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.