and the embeliishment in the centre is UTEE poured onto a metal Xtra stamp which is painted with viva paints.

The marshmellow glimmer mist was a hit, and we found more bottles to re-stock with today! That stuff is wicked! Opaque white with sparkle, and it makes a strong distress background soft and pale to stamp beautiful images onto. I love it a LOT and I'll put up pics tomorrow!

So here is the Great Hall, Alexandra Palace about an hour after the shoppers have left. Nearly all packed up.

And this always amazes me. before and after the show, we drive the vehicles into the hall behind the doors at the back of the great hall. In here there is a massive pipe organ at one end....

and at the other a huge stained glass window. 

Here's a zoom in of the window. How cool. 

The building looks like this from the outside. Atop a sunny hill looking across London.

The next Ally pally is April 10 / 11 next year. Hope you can make it! People come from all over. There were people from Germany, Iceland and France there today, so no excuses that its too far to come!!! LOL

Have a great week

Only 6 sleeps until Artisan Show!!! Yikes

Ally Pally Day 1

Well finally it arrived. Ally Pally. YAY

The "Marks" were ready. Lin's Mark on the left, and my Mark on the right.

Twins?? - Just like Lin and I have interests in common, the Mark's both enjoy photography and are pretty good at building stuff, and computesr, so they happily chatted all day when they could!. I think they quite enjoyed themselves.

The stand was ready

Lin (left) and Leandra (right) were ready

The aisles were empty waiting for people to come in.

And the Archies and B-Line inchies were waiting for new homes.

Some of the PaperArtsy Squiggly Ink stamps.

Demo tables before they got messy!

Sheila was the first person to nab an Archie! She was thrilled! As were all the Archie owners!

I didn't get to photograph you all, but these people were more than happy to let me get clicky!

Karen and Michele

Helen and Kay

Carol and Angela

All got Archies!

Onto the demos. 

Viva ferro with pink and purple paints on top...yes !!! Pink AND purple...me!! With a touch of gold! Quite like it actually! Tomorrow Lin get to use the purples and pinks all day!!!

Here is one of the new fob watches with a ridge puffed out to give some texture.

The background is distress inks in Aged Mahogany and Vintage Photo, sprayed with scarlet and tattered leather glimmers, with some marshmellow. The marshmellow Glimmer Mist is opaque with a very sparkly sparkle, almost holographic!, it tones down the darkness of the other dark shades making it easier to stamp on top. We love it!

Here is a similar thing, this time the quote was embossed with clear EP, the clock is on pearl metal and sprayed with walnut gold and creme de cocoa. The other little copper bits are parts of one of the larger grid stamps chopped up and added as bellies.

A UTEE'd clock, stamped flowers and copper clock embellishments.

Another distress ink background with copper clock embellishments.

Another distress ink BG with a stencil accent, stamped and embellished with pearl metal. The wings and small circle on the clock are all puffed out.

A close up of the clock.

Christmas Elf stamped on Rum and Raisin papers. Glossy accent highlights.

Sticky backed canvas on an arch, terra at the edges with Viva paints, and copper clock and accents.

Check out Lin's blog for more of what she did today too!

And we hope to see more of your for the Sunday Archie's on offer.

Ally Pally Tomorrow! We've got another surprise!! Shhhh

Yes just one more sleep.....and if you have been following Lin's blog as well as mine, then you will have an idea of how excited we BOTH are. 

Today we have been pressing NEW RUBBER!!!!

Yes on top of all the exciting news about Archies, we also have some new stamps to show you releasing this weekend. A launch of 6 new stamps for the Ink and the Dog collection. Yes you have been asking for it, and so Mark and I sat down and came up with these little babies. 

Called CLOCKS, I know you are going to think of a cazillion things to do with them. We have been pressing flat out all afternoon, and so Lin and I shall be having first-play honours this weekend. 

So here they are, brand new hot rubber....

Clocks Plate 1 (C1)

Clocks Plate 2 (C2)

Clocks Plate 3 (C3)

Clocks Plate 4 (c4)

Clocks Plate 5 (C5)

Clocks Plate 6 (C6)

So what do you think??? I adore them and welcome them into the PaperArtsy family with great buzzing and fuzzing excitement. We were inspired by the whole steampunk thing, and so this was the initial response, however we have more to add to this..so keep watching!

Come by and say 'hi' this weekend if you're at Ally Pally, and you could have an Archie AND Clocks. VERY COOL!

Archie - the full monty

So what's on the back?

Did you guess right?

Well I'm sure you've now got at least one idea of what you could do with an Archie in your house, and I bet you don't have another stamp in your collection mounted quite like him!

Here's his buddies!

And here is how the whole Archie looks...dangly bits included! In green

Or maybe you prefer red?

Each Archie is slightly different?

And of course the stamp is on the back...and that's a good thing because the Mr Archie stamp won't be available online until December...unless you take out a subscription with Craft Stamper in the November or December Issues... on one of those issues Archie will be one of the free PaperArtsy gifts you get when you subscribe!

So how do you get an Archie before then?

The only way is this weekend at Ally Pally!

Come onto the LB Crafts booth at Ally Pally, and spend £25.00 on PaperArtsy stamps, and you will get an Archie as a free gift! But only while gift-stock lasts! So to be guaranteed, you need to make sure you come by the stand early...both days!

What Leandra Did Next...Thursday edition....

Only 2 sleeps to go!!! That must mean I only have 1 more post left after this to show you Archie's final evolution.

Well today he gets the metal treatment by the looks of him. Preening and polishing himself ready for showing off good and proper at the show this weekend!

Here he gets the outline treatment with a fine texture wheel.

Makes him pop!

And here he is textured with a fine dot wheel to add soft texture.

So what do we do with him next??? 

Tape Sandwich.

Cut him out and stick him onto the prepared background. 

Add him to the growing stack of Archies maybe?? 

Isn't it cute how each one is a little different.

Tomorrow I'll show you what's on the back! Bet you can't guess!! I really don't think you can..but you could try....maybe I can find a spare Archie for those peeps who can't make it to Ally Pally to raffle off.....there's a nice idea. I'll ask Lin if I'm allowed :-)

What Leandra Did Next...Wednesday edition....

You might be the lucky owner of one of these cuties-in-the-making if you can make it to Ally Pally this weekend in London.

Although you still don't know what the whole thing looks like as this is still a work in progress... I'm such a tease...but it's so much fun.....

Yikes where did that little guy come from?

Red ones, green ones and blue ones! nice

Lin calls him Archie, I don't really know why.... but I do like his head feathers.....

Oohh look.....

Lots of Archies waiting for new homes.....

All stacked up on their cute little colourful backgrounds.

Would you like one???

you'll have to go to the LB Crafts Stand on Saturday and Sunday at Ally Pally to find out how to get your own Archie...

or keep following the blog this week.

What Leandra Did Next...Tuesday edition....

Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace, London) is one of my fave shows to go to. It's a pure stamping and scrapping show, and it's easy to demo because the people who come seem to know what they like and what they want, and they ask zillions of good questions, so the time flies, and we catch up with lots of familiar faces. I'll be demoing for Lin on her LB Crafts stand, so if you want a treat, you need to go straight there first.....you'll know why over the next few days..for now I'm schtummm

.....but I can reveal a tad more about the goodies up for grabs....

Like I said yesterday. I am making treats for some lucky people who come to the show...and all will be revealed about how you can get your hands on one of these babies...but first I'll show you what Leandra did next!

 Looks like a bit of painting ...love that olive paint

Glue onto paper...are they those new Rum and Raisin papers ???....

versatile for not just Xmas....  

spots and stripes work all times/ places

Cutting.....

 

Sanding the edges

 

ohhhh nice stamp......

a girl can't have too many flourishes!

check back tomorrow for more of...

'what Leandra did next....'

I'm making something....

But I can only show you a little each day! And this is today's sneak peek.

You could qualify to get one of my treats if you come to Ally Pally this weekend....

Another taster tomorrow....hmmmm

have a great week.....

Leandra

Metal Xtra Blog Winners

This was the competition
Mini Competition: Name any 2 Metal Xtra stamps these samples come from. We need the correct codes please.  Leave your answer in the comments and we'll draw 2 names (who give correct answers) to each win 2 unmounted metal Xtra stamps so you too can have a go at this technique! Offer ends midnight GMT 15 Sept!

Winner 1 is:
Gillian McMurray said...I think you have used Geometric 3 (product code: MXGC3) and Geometric 1 (product code: MXGC1) for the samples. They are all lovely. Looks like you all had a great time

Winner 2 is:
Artyjen said...What a lot of lovely things...thanks for the chance to win....my guess is Geometric 1 code MXGC1 and Geometric 5 code MXGC5

Well done guys!! Please email your snail addys to Leandra at sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll post out your prizes

Winners from Days 11 &12

Winners from Days 11 & 12

Here we are the last winners of this blog feature.

.....so who has the randomiser picked out today???? Fingers Crossed .....and the winners are.....


Winner of Day 11 ( who will receive Nut and Meg plates 5, Nut and Meg Plate 6. All the stamps will come on EZ Mount worth £18.80 is: Linda Elbourne


Linda Elbourne said...

Fabulous projects ... I have n't won yet and I have been playing every day ... so this could be my day ... when you send me the stamps ... when I have won ... could you also pop Jo's fairy note pad in as a surprise too :0)
Thanks everso *LOL*

(Hey Linda, how did you know???...but now you can make your own fairy notebook! So guess I'll keep Jo's here)

 

Winner of Day 12 (who will receive Nut and Meg Plates 7 & Nut and Meg 8 on EZ mount, AND a pack of Rum and Raisin Papers paper. All the stamps will come on EZ Mount worth £23.40. ) is Sarnj

Sarnj said...

Such gorgeous projects - I am so spoilt for choice. Thanks so much for all the inspiration - wishing it wouldn't end yet.

 

A big congratulations to you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail tomorrow!

Day 12: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 12: Featuring Jacqui Chimes 

Using Nut and Meg Plates 7 and 8

Here we are on the last day of this Christmas Feature. the Design Team has produced a huge variety of projects, cards and creative ideas which have been a fantastic inspiration to us all. I can't thank them enough for sharing with us all, they have been great to work with for this feature which has made the editorial work I needed to do quite exciting as all the different projects arrived in via mail and email.  

 I hope you will find this a great resource for your own Christmas Preparation this year, and that you will continue to spread the word and share with your friends the ideas that have been presented here.

Today we have some lovely cards from Jacqui Chimes using these 2 sets of images. A few of these use Egg and Nog which she made for us some time ago, and this is the perfect time to feature them. Some other projects also use Nut and Meg, and all are beautifully styled, and easy to make. Through this she also links to a few beautiful online tutorials from other blogs whihc I know I'll be using for future projects! Thanks for you time and expertise Jacqui. You can see more of Jacqui here at her blog.

Moggie Celebrates

by Jacqui Chimes

• Stamp cat on white card and again on red and green card. 

• Use Nestibilities die to cut circle around cat and emboss, and then sponge lightly while still in die with Aged Mahogany’ distress ink. Mount onto black circle. 

• Cut hat from red card and scarf from green card and glue in place. Decorate hat with ‘jewel’ and Stickles glitter.

• Cut a rectangle of patterned paper (Basic Grey Wassail) and mount on to slightly larger back card. 

• Cut rectangle of white card and stamp ‘words’ from Nut & Meg 8 three times. Trim closely and mount onto slightly larger black card. 

• Stamp ‘Christmas Cheer’ from Nut and Meg 3 onto white scrap, sponge edges and mount onto slightly larger black card. 

• Layer as shown onto red and black card using ‘pop-dots’ for cat and Christmas Cheer. Stamp ‘Merry Christmas’ from Egg and Nog 3 onto white square and use to decorate inside of card.

Santa in PJ's?

• Santa (SIEN9) is stamped and embossed twice once on plain white and once on patterned paper. 

• Cut out his hat coat, gloves and trousers from the patterned paper and layered them on top of the white. Boots are coloured in and background is swirls cuttlebug folder.

Goodwill

• The 3 Trees (SIEN1) are stamped with black Brilliance, clear embossed and cut out from 3 different papers.

• Middle tree is embellished with star brad. 

• Word is also embossed and little tree coloured. 

• The strip is finished with a Fiskars border punch.

Three trees

Basic Grey Wassail again this time with some white card that has been Cuttlebugged - Snowflakes design.Trees are SIEN1.

Poinsettia

• Uses unknown (very old) paper, swiss dots cuttlebug embosing folder and flower stamps (SIEN 2 and SIEN4) layered up with black brad. 

• Flowers are embossed before they are cut out. Words are also embossed.

Rose Box

• Mini Box Tutorial can be found here on how to construct the actual box. I used 2 different shades of card rather than patterned paper. For box sides cut lighter card into rectangles a little smaller than the box sides. 

• Stamp ‘snowflake’ from Nut & Meg 8 in centre using Aged Mahogany distress ink and glue to panels onto the box side. Decorate with ‘jewel’ as shown. 

• Decorate the lid using square and scalloped square cut using Nestibilities and decorate with ‘roses’. 

• Roses are made by stamping large stitched ‘flower’ from Egg & Nog 10 three times for each flower onto patterned paper (or colour your own), cutting out and following instructions from this tutorial When complete glue to lid. I used Glossy Accents and decorated the corners of scalloped square with ‘jewels’.

Elf Gift Card Holder

Construct gift card holder using template found here (instructions are not in English but it’s easy to ‘work out’). I used light green card and a darker green to edge inside pockets, to border patterned paper on front and for band and scalloped circle.

• Use Basic Grey Wassail paper to decorate front and insides as shown (I sponged the edges with Black Soot distress ink. 

• Stamp and emboss ‘Elf’ from Nut and Meg 7 three times onto white card. Colour with metallic gel pens and decorate with ‘Stickles’. Cut out 2 closely and glue to card as shown. 

• Stamp and emboss ‘Santa’s Little Helpers’ once, ‘Wanted’ once, ‘Elf's feet’ once and ‘Elves are in the House’ three times onto white card. Outline words with marker pen to match the ‘Wanted’ border and then cut out and glue to card as shown.  
  

• Decorate card with ‘Spiral Circle’ stamp from Nut & Meg 7 and ‘Christmas Cheer’ from Nut & Meg 3 as shown. 

• Use Nestibilities circle and scalloped circle for third elf and cut two strips of card (one slightly wider than the other) to go around gift card. Fold around and glue together at back (make sure it is not too tight). Glue ‘Elf’ circle to front and slip over holder to complete.

Well that was another superb line up for today and a huge thanks to Jacqui, and of course the rest of the Design Team who also contributed to this feature on previous days.

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: You know the deal, to be in for a chance to win Nut and Meg Plates 7 & Nut and Meg 8 on EZ mount, AND a pack of Rum and Raisin Papers, then leave a comment and we'll get the randomiser to pick a winner.This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 15 September 2009, and is open to all players worldwide.

NB. Please check back on the 'Winner' posts, as we have a couple of prizes as yet unclaimed, and it might be you!!!

What a wonderful weekend!

It's only just over an hour for me to get the the Craft Barn, so its quite a nice trip (as long as the Dartford Crossing is clear) . I really enjoy these events, it's a real joy to demo. Plus, we each get a huge trestle table to spread out on, so of course I can demo about 20 different things instead of 3...a bit of a treat I must say.

Now that I have my snazzy camera, I can show you the sorts of things I was demoing. These are ideas that are not just mine, some are from Lin Brown, some Suze Weinburg, some are mine, and then there are twists on all of those ideas as they evolve.  Some of these techniques Lin and I developed specifically for Artsy Crafts retreats. 

You often feel like you are chasing your tail in a demo doing the same thing over, but it seems from the pics below, I jump from one thing to the next depending on what people ask for.

I have given Sandy some clearer instructions for a few of these ideas for her to blog proejcts over at the Craft Barn. So be patient and you'll get a more detailed breakdown with some new samples that I left with her via their blog.

On the first day I managed to get over to the other hall for a quick look while I took a break, but it was hard to get any pictures as everyone was so busy. I nabbed Sue and Isa while there was a gap in the crowds.

Here is Isabelle Norris who was demoing clay beads - marbled, using clay from Viva Decor. Never got to see how she was doing it but she was using those roller things which make the shape consistent each time.

Sue Roddis was doing a technique with alcohol inks over white pigment ink. She has a cool hanging tree with the samples  - looked lovely! She was using Katzelcraft stamps. And she had her scrummy new book on display.

And I met Jane Bentley (Colour my World) for the first time who has many plasma templates which you can trace around onto card or paper, and make up the samples like these shown. She is the queen of cutting out!

I didn't get an opportunity to take more piccies of the other demonstrators, but they were all doing great stuff. 

Christine next to me was doing amazing watercolours with her stuning designs and distress inks, so beautiful. Sandra showed her Kadoodle designs, Jane Bentley (as above) Paula Pascual was there with her Craftwork Card ideas, and Jean and Malcolm from Crafty Individuals had a beautiful display too. Kaz and Lexie used pencils and copics respectively...and that was just our hall!!! 

There were another 8 or so demonstrators in the other hall, like Kay Carley, all the Craft barn "Carols"...does anyone know how many there are! I couldn't get close to "metal" Carol as she was so busy. Beatrice from Katzelcraft of course, plus Isa and Sue...oh I have probably forgotton someone or two, I only briefly stuck my head in the door for a few minutes.

This weekend for me it was time to show the new PaperArtsy Nut and Meg stamps and papers. The snowman and fairy seem very popular selections for people.

I also demoed lots of stamping ideas, here's a few pics.

On Saturday I did quite a lot with the melt pot. Like turning this metal embossed snowman into an UTEE charm or card motif.

 

So he would end up something like these

 

And then I used clay as a base instead of metal to get these guys.

We cooked the clay in an empty melt pot, and it only took a couple of minutes.

Suze Winburg's UTEE into Memory frames idea went down a storm. How easy is this?? We used the metal xtra stamps, put the memory frame on top of the rubber, and poured UTEE in the frame. Suze taught me this at SMAC earlier this year, and its so much fun, you can add colour with paints or glimmer mists, alcohol inks, glitter, and you can wear it either way around. 

Can you see how transparent this is??

 

Linda Brown demoed her take on this at Ally Pally last year which looks like this (below)...she also used the PaperArtsy Metal Xtra stamps, but obviously no frame to restrict the flow - nice for an embellishment. Here you can see Viva Decor Paint on top of these samples. 

Mini Competition: Name any 2 Metal Xtra stamps these samples come from. We need the correct codes please.  Leave your answer in the comments and we'll draw 2 names (who give correct answers) to each win 2 unmounted metal Xtra stamps so you too can have a go at this technique! Offer ends midnight GMT 15 Sept!

This is how you can use those UTEE bits (below). Lin used one as an embellishment and made this for me at Ally Pally (thanks to Lin Brown for this sample)

So on Sunday I did more stuff with the new Rum and Raisin Papers

And metal flowers make great embellishments for the papers!

  

These are Cuttlebug metal-canvas flowers. That's Claudine Hellmuth canvas painted with viva paints on the back, and stamped metal on the front, run through the bug and cut out.

We did tape-sandwich metal, stamped and outlined with the teflon tool, distressed with paint and or glimmer onto all the different colours of metal.

and embossed (puffed out) metal with stamped images made into motifs with the soft mat and  a paper stump, then refining on the acrylic mat. I love doing this...very relaxing, and you can distress with paint and glimmer too if you like.

And lots of people love the texture you get from Viva products using stamps and Precious Metal Colour Paints. These make great bases for metal embellishments like this

 

or maybe this

So I had a nice weekend how about you?

Tomorrow is the last day of the Christmas Blog...can you believe its nearly over??

Leandra

Day 11: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 11: Featuring Jo Capper-Sandon and Isabelle Norris

Using Nut and Meg Plates 5 and 6

Well I know many of you are great supporters of Jo and Isabelle. They are back the last time today with these 2 plates, and certainly, true to form, they have both put their own spin on the possibilities with a few little black images! How do they do it? Well who knows what goes on in their heads, but we are certainly the benefactors of their generosity in sharing their creative ideas. 

Jo creates a beautiful table setting, what a delight this would be to sit down to on Christmas day. Isabelle celebrates after Christmas Day with a page of memories to treasure in years to come.

Wonderful ideas here today, and there is no excuse not to do this for your own families this year...as you have plenty of time!!

The fairy stamp (SINM6) is an extremely popluar one, and another plate that will get used year round. Jo also used some of the elements from Nut and Meg plate 5 (left), and I love those little penguin styled birds! 

  

Fit for Royalty: Christmas Table Setting

by Jo Capper-Sandon

Napkin Ring
Tucked away in the back left of this photo.

• Cut a piece off the end of a kitchen roll tube.

• Cover it in green paper overlayed with a narrower silver piece of mirri (mirror) card.

• Stamp 'leaf' (petal taken from flower ,SIEN2), trim and add colour to indicate shadow. I used a cool grey copic marker.

• Stamp, cut out flower and cut in half. Colour and cover with irridescent stars.

• Finish with a button and rub-on stitches.

 Christmas Cracker

• Take a plain shop bought cracker or make your own.

• Stamp Poinsetta and daisy flowers (SIEN2) onto white card with black memento ink. Colour and cut in half.

• Place a blob of silicone under the daisy flower half on the straight edge and lay it ontop of the poinsetta half, at a wedge (45 degree) angle.

• Once dry glue the 3D halves onto the cracker.

• Stamp Love, Joy, Peace (SINM5) onto white card, colour border and trim. 

• Glue  onto the centre of the cracker.

• Add irridescent stars and buttons to finish.

Place Card

• Fold a piece of silver mirri (mirror) card.

• Stamp the fairy and the poinsettas onto white paper or thin card. Colour using Copics.

• Build a 3D skirt from the flowers as before. Cut off fairy legs (ouch) and glue the skirt onto the fairy top half.

• Print the name. Scribble a rough area of Copic marker. Cut out both leaving a white border, and glue the name onto the coloured panel. Mount onto the place card.

• Finish by adding rub-on stitches, button and irridescent stars (on wings and Copic panel)

 I bet you loved that project!! I did when the photos came in from Jo. Very cool, and so much fun too. You could adapt this to a little girl's birthday party too! Remember to post a comment to win some goodies including the stamps used to make this project.

Christmas Fairy Notes

by Jo Capper-Sandon

This one is pretty in pink! And if you want to make something a little differnt for a gift, then here it is!

• Stamp holly border around a plain white card square frame.
  

• Stamp and cut out fairy. Colour both.

• Cut out a rectangle of preprinted paper and cover note book. Using a matching Copic marker colour a square to act as the background for the fairy.

• Layer the fairy, the frame and the background in the position you like and glue together.

• Using 3D pads mount the framed fairy onto the note book.

• Stamp words and heart using Stazon onto the copper metal sheet. Outline the words with a teflon tool.
  

• Outline the hearts with a teflon tool, then flip over and puff out on the soft mat with a paper stump from the reverse to puff them out. Fill recess of hearts with glossy accents (to support the metal) and cover with black card. 

• Leave to dry overnight, then cut out. Glue the metal embellishments in place

• For the pen, randomly stamp 'fairy' word onto the same pre printed paper and cover the pen barrel with it. Glue in place to finish.

Thanks to Jo for those lovely items, you can see more of her work on her blog. Now we finish todays post with a Christmas Layout from Isabelle Norris, whose blog is here.

“Love joy peace”

by Isabelle Norris

• Paint a piece of white card with Viva Decor Precious Metal Colour Orange-Yellow. Once dry, Stamp the fairy (for her top which you will cut out) and the hearts (from SINM5) .

• Paint another piece of white card with Viva Decor Precious Metal Colour Gold. Once dry, stamp the fairy (this is for the skirt you will need to cut out).

• Stamp the fairy on a white piece of card and cut it out. Don’t worry about the stars at the bottom of the dress, just cut them off. Cut out the arms so you can lift them from the dress.

• Stamp the fairy on your scrapbook page (1). Glue the cut out fairy on the stamped one and colour it (except for the skirt and top) (2).The stars at the bottom of the dress which you did not cut, now appears as they would normally.

• Glue the skirt and top and add glitter glue to the wings for a very sparkling fairy (3)

• Flowers: Stamp the flowers from Egg and Nog 4 onto patterned paper. The top flower is embossed with the Cuttlebug. The raised lines are painted with Viva Decor Precious Metal paint (gold)

• Borders: top and bottom of the page, stamp the “holly and swirl” border from SINM6 and highlight with glitter glue.

• LOVE JOY PEACE from SINM5 was stamped and cut out and used as a title for the page.

Thanks again to Jo and Isabelle for today's lovely projects. We'll see you all tomorrow for the last of our 12 Days of Christmas Posts. Hasn't it gone fast!!



PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg plates 5, Nut and Meg Plate 6. All the stamps will come on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 14 September 2009, (lucky for someone)  and is open to all players worldwide.

Winners from Days 9 & 10

Well I was lucky enough to meet a couple of our blog winners and many of you who are following the blog at the Craft Barn this weekend. And it was nice that you got to see some of the samples that have been featured here in real life on my demo desk, so thanks for stopping by to say hi!

.....so who has the randomiser picked out today???? Fingers Crossed because there are many chances left to win.....and the winners are.....


Winner of Day 9 ( who will receive Nut and Meg Plates 1 and Nut and Meg Plate 8 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. is: Sian

Sian said...

Wow, the creations are amazing and Rudolph is adorable :) Sian

Winner of Day 10 (who will receive Nut and Meg plates 1, Nut and Meg Plate 2, and Nut and Meg Plate 3 PLUS a pack of Rum and Raisin  paper. All the stamps will come on EZ Mount worth £32.80. ) is Carol

 

Carol said...WOW

Jacqui has done such a varied and beutiful selecion of papercrafts gorgeous :)

I do love this plate :)

A big congratulations to you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail tomorrow!

Day 10: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 10: Featuring Jacqui Chimes 

Using Nut and Meg Plates 2 and 3

Jacqui got a brief into on Day 8. Even though Jacqui is kind of new to the DT, she is probably one of the members who I have known since way back before we started making stamps. In fact so long, that I think we first got to know each other form swapping art way way long ago. I remember we used to play in Altered Book Round Robins together a long time back and we had a few Yahoo groups in common.
 
Jacqui has quite a varied array of styles which you can see more clearly on her blog. Most of our Design Team came to us with an Ink & The Dog Style preference, but Jacqui is one of those who can comfortably do Ink and The Dog altered vintage, and she can also do traditional cards, or squiggly ones with Squiggly Ink. Multi talented! 

Jacqui came to a recent ArtsyCrafts event, so now she is adding more metal to her projects too. She is very shy about what she does but we think it's all totally gorgeous, perfectly formed, great use of pattern and colour, and has a wide appeal.... so please post lots of comments to encourage her and let her know how fab she is! Today she is doing lots of cards and tag using some new and other older Christmas stamps. It's all beautiful! Welcome Jacqui!

A Bag Full of Snowmen

by Jacqui Chimes

This project is ideal for a bag of chocolate money or similar small gift at Christmas. Its used the snowman from SINM2 
Template for bag is from Scor-Pal.

Cut out the template from green card and score as shown in the instructions.
 

Stamp front and back with ‘Holly Garland’ from SIEN3 and the sides with ‘Seasons Greetings’ from SIEN4 in green ink. Assemble bag as instructed.

Cut a strip of white paper, distress edges and run through Cuttlebug ‘dots’ folder, then stick to front of bag at base. 

Stamp and emboss in black ‘Snowman’ from Nut and Meg 2 on Basic Grey Wassail patterned paper and colour hat, gloves, nose, buttons and scarf with markers as shown.

Glue onto card, cut out and attach to bag with double sided tape.

Tie top with co-ordinating ribbon.

Mr Snowman Tag

by Jacqui Chimes

Colour tag with wrinkle free distress technique using Faded Jeans, Broken China and Dusty Concord distress inks. Ink edges with Walnut Stain distress ink. Stamp ‘Tree’ from Egg and Nog 1 three times using Faded Jeans distress ink. Stamp ‘Seasons Greetings’ from Egg and Nog 4 with black ink. 

Using Stazon black ink stamp the ‘Snowman’ (SINM2)onto pearl metal. Back the metal with Humungo double sided tape and card. {technique from Lin Brown, LB crafts, or watch Leandra demo the technique in a video here}


Use a Teflon pointed tool to outline the snowman. Colour sections with permanent markers as shown.

Cut out and mount onto tag. 

Add co-ordinating ribbons.

Merry Christmas Tag

by Jacqui Chimes

Cover a large tag with Basic Grey Wassail patterned paper. Stamp and emboss in black ‘Merry Christmas’ from Nut and Meg 2 on Basic Grey Wassail plain paper. Round corners and glue jewels with Glossy Accents. 

Stamp and emboss flowers in black from Egg and Nog 2 and SIEN10 on Basic Grey papers and cut out. Layer as shown and glue jewel to centre. Mount ‘Merry Christmas’ and flower using foam dots. Add co-ordinating ribbons.

Santa's Stocking

By Jacqui Chimes

Stamp words from Egg and Nog 9 randomly in Pesto Adirondack ink onto green card tag. Stamp and emboss in black ‘stocking’ from Nut and Meg 3 and ‘Presents’ from Nut and Meg 8 onto four different colours of card and once onto white card. 

Cut out carefully and paper piece coloured pieces together on top of white card. (NB you could achieve a similar look using markers). Glue presents along bottom of tag and mount stocking using. Add co-ordinating ribbon

Oh Christmas Tree!

by Jacqui Chimes

Stamp and emboss ‘tree and presents’ (SINM3) with black ink onto a rectangle of white card. Mount onto slightly larger black card. Stamp and emboss again in onto green card then stamp and emboss the ‘presents’ only onto five further coloured card scraps. Cut out carefully. 

Mount tree with foam dots over the one stamped on white and paper piece ‘presents’ as shown. Stamp and emboss star from Nut and Meg 3 onto yellow card and cut out. Stick to top of tree. Add sticky jewels to tree. 

Stamp and emboss part of words from Egg and Nog 1 onto white card and tiny tree onto yellow card. Cut out tiny tree and add as shown. 

Use Cuttlebug ‘swirls’ folder to emboss white card and layer onto slightly larger black card. Layer as shown onto white card.

Baubles Tag

by Jacqui Chimes

Stamp ‘holly garlands’ from Egg and Nog 3 and Egg and Nog 9 over cream tag using Archival black ink. Use second generation print so it is not too dark. 

Colour tag with Distress inks in Aged Mahogany and Pine Needles. Stamp and emboss in gold ‘Merry Christmas’ from Egg and Nog 3 at bottom of tag. Use 

UTEE technique (3 coats of UTEE, then press an inked stamp into the molten UTEE) to make a tile in gold and add Pearl-ex powders to add toning colours. 

Stamp ‘baubles’ from Nut and Meg 3 using black Brilliance ink into hot UTEE. Edge tile with black marker pen and edge tag with gold Krylon. 

Mount tag onto slightly larger black card and add co-ordinating ribbons.

Poinsettia Tag

by Jacqui Chimes

Cover tag with Basic Grey Wassail patterned paper. Cut a label shape as shown out of plain paper and create a mask for centre.
Stamp 'Holly Garland' from Egg and Nog 3 onto label in Pesto ink and colour berries red with marker. 
Stamp and emboss ‘Seasons Greetings’ from Egg and Nog 4 onto space created by mask. 
Machine stitch all edges with black thread. 

 Stamp and emboss flower from Egg and Nog 10 in black four times on co-ordinating papers, cut out and layer with red brads. Glue as shown using Glossy Accents. Cover back of tag with card to hide stitching and add co-ordinating ribbons. 


A huge thanks to Jacqui for all her great ideas. We will see more of her another day (yes there is still more to come). Tags like these are lovely for gifts for friends, the postman, or teachers at school. You can't have too many! 

These samples were made before the new Rum and Raisin papers from PaperArtsy were printed. It's nice if you can use a Christmas palette for your tags and cards, and Christmas papers make it so much faster, and you don't have to think about the co-ordination so hard either. There are 14 patterns to choose from in our Rum and Raisin pack! 

You can still create your own papers with Inks or paints, or you can stamp directly onto papers like Jacqui has done. This year I am going to buy a couple of bulk rolls of coloured paper and stamp it up in gold or silver and black ink to have matching paper for the presents. I love it when the bits under the tree all match.  I will add the occasional image stamped an embossed from a patterned paper too, and then use those same papers on the card or tag. All this Christmas stuff is getting me really keen to start playing with these stamps. I hope you are too!

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg plates 1, Nut and Meg Plate 2, and Nut and Meg Plate 3 PLUS a pack of Rum and Raisin  paper. All the stamps will come on EZ Mount worth £32.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 13 September 2009, (lucky for someone)  and is open to all players worldwide.

Day 9: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 9: Featuring Isabelle Norris using Nut and Meg Plate 1

Today we start  4 days seeing how the Design Team have used the Nut and Meg stamps in combination with other PaperArtsy Christmas stamps.

When I first met Isa she was a scrapper who loved inks and paints, but some of those products were new to her, and she was trying to work out the differences between and features of them all. I became her inky product-advisor as she was so eager to know about the differences between dye, pigment, distress, and so on. 
Isa was a sponge thirsting for information and we quickly became good friends as she put the finishing touches to her French book (about Distress Inks!). It wasn’t long before the tables were turned and she was teaching me new techniques and ideas she had discovered while experimenting. And boy does she do that. Her head is always spinning with new ideas, she has no fear to try anything! 

Since those early days, Isa became a regular teacher at the Craft Barn, and then a regular writer for Craft Stamper magazine. She is a prolific creator of stamping and scrapbooking projects, and does all this while coping with 3 children and a husband who travels a lot with work. Isabelle has now left England with her lovely family to settle in Canada, we all miss her a lot, but we are still only an email away.

These days She has become very well known internationally  in both stamping and Scrapping Circles. Isabelle is here in the UK this weekend to demo at the Craft Barn Extravaganza event - make sure you  drop by, the event has grown so large it now take up 2 halls, plus the shop! So there will be about 20 demonstrators showing you all their fantastic ideas and techniques. Leandra will be there too check out the details here.

Ferro Tree 

by Isabelle Norris 

In her signature Distress Ink style, Isa has sponged ink onto a background, and stamped with Linen and Peeled Paint Distress Inks. The words on the tree are from SINM8, and the green texture is from Ferro Green-Gold texture paste.

• Onto white card Stamp the words from SIEN8 a couple of times, then overstamp with the tree SIEN1. Also stamp some presents and Happy Holidays, and the star for the tree.

• Slap some ferro golden green onto card with a credit card, and then stamp into in with a damp stamp the tree (SIEN 1) . The damp will help the stamp release from the ferro. Let dry and then cut apart.

• Make a background from sponged peeled paint ink, overstamp with the snowflake SIEN 8.

• Arrange the tree pieces and the presents onto the card. Embellish with happy holidays and some small words such as 'XMAS' from SIEN6.

• Layer up to complimentary card stock.

A light up bear

by Isabelle Norris

• The main brown base page of this layout is stamped with the small flower from SIEN2 with brown StazOn.
  

• Stamp the middle cream strip in brown StazOn with “noel” (SINM6) and the little snowflake (SINM1)
  

• Stamp the biggest flower from SIEN2 on pearl metal using brown StazOn. Once dry, cut them out, mark the “veins” with an embossing tool and pinch the end of each petal.
  

• Stamp the smallest flower on the same paper as the page and cut them out. Emboss them with a Cuttlebug embossing folder (Victoria) and paint the raised pattern with Viva Décor Precious Metal gold.
  

• Stamp the tree on the lightest paper. Emboss it with the Victoria embossing folder, cut it out and paint as you did with the flowers.
• Add titles, journalled words etc to your layout with the photo, and arrange the flowers around the photo.
  

Large Wooden Peg

by Isabelle Norris

Preparation:
Cover peg with a thick coat of Viva Decor gold Croco paint and let it dry overnight.
The inside of the peg is painted with Viva Decor Precious Metal paint (gold).

 Once dry, you can cover the paint with either Viva Décor Precious Metal (here pink on the side of the peg) or with alcohol inks (under Rudolph and flowers) 

Flowers (SIEN2):
Paint pieces of white card with Viva Decor Precious Metal paint gold and blackberry. Dry. Stamp both flowers on each colour and cut them out.

Emboss the smallest flowers with Cuttlebug embossing folder Ornamental Iron and highlight the raised pattern with the contrasting paint. Add a brad and attach the flowers to the pegs with 3D foam pads or glue dots.

Rudolph (SINM1):

• Ink up a piece of white card with Adirondack Hazelnut dye-ink. Stamp Rudolph and cut him out.

• Paint another piece of white card with Viva Decor Precious Metal paint (gold), dry with heat gun and stamp Rudolph in black archival ink. Cut out the nose, horns, medal, stars and hooves and glue them onto the first Rudolph.

• Attach him onto the peg with 3D foam pads
  

Thankyou Isabelle for the lovely samples you have made for us today. It's going to be great to cathc up with you at the Barn this weekend!. 

To finish today's post, Jo has another tag she knocked up with her fave new product Croco Crackle.  Can't wait to see this IRL, because the way she mixes bronze onto the Red card seems to somehow change the colour of the croco. I can't wait to try that!

Tree tag 

By Jo Capper-Sandon

1. Apply Oasis Green Versa Magic directly from the pad onto the right hand side of a tag.
2. Stamp tree image onto newspaper, cut out and glue in place.
3. Stamp snowflake randomly in Oasis Green, colour and add gems.
4. Coat a piece of white card and a scrap of red card with silver and bronze Croco Crackle respectively.
5. Once the crackle is dry, tear a small section of the red crackled card and glue to the base of the tree tag.
6. Mount the tree tag onto the white/silver crackled card and trim to size.
7. Stamp 'To' and 'From' taken from the tag stamp from plate 3 Xmas (Ink and the Dog) in black ink onto white paper, cut out and glue in place.
7. Thread beaded chain through the top of the tag. Stamp postal 'do not open' (plate 3 Xmas) onto a circlular perspex tag using black Stazon and attach to beads with fine wire.

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 1 and Nut and Meg Plate 8 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 12 September 2009,  and is open to all players worldwide.

Winners from Days 7 & 8

Here we are half way through our feature showcasing the fantastic art from our very talented Design Team using the new Nut and Meg stamps, PaperArtsy's Christmas 2009 release
.....so who has the randomiser picked out today???? Fingers Crossed.....and the winners are


Winner of Day 7 ( who will receive Nut and Meg Plate 7,Urban Snapshots Yule Tide Plate 3 is: 
Jane Moseley

Jane Moseley said...

The plaque is fabulous! Thanks to everyone who's been involved in this, am going to miss the ideas when the twelve days have finished. xx

Winner of Day 8 (who will receive Nut and Meg Plate 8 and Egg and Nog Plate 9 ) is Dee

 Dee said...

Love the wall hanging, this range of stamps is gorgeous. Can't wait to start my christmas cards now! x

A big congratulations to you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail tomorrow!

Day 8: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 8:  Featuring Julie Harrington

using Nut and Meg Plate 8

Julie, our talented mixed media styley Aussie is back with a few more samples using SIEN8. This stamp was designed to be used with all the others, as backgrounds, embellishments or borders, so you have seen it turn up in other places quite a bit already. The words make a great background, or look awesome stamped into UTEE as does the snowflake. The cat fitted in perfectly in yesterday's plaque, and I'm sure s/he will turn up in lots of places, and the 2 border strips are going to look fab on the new PaperArtsy Rum and Raisin Papers.
So first up is Julie Harrington

Julie was so excited to be playing with her new Viva paints, that the wall hanging featured below became a sampler of the paints. She used different colours as a base coat, and over stamped or embossed in other contrasting colours. You could have a lot of fun with this concept, tweaking it to suit the colour palette you prefer.


You can check out Julies work here, you really need to go and take a look. She has been doing some fantastic digital scrapped pages for a 7 Gypsies photo carousel, with pages that look awesome, and you can also see some of the tags with her own line of stamps she designed for us called Urban Snapshots. Julie is one talented lady, and I never have any idea what she is going to come out with next. She is into so many styles and things and its great how she jumps in boots and all to try out different ideas. Fearless.

Multi cat card
By Julie Harrington

A Quick and easy card in fact so quick and easy that Julie made it twice. I was only supposed to show you one, but I decided they were nice together!!

Stamp out the cat from plate SINM8 six times onto white card stock.
 

Cut an A4 sheet in half (to get A5 size).  Fold in half again and turn to landscape view (fold at the top of the card). 

Cut a sheet of patterned paper.  Or cut paper to the size of the card and run through a cuttlebug or similar embossing system. Secure to card front.

Stamp out the words and cut names out for each cat.
Colour the cats to match the background or to contrast with the background.
Assemble using mounting foam.

Patchwork Hanging

By Julie Harrington

What you need

1. 3 or 4 contrasting colours of Viva Decor metal paints
2. a matching Croco Crackle
3. transparent Croco Crackle
4. Uultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE)
5. embossing powder
6. Paints for stamping 
7. Brads or nail heads – whatever is to hand
8. Acrylic sheet
9. Bazzill card and ribbon.

I used Platinum Croco plus of the Precious Metal Colour Paints I used Ice Blue, Pearl Blue and Blackberry along with the Transparent Croco paint.

• Cut a square of card about the width of an A4 sheet of paper.  Measure the width of 1 edge and then calculate 1/3.  Cut small square of thick white cardstock the measured size (should be just under 2" square).
• Take 3 squares and using the blackberry, paint 2 of them.  On the 3rd paint with a mixture of blackberry and the transparent crackling paint.  Let dry.
• Take 3 more squares.  Using Ice Blue paint 2 of the squares.  On the 3rd use a credit card or similar to scrap a bit of paint lightly over the square leaving some white showing.  Then take the Pearl Blue and scrap a very small amount over the edges.
• On a 7th piece of square cardstock paint with a mixture of Pearl Blue and transparent crackling paste.  Allow to crackle overnight.
• On 8th piece of square cardstock cover card with embossing ink and then layer ultra thick embossing powder.  Heat with heatgun and then immediately (before it cools) stamp into it.  Don’t smoosh your stamp around.  Just leave it sitting in the Utee till the Utee cools.   The stamp will pop out once it cools a bit.  {Note, you can get deeper texture depending on how many layers of UTEE you use, so while the first layer is hot and molten you can adda second layer of powder, when cool shake off the excess, re melt and then stamp into it. But for this project we don't want the stamp texture to ooze the UTEE off the edges of the square card, so one layer should do it.}
• On the last piece paint with the Platinum crackling paint and let dry.
  

 Once all the squares are dry stamp on some of them using a contrasting paint (I used a silver).  Stamp on some of them using embossing ink and then embossing powder.

Assemble squares with brads, nail heads into square. You may also require an adhesive underneath. Lay up onto card, acrylic and use the ribbon as a hanger.

Thanks Julie for another great idea!

Now I'd like to introduce you to Jacqui Chimes. Jacqui has been a follower of PaperArtsy for many years, and she has been (quietly) on the DT for some time, but this is her first real public appearance for us. She makes really stunning layered cards, but you'll see much more of her on days to follow. Check out Jacqui's lovely blog, she has been playing along with us throught the 12 days of Xmas and has more samples online with Egg and Nog from last year as well as this year's Nut and Meg. She is a versatile stamper, and creates beautiful vintage style mini book projects and cards in a  in a way that looks effortless, plus she can also do thoroughly crisp, modern, beautifully finished cards. What a star. 

Chocolate Snowflake Card

by Jacqui Chimes

• Stamp ornament from Nut & Meg 8 with Stazon ink onto a square of Chocolate Metal. 
• Back the metal with Humungo tape and card stock (Tape Sandwich Technique) then use a Teflon pointy tool to go over outlines and a ‘scootchy’ tool (a technical term for a texture wheel like this) to decorate the edges. 
• Sand lightly then distress with Glimmer Mists (Walnut Gold and Iridescent Gold)
• Go over the edge with gold Krylon. 
• Cut a square of gold card and use ‘curls’ from tail of bird from Egg & Nog 8 to stamp edges with gold ‘Encore’ ink. Emboss in gold. 
• Cut bronze metallic card as shown and stamp and emboss ‘Merry Christmas’ from Egg and Nog 3 in gold at the bottom. 
• Stamp and emboss ‘Snowflake’ from Nut & Meg 8 randomly over top two thirds of card and emboss in copper. 
• Decorate the snowflake with ‘jewels’ and mount as shown with ‘pop-dots’. Tie ribbon.

Santa 

by Jacqui Chimes 

Plain card, run through the swirls cuttlebug, red is shiny as is the silver. 

Santa is coloured in with a bit of silver stickles for his trims. 

Red and silver swirls are cuttlebug border die cut apart. 

The images (SIEN9) are embossed.

All the panels are raised on sticky foam squares.



PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 8 and Egg and Nog Plate 9 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 11 September 2009,  and is open to all players worldwide.

 

Day 7: PaperArtsy 12 days of Christmas

Day 7:  Featuring Jo Firth-Young 

using Nut and Meg Plate 7

 Jo F-Y is back with an adorable plaque idea with the elf. The plaque is about 8" x8" so would make a great wall hanging, or a nice display on an easel too. Jo has secretly confessed to me that she has sketched ideas for a whole wardrobe of outfits for these elves, even dungarees...so I have a vision of a row of elves on her mantlepice all dressed up to celebrate the season!! She was also dreaming of flip books where the top middle and bottom were all different, and even little tabbed clothes, like the kind we used to cut up as kids. Being a cat lover, she had to include our christmas moggie from SINM8, who makes the perfect buddy for our elf. You can see more of Jo Firth-Young here on her blog.

Elves Wanted Plaque

by Jo Firth-Young

This plaque is created using mainly Nut and Meg plate 7, but also includes stamps from other plates: Cat (SINM 8), Parcels(SINM3), Snowflakes small (SINM1) and large (SINM8). Small circles around edges are Squiggly Mini 15.
 
The Plaque:

• Cut shaped plaque from chipboard (sand the edges slightly to smooth any rough edges)

• Paint surface with Kaiser colour White acrylic paint. Colour the edges with Kaiser colour Sea Breeze acrylic paint – blending the 2 colours and leaving the centre of the plaque pale.

• Stamp the large and small snowflakes randomly (and sparingly) over the surface using a blue pearlescent ink. NB if you don't have a pearlsecent ink pad for the bubbles , you could also use a Viva Decor metallic paint to stamp the bubbles onto the chipboard. Blue Azure is perfect. 

• Spritz the surface of the plaque with Glimmer Mist – Pearl 

• Draw white lines around the edge of the plaque with Ranger Inkessesntials white gel pen.

• Drag/ smudge Blue Metallic paint Viva Decor: Blue azure, blue lagoon, Turquoise, Pearl Blue would all work well) around the edge of the plaque – smudge over the white lines to soften the harshness of the white.   
  

• Highlight some of the small stamped circles with the white pen and add spot details to the snowflakes.

• Add a hint of olive green paint to the edges to tie in with ground that the elf etc will stand on. 

• Paint chipboard snowflakes with silver precious colour metallic paint and a very pale blue acrylic paint made by adding white to a small amount of the sea breeze paint. The large snowflakes have been painted in very pale blue and the edges and centres wiped sparingly with silver shimmery paint. Set aside.

The Elf:

• Stamp elf head and feet stamps (SIEN7) onto white card. Draw elf body yourself! You can do it! It's not that hard, and if you fail, get a child to do it! A triangle makes the top, belt at the middle, with a triangle skirt with wobbly hem and trim.  Draw the arms with knobbly elbows (to match the knees) which go behind the elf's back so you don't have to tackle the problem of hands! Cut all out and attach to each other. 

• Stamp cat and cut out. Stamp the parcels 3 times and cut out (colour each set the same as they will be decoupaged). 

• Colour all these pieces – I’ve used coloured pencils and highlighted with metallic pen for belt buckle, parcel stripes, and cat’s scarf & added glaze gel pen to the holly on hat. Add shading on the images to give dimension. 

• Create some ‘aged’ paper for the signs by wiping ink (Antique Linen Distress Ink) on to white card and diluting with water.  Dry thoroughly. 
• Stamp ‘wanted’ sign onto the card, and for the other 2 phrases you will also need to add lines in the same vein as the Wanted sign to create signs. 
• Cut two rough edge strips of brown card for the sign posts – create wood grain with a brown pencil.

Putting it all together:

• Position the painted snowflakes around the edge of the card and all the stamped images in the centre of the plaque.  

• When happy with the positioning and the balance/ spacing attach some of the snowflakes with 3d foam pads and stick others directly onto the chipboard. In the middle of the larger ones add an adhesive gem. 

• Mark where the bases of the elf, cat, parcels and signs are going to sit on the plaque then remove them and add a "green ground" where they were positioned. Use green with a bit of brown pencil. Reposition and attach the pieces where marked.

• Add a bit of shadow or darkness around the feet/signs etc.  

•  The parcels are 3d decoupaged to add a bit of dimension.

Another big thank-you to Jo Firth-Young for sharing with us this fun and achievable project. I am sure it will get your heads buzzing with ideas, and i just love the shape of the chipboard.

Next for today, we have a couple of projects from Joanne Wardle, and one from Jo Capper-Sandon, so it truly is a "Day of the Jo's" here on the paperArtsy blog!

Elf House Hanging
By Jo Wardle

Cut a house shape 11cm tall x7cm wide. Cut a window approximately 4cm square. Stamp text and elf onto white card, using stamps from plate SINM7. 

Colour elf with coloursoft pencils and sansodor solution to blend and soften. Cut out. 

Colour house with vintage photo distress ink and over stamp with “wanted” stamp. 

Stamp in black little round swirl repeatedly and corner stamp onto house. Attach elf and the sign with words. Add an eyelet and some raffia.

Elf Watercolour Gift Tag

By Joanne Wardle

This is another of Joanne's Watercolour tags using the same technique as described in yesterday's post. As it was using today's featured plate, I thought I'd slip it in here.

Winter Girl

by Joanne Capper-Sandon

1. Stamp splash mini 57   randomly onto white card in soft blue and black ink.
2. Overstamp in black with USYT3 girl image.
3. Edge the card with silver peel off strips. (Yes we caught Jo using Peel offs...you heard it here first! She's going to kill me for revealing this, but it's the scoop of the year! lol)
4. Stamp Peace etc and edge with more peel off strips...should we be worried?? lol 
Position at the foot of the panel.
5. Layer stamped panel to white coredinations card which sands back to a lilac core. The dark portions are the sanded bits.
6. Colour face etc with copic markers.
7. Attach grey ribbon down LHS of card, and secure clear snowflake with pearl centre brad.
8. Embellish with lilac-grey buttons.
9. Apply glitter shards to the card.


Its Ok Jo we still love you....we all use peel offs in secret, and we all have them in our stash. I am quite partial to using the magenta ones as masks (in fact i taught that technique for quite a while a year or so ago, even in Holland!), and I was over the moon back in the day when the typewriter alphabet came out....so breathe easy. lol.  You're allowed a guilty pleasure. I'm going to bed giggling tonight.

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 7 and Urban Snapshots YuleTide plate 3 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 10 September 2009, and is open to all players worldwide.

Winners from Days 5 & 6

Here we are half way through our feature showcasing the fantastic art from our very talented Design Team using the new Nut and Meg stamps, PaperArtsy's Christmas 2009 release
.....so who has the randomiser picked out today???? Fingers Crossed.....and the winners are


Winner of Day 5 ( who will receive Nut and Meg Plate 5, Noel Plate 4 and a Rum and Raisin Paper pack) is: Horner's Corner


Horners Corner said...Loving the new stamp plates cant wait to get hold of some!!


Winner of Day 6 (who will receive Nut and Meg Plate 6 and Nut and Meg Plate 2 ) is Andrea

Andrea said...Wow!!! the wait is over, this is my favourite set. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all these great ideas and inspiration. Only 6 days to go - how sad!

A big congratulations to you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail tomorrow!

Day 6: PaperArtsy 12 days of Christmas

Day 6: Featuring Joanne Wardle using Nut and Meg plate 6

Joanne was introduced on Day 2 as our newest DT member. She says that this stamp is her favourite of all the Christmas ones, and she has found so many ways to use it as is reflected here in these great samples. As I said before Joanne is Mrs Speedy Whizz, and these cards are beautiful, simple, and perfect if you have to make a big bundle to send out this year.

I love how fast they are to make yet they still have lovely small attentive touches that make them very special. Joanne creates wonderful projects which I love, and I’m so glad she’s on our team!

Fairy Favour
by Joanne Wardle

I can just imagine this with a little gift in it at the Christmas table, or maybe some choccies for a favourite teacher at Christmas?? It’s a simple idea, but very effective, and the recipient would be thrilled I’m sure!


Stamp the fairy image in a permanent waterproof brown ink onto cream card.


Colour parts of the image with distress inks used as watercolour stains. You can apply the ink direct to your craft sheet, dilute with water, and pick up with a paint brush to apply. The trick here is to keep the palette soft with not too many colours being introduced.


Make a favour box from cream card; stamp the edge with holly and “fairy” stamps and edge with brown ink.


Stick the fairy onto the front with foam pads, and secure the top of the box with a soft pink ribbon.


Fairy Tag
by Joanne Wardle

This uses the same technique as above. Add a Christmas Quote in brown ink.


I Heart Fairies
by Joanne Wardle

Stamp the fairy and heart in black permanent ink and colour in with markers.

Add clear stickles glitter glue to the wings and glossy accents to the heart. Cut out when dry.

Rub a worn lipstick distress ink pad onto a craft sheet and spritz with a sparkly mica spray. Dab a 3.5"x5" piece of linen card onto the ink and leave to dry.

Stamp the holly border in worn lipstick distress ink across the top of the background. Stamp the words “xmas fairy” at the bottom in black.

Add a velvet ribbon and a strip of white card cut with decorative scissors.

Attach to an A6 card blank and mount the fairy and the heart with 3d pads.

You can see from this close up the dimension of the heart, and the sparkle on the backing paper and her wings



Little Red Robin
by Joanne Wardle

Make a tall slim card by folding a 7x5 piece of card lengthwise.

Stamp the birdcage onto white card, colour with markers and cut out.

Add an eyelet and ribbon to the cage and attach to a red piece of mirror card with foam pads so that it pops off the surface.

Secure the red panel to the white card base.

Stamp the Christmas words, and then add a punched circle of red mirror card below.

A huge thanks to Joanne for her brilliant ideas with this stamp. This stamp has been a really popular choice among the Design Team. We have another project using it with metal by Jo Capper-Sandon up our sleeves on another day still to come!!

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 6 and Nut and Meg Plate 2 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 09 September 2009, and is open to all players worldwide.

Blog Winners from Days 3 & 4

It's time to let you know of the latest  winners.....we consulted the randomiser and it picked the following lucky people:

Winner Day 3 ( who will receive Nut and Meg plates 3 & 6) is P'tite Plume

P'tite Plume said...

It's so beautiful and i love Christmas canvas and a copper Christmas! Very great ideas!!!

 

Winner Day 4 (who will receive Nut & Meg 4 and Xmas 7) is Karin

 

Karin said...

More stunning inspiration, I'm loving these new stamps and the wonderful effect of the Bronze Croco Crackle.
Looking forward to seeing the other delights to come.

 

A big congratulations to you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail this week!

 

 

Day 5: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 5: Featuring Jo Firth-Young 
using Nut and Meg plate 5 

Yes we do have an abundance of Joanne's on our Design Team, but this is the last one you will meet. This, our 3rd lovely and very talented Jo Firt-Young also writes fabulous articles for Craft Stamper. Yes we do move in high circles here at PaperArtsy.

Jo F-Y has graced the cover, no less, of a Stampington Wedding Publication, and has all kinds of official “crafting and teaching” qualifications. I have known her for over 8 years – she was a regular attendee of the monthly PaperArtsy classes we taught here in Essex way back before we made Rubber Stamps. And back then I was instantly wowed by Jo's amazing way with colour, she would create the most sunning altered books, and I really thought she should be teaching us, not the other way around! 


Jo is also one of our co-teachers at ArtsyCrafts retreats. She has a great sense of humour, and is one of the few on our Design Team who live near PaperArtsy World HQ. I adore her attention to detail and the huge variety of things she produces. She has a really unusual way of bringing her ideas to fruition, far more well thought out, tried , tested, sketched and planned than most of us splodging peeps, so we probably should call her a “proper” artist! (and then she would blush) Jo is a non-tooting crafter, and we need to recognise her talent with a huge booming fog horn. You can check her out on her blog here.

Birds are in the House 

by Jo Firth-Young

Jo was here at PA HQ just as the new Rum & Raisin papers came off the press, so she managed to create this sample and incorporate the new papers into her project. She used the following rom the pack of 28 papers: Blue damask, Green text, Stripe, Red. 

The birdhouse panel:
Cut a white piece of card 8x23cm.  Stamp birdhouse (SINM5) at the top in black ink.  Colour

On a separate piece of card stamp the parcels from the Christmas tree image (Nut and Meg plate 3) 3 times. Colour in and cut out.

Arrange the parcels at the bottom of the white piece of card under the birdhouse (don’t stick down yet) because you need to draw a long post connecting the birdhouse and the parcels. Take the parcels away and around the base of post draw ground grass and tall stalks – run some of them up the post. Colour in.

Rearrange the presents around the base of the post and attach.

The tag:
Cut a piece of chipboard 12.5x26cm. Shape the top to look like a tag.

Cut a piece of the blue damask paper 21cm tall, and a piece of the green script with text 8cm tall. Do not trim the width of the paper at this point, keep it the A5 width , as it comes in the Rum and Raisin pack.


Border punch the bottom edge of the blue panel. Run both of the patterned sheets through a glue machine, or use you preferred adhesive on the back to secure to the chipboard. Position the green sheet at the bottom of the chipboard tag, trim the sides to fit. Centre (widthways) the pattern of the blue sheet onto the tag, and attach to the tag so it lies over the green paper. Trim.

Tie a piece of ribbon around the tag a third of the way up positioning knot to one side.
Punch hole at the top of the tag, add eyelet.
Attach the stamped panel.

  
Stamp the ‘do not open…’  image (Noel Plate 4) onto a piece of the red "Rum & Raisin" paper and cut out. Embellish with a gold pen around the edges. Attach to the card over the top of the birdhouse panel.
Thread ribbons through the holes at the top of the tag.

The reverse of the tag: 
Cover with a piece of white card/heavyweight paper.

Stamp flourishes (Noel plate 4) in gold over the bottom third over the tag.

Cut a piece of striped paper 5cm high and attach to the tag – overlapping the stamped images.

Draw around the edges of the entire tag with a gold Krylon pen.

And here's the finished project ! A huge tag!

A big thanks to Jo for this sample, she will be back on another Xmas day, so keep checking back!

Just time for one more sample with Nut and Meg plate 5.

Copper Birdhouse

by Leandra Franich

Create a background of stamped ferro highlighted with copper precious metal colour accents. Make a chipboard panel with painted terra-texture. Make a tape-metal sandwich of the copper metal pieces, and use a teflon pointed tool to highlight the stamped design. Use a herringbone wheel on the stars to add interest. Secure copper pieces to the background with Claudine Hellmuth multi-medium (Matte). Stamp the lights (SINM1) onto appletini green metal, make a tape sandwich for extra strength, cut out and drape around the frame. 

 

PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 5 and Noel Plate 4 on EZ Mount PLUS a Rum and Raisin Paper Pack, making a prize worth £23.40. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, 8 Sept, 2009, and is open to all players worldwide.

Day 4: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 4: Featuring Jo Capper-Sandon 

using Nut and Meg plate 4

Jo has a huge following, no doubt if you are in England you are familiar with her work from Craft Stamper magazine. However she has also featured as guest artist for Stampington too. A testimony to her talent. Her style I simply adore. She manages to be economical, clever, humourous, elegant all at once, and yet she doesn't "overcook" things. She can do "messy" stuff, and yet it looks tidy and almost minimalist. Her projects look "just right", they have just the right amount of embellishment, a great balance of colour and contrast. She has an innate ability to put things together in a very beautiful way with her amazing amazing eye for detail and you find yourself studying all of those little details. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her ideas with this stamp. Check out Jo's blog here: http://jocappersandon.blogspot.com/

Santa’s Invite  

by Jo Capper-Sandon

It’s amazing how using a different shape, in this case round, and a touch of crackle can make such an impact. Jo has created an invitation anyone would be excited to get! Get organised for your Christmas party early this year and impress your friends with an invite like this one!

Coat a sheet of red paper with bronze Viva Croco Crackle. This is a one-step crackle, and the way you apply the croco determines the type of cracks you get. Splat it with a spatula to make peaks, and you will get rounded cracks. Streak it on in a linear fashion, and you get longer cracks like these. It takes about  4-6 hours to crack in a warm room. You can speed it up with a heat gun, but it's probably better to be patient and wait. 

Once dry, glue to a round folded card. For this you want a strong glue, like Claudine Hellmuth Multi medium (Matte).

Stamp the elf using black permanent ink (eg Archival Jet Black, Ranger) and draw a pair of legs to match. Cut out.
Stamp on white the invitation words and then lay them onto red card .
Colour the elf and lay up onto two pieces of circular card along with the invitation panel before fixing to crackle card base.
To embellish, add holly (taken from the tag stamp from the same plate) and a star charm.

A big thanks to Jo for her beautiful project, we'll be hearing more from her later in this feature on another day, so keep checking back! Next we have another project from Julie Harrington, and a vintage touch from Joanne Wardle.
 
Vibrant Elf  

by Julie Harrington

When Christmas is in the middle of summer, like it is for Julie in Australia, the traditional colours often go out the window, and we celebrate with vibrant summer colours. Xmas work functions take the form of Bar-B-Q’s on the beach, or drinks outside in the evening sun. Julie explains how she made this bright card:

This party invitation is a hybrid project; digital and stamped. I printed some scrapbook paper from a Designer Digital Christmas kit.  I started with a base white card background ( ½ an A5 size) so that the invite would fit into a normal little envelope for posting in the mail easily. 

Next I stamped out all the pieces – the elf’s head and legs from SINM7, the party invite from SINM4 and coloured those with coloured pencils. 

I then assembled the striped paper onto the white base, and stamped down the 2 longer sides using the border stamp from SINM6 and coloured the Holly leaves and berries. 

I stamped the words “Christmas Cheer” from SINM3 along the top and bottom. To finish just assemble all the pieces.  The blue paper beneath the invite stamp is a piece of card left over from playing with the Pearl Blue Viva Precious Metal Colour paint, which was actually mixed with transparent crackling paint. I used a paper punch to give the edges some interest. 

And to finish today's post, a wonderful olde worlde tag from Joanne. Check out her blog to see more from Joanne.  http://madebyjoanne.blogspot.com/

Vintage Santa Tag

by Joanne Wardle

Stamp in black archival ink the Santa (XM4) onto white card with Sepia Archival Ink (Ranger). Cut into a tag shape. 

Lightly sponge Tea Dye Distress Ink onto tag and then spritz with water to spread the colour. Dry with heat gun. Colour portions of image using fired brick distress ink as a watercolour, by inking a craft sheet and using a wet paintbrush. 

Over stamp with text and postage stamp from Ancestors plate 2, with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and emboss with Vintage Photo Distress Powder. 

Distress the sides of the tag with a Tim Holtz paper distresser, and age with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  Attach lace and a button at the foot of the tag, and an eyelet at the top.


PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 4 and 7 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting (September 7, 2009), and is open to all players worldwide.

If you want to stay in touch with the goings on at PaperArtsy, you can follow Leandra on Twitter (@PaperArtsy) or become a friend of Leandra Franich on Facebook. Or subscribe to this blog. We love hearing from you so it's nice to get feedback via all these forums.

Blog Winners from Days 1 & 2

Drum roll please.....we consulted the randomiser and it picked the following lucky people:

Winner Day 1 ( who will receive Nut and Meg plates 1 & 5) is Julie Corfield

 Julie Corfield said...(our Amazonian Goal Keeper from down under...this will make sense if you are a friend of Julies on FB)

Love the christmas tree stamp and the different looks you achieved with it! That moose is too cute too!!!  

Winner Day 2 (who will receive Nut & Meg 2 and Xmas 1) is Margriet ( a regular commentor on this blog! Congratulations!)

 Anonymous said...

Lovely icy snowman samples of Joanne and a very cute metal snowman. That paint is really beautiful. Margriet

I am thrilled for you both, please email me your postal addresses to sales@paperartsy.co.uk and we'll get your prizes off in the mail this week!

Leandra

Day 3: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

Day 3: Featuring Linda Brown using Nut and Meg plate 3
Linda is the owner of LB Crafts, one of England's first established stamp shops, and she keeps the shop extremely well stocked with a fantastic range of inks, paints, stamps, papers, and many unusual items for the avid crafter. Linda's classes are amazing, and always sell out fast. People flock to see her demonstrate at shows she attends around the UK becaue they know they will always see her do something new and interesting at each show. Take a look at her blog, or go and visit LB Crafts online. Lin and I have been working together for about 18 months to bring you ArtsyCrafts weekend retreats twice a year. It's been so much fun for us to pool our skills to bring an event we thoroughly enjoy teaching, and in the process we have become great friends too.

 
 

Christmas Canvas by Linda Brown

This is a delightful project, and a really nice piece to have on display for Christmas in your home. The Canvas is set into its own wooden frame (available from LB Crafts) and could be decorated in all manner of ways. 

Lin has covered the wooden frame with metal embossed with texture wheels, painted and glimmer-sprayed, but you could also use the Croco Crackle, or Terra and Ferro textures to create other stunning effects for the edges too.

Paint the canvas with Viva Precious Metal Colours, and over-stamp in Archival ink with the words from SINM8. Tear a piece of paper, overstamp and stick onto the canvas with matte gel medium.

Stamp the tree and baubles onto Pearl Metal. Puff out the tree baubles, and squiggle in between with a Teflon tool. Paint the baubles gold and blue lagoon with Viva PMC paints, and the tree olive.

Repeat this process for the remaining metal elements (presents, baubles, star etc) and decorate with freestyle patterns or texture wheels.

Strengthen all the metal elements with a tape-metal sandwich before securing onto the canvas. Make wire "legs" for the tree.


A big thanks to Lin for sharing this wonderful idea with all our favourite products! 
You can see both Lin and Leandra demoing together on her stand (LB Crafts) at Alexandra Palace for The Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show, London, on September 26 and 27.


Today we also have a few other contributions, here's one from Julie Harrington, a quick idea with the baubles.

Digital Baubles Card 
by Julie Harrington

For this fast idea, Julie printed a digital paper “Let It Snow”, and over-stamped with SINM3’s baubles in black ink. 

The quote can be found on SINM6 onto a blue background, and framed with an acetate-printed frame. Black ink is rubbed around the edges.

You could also try this idea with the new PaperArtsy Christmas papers  - which funnily enough are in the same colour scheme. Reds and blues with a touch of green. See them here.

And what follows below are some cards I did using these new Rum and Raisin papers which we received from the printers yesterday! They are a delight to work with, and make it fast to put together cards. 

They can be stamped and embossed, or distressed with ink and paint and they match perfectly with Olive, Red, Turquoise, Sea Breeze, Coastal Blue and Pistachio paints from Kaisercraft. As you will see below.

Joyful Christmas

by Leandra Franich

 Stamp the baubles onto white card with Black pigment ink, emboss with clear powder, and colour with a waterbrush dipped onto Broken China Distress ink. Build up the colour to be darker at one side. Overstamp with the words from SINM8. Cut out.

Position the baubles onto the red paper from Rum & Raisin as shown, then emboss the quote in the centre bottom. 

Lay the red paper onto pale blue, and accent with brads. Secure to Navy blue card.

We Three Trees

by Leandra Franich

Trees like these ae easy to work with. Glossy accents dimensional galze (Ranger) or Stickles glitter glue works well on the dots, or try punching them out to let the layer behind peep through.

Paint a piece of old book paper with kaisercolour Coastal Blue and Pistachio. Dry. Stamp and emboss the tree 3 times in clear with Black Pigment ink. Repeat for the star 3 times. Cut out and save the presents from under the tree for the Family Stockings Card.

Arrange the trees onto the white background, and place a piece of striped paper to the right hand side. Stamp and emboss Christmas Cheer at the bottom of the card in black with clear EP. Place a poinsettia flower on the card with a brad to secure.

Lay the card to pale blue, then navy card.  

Family Stockings 

by Leandra Franich


Every Christmas we hang up the kids stockings on the mantlepiece, and each has one I made back in the day when I was a keen quilter.  They all love their stockings, and this card reminds me how they look. I love having a winter Christmas after many warm ones in New Zealand, it's great on Christmas Day to be snuggled in front of the fire, but I do miss the NewZealand boxing day when we head off to the beach with our chicken and ham sandwiches.

 

Stamp in pigment black ink the stockings 3 times onto the pale white paper from the Rum and Raisin paper pack. Emboss with clear embossing powder. Colour with Peeled Paint and Broken China Distress Ink using a water brush swiped across the ink pad. Dry. Cut Out.

Draw a "line" to hang the stockings from onto a blue background, and stick the stockings to the paper. Lay this layer to blue, then white backgrounds. At the foot of the card are presents leftover from the "We Three Trees" card. Arrange across the foot of the card.

Layer to Pale blue then Dark Blue Card stock. It's a nice touch to swipe the edge of each alyer of card with either Broken China or Peeled paint Distress Ink.

A Copper Christmas  
by Leandra Franich

Paint a chipboard panel with Kaisser Colour paints (Sea Breeze, Antique White, Turquoise) blending the layers as you work. Overspray with walnut gold Glimmer Mist. Edge the panel with jet Black Archival Ink.

Stamp up a panel on turquoise card with the background words from SINM8 in black ink, and edge with black. Lay both these onto a square panel of card as shown.

Onto copper metal stamp the tree and baubles in black stazOn ink. Outline the baubles on the tree with a Teflon tool, and from the reverse side, use a ball and cup to puff them out (remember to puff on a fat embossing mat, then refine them with the cup on the acrylic mat). Use a paper stump while the metal is on the acrylic mat to smooth out in between the raised baubles.

Make a tape sandwich with the stamped metal, humungo tape and card. Outline the design lines on the tree presents, and on the baubles you can add freestyle squiggles. Apply black paint to the squiggled baubles and rub off the excess paint to leave some in the design. Cut out all the metal elements and arrange on the card. Stamp Happy holidays in black on the painted panel. Assemble as shown.

Well that lot should get your minds spinning for today! Sunday is a great day to be creative, so we hope this will inspire you to think about what you might do for a creative Christmas this year. Please share our blog feature on your own blogs and spread the word about our fantastic Design Team and what they are doing over the next 10 days.


We shall be announcing blog winners shortly for days 1 and 2 and the prizes will be in the post this week! Thanks for all your fantasti comments.


Leandra (PaperArtsy)

 ,
PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we’ll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 3 and Nut and Meg Plate 6 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting (06 Sept 2009), and is open to all players worldwide. 

Day 2: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

PaperArtsy Twelve Days of Christmas

Day 2: Featuring Joanne Wardle using Nut and Meg Plate 2

Joanne is the newest member to our design team having only been with us a couple of months, but we have already realised she is a whirlwind to keep up with - she gets the “fastest stamper in the West” prize for turning out beautiful projects faster than the mailman can deliver them.  She has a fresh clean style which works well with these Nut and Meg stamps, but she is equally versatile with our collage images, and extremely creative with her ideas to boot! Take the time to check out Joanne's blog.



Snowman Pennant 
by Joanne Wardle

This is a fun way to add some Christmas Cheer to your home. And a great project to do with the kids if you get roped into helping out at school this Christmas. Joanne describes the process:

Cut a triangle from a 7”x5” piece of white card. Rub faded jeans distress ink onto a craft sheet and spritz with a silver mica based spray. Dab the card onto this and allow it to dry. This creates an easy background paper versatile for all kinds of projects.

Once the paper is dry, spray it with the silver spray again for extra sparkle.

Stamp the snowman (SINM2) and holly decoration (SINM2)  onto white card and cut out. Colour the snowman with markers and add clear glitter glue to the edges of the snowman with stickles.
Stamp Merry Christmas directly onto the triangle in black ink.

To embellish, stamp the snowman again onto blue mirror card and cut out just the buttons and attach to main image. Punch a snowflake from blue mirror card and attach with a snowflake eyelet.

To complete, secure the holly decoration and snowman in position, add two white eyelets and silver wire to hang.

 Snowman Acetate Card 
by Joanne Wardle
Acetate is such a great substrate to use for a card. The added dimension it brings from using the inside of the card as a backdrop for the front decoration is simple yet a very striking idea.

Using a piece of acetate 15cm wide, 16 cm tall, cut a 5cm deep triangle away from the top, and fold to form an unusual shaped card.

Stamp snowman (SINM2) onto the white card, colour with markers and cut out. Stamp text background (XM4) onto white card and trim. Stick this to the inside of the card. Cut a slightly bigger piece of green card and stick this behind on the outside of the card (this will give you somewhere to write your message).

Adhere the snowman to front of card - lined up with text. Embellish with a snowflake punched from double sided adhesive, and add glitter. Add a strip of double sided tape to front and add glitter to that too.

 Gift Tags 
by Joanne Wardle

Use A7 cream card (i.e. A5 cut into quarters) folded in half, this is a great size for a small gift tag or card. 

Stamp the snowman (SINM2), directly onto the card in brown permanent ink. Colour with watery distress inks. Stamp text background (XM4) onto scrap of cream card. Cut out some words and attach with 3d foam.

TOP TIP: To create a watercolour effect with Distress Ink, either apply ink to craft sheet, spritz with water and pick up with a brush, or pick up colour direct from ink pad with a water-logged brush.

Thanks to Joanne for these wonderful ideas. These are quick and easy for those of us who need to get cracking on this year’s cards for the masses!

Christmas Spice Bag 

by Joanne Wardle

This fabulous little idea would look superb on any Christmas tree this year, and what’s more, its smells scrummy!

Stamp the Holly Image from the Ink and The Dog Collection (Xmas Plate 1) in Jet Black Archival ink onto a fine weave fabric . For example, white cotton or calico. The finer the weave of the fabric, the better the quality of the image will be.

Dry, and decorate the berries with red sequins and seed beads. Sew into a little pouch, and fill with Christmassy spices. If you leave the top open, you can re-fill each year. Attach with a clip to your tree.

Terra-Metal-Man of the Snow 

by Linda Brown (LB Crafts)

Lin is my partner in crime for the ArtsyCrafts events which we design, teach and plan together. (PS I think there is only 1 place left on the second weekend retreat) This little guy is one of the things she has been demoing at recent shows with the new Nut & Meg stamps.

Apply Viva Décor Golden Orange Terra texture directly to an arch-shaped piece of chipboard, making it thicker on one side that the other. Use you finger tool so you can feel the depth of the texture. With a damp stamp, press into the texture with Mini 44.

Dry the terra with a heat tool, or set aside to dry naturally (about 15-30 mins).

Apply Black kaiser colour paint over the top part of the arch and terra with cut and dry foam. Dry.

Stamp the snowman (SINM2) onto Pearl metal with Black StazOn ink. Use watered down Gold and Olive Viva Décor precious Metal Colour Paints with a fine paintbrush to colour the buttons, scarf, gloves, nose and hat of the snowman.

Use Gold Precious Metal Colour to highlight parts of the orange and black texture on the chipboard.

Make a tape sandwich with the stamped metal, Humungo tape and cardstock, and outline the stamped lines of the snowman with a pointed Teflon tool. Cut out, and stick the card-backed snowman to the chipboard with Matte Gel Medium or Glossy Accents.


 A huge thankyou to Joanne and Lin for their fantastic and inspiring ideas for today's post.



PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we’ll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 2 and Xmas Plate 1 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting (05 Sept 2009), and is open to all players worldwide.

Day 1: PaperArtsy 12 Days of Christmas

PaperArtsy Twelve Days of Christmas

As our lives settle back to normal with the kids back at school and Christmas fast approaching, we thought we’d spend 12 days featuring the new Nut and Meg Christmas Stamps from PaperArtsy's Squiggly Ink Collection as created by our lovely Design Team people.

PaperArtsy recently released some new Christmas stamps called Nut and Meg. Not only will we focus on those stamps, but you’ll see some other Seasonal favourites sneak in along the way. We hope you enjoy this feature. Please leave a comment, and each day a lucky person will win the featured stamps of the day.

Day 1: Featuring Julie Harrington and Nut and Meg Plate 1
Julie is from Australia, she is the designer of our Urban Snapshots collection. Julie is an avid photographer, and her creative-style evolves in a new direction every year. Currently she is into digital scrapbooking, and she blends this with a more physical mixed media approach. She loves strong colours, and we enjoy her vibrant, unique individual approach to her creativity.

For the Birds 
by Julie Harrington
Using our new little papermache birdhouse, Julie made a colourful roost for the little metal squiggly bird. Julie describes how she made this:

Coat the sides of the house with the Ice Blue viva paint and the top with the Metallic Blackberry  colour. 

Once dry I stamped the little snowflake from SINM1 on the walls. Then I mixed a little of the Ice Blue Precious Metal Colour with the Viva Transparent crackle and I painted that crackle mix onto the walls.  It was pretty amazing.  It has actually crackled the bottom layer of paint as well so that what shows through is the natural colour of the Paper Mache box. 

On the roof I put some of the Platinum Crackle Paint which I mixed with a light moulding paste.  It crackled beautifully, and shows the Blackberry through from underneath really well, plus you get that crunchy snow-like texture from the moulding paste. 

For the decorations I stamped the lights from SINM1 and cut them out.  Coloured them to match the colour scheme and attached them to wire which I strung around the roof. 

I also stamped out the presents from SINM3, coloured them in, cut them out and glued them around the bottom of the bird house. 

For the metal bird I used the little bird from the birdcage on SINM6 onto Kiss Me Pink Ten Second Studio Metal. I cut the bird out and stuck it onto the perch.  I thought the roof needed something so it’s got this old flower off one of those house decorating flower stems that were all the rage about 15 years ago, with a sparkly, white brad in the centre.

Down Under "Frozen" Christmas 
by Julie Harrington 
This card uses a lot of left overs from other papers that have been made while cleaning up excess Viva Decor paint off brushes etc. Choose a selection of papers that work together, and stamp the tree SINM1 on each of the papers. Cut out all the tree segments. Punch circles from the lefts overs of these papers.

Onto a paint-streaked piece of card arrange punched circles randomly, and draw wobbly circles around each punched piece. Now decide which of the coloured segments to use for the tree, and stick them onto the background.

Stamp and cut out the present, and stamp the bird (SINM5) colour and secure on the present.
Smother the entire composition with Viva transparent crackle paint.
You can’t see it in the picture very easily, but the texture from the crackle is a relly nice effect. It makes the whole card front look like a scene "frozen" under clear ice.


 

Viva le Tree 
by Julie Harrington
Start by stamping the reindeer (SINM1) onto white cardstock using Weathered Wood Distress Ink.
Then using a credit card, scrape Viva Décor Precious Metal Colour Paints (Lime  and Pearl Grey) over the top until its as messy as you like it.
Stamp out the tree 4 or more times onto 4 or more different background papers.  Cut out the different layers of the tree and choose a selection to make up the tree. Glue onto the background.  

Stamp out the Christmas lights (SINM1) and the presents from (SINM5).  Cut out.  Glue some presents directly onto the back ground and using foam pads position others so that they sit raised off the background.
Place blingy brads or other buttons on corners.
Assemble using double sided tape or dry glue onto green card stock to match the viva paints used.

Rudolf picks caramel for 2009 
by Julie Harrington

The Reindeer card (or moose as I keep thinking of it) is a quick and easy card for Christmas.

Stamp out reindeer onto white cardstock and then colour using colour pencils or watercolours.  I used a caramel Bo Bunny paper as the backdrop.  On a piece of contrasting plain cardstock stamp the small snow flake and on an even smaller contrasting piece stamp out “Happy Holidays”.  Assemble.  I used glitter glue on some of the background dots on the card, the presents and on the reindeer’s stars and antlers.



A big thanks Julie for her inspired ideas with these stamps and paints.


PaperArtsy Blog Giveaway: Please leave a comment and we'll randomly draw a name to win Nut and Meg Plates 1 and 5 on EZ Mount worth £18.80. This offer ends midnight GMT the day of this posting, and is open to all players worldwide.

Bijouterie - Viva Les Earrings

This project combines everything: Viva Ferro, Precious Metal Colour Paint, Wooden Beads, Rubber Stamping and Copper jewellery findings. Ohhhhhhhh...... the excitement, I can hardly contain myself!

I made these in 10 mins. (I try to do things fast! lol) and Millie (my trusty assistant) took the photos as my hands were a bit tied up. The reason the right one is focussed and the left one isn't is because we told the camera (Marks' I phone) to do that.....and then we had to run out the door to a football tournament, so I didn't get to take more in the same light.....nevertheless.... here's how we did it all.....

Step One: Ferro

Use a spatula (no cleaning required - mine is a coffee stick) to apply Viva Ferro paste (can you see its a little sparkly?) to the base of the wooden bead. I used graphite, but any colour will do based on the colour jewellery you prefer. I'm a blue girl so that's where I was heading, and I had graphite open already, but I could have done the same thing with any other Ferro base. 

Ferro comes in loads of colours...check out the Golden Orange or Golden Iron ...in fact all the colours are wicked...you know you need them!

Apply a layer about 1mm thick, you can smooth with your finger once you have a good amount on the bead. See how I used a toothpick to hold the bead? Makes it easier.

Step Two: Texture

Now select a rubber stamp. I used Mini 44 because I wanted a texture with a deeply embossed stamp, but i was also thinking SM08 would look cool too. The rubber on this stamp is a very deep 1-2 mm. It's nice to roll the bead along the script because you can't see where it starts and finishes.

TOP TIP: Make sure to wet the stamp with a babywipe first. This makes a good release agent, plus clean up is easier, and that's a good thing!

If you aren't happy with the job you did, you can smooth off the paste with your finger and repeat. Or you can add or remove ferro if you have too much or too little. 

Experiment a bit until you find out what works best...maybe square beads would be easier to stamp each side??? We have those in stock too....check them all out here.

Step Three: Paint

Shake up your Viva until the ball clacks about to mix the metallic pigment thoroughly. This colour is turquoise. 

Apply a spot to some Cut and Dry Foam. Dab the spot onto your craft sheet so you get a flat even layer, and then while holding the bead on a toothpick ( or cocktail stick or whatever you like to call those pointy things...my Dutch friends call them kabab sticks!) dab all over with the paint. Note how the paint doesn't go into the recesses, it sits on the top, and the black crevices are a nice contrast to the gorgeous turquoise colour.

We like this. It's easy! And sparkly!

Step Four: Peaky contrast

How about introducing another colour? Paint always looks great when you do this, and on a dark colour like turquoise, a pale shade will pop in contrast too. I used bronze and it picks up the texture of the Ferro to add another layer of interest.

Look in the background, and you can see I'm doing beads the opposite way too, Bronze on the base and Turquoise on top. 

Imagine the possibilitie for a matching necklace, bracelet and earrings. And even though these look metallic, they are not heavy because the base is wood, plus for those people who are allergic to metal, this is a great solution!!. No more jewelery avoidance!

Step Five: Findings

using the new Bijouterie findings in copper from PaperArtsy, you can quickly make these beads into earrings.

I am not the greatest, nor the most experienced jewellery maker in the world, so if I can do this it must be easy! Take a flower end cap (these are soft so you can wrap the petals around your bead) and put it onto a copper head pin.

A star spacer or simple round bead looks nice at the top, or you can simply make a loop with round nosed pliers. Trim off the excess wire with wire cutters.

Next attach the loop you made to a copper earwire finding and you did it! New earrings in 10 mins!

Here's a piccie of the supplies that I used to make a this project. 

If you enjoyed this project, then book onto Leandra's Jewellery workshop (ref# S4, Saturday 14:15 -15:15) at the Artisan show on October 3&4, Warwickshire Exhibition Centre, Leamington Spa, where you will get to have a go at making these yourself. 

On Sunday Leandra is also teaching workshop #S7, 13:00 - 14:00 which will be Stamping and texture embossing metal with Ten Seconds Studio tools. You will decorate the cover of a mini book made with the brand new PaperArtsy Papers.

The Artisan show is sponsored by Traplet Publications (Publishers of Beads and Beyond and Craft Stamper magazines) and the focus of the show is stamping and jewellery making. 

Drop by the PaperArtsy stand to check out Leandra demoing with new Christmas Rubber Stamps and new Christmas Papers from PaperArtsy, Ten Seconds Studio Metal Products, Viva Decor paints, Kaiser Colour Paints and PaperArtsy's Bijouterie Jewellery findings.  

Receive a free gift with every purchase when shoping on our stand.