02/52 Bite-sized books...

Hello

I'm really enjoying making these little books - I've had to stop myself finishing more than one a week!
I'm making little videos of each of them for the blog - these are going to be quite quick - less than 2 minutes (lol there are only 6 pages to show you!)  accompanied by a nice soothing soundtrack... I was going to delete the noise of the pages turning but I actually quite liked that sound so I've kept it on... its a nice way to show the details (Instagram Reels only allows 15 seconds!!).

If you have any questions pop them in the comments.

aaanyhoo - here is book 2/52

Thanks for popping in

01/52 Bite-sized books... or snack-sized signatures....

Well hello!!  

Happy New Year!!!

New year, new project.... 

52 little books - these photos show the 35 I've made so far, I thought I'd give myself a headstart and get a feel for the project.

Each book measures approximately 2.5inches square-ish - give or take 1/2inch or so - made up of the bits and pieces that I can't seem to throw away because:

* they're interesting
* "aaw I loved this paper and don't want to throw it away"
* it looks useful
* I'd die cut extras
* I like a challenge

These 'books' - more like pamphlets really - are made of 3 pieces of paper/card (may or may not be accurately measured/folded - I'm embracing imperfection) folded in half and stapled in the middle... keeping it simple.

52 books - one for each week of the year... they are the signatures that will build up to be a book - not sure how I'll bind them together - that's a decision for further on in the project... very much depends on how big the project gets...

This will be a lovely project to work on through the year - giving a home to all the little bits and pieces that end up on my desk... and one a week is very achievable. Their size makes them easy to work on when I have a spare five minutes or need to find a home for the previously mentioned 'bits and pieces'.

Here's 1/52....

Thanks for popping by..

Bring me sunshine!!

Its a lovely sunny day here in Essex today (cold, but sunny!)...

I bought the Concord & 9th 'Dahlia Turnabout Stamp Set' and matching 'Dahlia Turnabout die' before christmas and this is the first chance I've had a chance to play with it.

I watched the company's video on YouTube HERE to understand how to use both (watch the video - its worth it!).
When I first saw the design I wanted to create a stencil using it and luckily they showed how to do that in the video.  Having done this my tip is: mark on the die (with a Sharpie) which leaf bits you are using to line up when rotating- makes it much simpler to keep track of.

I cut a stencil out of plain white card (I'm going to do this again in acetate so I get more use out of it).

I applied Distress Oxide Inks through the stencil - Picked Raspberry and Wild Honey (pink & orange - always a fabulous colour combination!) creating flowers randomly across the white card...

The stamp set has the turnabout flower stamp and some nice big words...

I stamped one of the sentiments (lots of mix & match options on the set) onto the white space, mounted the dahlia panel on to a white card and sewed in place.  I finished off the card with a button and gems...

A lovely sunny card for a lovely sunny day!

I'm a Guest Designer!....

.. over on the Stencil Girl Products blog today - chuffed to be asked to contribute to their blog - thank you Stencil Girl! - and really happy to share the project which you can find HERE, and here's a sneakpeek

Its a project using some of my favourite products - PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints and {Stencil Girl} stencils and masks!

Please go take a look

x

Be still my Gelli® print loving heart....

Last Sunday I spent a 'Gelli® plate play day' with Emma, Emma, and Leandra (such a good day) and the following Monday I was still inspired so I thought I'd get creative... 

I decided I needed to work bigger than the previous day's experiments so I laid out my 12x14in Gelli® plate.... now we're talking!... so much lovely space to play with!

This was only going to be a quick printing session (unfortunately other things to do - don't you hate it when real life gets in the way of creative time!).. but it was a good session AND I remembered to take photos!!

Here we go:

Adding paint to the Gelli® plate - spacing them out, then spreading and blending across the area with a brayer.

I laid my chosen masks onto the wet plate: (LOVE these three 'deconstructed lilies' masks from Stencil Girl, available from That's Crafty)

This is the first print I pulled, I really like the different colours blended through, and how the masks lay over the edge of the plate/print:

Once the first print was pulled, I removed the masks which revealed paint underneath where they had been - so I pulled this print:

and this is the clean-up/ghost print:

I liked those prints so much - but you must know by now from reading this blog - I love a bit of vintage printed paper!... so laid the masks out again and printed some more:

I love how these turned out - can't bring myself to cut them up! Might need to frame them in someway!

I think these might be the first of many!

If you don't have a Gelli® plate yet go and get yourself one - they are such a good mixed media tool.  Seriously! You won't be disappointed.  

PaperArtsy will have Gelli® plates at the AllyPally show this weekend

I'll have some more samples over the next few days....

(Gelli® used with permission. Owned by Gelli Arts® LLC)

The perfect travel art kit...

.... is there even such a thing - I find what I want to pack depends on where I'm going, what the holiday plans are and what my favourite tool/ media is at the time of packing! 

While packing I try to be practical and stern with myself (listening to my little inner voice asking 'do you really need that? will you actually use it??')  This year in the lead up to our holiday I made a list of all the equipment I used when making something and kept it at the side of my desk, things I used repeatedly... it was quite a useful little list - really showed what is 'essential' and what isn't.. I'd recommend trying it, could also show what is actually needed on the desk.... (as opposed to all the 'stuff' that stays on the desk just in case..)

-  -  -  -  -

When putting this blog post together I looked for the photo of the kit I took the last time we had a holiday in Mexico (3 years ago)....

 

...and compared it to the kit I took this year.  It made me smile because 3 years on:

* I'm still using the same bag.

* I still pack: Archival Black ink, a diddy alphabet stamp set, craft sheet, Snowflake Fresco Finish paint, long rubber in pencil form, Tombow glue stick, Cut'n'Dry foam, and stencils....

There is much more in there that you can't see in the photo:

* Koh-i-noor paints - they've been replaced by Winsor & Newton watercolours
* Decorative tape - 2 rolls packed above- tape didn't make it at all this year and I missed it - I thought I'd packed tape but hadn't... gggrrrr (1 inch brown paper tape - the type you have to wet the back of to make it stick - I was quite disappointed because I had plans for that!!)... still packing double sided tape :o) (I remember thinking I don't need to pack tape because I can create tape with paper and glue... yeah right!)
* The flower stencil/mask was swapped for alphabet stencils

This year I think I'd planned more for journaling and painting, rather than packing with no plans as was the case last time....

Here's this year's kit:

Its all the things I would normally use at home but travel sized - an A5 cutting mat and craft sheet, a short metal ruler, very limited amount of stamps - I didn't take any of my motif stamps because that helpful little inner voice of mine was saying - 'you don't need to take stamps of images you've drawn, you can draw them - draw new ones'... lol the voice has quite a good point don't you think! (might have to give my little inner voice a name...)(suggestions welcomed)

I also pack a limited amount of other 'stuff' to use - stencils, papers to use as backgrounds (book text, captions from magazines, gelli printed pages (NB I liked the ones shown in the photo so much I couldn't bring myself to use them!), scrapbook pages.... and in the bottom left of the corner of the photo is the sketchbook I took with me - 6x6in spiral bound.... (most of this came back with me... but its better to pack it than not - see above re the paper tape!)

I planned ahead by creating a colour chart of my Winsor  & Newton watercolours in the back of my sketchbook - so glad I did this - it was really useful.  They worked really well with the Fresco Finish paints I'd packed.  I killed a couple of my drawing pens by writing on wet paint (I have limited patience, but in fairness to me Mexico is VERY humid this time of year and things were taking longer to dry)(no, I didn't pack a heat gun!)... and so I rediscovered biro pens.. aaaah the good old biro pen!

I'm not sure there is a 'perfect' travel kit but this one worked for me (this year!)... its all down to personal preference isn't it?

My major fail this year was not taking my everyday sketchbook - the 25x25cm sketchbook I 'think' in  (it also works as a good work surface because of its size..) I found it really hard to sketch and think in 6x6in sketchbook... sigh... I missed it.

I must remember the next time I pack the 'perfect' kit:

some things just can't be exchanged for 'travel size'

x

Masterboard = Cards

I really enjoy using the 3x5in Gelli® plate - especially to make 'masterboards' such as the one I created here - there are lots of tutorials out on the web so go take a look at how to make one.  (Anneke de Clerck did a lovely vibrant project HERE on the PaperArtsy blog).

One of the best tips I've read/seen is to put the 3x5in Gelli® plate onto an acrylic block - it makes it easy to pick the plate up and take it to the journal/paper rather than bring the journal/paper to the plate (if you see what I mean)... much easier to get 'accurate' print placement.

This is the masterboard I made - I know Gelli printing is a process (building layers etc) but at this point I was not overly happy with it (did I carry on or stop and start afresh) - I knew as soon as I put the yellow on that it was wrong (I'm still not feeling/loving yellow!)... but I persevered.. sort of... 

I reached for the bubble wrap - large bubble version - brayered it with pale yellow/cream and printed all over the page.. here's the result:

(bubble wrap fixes everything!) The bubble wrap print has knocked back/obscures the original pattern and the yellow..but I still wasn't happy so, not to be beaten, I cut it up - thinking it might look better that way - in smaller pieces - it would break up the blocks of yellow even more and highlight the good bits of the masterboard...(accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative!!).. once it was cut into pieces - I loved it!!  All these interesting little panels...

 Here are the cards I made with them:

I love how they look like a group, but are all individual - that's whats interesting about masterboards.

Die cut flower, stamped scallop border (JOFY13), and drawn lines around the masterboard panel to frame. (the flower die cut is the one I used on the masterboard to create a resist - its the white flower on pink rectangle you can see on the left hand side of the sheet - perfect colour match!)

 Panel has been stitched on a Kraft card, yellow bakers twine wrapped around and a swing tag tied on (JOFY34), the sentiment is from JOFY14.

I really like these 10x15cm cards that open on the short edge rather than the usual long edge (hinge here is on the left hand side by the twine), the twigs are a die cut (memory box), and the panel has been sewn on to the card

I like the simplicity of this card, even with the coloured patterned panel it is still quite 'less is more'/ 'clean & simple'. (Flower stem is from JOFY38)

and then 'less is more' went out of the window!  Bring on the glitter!!  This card has been splashed with water and gold embossing powder... distressed & glitzy! love it!

Gelli prints, stamps, stenclils & masterboards - a whole lot of fun!

x



(Gelli® used with permission. Owned by Gelli Arts® LLC)

Inky painty indeed!

A day spent at That's Crafty, running my first workshop at this great craft shop (where they have probably the biggest range of stencils I have ever seen in one place! and lots of paints, inks, and other 'stuff' to work with them!) :o)

We created this cute canvas combining JOFY stamps with a Prima Julie Nutting girl stamp - I have a couple of these and they're adorable and, I think, work really nicely with the JOFY stamps.

Everyone in the class created lovely (and finished) canvasses - and had free range to choose outfits for their 'girls' from a pad of My Minds Eye papers - nice small designs which were perfect for dress fabric.

Here are a couple of boards:

I really liked the bold geometric of this dress (on Linda Carpenter's canvas) (I would wear that dress, if I was younger!), and the blue bee-hive.

This girl (Janette Smith's) also wore a largish print, this time with co-ordinating flowers - really fresh and summery.

People were sometimes undecided on how to layer up the dresses - with contrast pockets or without, with or without contrast sleeves so I suggested (because lets face it nowadays most people have a camera phone with them and its a useful tool) they photograph the dress with the options and then look at the photos - which is what we did with the cute blue yellow dress (on Liz Riding's canvas) shown below - love this option... (by the way: the contrast pocket option was chosen)

This was a fun class - & its always interesting at the end of a class to see how the canvasses are all so similar but all different at the same time.

x

Patchwork Panel...

... another sample from the recent JOFY releases.

Creating paper patchwork panels can be a little bit addictive - cutting out random sized rectangles and squares, gluing them down, & adding journaling, stamping or stencils over the top... 

This is the blue tone panel I created using a 12x12 page as a base, and then cut it into smaller pieces - for this project it was a 6x6inch panel.

I used Buff -  one of the new JOFY Limited Edition Fresco Finish paints - to white was over the top - wiping so some of the patterned panels can almost be seen.  I also added a layer of Chalk in the same way.

I stenciled onto the panel using one of my new stencils - LOVE this design that was on one of my stencils last year and I had planned for it to be an arrangement of 3.  I stenciled in Slate - very happy that this is now in the main colour groups of the Fresco colours (as is Chalk! yay)

I cleaned the stencil, flipped it over and stenciled the design in Pearl Glaze - I like how this gives an iridescent translusent effect - sometimes you see it sometimes you don't - as shown in the photo above where the image disappears towards the bottom of the stem.

Here is the panel - mounted onto chipboard painted with Mermaid and State.

ALBOTAT... sample pages...

.. from AllyPally... all created using JOFY stamps, Fresco Finish Paints...

Th panel above combines Turquoise (on of the new JOFY Autumn Fresco Limited Edition paints) and Chartreuse (Lin Brown's Fresco Limited Edition paints, set 1) - love this colour combo!

Lots of lovely painty layers...

The same, but different...

... and by different I mean better... nicer... more enjoyable...

On saturday I packed my bag.. or the (smallish) suitcase that was needed because I decided it was easier to pull rather than carry a bag containing 21 stamp sets and misc' other bits & pieces... (you know- those things that you pack 'just in case')

(& yes I realise this is quite a plain suitcase, no artistic embellishment -  this is because my husband also uses it for business trips! when I find the photo (or suitcase) I'll show you how I customised my large suitcase)

.... and boarded the train to London to go work... I used to do this all the time - 10plus years commuting to London doing jobs I mostly enjoyed (I say 'mostly' as the year spent in a merchant bank was NOT my cup of tea at all lol).. so the journey/commute to London is all very familiar - but the job is much more enjoyable... and the weekend commuters are slightly more relaxed.. ;o)

I spent the day running a workshop at Blade Rubber Stamps, situated near the British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London. They have an amazing selection of rubber stamps - especially wood mounted - its lovely to see them all lined up on the shelves, like little pieces of art (which I suppose they are really aren't they).
I visit this shop quite regularly as its close to the hospital I visit once a year - its my 'treat' after the visit (any excuse really!)..and so it was a pleasure to be teaching a workshop here.

The class was an newly updated version of my recent 'Book of Blooms' project (using new stamps and paints) - and this is the creative bombsite of a table - creativity in full flow.... so many stamps and paints to choose from...

and here are the lovely ladies responsible for that creativity with their projects... a pleasure to teach them....

.... and to create 'aprons' for 2 of them to protect their clothes from paint and creativity! lol  I thought it was a resourceful use of bin bags! :o)

This was a much nicer working day than my previous 9-5 - though maybe not as clean an tidy.. :o)

Thanks to the ladies for coming along, and to Deidre and staff at Blade Rubber... Hope to see you again soon

x