Easter Ornament {with Lynne Perrella Stamps by Katrina Rollings}

Hello, my name is Katrina and I live with my husband and little parrot and craft buddy Dexter in Bristol in the south west of England. I love my crafting, I will try just about anything but mixed media, altered art and art journaling are my first loves. I am so excited to be able to show you my project today, a few butterflies too if I am truthful but I hope you enjoy it and give it a go yourself.

Easter is on its way and for many years now I have made an Easter tree for my home. So for my project I have decided to make a little decoration for this years tree, although I think you could hang them anywhere really, wouldn't they look lovely on a gift as the tag too?

So, here is how I made my little decoration. To begin with I poured out a small amount of Fresco Finish paint - Lime light, Yellow Submarine and Tango onto my craft mat and pulled out a piece of plain paper to paint, not too thick as we need to stitch it later. Now, when I want to cover an area quickly with blended colour I love to paint with a baby wipe. All I do is scrunch up the baby wipe, dip it into all 3 paint colours and then swipe it over your paper. Its so quick and easy and because the baby wipe is wet it will blend the colours for you! Just keep adding colour to the paper until you are happy with it. Plus there is no brush to wash after!!

PaperArtsy tip: let the babywipe dry out afterwards and you can then use it on another piece of art. Rip it up, die cut it, rub treasure gold over it. Don't throw those pretty,painty wipes away. 

Next I added some detail using the same 3 paints using the Crafters Workshop Mini Harlequin 6x6 stencil using a stencil brush. I then dried the paper with my heat gun or you can just leave it to air dry of course. Next I stamped all over my paper to make a stamped collage using the amazing Lynne Perrella collection 028. I used a Versamagic brown ink pad. One tip though, I did have a total disaster with the first ink I chose to use, it bled in such a mess that I had to start again, so it might be an idea to test your ink by stamping in a corner of your page before you start stamping, just to check.

LPC 028

To cut the flower shape I used the PaperArtsy die - Grunge Flowers #2 and #3 using the larger flower of the set. Because they are not symmetrical you need to cut a top and bottom. I placed the die cut side down over the piece of the collage I wanted for my top piece, ran it through my machine. Then for the bottom I placed the die cut side down but with the paper the plain unpainted side up and ran it through my machine. That way your 2 pieces should fit together.

As I had plenty of paper left I decided to make some paper beads to add to my decoration. These are so simple to make, I warn you though they are slightly addictive! Simply cut a slither of paper and taper it to a point at the end. The width of the paper strip determines the width of your bead and the length will determine the thickness. Take a cocktail stick and roll your paper around it from straight end to pointed end, keeping your edges level, add some wet glue to the last 2cm and roll to stick. There are many ways you can decorate your beads but this time I chose to dip the ends into a spot of Fresco Finish Chocolate pudding paint and once the paint was dry I glazed the beads with Fresco Finish Metallic Glaze.

To make up my decoration I placed a ribbon through the middle of the flower before I stitched it together, with a loop at the top and a tail at the bottom for the beads. I then stitched the paper flower shape together with a bright coloured embroidery thread using a back stitch. I used a toy stuffing to stuff my flower but you can use whatever you have to hand, cotton wool or even cut up clean old tights would work. Any white paper that is showing after stitching I just covered with some of the paint using a small piece of sponge, I then highlighted some of the areas on the stamped image with the paint and metallic glaze and then added my beads to the tail, knotted the ribbon and cut off the end. 

Now it is ready to hang on my Easter tree!! Of course you have enough paper to make a few. Looking at them now I think done in festive colours they would look very lovely on the Christmas tree too!!

Thank you so much to PaperArtsy for giving me this opportunity to show you my project and thank you for reading it. I hope you enjoyed it and will give it a go too!

Love Katrina

A huge thank you to Katrina from all at PaperArtsy HQ. We love this ornament, and yes it would look great in Christmas colours too. What a great idea to use up the paper making beads, you are right, they are very addictive .As a tag, we think this would make a beautiful addition to a gift.

If you would like to join in our weekly challenge with any of this week's guests who have blogged since Sunday night, then join in to link up your creativity HERE you will go in the draw to win PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by17:00 (London time) Sunday April 13th 2014