Hi everyone, it’s Victoria here with you today. It’s so good to be back on the blog and sharing some inspiration for some fantastic new products.
This year on the blog, we are doing a deep dive into a PaperArtsy product range of our choosing, and for this post I have been exploring Sara Naumann's new stamps.
I feel privileged to have had early access to these beauties, and boy have I had fun playing with them. Today’s blog post is from my first sit down with the products and I decided to go for the obvious in this first play session, and create a set of ATCs. The mini stamps by PaperArtsy, are the perfect match for ATCs, so I’ll show you that even when you choose to stay small, there are still a myriad of creative choices you can make to switch up the designs and give your makes a twist of your own.
I do love making in multiples. There’s just something so satisfying about seeing makes that are the same but different!
Sara’s new collection of 8 mini stamps, has a bit of everything. Big, bold, text and quotes on EM129, EM130, EM135 and EM136, and delicate nature themed images with all the little background details that make them perfect for mixed media on EM131, EM132, EM133 and EM134.
I also selected four PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints to bring the colour to my project, deciding on a selection of greens and a light neutral as my colourway. Vanilla (FF65) has high coverage due to its opacity and is perfect for stamping on. I like to choose a more neutral colour to break up colour on the page and give the eye a place to rest, and this yellow leaning cream was a great choice. For the greens I went with Pistachio (FF181), Guacamole (FF05) and Beanstalk (FF182).
The first stage was all about creating the colour background for the ATCs. I decided on slightly different techniques, splitting the eight cards in half. For the first half I applied my paint colours using a brayer. Gently applying the colour from each side and making sure to leave some white space, whilst going back with more colour to layer and build the colour.
I like to use a gel plate to apply the colour to my brayer, which always means that you get a lovely build up of colour on the plate. So it was an obvious choice to use this and do some gel printing for the other half of the cards.
And here are the backgrounds all complete. There’s something really exciting about seeing this first stage of colour going down and knowing the project is unfolding before your eyes. Honestly, the grunge that you can create with an brayer and a gel plate just never gets old.
Moving onto the magic of Sara’s new designs, I started off my stamping party with the text stamps in the collection. I stamped them all in Grey Archival Ink and picked out random spots on the lettering with an embossing pen, which I then embossed using Sara’s Pure Platinum embossing powder for Wow!. Positioning of the stamping was key, as I was thinking ahead and thinking of the cards as a collection, so the placement of the text on each card is different, in order to add variety.
I’m all about framing texture into my makes, so next up I distressed the edges of each card.
At this point I decided that the cards needed some extra detail, so I carefully applied Beanstalk (FF182) Fresco Finish Acrylic to the outer leaves on EM134 and stamped to the outer edges on a couple of the cards.
A quick application of Distress Oxide ink in Iced Spruce, defined the distressed edges of the text cards.
Next I moved onto creating ATCs with the nature based images. I started by stamping out EM134 in a dark grey Archival Ink. This ink layers nicely over the Fresco Finish Paints, and is waterproof so you can go back in with more colour should you want to at a later stage. I stamped the full image in the bottom left corner before adding leaf elements from the same stamp to the side and top. Working to the power of three, creates balance in the composition and encourages the viewer to move around the piece.
Similarly with EM131, I extended the design. Stamping with the main image first, I then used some of the background line elements, to extend the background across the whole card.
For my EM133 ATC, creating butterflies that lift off from the page was the goal. To achieve this I first stamped the whole image on the card, before re-stamping the butterfly section onto watercolour card. I then coloured with watercolours and fussy cut, before gluing the middle sections into place on the card and leaving the wings to be manipulated to create extra dimension.
Finally, I decided to give some of the cards an extra pop of colour, so went in and added coloured pencil over the top of the stamping. With the cards finished, it was a simple job to layer them on some plain white card and add a clip for a final visual detail.
Here are the finished cards! Starting off with the text cards, I love how the simplicity of the background colour and detailing to the outer edged leads you into the quotes and text.
The distressed edges do a great job of complimenting the distressed paint layers, making the whole design work wonderfully together.
And saving the showstoppers until the end, here are the image based stamps! Florals and butterflies are two of my favourite things, so these designs were always going to be a hit. I love how they look together, as a collection.
This butterfly card just looks gloriously vintage!
Each card has a slight variation in colour, but using the same colour palette across all the pieces gives a uniformity to the collection.
Whilst the coloured pencil really lifts the stamped images off the background.
And those embossed highlights on the text is so yummy!
I hope you enjoyed today’s project, and that you’re inspired to get out your supplies and get creative. Keep an eye on my socials for more inspiration with these wonderful new designs, I’ve more ideas coming.
Until next time, wishing you a happy, creative week!
Victoria
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