Masterboard Makes {with JoFY Stamps by Designer Jo Firth Young}

Hi everyone, Jo here with the second part of my Masterboard project.  Last month I created this:

...and it was great to see so many of you join in and create your own masterboards I hope you had fun- & apologies to those who found it slightly addictive!  Printing and colouring are relaxing ways to spend time don't you think!
EDIT: If you'd like to see the original post showing how to create the board and which stamps sets were used you can find it HERE.

When I created my masterboard I also made a colour index of all the coloured pencils I'd used.

I created 'embellishments' by stamping lots of spare flowers onto PaperArtsy Smoothy Card and coloured them matching the same colours as the masterboard.

So now we've created our masterboards we need to create with them.  I scan and save my masterboards onto the computer, and I also photocopy them - I have to admit cutting into the finished board for the first time is a little bit scary so I feel better if I have a copy..(or 2...) of the original.

On the masterboard I coloured each type of flower the same which, I feel, makes the board look like a printed piece of fabric and that became my inspiration for the projects.

The first project I created was a scrapbook page. I lean towards the 'less is more/clean & simple' when it comes to scrapbooking. This page is taken from one of the versatile 12x12 Kraft albums that PaperArtsy sells - I LOVE THESE!!

Great weight of paper pages - perfect for big messy journaling or for neat & tidy.  The ringbinding makes them easy to take apart to remove pages to work on and then replace when finished.
They're not available on the PaperArtsy website but give them a call if you'd like one.

I die cut lots of hexagons from various papers that coordinated with the masterboard: booktext, the green/white spotted paper, painted pieces and papers from the stash) & of course the masterboard. I played around the the layout of the hexagons making sure that no two the same were side by side and when happy I secured them with a glue stick.
Then came the fun part - I sewed round all the pieces with the sewing machine (nb. paper/card can blunt needles so keep a needle to use solely for sewing these substrates).

It was fun sewing around all those shapes - I had to go over a couple of lines twice to keep the line going but that's not a problem- adds to the handcreated effect.

to finish the page I hand sewed some of the individual flowers onto the page along with few buttons and die cut leaves.  I also wrote brief notes on the notepaper hexagons.

The back of the page looked like this and as much as I like it I do prefer for my pages to have a clean back and so I sewed this and another matching page together around the edges.

Sewing the two pages together added to the sewing theme and, more importantly, reinforced and flattened the original page which had to be bent to get it through/under the arm of the sewing machine.

The first page used a lot of sewing machine work and so while I was on a bit of a roll with the masterboard, sewing, patchwork, hexagon theme I created another one this time using only 'faux' stitching - I like adding faux stitching to projects and its useful if you don't have a sewing machine but still want to achieve the the 'sewn' look:

I die cut more hexagons - this time in several different sizes - and arranged them to suit on the page - overlapping the elements: the photo, the hexagons the flowers so that everything is connected.  All pieces were adhered with either doublesided tape, 3d foam (small hexagons) and glossy accents (buttons and flowers).

The bigger buttons had cotton sewn through them and then were glued to the page to avoid sewing into the page itself.

I like continuing the line of stitching over the edge of the patterned piece - it helps to 'tie' the piece to the background.

I've used hexagons for my shapes but different shapes could be used - square and rectangles for example which would create a nice tiled effect.. or circles for a fun layout.

I created a few cards with the remaining masterboard - these are simple cards - mat & layering with simple embellishments (once again I'm a bit of a less is more with card design.)

This first card is almost completely covered with the masterboard - I've matted it on black as it makes the panel pop.

I also added a separate flower (one created at the start of this blog post) and left the petals raised - it gives the panel movement - this could be done with any of the flowers - or raise part of the flower such as the star in the centre of the pink flower.

Stem images was stamped on black with Chalk Fresco Finish - I painted some of the flowers and then added colour with pencils to tie in the masterboard circle.

Finally this card is very clean and simple - masterboard was cut and matted with kraft, gems and buttons added... and a simple tag (JOFY23)added on very fine string.

Phew this feels like a long blog post!  I hope I've inspired you to cut up your masterboard and create with it.  I still have some pieces of masterboard left and I'll be blogging some more ideas on my blog over the next few days.

Take care.


If you would like to join in this week's challenge and play along with Jo's techniques, then do link up your creativity here, and go in the draw to win some PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by 17:00, Sunday April 20th 2014