PaperArtsy: 2024 Topic 9 : Alison Bomber {by Victoria Wilding)

Friday 1 November 2024

2024 Topic 9 : Alison Bomber {by Victoria Wilding)

Hi everyone

Victoria here with you today.

It’s that rusty time of year, when all of the autumn colours are in their full glory and naturally spill over into our makes. And no-one does rust better than Alison Bomber, so taking a leaf from her book (see what I did there!), I was inspired to do my own paired back take on combining some of the stamps from her collection with some rusty autumn colours.

Embracing nature in words and pictures, lies at the very heart of Alison’s creative practice and forms the basis for her stamp collections. So it wasn’t too big of a stretch to incorporate this quarter’s theme of nature into my project. I decided to create a set of notelets, which can be bundled together to gift a friend. Combined with a few other elements, this handmade gift will be a one-of-a-kind package, crafted with love.

I’m not usually a hot colour fan, so lots of white space in the finished project, balances the strong colours which I used sparingly. This really helps to lead the eye to the details, whilst also giving space to rest whilst looking.

I started off by gathering my supplies. Firstly I selected some Alison Bomber stamp sets for my imagery. I knew I wanted words to be a particular focus on the notelets, so I went right back to the beginning and chose EAB01 Trees and Flowers, as the nature theme would tie in with the floral images. I am lucky to have a collection of Alison’s stamp sets, so I also chose EAB30 Violets Edition, EAB39 Pressed Foliage Edition, EAB40 Pressed Grasses Edition, EAB41 Pressed Umbels Edition, to use for the floral images, giving me a different floral for each notelet. If you don’t have as many sets, you could easily use just one set and have matching images on all the notelets.

I also selected some autumn colours from the Mattints range, picking out Ladybug, Greenstone Glow (MT01) and Squeezed (MT06). I also selected a Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Peach Nectar (FF144).

I picked out five, 4” square card blanks and envelopes, and cut five, 3.5” squares from Smoothy Card (SCA4) using my deckle edge trimmer for an uneven edge.

Then I started to create the main focal points for the notelets, stamping out quotes from EAB01 Trees and Flowers.

Next I stamped a floral on each of the cards.

Using a mix of black and grey Archival Ink, to create the illusion of depth between the images and words.

With the stamping complete, it was time to add some colour to the project.

I put out a small blob of each of the Mattints onto my craft mat, and using a small paint brush started to roughly apply the colour, not bothering to stay too closely in the lines.

This allowed me to create a halo of colour around the solid stamp designs, creating unity in all the cards as a collection.

Then I added some orange watercolour splatters and set aside to dry.

Next I created the base layers, to put the focal points on. Using scrap card, I cut five 3.75” squares and applied Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Peach Nectar (FF144) around the edge using a sponge. This is a great way to use up patterned card from your stash that you might not like that much.

Once dry I applied a rough, thin coat of glue on top of the paint.

And applied guilding flakes on top, removing the excess with a brush.

With the main elements for the notelets complete, it was time to start building the layers, using double sided tape.

Including attaching them to card blanks.

The patchy metallic highlight, look really effective against the bright peach of the paint, creating a real burst of autumn colour behind the main focal point.

To finish I stamped matching florals on the envelopes for the notelets, before bundling them all together with twine.

The finished notelets have a flush of autumn rust, that isn’t too overpowering and they look really great together as a set.

With five unique designs in the finished set, these will make a great gift for the recipient to use for sending handwritten messages or greetings, or for journaling/reflective writing.