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!!!

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.

Weekend at Ally Pally

This weekend I had a very enjoyable time demoing for LB Crafts at the Alexandra Palace Big Stamping and Scrapbooking show, North London. It only takes me about 40 mins to drive there from our East London location, so it is probably one of the closest shows to us.

Lin has lots of exciting things to demo on and with, so I was given abundant goodies such as glimmer mists and Glimmer Screens, Distress Inks, Ten Seconds Studio metal, the Cuttlebug, shrink plastic and lots of PaperArtsy stamps to play with too (of course).

In most of the samples I used the same basic background technique: smooch a pale distress ink DTP (usually Scattered Straw, and a secondary colour at the edges), then spray heavily with 2-3 glimmer mists. Dry.

Now you have a base on which you can use a Glimmer Screen. Position the screen (stencil) across a corner, and spray over it with a darker Glimmer mist. Blot with a paper towel, then remove the screen and dry.

Now add some background stamping. I love the new script mini MN44 it is very classic, and looks fab no matter what you stamp it on! I also used Squiggly Mini 15 (the bubbles), becasue with the bubbles you can punch through the holes, or colour the spots in with white gel pen, or add bling onto spot....or do all three!

On to this background I would either stamp and often emboss an image in black, or lay another image on top, like this green and blue sample.

I have noticed the sparkly mica in glimmer mist backgrounds often prevents dye ink images from stamping up as brightly as normal. One way to overcome this is to stamp your feature image(s) in black pigment ink, and then emboss with clear Embossing Powder. note the difference in black on this "partridge" sample. The script was stamped in archival Jet Black, then dried. "Percy" Partridge was stamped in Pitch Black Adirondack Pigment Ink, then embossed with Clear EP, as were the dragonflies in the other sample.

I also found that colouring these images with a wet paint brush dipped directly onto distress inks is a nice way to make the featured images pop on the background. Look at the dragonflies and Percy in some of these examples.

So what did I do to that red dragonfly? A few posts back I talked a bit about the texture technique i discovered using glossy accents and gold EP. So this time I put glossy accents on the red wings, sprinkled heavily with polysparkle EP, then heat set until the glossy accents fizzes, pops and crackles and finally sets hard. I rubbed over the texture with a tiny amount of Gold Acrylic Paint Dabber. The cool thing about this idea, is that if your ink is still wet from colouring the wings when you apply the glossy accents, the glossy accents will also become stained by the Distress Ink.

So the last phase of these creations is to add some embellishments. And this has quickly become my totally favourite part of the card because we now have so many flower stamps to choose from, and i keep finding more and more things to do with them.

1. Stamp flowers onto shrink plastic: clear, transcluscent, cream or canvas white. I sprayed the shrink with glimmer mists before shrinking, and added bling centres after shrinking!
2. Stamp flowers onto metal, either coloured metal, glimmer sprayed cream metal, alcohol inked metal or simply shiny metal! Use stazOn solvent ink as it dries fast, and won't smudge when you cut out the images.
3. Stamp flowers onto acetate.Again leave it clear, or colour with alcohol ink on the reverse side. try metallic pens on the reverse too.
4. Stamp flowers onto GrungeBoard. This flexible thick product becomes soft when heated, so its easy to shape the petals when the grunge is warm. They will hold their form as it cools. Grunge can be inked, painted, sprayed, so a family of grunge flowers is lots of fun!
5. Stamp flowers onto canvas. Ranger has a new product from Claudine Hellmuth. It's a sticky backed white canvas. You can ink, paint and spray with Glimmer Mist, and stamp flowers onto the canvas. Try sticking the stamped canvas onto scrapping paper. I love sticking the canvas onto metal, because then you can shape the leaves, you can also add texture to your metal-backed canvas flower by running it through a cuttlebug embossing folder! How cool is that!
6. Stamp flowers onto backgrounds you have specifically made to match the colours of your piece.

Now you have a cazillion flowers on all kinds of layers, and all kinds of sizes, you can have a ball layering them either onto each other, or using them individually.

All of these samples have been made using stamps from PaperArtsy's Squiggly Ink: Egg & Nog or Tops & Tails stamp plates. I hope this helps you with some ideas to get cracking on this year's Christmas Cards!

Enjoy your creativity, and try something new today!
Leandra