2016 #19 Woodland Nymph {by Donna Gray}

2016 Topic 19: Die Cuts

Hi everyone, Donna Gray from Inky and Quirky here excitedly joining you this evening with a post about Die Cuts. I love using an assortment of die cuts to add interest and texture to a creation and when I saw the new Seth Apter one’s it set the little arty cogs in my brain whirring away with possibilities! So I thought I’d use them teamed up with some wonderful Lin Brown stamps to do an Autumnal theme with a woodland nymph keeping to all the russet colours. 

 Step One:​  Use a large piece of That’s Crafty white/greyboard and start to brayer on the colours of Fresco paint in Tikka,Tango,Zesty Zing and Chartreuse randomly to create a light background for the stamping. Start adding some stamps from the fab ELB29 set using Archival ink in Coffee, this keeps the background muted as I didn't want it to overshadow what comes next. 

ELB29

Step Two:​  Next it’s time to start drawing the wood nymph…...yes she does look a bit strange at this stage but don't worry it gets better! Use Fresco Nougat as the base of the skin colour, Fresco Tinned Peas for the eyes and Fresco London Bus for the lips, define the features using a brown Faber Castell Polychromos pencil. The body was painted with a mixture of Fresco Zesty Zing, Seaweed and Brown Shed, I wanted to create a sort of tree trunk effect.

Step Three:  Take a sheet of PaperArtsy Smoothy paper and sprinkle some lovely Infusions on, use a mixture of The Sage, Lemoncello,Orange County and Are You Cerise and spritz with a good spray of water until the colours start to mingle, dab with a kitchen towel if needed before heat drying. Now it’s time to start stamping up some leaves using the leaf stamp from ELB29 with a mixture of Archival and Memento inks, still sticking to that Autumnal colour palette, lots of lovely fussy cutting there! At the same time I also cut one of the Seth Apter dies (Drip Drop set cut from more Smoothy paper) and used the same mixture of Infusions.

Step Four:  I ​used some more die cuts, this time from Tim Holtz’s Sizzix Garden Greens die, and coloured with more Infusions in the same colour range as previous. In the end I only used the leaf pictured on the right as the other one just didn't work for me and as you'll see on the picture of the final creation I substituted it for another Seth Apter die (Ring Around) which I coloured with Distress inks in Barn Door, Vintage Photo and Spiced Marmalade.The same Distress colours were used on the die cut from the Drip and Drop set with a little bit of stamping with the circle stamp from the ELB29 set.

Step Five​: Now you start pulling all the pieces together. Use the drip drop die cut to form a circle around the wood nymph’s head and then layer up the leaves around that (I added a little Barn Door to the leaves to redden them up a bit). I used stencil PS002 Lin Brown and pounced Mowed Lawn Distress ink through it to create a little more depth on the background.

Next take a couple of stamps from ELB23 and ELB29 and use on the nymph’s ‘body’, stamp and cut the leaf stamp separately and pop behind the leafy garland. Take the gorgeous tulip stamp from stamp set ELB23 and colour with a mixture of Zig clean colour pens in red and orange shades, fussy cut out and again place one in the nymph’s garland and attach one on top of the die cut leaf. For a finishing touch add a couple of Tim Holtz chit chat stickers and use one of the new Ranger Enamel Accents in white to add a little pop here and there against the Autumn colours.

 ELB23

Step Six: ​ Here’s a close up of the face and some leaves. I added a couple of drops of Decoart Media Liquid Glass to the leaves so they look like they’ve just caught a little rain drop.

I really hope this has inspired you to get out your stash of die cuts and use them up, they are so versatile and can be coloured and textured with a whole range of products depending on what you want to create. How about drawing your own wood nymph too and maybe create one for each season, now there’s an idea ;)

Donna Gray 

Blog:Inky and Quirky

Ooh just gorgeous Donna, these colours are stunning and Lin's stamps are perfect for this, they really fit well with the die cut shapes and over all theme. ~Darcy

We would love to see how you interpret this Die Cuts topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #19: Die Cuts, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Die Cuts link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Oct 16th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.