NEW PA Products {Feb 2016} Jo Firth-Young

Hi Everyone,

Leandra here to open the first of SEVEN nights of new product releases!

First up this week, I'd like to share new 2016 stamps by Designer Jo Firth-Young.

Jo's flowery style stamps you probably know really well, and of course her fabulous Christmas images will have adorned many cards, ornaments and seasonal decorations this past Christmas. Her style is easily identifiable.

This year, Jo is branching out into new territory. It is part of what we do as artists; grow, stretch, move in new directions, and it is always interesting when designers go off on a  bit of a tangent. 

Two of her new releases are still very floral in nature, but she has introduced some delightful little people with great character, which I think give a nice focal point to create around...and look! There's even a small relative of PAMM - PaperArtsy Mini Mascot. (see this post here for the explanation from 2 years ago!).

But these guys below are a totally new vibe and style for Jo. We have a boy with his remote controlled car....

...and some rather odd (in a adorable way) kitchen-utensil Robots. For those of you who struggle with cards for the younger male, these may hit the spot, and Jo has worked hard to make useful background elements and fitting words too.

To go with these we also have some stencils...but they will follow towards the end of February when we head to the 'Stitches' trade show at the NEC (Feb 21st). Here's a taste of one of them...

We've created a video introduction so you can see Jo's stamps, and the beautiful samples that Jo and her support team have made for this release. Check it out!

So I'll hand over now to Jo for the rest of this post so she can introduce her wing-men, and show you some of her own work with these new stamps too. 

Enjoy.  

Leandra

Hi everyone, Jo Firth-Young here to show you my newest stamps I've designed for PaperArtsy. 

I wanted to design little characters to go with my flowers for a while now - little people that can be used on all types of projects.  You'll notice that I haven't given them all their facial features - I think this will make them little more versatile - you can decide whether they are smiling, frowning or laughing..if they have freckles or not.

And yes, there is a 'critter' - a weird little companion for our new friends who will live among the JOFY flowers.

I am quite often asked for motifs and designs for 'boys' cards and projects so for one set I designed a boy - and some 'toys' for him to play with - a car and one of my new robots, I call it 'camerabot'... a robot friend, ready to photograph all the boys' antics.

And last but not least - the robot stamp set - they make me smile. They are a stamp version of assemblage robots - made up of all sorts of bits and pieces - a colander, whisks, forks, spoons, a camera and springs and wheels.. they all look as if they will get up to mischief when nobody is looking. I hope you like them as much as I do.

My fantastic support crew for this release have created some lovely projects for you to see. Click on the artist's name to go to each of their blogs for details about how they made these samples. They have each left a comment about each piece they made. Let's take a look at their work:

Tonight we start with Sue Carrington.
Sue has been one of my 'wingmen' before and did such a lovely job I had to ask her again! She builds up beautiful interesting layers with paint, stencils and stamps that I am quite envious of!

'Boys will be boys!' using JOFY43 by Sue Carrington

Sue says: The combination of the main focal images and all the little elements in Jo's new stamp sets make it easy to create backgrounds that work together beautifully.  The tread-plate stamp (JOFY44) is the perfect backdrop to this mischievous looking boy!

'Enjoy!' using JOFY41 by Sue Carrington

Sue says:This panel was created on greyboard and features the little girl who is so sweet, and I love the flower detail on the dress.  The image is easy to cut out and layer making it easy to paint and add detail, as is also the case for the flowers.

'Special Day' using JOFY41/42 by Sue Carrington

Sue says:This is a great little image and I love how the flower garland layers up beautifully. The large flower stenciled in the background is the perfect backdrop and as usual Jo has created some great sentiment stamps which finish off a project perfectly. 

Next up we have Clare Charvill.

Clare creates really interesting class projects with my stamps - so I'm very happy to have on the team again for this release. To quote Clare "My style is simple, allowing the stamped focal images to pop out of the cards."

'Boys rule!' using JOFY43 by Clare Charvill

Clare says: I love this little boy with his hands in his pockets, takes me back to the days when my sons were small, and their rooms were a mess so I've included all the boy's toys from the stamp set on this panel, layering them up with the help of 3D foam.

Special Day card using JOFY41 by Clare Charvill

Clare says: These images work well for coloured clean and simple cards.  The flower stamp from JOFY41 is the focal point for this card along with some simple techniques and a little fussy cutting it creates an eye-catching birthday card.

Sunshine using JOFY41 by Clare Charvill

Clare says: I used the flower on JOFY41 as a sun which tied in nicely with the 'sunshine' word motif from the set, and inspired my Japanese lady card and the background mirrors the decoupaged sun.  I had loads of fun colouring and piecing together the Japanese lady to give her dimension on the card. 

Our third contributor tonight is Lou Collins.  She creates projects with lots of interesting bits and pieces - you need to sit and look at her pieces for a while to take it all in! I liked that she made the robots feminine because as she said 'robots can be girls too!'.

'She-bots' shadow box using JOFY44 by Lou Collins

Lou says: I just had so much fun with these cute robot stamps! Not only colouring and personalising them, but layering up elements from the rest of the stamp set too. This dimensional project would be great for any age, and any genre simply by switching up the colours. I added bows, gems and flowers to create my She-Bot project, but the addition of chains, cogs and bolts would bring a perfectly masculine feel to these super cute characters!

'Enjoy' bunting tag using JOFY41 by Lou Collins

Lou says: I absolutely adore this sweet character, looking so happy for a number of occasions.  I chose to snip away the flowers from her hands and replace them a length of string to hold the 'enjoy' letters.  This idea could be use to spell out a different word, or sentiment to really personalise your project.  I also created floral 'wallpaper' effect background by repeatedly stamping the small roses from the stamp set to cover the panel, and then painted each one. This set would be fabulous for canvases and cards alike.

'Friends' card using JOFY42 by Lou Collins

Lou says: Two different looks with one stamp?  No problem! Not only by changing the colours of this beautiful girl image, but by trimming her legs down and snipping her hair I have created a different looking 'friend' to accompany the original.  I used a watercolour effect with diluted Fresco Finish paint as a backdrop for the sentiment stamp, and by stamping the flower 'off the edge' I had the perfect border along the card spine.

A massive thanks to my support crew, I love what they have done with my new stamps, it's always so fabulous to see how other creative people work in their own style with my designs!

So now it's my turn. I'll show you a few step-outs so you can see exactly how they came together.

The first two projects were created using the robots. I love these mischievous looking little 'bots and its hard to stop creating with them. The first card is relatively clean and simple, the second a little messier - but in a good way.

Project One: 'Sparky Robot' card using JOFY44 by Jo Firth-Young

I've made a relatively simple card here using the biggest of the robots on JOFY44 as the main image... he's such a happy (if slightly bewildered) little robot.

Step One: First I stamped the robot image towards the top right hand corner of the front of the card.  I made light pencil marks top and bottom and along the bottom in readiness for the next step.

Step Two: Next I masked off the main part of card with a post-it-note (the yellow panel in photo) leaving a 4cm strip to the left of the card (marks in the above photo).  I painted this in a diluted mix of Slate, Dusty Teal and Chalk Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paint. Once dry I randomly stamped the nuts and washers image all over the panel in black ink.

Step Three: I painted the nuts/bolts and robot in various Fresco paints, finishing with a highlights of metallic glaze for shine - this is my favourite way to create a 'metal' look.  I also painted a block of diluted Dusty Teal along the bottom edge and stamped the sentiment on top.

Project Two: 'Wheelie Robot' card using JOFY44 by Jo Firth-Young

On this card I developed layers with paint and stamping - this little guy looks as if he made this painty background himself by whizzing around on his little wheels - probably why he looks a bit dizzy too... couldn't resist adding googly eyes to this robot!

Step One: I roughly painted/colour washed and splashed a panel of kraft card, and dried it.

Step Two: I randomly stamped on washers and nuts across the card, and stamped words around the edges.  I painted these in 'metal' colours.

Step Three: I stamped the robot onto a tag. I painted him using Teresa Green, Dusty Teal, Chalk with touches of Taupe and Slate.  I added highlight of Metaillic Glaze.

Step Four: I assembled the card creating layers by mounting elements on 3d foam: the tag and several of the big die-cut nuts, and then applied the smaller elements across the top of the tag in the same way.

Even if I do say so myself, I think the girls I've designed for this release are adorable.  So cute and I can see them being used in many situations, wearing all variations of dresses. Missy Long Legs (as I call her) on JOFY42 has a slightly defiant stance, and knobbly knees - I like that about her.

Project 3: 'Garden Girl' using JOFY41/42 by Jo Firth-Young

For this first project I chose to use the girly from JOFY41. I wanted to show you what you could do with the detail on her dress, and how JOFY41 and JOFY42 can work together seamlessly on a project.

Step One: First I painted a 5x7" greyboard panel in Chalk, Dusty Teal with touches of Taupe.  I stamped the leaf image from JOFY42 in Archival Jet Black ink randomly around the top edge with some of the leaves going off the edge. Next the loopy border image from JOFY42 in Dusty Teal in the remaining spaces. I stamped the flower buds (JOFY41) in Chalk randomly over the centre space.

Step Two: I stamped the girl image (again in Archival Jet Black ink) onto the background, and the 'friends' sentiment from JOFY42.

Step Three: I stamped the same image onto a panel of Smoothy that I had painted in diluted Rose Fresco Finish and cut out the dress (only the dress not the girlies head and arms). From a piece of stamped book page I cut the 2 large flowers. Then its just a matter of matching up the images, then glue the layers together.

Step Four: To create the leaves around the top edge I used Teresa Green paint washed on a piece of Smoothy card.  Onto this I stamped lots of leaf clusters and added shadowing with Taupe and Granny Smith paint. When dry I cut them out individually and attached them to the corresponding images as shown below.

Step Five: I stamped the bud stems from JOFY42 along the bottom edge of the panel. Now the detail painting began - the flower stems were painted with Rose, Chalk and Granny Smith, the phrase was painted in Granny Smith, the girl's face and hair is Taupe, Rose, Chalk and further detail is added with coloured pencils.  The spots on her dress are Dusty Teal with Chalk highlights.

This is one of my most varied releases; a boy, a girl, robots! So much more than just flowers!  Now we have people to inhabit the JOFY gardens because of course all these images will co-ordinate with previous releases.

I hope you like them as much as I do - I think this is a really versatile collection of images - I can't wait to see what you all create with them.

Please remember to visit my wing-men to see more detail about their creations.  You're most welcome to pop over to my blog and take a look at some other projects and 'bits and pieces' featuring the new stamps there too. Plus I list there where you can catch me for a workshop in 2016 too.

Thanks for joining me tonight!
Jo

Wow, isn't this the most exciting time of the year, so many new ideas and goodies to see. I do hope you can take some time to leave feedback for Jo and her wonderful wingies below and on their respective blogs.

These new JOFY stamps are available now from your favourite PaperArtsy stockist. As you know,  we do urge you to support independent retailers, online and in store by shopping with them regularly.

EDIT: 30 mins before we published this blog post, Leandra did a live demo with Jo's stamps on Periscope. You can view Periscope streams live in the Twitter app, or get the Periscope app to view on your IOS device, also available on android.

In this scope, she shows how to make a quick background with Fresco paints, then stamp and colour with transluscent Fresco paints.

Here's the live scope from Jo's release...

Below is a list of the retailers who have already got these new releases in stock ready for you to buy, so don't wait, visit them now to purchase Jo's stamps before they sell out!

Enjoy and we'll see you here again tomorrow night with TWO NEW DESIGNERS!!

~Leandra 

United Kingdom
Artist Trading Post, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey, Essex.
Blade Rubber Stamps, Bloomsbury, London.
Clacton Arts and Crafts, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Countryview Crafts, Potton, Bedfordshire.
Craftylicious, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
Imagine That..., Upminster, Essex.
Loobi Crafts, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
Papermaze, Ipswich, Suffolk.
Stampers Grove, Edinburgh.
Swanstitch, Deal, Kent.
That's Crafty, Romford, Essex.
The Artistic Stamper, Faversham, Kent.
The Craft Barn, Merstham, Surrey.
The Craft Box, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The Craft Den, March, Cambridgshire.
The Forget Me Not Kraft Kabin, Hockley, Essex.

Continental Europe
Expression-Hobby, Marcinelle, Belgium.
PaperiSaDe, Turku, Finland.
Kerudoc Creation, St Yvi, France.
Stempelfee-Shop, Hilden, Germany.
Stempeloase Munich, Munich, Germany.
Bianca's Toko, Drenthe, Netherlands.
Hobbycompleet de Duif, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Leuke Stempels, Nijverdal, Netherlands.
Big Time Stempel, Gockhaisen, Switzerland.

USA/ Canada
Frantic Stamper Inc, Eagle Point, Oregon.
Simon Says Stamp, Columbus, Ohio.
Tupelo Designs LLC, Sugarland, Texas.
Vintage in KC, Johnson, Kansas.

Asia/ Pacific
Tiny Dots, Chiba, Japan.
Crafters Cupboard Pty Ltd, Berwick, Victoria, Australia.

If you would like to sell PaperArtsy stamps, stencils, or paints in your shop, please contact Leandra or Mark: sales@paperartsy.co.uk or call us 0044 1277 212911. We look for independent shops who are full time retailers, and teach classes online or in person frequently.