2015 #16 3D Circles {by Trish Latimer}

 2015 Topic 16: Circles

Hi everyone! Trish here, joining you this evening with a post about circles! 

Circles are such a design classic, from polka dots to big, scribbly, free flowing impressions, I'm sure we all use a circle of some sort each time we create. I know my art doesn't look finished until I've added a few dots here and there! With this project though, I decided to go 3D (no surprises there!), and create some circular wire embellishments. I make lots of these, they make wonderful jewellery (just glue on a brooch back or ring blank to the underside), or they can be used individually as a focal point in your art, maybe framing something you wish to 'pop' from your work. I thought I would make a few at once, then join them together to create an assemblage.

Step One: First of all, the wire circle needs to be created. Any craft wire will work, although I like use wire at least 1cm in diameter, as it makes the circle more robust. Wrap the wire around a tube shaped object. I do this at least 4 times.

Step Two: Carefully slide the wire circle from your tube, then wrap the free ends around the circle to secure.

Step Three: For the background, it is important that you use a thin paper. You'll see why soon! I've used an old book page, and smeared on paint to colour it. I've used Guacamole, Smurf, Orchid and Snowflake. A little stencilling through sequin waste helps too!

Step Four: Once the paint is dry, the stamping can start! There are so many background designs on all PaperArtsy plates, you'll be spolied for choice. I've used stamps from EEG07, ECL04 , and JOFY09.

Step Five: Now your masterboard is complete, you can decide which bits you want to use! I find it easier to roughly cut the masterboard up, rather than attach the circles onto the whole sheet. The circles are then glued down, using Glossy Accents. This is why thin paper is needed, it is much more flexible and can be shaped to circles that are not completely flat.

Step Six: Once the Glossy Accents is dry, and you are sure you have made a complete seal around the circle, the circle frame can be filled with more Glossy Accents. You'll soon know if you left a gap... you will see leaks!

Step Seven: The Glossy Accents will dry to give a glassy, shiny finish. Nice and sturdy! The circles can then be trimmed down to remove the last bits of paper. Then they are ready to use!

I joined seven circles together by hot gluing wire across the back where the circles touched. This then created the flower shape.

A stripy trunk, and a bit of white washed driftwood later, the tree was finished! 

These circles are great used singly, and also look fabulous in large numbers on a canvas, great abstract wall art! It's fun to see how many different sized 'tubes' you can find around the house, so you can create wire circles in lots of sizes!
Thank you for having me on the blog again, I really look forward to my GDT stints here!

Trish xxxxx
www.inkpaintbeads.blogspot.co.uk

Trish this is such an awesome 3d project ...the stamped wire circle embellishments create a real focal piece clustered together, always love the bold black and white colours you incorporate into your artwork. Thanks for sharing your creativity.

Did you know that you can play along with us on the PaperArtsy blog to share and explorewith us how you interpret the current theme. The current topic is Circles, and if you are inspired by any of our contributors on the blog this fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE.

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Circles challenge link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 6th, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #16 Circle Crazy {by Emma Godfrey}

Topic 16: Circles

Hi everyone, Emma here, joining you this evening with a post about Circles.  I obviously wanted to use my circle stamps for this project, but I also wanted to add lots of texture to create a "touchy-feely" journal page too.  There are a lot of circles on this page ... hence the title!

Step One: I punched different size circles and hoops from some text paper and Smoothy, and stuck these down. I then went over the whole page with a thin layer of Fresco Finish Snowflake, and when that was dry I added some scribbles with a charcoal pencil.

Step Two: I stenciled with Jet Black Archival Ink through some sequin waste and a text stencil. I mixed my Fresco paint colours: Beach Hut, Limelight, Eggplant, Tango and Bouganvillea (from the Lin Brown Ltd Edition Set 3) with some medium (I used Ranger's Dina Wakely Soft Gel Matte Medium, but you could use Golden Matte Medium, Fluid Matte Medium, or Polymer Medium if you prefer, or any soft or loose matte gel). 

Topic 15 had inspired me to try mediums mixed into paint, and I loved the way the paints became even more fluid and translucent to work with but also retained their brightness, and they don't dry out quite so fast, and are more blendable into each other too. I painted the colours all over the page using vertical and horizontal strokes.

Step Three: Using a round sponge I applied Fresco Finish Snowflake all over the page to use as backgrounds for one of my circle stamps EEG07...

...the larger wheel type one.  I stamped it and the small stripy circle using Jet Black Archival Ink.

Step Four: I coloured in the wheel stamped images with the Fresco Finish paints and a very fine paintbrush. The stripy circle stamp was highlighted with an Extra Fine White Sharpie Paint Pen. I drew tiny circles and around the text paper circles with a black water soluble pencil, and then went over the lines with a wet paint brush. I added white circles and dots with the Sharpie pen. I also added some white splodges with the Fresco Finish Snowflake using just my finger, and when dry highlighted these with tiny dots using a black pen.

Step Five: I liked the page, but thought it was a little bright, so I applied a thin layer of Fresco Finish Snowflake with a palette knife - this added another texture too. When that was dry I realised I'd covered up all my water soluble pencil around the text circles, so I added some more.   Next I stuck down my quote, and lastly I decided it needed just one more texture - and I stenciled some Dreamweaver Translucent Embossing Paste through Stencil PS001. It doesn't photograph particularly well, but it really catches the light in real life.

Here's a close up of the finished page ...

I had so much fun creating this page. I didn't start with a plan, so I just let it flow, and I also got to try some new things for the first time! I {love} the texture that the first layer of punched circles gives to the page, even if it means the stamps won't stamp perfectly on top (I can be a little OCD ... but I'm getting better at just letting things like that go). Their raised edges are obvious even at the end.  That and the translucent embossing just make me want to stroke the page!

Thanks for looking - I'd love to see what you make if this project has inspired you.   You can find me on my blog, facebook and twitter.

Ohhh Emma this is delicious. I love how you manage to get such a variety of bright colours, and use the white to soften. Your circle stamps look stunning!! Thank you! ~ Leandra

Did you know that you can play along with us on the PaperArtsy blog to share and explore with us how you interpret the current theme. The current topic is Circles, and if you are inspired by any of our contributors on the blog this fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE.

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Circles challenge link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 6th, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #16 Pink Spots {By Jo Firth-Young}

Topic 16: Circles

Hi Everyone. Jo here, and my project for the circles theme is some lovely clean and simple cards created with my stamps set JOFY31 which is full of circles!!  I designed this stamp set with scrapbookers and journallers in mind - I thought the big scribble circle would be a great (and easy) way to highlight a particular part of a photo, or as a journalling space.  In this blog post I've decided to use it for cardmaking instead.

Here is JOFY31 - as you can see lots of lovely circles to play with. All the cards I made are on a very limited colour scheme - Bougainvillea, Candy Floss, & Chalk.  Bougainvillea is a Limited Edition colour (from Lin Brown's 3 set) but its a 'go-to' colour of mine (I love how juicy and bright it is!) and I couldn't resist using it - I know many of you have the colour so I hope these 'less is more' projects inspire you to use it.  The paint set is sold out online at PaperArtsy but you may still be able to buy it from you local shop or online retailer.

The cards I made are relatively simple so I'll only give brief 'how-to's'. 

I started by painting an ombre panel to feature on the cards.

I stamped the small patterned circles onto the panel - stamping three at a time is much quicker.  I put these to one side, cutting them out when needed.

First up is a 12.5x12.5cm card where I have used the circles as flowers - the leaves are the petals from the flower on JOFY31 stamped onto green scrapbook paper.  ('Thanks' is a die cut: 'Fancy Thanks' PoppyStamps).  I really like how they become stylised flowers.

On this card I splashed/splattered a white card with diluted Candy Floss paint and dried with a heat gun.  I stamped the 3 circles onto the card, cut out and attached the ombre circles.  I stamp the images onto the base card so that my hand drawn squiggles/sketches carry across - you can see this on the top edge of the left hand circle.  'thanks' is from JOFY32.  Circles were glued in place. 

The heat gun warped the card when I dried the paint splats (something I'm never happy with, especially when its going to be a greeting card) so I cut the card down and attached it to a kraft card base (this flattens the card) - I also really like how this frames the white panel. I sewed across the circles several times.

Speaking of sewing;  I used the 'stitched' scallop edging to create a stitched line and then added hand drawn stitches - easy way to achieve a stitched look if you don't have access to a sewing machine.

This card was fun to create - a busy little card (it has a little bit of everything!) but still quite 'less is more' maybe due to the white background and limited colour palette.  ??

I Started by splatting the surface with diluted Bougainvillea paint to break up the white background.  Then I stamped (and dried) plain black scribble circles. Stamped and embossed green circles (pink and green is one of my favourite colour combinations) - I used WOW's Sensational Sage embossing powder - really lovely sparkly soft green with a touch of gold.

 

I added colour puddles to some of the circles, and dried these before gluing on some of the stamped circles created with the ombre panel.  

I stamped on a greeting, and drew lines around the outside of the card to finish.  I decided it weren't enough paint splashes so I added some more - I like how these are the top layer.

The cards above all use the small circles, here are a couple of cards using the large scribble circle.

The large scribble circle was stamped and embossed (Versamark ink, Sensational Sage WOW embossing powder) onto a panel of Smoothy card.  I die cut 'thanks'  from the ombre panel and attached it to the white panel.  I sewed the panel to a kraft card (10x10cm) using my sewing machine & finally added some pearls to finish. (I've photographed the card so the light catches the embossing powder.)

This last card was created by stamping a circle in black Archival ink (drying this) and stamping a slightly offset second circle in Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and, while it was still wet adding water and dragging the ink out with a paint brush - I also added more ink because I wanted more of a 'bleed'.

I created a stencil of the circle by stamping onto a large sticky-note and cutting out the inner circle.  I layered this up with a sheet of 'punchinella' - (more circles !!) and sponged ink into the centre of the stamped circles. 

I also added the punchinella pattern to the bottom edge of the card.  The seed head is a die cut that I trimmed to suit (Shrewsbury stem, MemoryBox.com).  I added a clear sparkly embossing powder to the top of the stems to break up the black.

These are my circles projects - I hope you've enjoyed them and I've inspired you to make some cards (its always handy to have some cards ready to send isn't it). my blog is over at www.jofirthyoung.blogspot.co.uk

Wow Jo, Love your Pop of pink on all these great cards! And love how you have made a mask with the circles stamps so effectively!! Awesome! Beautiful ideas, simple and elegant as always! ~Leandra
Did you know that you can play along with us on the PaperArtsy blog to share and explore with us how you interpret the current theme. The current topic is Circles, and if you are inspired by any of our contributors on the blog this fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE.

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Circles challenge link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 6th, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #16 Colourful Cards {by Anneke de Clerck}

Topic 16: Circles

Hi everyone Anneke here, joining you this evening with a post about circles. I love to include circles into my work. I have lots of circle stencils, polka dot stamps and I use these all the time. I often punch circles out of paper scraps/vintage book paper and add these on my cards, art journal pages, canvasses.... Circles add interest to a background and are very suitable shapes to create flowers with.

This evening I want to walk you through the making of a set of colorful cards. Hope you'll enjoy it.

When making cards I often work in series, it's nice to have a stash of cards at the ready when you need them.  

I picked some paints out of my collection of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics: Tinned Peas, Limelight, Candy Floss, Caribbean Sea, Beach Hut, Wisteria, Blue Oyster, Banana and Smoked Paprika.

First I painted strips of tissue paper. I worked with opaque paints as well as translucent paints.

I cut the tissue paper into small strips and glued them to a 4 by 6" (10 x 15 cm) piece of paper with gel medium. I used smoothy white stamping card (340g), that paper can withstand gel medium perfectly well. After drying I flipped over the excess of paper to the back and attached it with more gel medium.

For the card in the middle I used a combination of 4 colors, for the others I used all the colors.

Next I stamped circles to the background with a glass using Snowflake paint. When creating stamped designs like this I always start in the centre of the card and work towards the edges.

For the following step I used a spiral stamp from the EEG07 stamp set. There are lots of awesome circle stamps in that set!

I used my fingers to load the stamp with Snowflake paint. In my opinion this is the easiest way to put just the right amount of paint to the stamp.

I overstamped the background with circle stamps from the EEG07 set and StazOn Teal Blue.

I stamped a flower with one of my favorite flower stamps from the ELB01 set and a combination of Smoked Paprika, Candy Floss and Limelight paint. I cut stems out of paper that I painted with Snowflake first. 

I arranged the flower and stem to the card. I used a small stamp from the EEG07 set to create extra flowers. I stamped a border with Archival Ink Jet Black. 

I colored the sculpted borders with Snowflake paint and added accents to the stamped circles using a white pen.

I finished the cards off with more circles.

At the end I changed the color of the flower centres and stems. I stamped the flower from the ELB01 set again with Archival Ink Jet Black, cut out the centre and attached it to the colored flower. Glued a black stem on top of the white one. These black accents make the flower pop more.

If you are not into busy, colorful backgrounds you could add a wash of Snowflake to the tissue paper background first. Or you could use one color or shades of one color for the background. I'm sure strips of the colors Blue Oyster or Wisteria would look great too. Stamping spirals in each circle would be a lovely variation as well. Lots of options :)

I hope I could inspire you to join in with the  current challenge. I would love to see what you come up with.

Have fun!

Thanks for watching!

Anneke 

somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.com

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Wow, another beautiful post Anneke! You always seems to manage to make thing look simple when there is a lot more going on in such clever layers! Thankyou! ~Darcy

We would love you to join in with challenge #16: Circles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Circles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 6th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #16 Circular Boxes {by Julie Ann Lee}

 2015 Topic 16: Circles

Hi everyone! Julie Ann from Magpieheaven here, joining you this evening with a post about decorating an inexpensive box, using Fresco Finish Paints, Waxed Tissue, Satin Glaze and a little Smoothy Card! Tonight my project has had me going around in circles, but not in a bad way! The circle is such an beautiful shape, even when it comes in the form of ridiculously cheap little boxes from 'The Works'! This project took just a few hours to complete and turns a humble item into something that would happily house a precious gift!

Step One: I began by taking a strip of masking tape and fixing it around the edge of  my box. These boxes are a very snug fit and quite delicate, so I've found it's best not to add too many layers of paint: if you do, the lid will be just too tight! I painted over the whole of the box with Vanilla Fresco so that when I removed the tape only the lower part would be covered. I really like the neutral tone of the box appearing between the tissue I've added later, as it has a vintage look.

Step Two: Rather than discard the tape, I stuck it to my craft mat and decorated it with some stencilling through sequin waste using London Bus and Chalk Frescos. 

I then stamped over this without an acrylic block with the beautiful text from HP1505 in Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival .

Step Three: You can see my tape in the middle here. I also painted some Damask tissue on the reverse side with a wash of Nougat then dipped a juice lid into little puddles of Chalk and London Bus Frescos and used it for mark-making on the tissue, before stamping on the poppy heads and text from HP1505. Finally I painted a piece of Smoothy Card with Sherbet and London Bus Frescos and then stamped the poppy from HP1505 onto it in Squid Ink, clear embossing for greater definition.

Step Four: Now it was time to transform this little box! I tore the tissue, attaching it with Satin Glaze randomly. When the first top coat was dry, I edged the box with a little more of the Potting Soil on a piece of Cut 'n Dry Foam and stamped some more of the text in the spaces, before applying another coat of Satin Glaze. A swipe of Classic Treasure Gold completed this half of the project.

Step Five: I added a few last tissue scraps to the lid and then fashioned the 3D poppy. You can see I really did take photos as I went along, as the Glaze hasn't dried in this one!  First I painted the back of my card with Squid Ink Fresco Paint and then cut my stamped images into sections of differing sizes, which I sprayed with a little water before curling them around a pencil. It was then a matter of waiting until they were dry, adding some Treasure Gold to the back and then forming my poppy carefully; sculpting and sticking the petals into place with Glossy Accents. The centre is a tiny pearl painted with Squid Ink with a little Indigo Treasure Gold added.

It took very little time to create a special circle gift box out of an object that cost less than a pound! These stamps are so incredibly versatile that they work equally well whether you use them for 3D projects, canvases or journals. I reach for the Fresco paints so often now that I don't use ink pads nearly so much: I find I can achieve a coordinated project far more easily. And the waxed tissue is a great solution if you need to stamp on a curved surface!

I do hope you will try 'going round in circles' on a project of your own that features circles in some way and link up with the PaperArtsy Circle Challenge. 

Meanwhile, I am Julie Ann (@woletz1) of Magpieheaven, hoping that you continue to have a lovely creative Summer.

What a fun idea Julie Ann! I can really see that a stash of these made now to use for small Christmas Gifts later in the year could be a really good strategy! Love your colour scheme too! Love how the damask tissue pattern is just visible in the BG, adds an interesting detail! Thanks again for such a lovely project, I know how busy you are juggling a lot of late, we really appreciate it ~Leandra

Did you know that you can play along with us on the PaperArtsy blog to share and explore with us how you interpret the current theme: Circles. If you are inspired by any of our contributors on the blog this fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE.

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Circles challenge link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 6th, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.