Christmas cards....

.... are on the {ever growing} christmas 'to-do' list... and I wanted to share with you a couple of cards I made using stamp set JOFY69 and the smaller of the two trees...  they're quite simple, a little bit 'less-is-more', bit of paper piecing and a sprinkle of glitter...

When I designed these trees this is how I planned to use them - layering up different patterned papers.  I picked out some papers from the 8x8in pads I have in my stash (Basic Grey... sigh.. I miss their papers). 

I chose three patterns that I thought worked nicely together and, using my stamping platform, stamped 3 trees and cut them out.

I cut the trees up ready to be layered - leaving a tier above or below the required tier so that there is something to attached it to (that's quite hard to explain lol) 

The trees below are created from the trees above... (I used a Tombow glue stick to attach them together as it gives a bit of wiggle time)

The trees looked a bit flat so I added depth by shading below the line of each tier to create shadow. (Tombow Brush Marker in pale grey) - simple but makes a big difference when you compare the above and below photos.  (I also added a white top tier to one of the trees, I thought it didn't have enough pattern changes).

I stamped the tree trunk several times onto brown printed paper and cut out leaving excess at the top (looks like a little mushroom!) so the trunk could be attached to the tree.

Here's the trunk from the front.

These trees are a bit time consuming but worth it! (in my humble opinion).

To make the cards I took a 10cm panel of kraft card and stamped JM07 down one edge (this snowflake stamps is a definite 'go-to' for me!), mounted it onto a 12.5cm card and 3d mounted the tree on top - overlapping the edge to tie the two panels together.

This card is the opposite colour combination to the card above - they're the same but different.  I like that.  I added a touch of glitter (Stickles) and gold paint (PaperArtsy White Fire Fresco) for a bit of sparkle.

I think this is a good card to make sitting down in front of the tv with a nice christmas film... a bit of stamping, bit of fussy (but not too fussy) cutting and some sticking!... and you can attack the stash in the process.!  ho ho ho!

Thanks for stopping by!

JoFY Bingo Wk.16

Welcome to JOFY Bingo Week16!  Halfway through the 32 weeks this little project is going to take!

These christmas stamps keep coming up in the draw don't they!  This week the numbers are 7 & 11- a nice mix to create cards with this...

I wanted to move away from the christmas theme and so created 3 birthday cards using - the first of which are created using the star on JOFY07 as the main motif...

I kept the design quite simple - stamping the stars on to a background created with Distress Oxide inks, cutting them out, embellishing them and adding them to card base decorated simply with the little background stamp also on JOFY07.  The word blocks are from JOFY11 - useful little motifs.

The third card I made uses one of my favourite techniques - paper piecing - and uses mostly the flower images from JOFY11 - but I couldn't resist adding bunting from JOFY07...

To create a colour palette for the whole card I used the same Distress Oxide Inks for the background and painting the flowers, and also the same pack of paper for the bunting and the flowers.

The hitch is that the bunting spells out 'noel' which isn't good for birthdays (unless the recipient is called Noel, but that's a long shot isn't it! lol) so it has to be masked off ...

I mask off parts of the design by stamping the image onto post-it-notes (across the sticky part), cutting out the required elements and adding them to the stamp...

This is how it looks when stamped with the elements masked off...

The masked off image was stamped several times onto patterned papers and then cut out ready to be added to the card design..

The bunting looked a bit plain so I added die cut hearts (cut from the leftovers from the star cards)..

Flowers were stamped in black ink onto the background and again onto patterned papers.  The images were cut out and matched up...

I drew and painted simple posts for the word blocks so they look like little signs...

Phew!... half way through the JoFY Bingo project!

Thanks for stopping by!

ALBOTAT: Doodle Flower....

I'd been wondering what the big blousy doodle flowers from on JOFY64 would look like if the two parts were combined to make an even BIGGER doodle flower...

Well, they'd look like this:

REALLY like how this looks!   Created with four of the 'half' flowers underneath one of the complete flowers, raised on 3d foam with the little background flower used on the centre....  the leaves are from JOFY61.

 Sometimes you just have to play BIG!!

JoFY Bingo Wk.7

Welcome to week 7 of JoFY Bingo! How's this for an eclectic selection of stamps to work with!

I chose to focus on the robots - I don't use them nearly as much as I should - they're great for male cards/projects - especially Skid (the tall robot with the wheel - he makes me smile!)

I created a page in my art journal (really enjoying working in this journal at the moment - its the small Dylusions one).

The grey centre panel is a clean up/ghost gel print and I surrounded it with a border of graph paper.  The page came together quite easily - stamped the robot words around all the edges to create a border, added stencilled hexagons and stamped nuts and bolts randomly around the page. 

I painted a panel of card in Fresco Paints (Slate, Chalk) and a metallic grey/blue paint.  I stamped onto the panel the star flourish from JOFY57 and cut out the stars ready to attach where needed.... you don't have to use an entire image - just use the bits you need.

I created the robots by stamping them onto the page and onto printed papers, and paper pieced them together. Skid's arms and legs are quite fiddly to cut out and so this gives a much nicer finished result.

I gave Skid some googly eyes - who doesn't love googly eyes!! lol

I'm calling the other two robots 'the brothers' as they look related - the same but different...

The little robot is unchanged but the tall one has been made of parts... a bit like Frankenstein's monster - but much less scary! lol
I created him by I masking off the legs and then stamped him slightly higher up the page.  I drew tall legs and gave him a foot and a wheel.  I stamped Skid's head and the small robots body onto the same patterned paper cut them out and added paper pieced them onto the page.  I wanted his head to look different to Skid's so I cut of the 'ears' (colander handles!) and gave him one BIG eye!  (no robots were harmed in the making of this page! lol)

These little robots make me smile - they look related to each other - or maybe they are the robot world's first boy band!?!  I'll let you decide!


That's Week 7 done and dusted...  I hope you can join in this week - I'd love to see what you do with the robots! (and the other stamps of course!)

So if you fancy joining in here's what you need to know:

The numbers are drawn on Monday, along with a project I've made using the corresponding stamp sets, then the plan is to:

• Use/combine 2 stamp sets (use only those stamp sets - not all the stamps in each set - that would be too much of an ask but as long as there are one or two stamps from each set then its OK!)
• 7 days to create 1 project, makers choice:  cards... atc... journal page... dimensional project... tag...
• Use any paints/media, colours, embellishments, stencils/masks
• Load up your project to Instagram any time during the week.  Please use Instagram links #jofybingo and @jofyjo in the text (not 'tagging' me please) so I can find it :o)

If you don't have an Instagram account you can add your make in the comments on the Facebook post linked to this blog post (facebook links:  https://www.facebook.com/JoFY.JoFirthYoung/ or https://www.facebook.com/jo.firthyoung )

I hope you can join in - I look forward to seeing what you create!

JoFY Bingo Wk.6

Welcome to Week 6 of Jofy Bingo - lots of great flower elements this week (which seems ironic as this week there aren't any christmas/snowy stamps but its the week we have snow here in the UK!)

I chose to create another spread in my art journal this week... (you can find my short process video at the bottom of this post!)

and LOOK!  I used YELLOW!!!  (and I recently bought a yellow top and a yellow handbag!!!)  I am FINALLY FULLY embracing yellow!! (it might be because I really want spring to arrive and bring warmer weather with it!)

aaanayhoo for this project I wanted to use paperpiecing - the flower head on JOFY35 really lends itself to that technique.
For the paper piecing I stamped the same images several times onto different scrapbook papers (I use 6x6 pads of paper for this as the designs are smaller/daintier..) and set about cutting them out.

I've laid the pieces out in the photos below so you can see how I put them together and get the most amount of flowers out of them.  The green/teal flower has its centre cut out and is reattached on top of the other layers - noone can see the hole that's created and it doesn't affect its structure/stability... the centre of the yellow layer could also be removed (and used elsewhere) as it is covered by the white layer..

Here are the finished pieced flower heads..  they are all the same but different - complementing each other..

I added shading around the layers to add a bit of depth, a touch of white gel pen (everything looks better with a bit of that doesn't it!) and some glitter glue to contrast with the matte grey background.

I made a quick video showing you how I created the spread... enjoy!

Right, I'm off outside to build a snowman....


ha ha ha

who am I kidding - I'm staying indoors where its nice and toasty warm!

Stay safe and warm everyone.

Ho ho ho!

Its beginning to look a lot like christmaaaaaaas!!... and to get you in the mood I have new very festive JOFY stamp sets for you...

Over on the PaperArtsy blog there are projects using these new stamps... pop over to take a look.

Ooooh I love this cakestand loaded with baubles!.. and the parcel (which is going to be so useful all year round! ..more about that later in this post!)

I've wanted to design a snowflake background for a while so here it is... along with this year's snowman... he's complete (which hasn't always been the case!) but standing on his head! and why not?!


Here is the card I promised in my PaperArtsy blog post... its so easy to use the parcel/gift stamp all through the year - simply change the papers used in the paper-piecing and add a different sentiment to your tag!  The tag and sentiment I used on the card below is from the new mini JM51.

This card is quite clean and simple but you can fancy-it-up to your hearts desire!

Have fun - and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

:o)