Mini Book with Kate Crane Products {by Victoria Wilding}

Hi everyone

Victoria here with you today.

This year on the blog, we are being given free rein to do a deep dive into one of the PaperArtsy product ranges, and for this post I have been exploring Kate Crane products. 

Kate has such a good mix of designs in her range, there’s everything from background mark making, to quirky focal points that are just adorable. So I decided to explore some of her mini stamps, and test out combining them into a mini-book. 

I’ve had a Sizzix mini album die for a couple of years, that I still hadn’t got round to using, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to use this for the book construction, although you could easily create the pages using a hole punch and paper trimmer. 

This was such a fun project to put together and used a mix of different techniques and products. The kind of fiddly project that you can get lost in for a few hours, or do in parts and keep coming back to, either way would work. So continue reading for a break down of my process, it includes techniques with watercolours, Mattints and Infusions.

I selected a bunch of Kate Crane mini stamps and a couple of her stencils to use in the projects. I love her quirky animals so of course I had to choose some of these, and settled on KCM004, KCM005, and KCM007. I also wanted some stamps to create background interest, so I chose, KCM001, KCM002, KCM003, KCM013 and KCM014. The last stamp I chose was all about the sentiments and this was KCM006. Then I added a couple of stencils into the mix, selecting PS426 and PS441.

Next up it was all about the colour. I knew I wanted to use my watercolours to colour the quirky birds and fish, so out came my Deep Deep Light palette. For background colour to the pages I chose Mattints in Ash for the cover and Infusions in Sleight Blue (CS13), In the Navy (CS15) and, Royal Blood (CS10).

I started off by creating the front and back covers. To provide some subtle background colour I applied Mattints in Ash using a brayer and the gel plate. 

Then I applied blue ink through stencil PS426 to the back cover.

And glued the front and back covers together using the scalloped joining strip.

I wanted the front cover to be quite plain, enticing the viewer to open the album to see the pages inside. I used a die cut piece of card and stamp embossed a sentiment from KCM006 in black and used stamp KCM003 to create some extra texture to the title piece and the edges of the page. I attached the title piece the the front cover using foam pads and moved on to creating the internal pages.

 

To create some background colour on the internal pages in sprinkles each page with a different colour of blue infusions (Sleight Blue (CS13), In the Navy (CS15) and, Royal Blood (CS10))  and spritzed with water. 

Then I added some extra background texture to ground the focal points using, KCM001, KCM002 and, KCM014. 

Next I moved on to creating the focal points for the pages using the quirky birds and fish stamps, KCM004, KCM005, and KCM007. I stamped them out on watercolour paper in black ink. 

And used watercolours to create a soft coloured finish. 

Then I stamped out and mounted the three remaining sentiments from KCM006. 

I stuck the quirky birds and fish onto the pages using foam pads to create some extra dimension and glued the sentiments in place. 

I thought a couple of the pages needed some extra details so used stamp KCM013 to create some sea planting to the fish scene and stencil PS441 on one of the bird cards. With the pages complete I assembled everything together and secured with some blue sari ribbon. 

The finished book project is lovely to flip through. The cover suggests more arty pages inside and entices you to flip to the next page. 

The combination of the ‘take flight’ sentiment and the butterfly bird is so fun, you can just imagine him furiously flapping his tiny wings to try and fly.

The three fishes page is filled with texture. The hint of leaves at the bottom of the page works really well to imitate sea plants and the splatter of the infusions makes the perfect seawater.

.

On the last page the infusions are watered down much more, which works so nicely against the colouring of the bird.  I love how each page has slightly different elements, but they work so well together as a complete project. 

I hope you feel inspired to try creating your own mini book. Until next time, wishing you a happy creative week. 

Victoria x

YouTube: www.youtube.com/victoriawildingcreates

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Patterned Umbels with EAB Products {by Nikki Acton}

Hi everyone, Nikki (a2a.craft) with you today to share a few ideas using Alison Bomber designed stamps.

This year on the blog, we are being given free reign to do a deep dive into one of the PaperArtsy product ranges. I am very happy to be using a couple of stamp sets from Alison's range - one from her last release of 2024 (the fabulous Winter Umbels from her botanical texture series) combined with one of her older curated quote sets (The Time Edition). 

You can see already, my projects are not very 'Alison like'! - I love working with bright colours and geometric shapes.

I started off just making the wall panel on the left in the photo above - but as I had lots of 'bits' leftover I made a card to go with it.

It all started with gel plate prints and I'll show you how I created the pattern from these.

I love how Alison's recent stamp sets provide a combination of elements; focal points, ephemera, texture and words. Before Christmas I was visiting a friend who had a piece of art (in her cloakroom!) using this colour range. It really appealed to me, so I have used PaperArtsy colours to reflect this today.

As I often do I started with my gel plate and PaperArtsy Smoothy Card. I chose to work with three colours; PaperArtsy Fresco Acrylics in Gold (FF20), Butternut (FF02) and Cerise (FF136).

I used each colour on it's own but also combined them for some prints. I used the main Umbels stamp from PaperArtsy stamp set EAB44 (by Alison Bomber) to stamp off the painted gel plate giving me 2 prints in one go. I also used the stamp and brayered some paint onto it to create more backgrounds. The gold on black card is fabulous!

You can see how the Umbels image is dominant in some of my prints but just hinted at in others.

As usual once the gel plate is out, it is hard to stop but I knew I had more than enough, so it was time to create the pattern.

 

I had an idea of the pattern I wished to create. The pattern is overlapping circles which are built up with different colours.

Firstly I drew a circle using a compass - but you could draw around something or use a die or punch. My circle is 5 cm diameter. I drew a 5cm square around it.

The corner of this square is the centre of the overlapping circle - so I could now draw this one too. You can see above the pattern is created by repeating this.

I then used this idea on different colour backgrounds and fussy cut the pieces.

If you don't have a compass - just draw and measure a circle. Add lines for the horizontal and vertical centres and this will show you where the overlapping circle will sit. You can fussy cut the pieces and use as templates.

I glued the fussy cut pieces onto my drawn pattern sketch to help get them positioned correctly. Fussy cutting means there were going to be slight imperfections - but after the pen work, I don't think they are too visible.

For a matt layer I took some Smoothy Card and used Ranger Archival Ink in Watering Can to randomly stamp some of the texture, word and ephemera stamps.

I cut my border out of the gold paint stamped Umbels on black card. (I had to do it like this as by created background wasn't big enough for the wooden panel!)

The base wooden panel is 6x6 inches. I painted this in PaperArtsy Fresco Acrylic in Butternut before stamping the Umbels on the visible edge.

The detail around the pattern elements is done with Posca Pens - firstly in black and then gold dots were added.

To finish I stamped one of the quotes from PaperArtsy stamp set (EAB17 - The Time Edition) by Alison Bomber.

With all my 'Umbels' backgrounds I had some left over so made the card to go with it.

 Again you can see the Umbels in each of the squares below.

And another wonderful quote....

Blog: Addicted to Art

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February 2025 - With 3 Things: Flower Book {by Liesbeth Fidder de Vos}

Hi everyone, it's Liesbeth here with you for a 'With 3 Things' challenge post. 

This feature on the PaperArtsy Blog is where 3 bloggers are sent 3 items in the post. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a couple of Fresco Paints, and in 2025, everyone will receive identical products. 

We have no clue what PaperArtsy HQ is going to send, the whole idea of this challenge is to do something crafty in our personal style with these 3 items. We are allowed to bring other PA products into the mix if we feel it is necessary.

So let's take a look at what I received from PA HQ ...

It was so exiting again to unpack the pacage! The three things are lovely and really perfect together, and ideas popped up immediately. I have made a small flowery book, let's take a closer look.

The booklet has pockets that fit a small tag. This is how I made it:

Using a sponge and an old credit card, I applied the two beautiful colours of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paint Sunshine and Flamingo onto an A4 PaperArtsy Smoothy stamping card (regular, SCA4) and on a smaller piece of the Smoothy heavy cardstock (SCA4H) for the cover. I didn't apply it too neatly... because that's not me. :-)

I mixed a tiny drop of PaperArtsy Fresco paint Little Black Dress with the pink Flamingo and used a sponge and the JoFy stencil (PS086) to apply it here and there onto both pieces of cardstock. With a small round blending tool I also made dots with both Flamingo and Sunshine.

Using a waterproof ink (I used Tsukineko StazOn jet black) I stamped the two flowers of the PaperArtsy stamp set (JoFy76), spread all over the surface.

Now it becomes a book: I folded the A4 in 8 parts and cut the middle of the centre score line as shown.  I fold the book to a ,zine'. Hope this is clear.. The small heavy card will be the cover, I cut it a bit bigger than the book, and scored a 3 millimeters spine. I didn't throw away the left-overs.

I sponged the edges of the pages and the cover with black ink and glued the book into the cover, only at the edges as you can see on the picture..

Time for decorating the booklet! Using waterproof ink, I stamped the several JoFy76 stamps onto regular Smoothy cardstock. Now I have used every stamp of the set, they are so nice! I coloured them with (very) watered down PaperArtsy Fresco paints Sunshine and Flamingo.

I cut the stamped images out, sometimes the entire stamp, but also only parts. I decorated every page with them, trying to create nice compositions for every page or spread.

Out of the left-overs I made a tag, it fits in one of the pockets of the booklet. I finished the piece with white gel pen, black fineliner, some ribbon and three glass beads. And of course a tiny bit of glitter glue because I love glitter! 

Ready!

I'd love to show you every page...the lovely cordial text makes a story! This is the front of the booklet.

The first spread: Relax,...

Second spread: recharge,...

Third spread: get set, GO!

And finally the back side of the book, with the tag.

This was so much fun to do and it's always a pleasure to work with these wonderful PaperArtsy products! I'm so curious to see what the other ladies are creating with this 3 things! Hope we inspired you, have fun!

See you soon,

Liesbeth XX

Blog: Liesbeth's Arts & Crafts

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