2021: PaperArtsy - A Year in Review {Topics 10 to 12}

 

Hello from PaperArtsy HQ,

We're back for the penultimate round up post of 2021. And hold on to your hats, it's another goodie, full of inspirational ideas, techniques and crafty fun!

Today Dounia has her picks for you from Topic 10:My Favorite Colour, Topic 11:Twinkle, Twinkle and Topic 12:Sustainable Crafting.

 

Get ready for a bit of bling, brightness, and blooming good fun!

Leandra 

Topic 10 : My Favorite Colour

Here is a nice straightforward topic title! In the previous years, we tried to have regular colour topics on the blog but took a break in 2021. Therefore, for our one colour theme of the year, we let our bloggers make their choice and share a favorite combination. As expected, the resulting projects were wonderfully eclectic, from vibrant bright hues to subtle half-tones, from monochromatic cameos to the full rainbow, from barely there nuances to fully saturated splashes. Everybody loves colour, it creates atmosphere, invokes memories, shares feelings, but everyone's love for it is different, making this topic so interesting!

My first pick is this amazing art block by Amanda Pink. Blue is obviously her favorite colour, despite her name, and she rocks the monochromatic look. Check her original blog post to discover her process and watch her master-board develop layer after layer. I love her use of clean lines to cut through the background and how striking the embossed 'Unity' is. This piece is so bright, when blue is so often used as a soft colour.

Ellie Knol chose a combination of teal and reddish brown for her journal covers. The two mix in a gorgeous dark plum, making for a unusual palette. The obscure colours, added to subtle stencilling, create wonderfully atmospheric backgrounds. The focal images are an interesting contrast between realistic stamps and unreal colours. I love how all the elements combine to create a fairy-like dreamy world.(link to original blog post)

Jennie Atkinson's project is all about soft and subtle touches to showcase her favorite colour, tea dyed paper! I love how the Infusion in the background is so diluted, barely there, but still offers a lovely contrast to the focal images. The coordinating paper colours and inks are so skillfully balanced in her layers, providing both cohesion and interest. Jennie's original blog post is a masterclass in building a light and complex multi-technique background.

Claire Snowdon certainly does not hide her fondness for pink! She used it in 3 different media: acrylic paints, watercolors and Infusions. I love the variation of tone she achieves, making the flowers pop despite being pink on pink. They seem to burst out of those ATCs! Her original blog post beautifully shows all the details of the texture she create in her backgrounds, with lots of little touches that are not obvious but contributes to the overall style.

Topic 11 : Twinkle, Twinkle

🌟🎵Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are...🎵🌟 This is basically what we asked our bloggers! Stars are probably one of the first things we doodle and are everywhere in craft products. If you also add everything sparkly, glittery or shiny, and expand the topic to space, galaxies and lights, the possibilities are endless! So what are stars to you? How do you use them in your crafting?

Tracy Springer's clever card has everything that comes to mind when thinking of stars: a galaxy purple background, white and yellow stars of all sizes, shiny gold, halo effects... Add the depth of a tunnel card and a cheeky Zini high priestess and you are in for a world of fun! In her blog post, Tracey shares her process, her struggles (not that you would guess looking at the finished project!) and the inside of the card, which is also gorgeous and star-filled.

Instead of indulging in all things sparkly, Kate Yetter went for star related stamps and a colour palette of neutrals and rusty-browns. She uses it skillfully to provide cohesion to her collage while letting the focal images pop on their white paper. Her original blog post usefully details her process to obtain this deliciously grungy background and gives you a closer look at all the ways she has used the stamps in her layers and elements.

For Jenny Marples, who likes playing with building and architecture in her art, twinkling is for windows at night, which she translated beautifully in this card. Even before she adds the focal image, her project is full of layers and textures, including the music paper, a nice nod the topic title. Despite what you might think, the window is not hand drawn and Jenny shares in her original blog post her technique to get this look from a photography, a must try.

Topic 12 : Sustainable Crafting

We are all becoming more and more conscious of our personal environmental impact so we wanted to explore how to reduce it in our small scale as creatives. Most of us already reuse packaging, empty containers or non-craft materials but there are lots of other ways we could modify our crafting habits: being mindful of the ethos of the companies we buy from, thinking about how much disposables we consume, checking how much water we use, etc. Let's not forget those products languishing in a corner of our craftroom that we just can't bin. Maybe it is time to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and use them, or get together with other crafty hoarders and swap treasures!

Recently, lots of us have been ordering online, resulting in  mounds of cardboard and envelopes. Etsuko Noguchi chose to upcycle those parcel packaging into a bellowed folder and individual inserts. It can even be used sustainably to store left over odds and bits for future use. Check Etsuko's original blog post for details of all her layers and pictures of all the gorgeous and colourful removable envelopes.

Autumn Clark went full on for her project. She made her own recycled paper to fill this lovely notebook and the leather used for binding it is from her old couch! The overall handmade and weathered look is lovely, especially paired with amazing texture and clean flowers of the cover. In her original blog post, Autumn also shares a trio of card where she experiment with her homemade paper, well worth the read!

Nikki Acton was inspired by the topic in both her use of recycled materials and the subject of her 'green' card. A simple, easily adaptable project, but where all details bring interest and harmony. I love how the circle pattern is repeated all over, on the leaves, in the additional stamps, stencilled in the background, through the translucent disc and the splatters. All the thought behind this piece is explained in her original blog post.

Well, wasn't that a fabulous array of wonderful!? We are so spoiled by our blogging team and the lengths they go to in their projects. I hope you can appreciate the time they put into each piece, but more importantly, how much they enjoy what they do while creating.

Leandra