PaperArtsy

Friday, 30 October 2026

Denim Christmas Upcycle with JOFY {by Keren Baker}

Hello everyone !

Keren here with you today and I'll be sharing a very simple way of using JOFY's new Christmas stamps and how wonderful they look painted onto denim.

I wanted a traditional look that would also go with the deep blue of the denim. I thought I'd chosen a great combo and then looked at Jo Firth-Young's scheme and it was nearly exactly the same!

All you need is paint and leftover jeans. A little thread for sewing and anything else you'd like as embellishments.

This technique is very simple. If you want something that'll be washed regularly then it would be worth mixing a fabric medium in with the paint, but as my stocking would rarely be washed, I just needed to stamp and lay down an initial layer of white to act as a background for the colour or the colours wouldn't have been quite so vibrant without lots of layers of paint.

A white chalk pen is useful with denim but do you remember the anti-static bags for heat embossed powder some of us have in our stashes? They make excellent dabbers over shapes and if only I had known where mine was!

If your fabrics are tired or stretchy, adding a little starch will help the finished look and also enable you to stamp more clearly. I used Stazon for a crisp outline.

Now it's time to paint. You may need two layers of white and a couple of layers of the colours, depending on whether you're using opaques or semi-opaques / translucents.

Leave the paint to dry for a few hours and then you want to dry press the reverse of the painted side to set the paint. Now to sew..

I set the stamped fabric that was going to be a tag into an hoop so it was easier to sew.

Lots of sewing later I had an upcycled stocking. Even the lining was from a thrifted duvet cover.

I made sure that the back of the tag was a light plain colour so I could write a message on it.

The details are textural- eyelets, twine, ribbon, stitching and Jo's beautiful stamped images. It's easy to glue the stamped sentiments onto the tag.

I did wish I'd done a brighter colour for the quilting and the tags are definitely something I'm going to repeat. They're a quicker make than a stocking and if you use erasable ink, the tags are ultimately reusable.
Have you tried upcycling anything you don't wear anymore. Have a go at stamping and painting on fabric; it's really rather addictive !

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kerenjb

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/craftstampink/

Wednesday, 28 October 2026

Fall Vibes Cards with Mags Woodcock {by Autumn Clark}

Hello everyone! It's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today to share a group of fall cards with cozy, autumnal vibes, featuring the gorgeous new stamps and stencils by Mags Woodcock.

This year, I gave my fall color palette an update with the addition of an earthy purple, along with my standard rusty go to colors. I added PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylics in Amethyst, to my standard Terracotta, Brown Shed and Heavy Cream. I love to layer Infusions over my paints, so I picked Golden Sands to liven the colors. I was inspired by a recent PaperArtsy FB Live, where Leandra was showing her infamous brayering technique HERE.

I used my brayer to apply the paints as lightly as possible to my 12x12" kraft cardstock, beginning with Amethyst. I scraped the paint with a credit card between colors to smooth out any thick applications. Next, I applied Brown Shed, then Terracotta, and then Heavy Cream. After all of my colors were down, I reapplied more color as needed. Working quickly and using the credit card helped the colors to blend slightly, which I really enjoyed. I dipped the panel into watered down Infusions in Golden Sands.

I repeated the whole process on a sheet of torn book pages I had glue sticked together. I ended up tearing it into smaller panels and sponged a combination of the three colors through Mag's new leaf stencil PS536.

This gave me smaller bits to use to strategically stamp some of the gorgeous leaves onto the more restful areas within the painty layers. I used Distress Inks to watercolor the images, stamped in Archival ink.

It was easy to get carried away here because no fussy cutting was required since the stamped images popped beautifully from the busy backgrounds.

Here I mixed a combination of stamping in Archival Ink with stenciling using PS538 and a baby wipe dipped in Amethyst Fresco Chalk Acrylics.

On another panel I dipped into my leftover inks from watercoloring the leaves. This made the stenciled leaves a bit softer so the stamped leaf from EMW008.

After all of my focal images were stamped and cut or torn, I had a pile of leftover bits of painty papers, so I glued them all to cover a panel.

Then I adhered a large teabag over the panel with matte medium.

This both unified the bits and gave a great texture to the piece.

At this point, things were coming together! I layered the elements adding stamping and stenciling where needed, such as using the circles in PS537 to create a halo effect for the stamped leaves from EMW009.

I love how the Heavy Cream Fresco created the much needed contrast! Below, I used a credit card to scrap more of it onto my background panel.

I created interest by making tabs and pockets, here with EMW007.

Again with EMW007, tucking in torn crocheted lace beneath the stamping. You can see how my book papers began to separate when I dipped them into my Infusions mixture. I accentuated this by peeling them apart more and curling the edges.

On this one I repeat stamped the gorgeous scripty image from EMW007 on the left, overlapping again and again for a fun effect. I stamped the ticket onto a scrap, stained with Infusions and tucked in some sisal fibers.

The stenciled leaves really popped on some of the panels!

I was so smitten by the tea bag collage that I decided to use it for the cover of a notebook. I didn't add a focal image to the notebook and let the collage texture speak for itself.