2019 #19 Cute Critters: Quirky Christmas Decorations with Squiggly Ink {by Keren Baker}

2019 Topic 19: Cute Critters

Keren's enjoyed this so much she has even christened her critters; Roger and Pamela! Her marker colouring-in is vibrant and dimensional, but it's also those little finishing touches, like using a ball-tool to add shape, that really brings everything to life so beautifully! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Keren Baker with you today, and I'd like to share with you a couple of Christmas ornaments that would be a fun addition to your Christmas decorating. I did have a good rummage around in the Squiggly Ink section of the PaperArtsy store. It's not a category I would automatically run to, but there are some really lovely images. These cute characters might be too cute for you (or even for me), but I adore the extra images I used as foils for them and really loved adding some shape and dimension to otherwise flat images

I'm not sure these guys would co-habit usually, but they did seem perfectly at home together. I first had to pick my images.

Nut & Meg 1 (SINM1)

Ding & Dong Plate 5 (SIDD5)

Egg & Nog 2 (SIEN2)

Egg & Nog 7 (SIEN7)

I wanted something bright and bold so went for some alcohol marker coloured images stamped onto PaperArtsy Smoothy Regular cardstock (of course!)

I'd picked out exactly which images I wanted and made them all fit as I don't like to waste decent cardstock! The markers blend really well on this cardstock- so if you're looking for a new type of cardstock, I really recommend this.

Next up, I wanted to add some detail. My gel pens and markers are never far away so they added a little interest and helped make the images less flat. Now I wanted to really make really dimensional. 

The unusual looking surface is, in fact a felt pressing mat which I used to get great crisp seams when I'm ironing my sewing projects. Being a lazy so and so, I'd left it out and thought I'd try shaping on it too, as the felt has a good 'give' to the surface. Surprisingly it's a fab surface to create shape using a ball tool, so I set about shaping rather a lot of poinsettia petals!!

The sets are so good together. The two different sets with the poinsettia (or it could be any flower or leaves too) work perfectly as small and larger leaves. You can see how I added Roger the reindeer plus the Christmas lights to build up the layers.

I tried (& failed) to capture how dimensional the tree decoration looks, but I've added some of the layers with foam pads too.

Pamela was treated the same way. She was a little leggy, so I trimmed her down to perch well on the Christmas tree. the baubles from the other set seem perfectly at home on the tree too!

So an easy project with lots of therapeutic colouring in. Perfect for relieving pre-Christmas rush stress! Do check out the Squiggly Ink category to discover some real hidden gems! 

See you again soon 

Keren x

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2018 #20 Foiling: Sticky Inks with JoFY {by Keren Baker}

 2018 Topic 20: Foiling With Sticky Inks

 

No smoke and mirrors here! Keren has used humble Stazon ink and seized on its inherent tackiness, to create a random foil effect with some bold JoFY stamps. Love that she has tried this onto other shiny surfaces and with other inks! You will have to read on to discover more! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Keren Baker. I'm here with a simple and no-mess foiling technique. I've tried most types of foiling, and this is the easiest and one of the quickest ways to foil- and produces a more subtle effect. I've created a simple Christmas piece of home decor and will show you some other examples at the end.

I've used a mix of the latest JoFY Christmas range; JoFY 65 and JoFY68

I loved using a really inexpensive door hanging and the Stazon range are perfect for foiling; the technique works using an adhesive carrier foil and waiting a minute or two for the ink to start getting tacky. You can tell if the ink is ready, because when you press the foil onto it, it will lift the foil off the sheet and not just transfer the ink onto the reverse of the foiling sheet. 

Once you've stamped, you need to keep working quickly or the ink will dry. If you really mess up and don't get to foil before the ink dries, grab a glue pen (the ones that are blue and dry to clear and are tacky at that point) and just add little sections of adhesive. This technique delivers a much more subtle and inconsistent look- but that's the charm of it!

I added red and gold foil and then added lots of details- like bits of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Snowflake, Green Patina, Gold & Cherry Red onto parts of the sentiment and images.

I also used an older JoFy 40 set for the lovely spiralling.

If you want to try this technique, you can also use Black Stazon and it works brilliantly on acetate- as it takes a little longer to dry and allows for foiling.

You can also use other medium too; alcohol inks are perfect for this!

You can see the green foil on this; and on matt Duralar there's a longer drying time, giving plenty of time to add the foils. If you want to try it on Yupo, it works perfectly!

Hopefully this gives you some more ideas of how you can use foil sheets for adding a little luxury to your projects. Just remember that not all foil sheets will work for this; any labelled for hot foiling need heat, not adhesive. I want to try this technique on fabric next!

Thanks for joining me, I can't wait to see what you'll come up with for the PaperArtsy challenge.

Blog: Kerenbaker's Blog

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To join our challenge and win a PaperArtsy £50 gift voucher:

Simply make something arty relevant to the topic, and link your creation from any social URL (eg. Instagram, Pinterest, Blog Post etc) sharing your original make to this challenge page.

The current topic link Topic 20: Foiling will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, 25th November 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

Please make sure we can contact you as a prize winner - it helps if you share your contact info from the platform you opt to use.

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

2017 #12 Watery Inspiration {by Keren Baker}

2017 Topic 12: Hybrid Inks 

Keren is back, and she found out something pretty cool with Nuvo and Oxide inks, plus she has some StazOn opaque white in the mix too, and then there's the colouring in products!! Quite the experimenter!

Hi everyone, it's Keren Baker with you today, and I'd like to share with you a project experimenting with watercolour, alcohol markers, blending alcohol and two Hybrid type inks; Nuvo Hybrid Ink and Distress Oxide inks.

Putting these inks through their paces in combination with other products made for a really interesting experiment. I've chosen Clare Lloyd's 06 set

I wanted to see what would happen if I used BOTH watercolour and alcohol type products with the hybrid inks and how the Distress Oxides would react when your colour over them with alcohol markers and when you mix the inks with more blending alcohol. I thought Clare Lloyd's set would be perfect with the water theme and starting by mixing Distress Oxides with more Ranger Alcohol Blending solution and adding it onto some Hot Press Bockingford Watercolour paper.

Those three pieces show three 'pick-ups' from the one set of Distress Oxide dots and swished Blending Alcohol. I used the Distress Ink re-inkers direct from the bottle which I'm finding much more useful than the standard ink pads. I liked the more sparse amount of ink as I wanted a 'watery' effect. The alcohol further spread and diluted the Oxides and they sunk into the paper more quickly with the alcohol producing a beautiful soft but speckled effect. Adding more water then will change up the look.

What was fascinating, was after stamping with the Nuvo Shadow Black Hybrid ink, it appeared to sink behind the oxide colours and wasn't affected by the alcohol markers. The alcohol markers didn't change the colour of the oxides (which was the opposite of what I'd imagined) and although I was more careful adding the watercolour using Aquamarkers (Nuvo) around the oxides as I didn't want the effect changed; the ink held waterfast.

In line with the sentiment I'd chosen from the stamp set, I wanted not only to have the whirling water around her face, I wanted to add some rain. I could have just stamped over the top but thought another transparent layer would be interesting. The Hybrid Black Shadow ink can be heat set onto non-porous layers- so would have been perfect for the acetate, but I preferred the white, so used White Stazon instead. Adding blue alcohol marker colour to the reverse of the white stamped acetate layer gave the girl further dimension.

Attaching the acetate piece using a trickle of yellow stitching completed the look.

I highly recommend having a play with the Hybrid inks; loved playing with them. The Nuvo Hybrid Ink is perfect for just about anything that you throw at it. The Oxides will react in different ways dependent on what you put over or near it. I am definitely going to be experimenting more with adding to the Oxide inks with alcohol and other products before adding to cardstock or other substrates. The Hybrid style stamping inks are really my new favourite ink as I don't have to make a colouring decision before I stamp! 

Thanks for joining me, 
Keren xx

Blog: KerenBaker's blog
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Ohh she really looks drippy, and no surprise after all the inks you threw at her! Love how she is peeking out from behind them all! Must remember to use my re-inkers direct from the bottle!! ~Leandra

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Why not join our 2-weekly challenge by blogging your create response to the current topic and link it here?

The current topic link Topic 12: Hybrid Inks will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 3rd 2017, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

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PaperArtsy Blog Summary of Topics 20-22 {Curated by Leandra Franich)

Blog Summary: Grids, Alcohol Inks, Bleach, Mail Art. 

Well here we are, the final day of the year, and the final summary post what our bloggers did for us all in 2016 here on the PaperArtsy Blog.

One of the biggest blog challenges this year was to 'spot the word' within Gabby's creation above. See this blog post for more

2016 seems to have been a year of international tragedy, unrest, and confusion, we have experiened a year of unexpected turmoil and change. We also seem to have observed an  unprecedented level of celebrity deaths, many way too soon. In among the chaos that was 2016, I feel our little blog has hopefully offered a haven of positivity and encouragement.

The year ahead will no doubt hold as many surprises at that which has just passed. We may not be able to control the outside world, but we do have some significant choices we can make about our own lives, how we choose to use our time, who we choose to spend quality time with, and what we do for our own pleasure. Crafting is often a welcome escape from the realities of the rest of the world, but it is also a wonderful way to express deeply-felt emotions on any scale or topic.

I hereby challenge us all to make more art, find our happy place, take time for yourself, absorb, marinate and pickle yourself in the process of learning or doing something new. Somehow it always seems to give you some perspective, and joy.

Here's to the year ahead!
Happy New Year! 

So it's me again today (Leandra),  remembering with you the final days of our blogging year. And boy has it flown by! Today we look at the final topics of 2016, and the great ideas expressed within! Let's take a look!

Topic 20: Squares and Grids

One of the first stamping techniques I learned was the 'grid technique' ...using Post it notes to mask off a grid line, then apply colour direct to paper with Adirondack Inks by Ranger... and that whole method of working with structure has always continued to appeal to me. I like the structure a grid offers, and working with squares is such a great way to isolate focal points too.

My first pick is This flower 'grid' by Helen Chilton. Helen always seems to turn an idea on its head with ease! Her bright colurs and pops of white really make this grid so cheerful.

Jennie Atkinson seems to have morphed into an infusions guru this year. Her natural Vintage crafting style is perfectly suited to Infusions. I love how our first ever stamp collection released in 2004 (Ink and the Dog), works perfectly with our newest 2016 product release: Infusions!  (something old, something new). See here for more.

A typical Emma Godfrey masterboard turned from this...

...into this. Framed it looks amazing!  I love how Emma seems to strip back and make things look simple, when actually there is a lot more to it than meets the eye!

And finally, Ingrid stamped into texture to highlight patterns for this topic perfectly. Lovely rusty layers and textures within!

 

Topic 21 : Typography, Fonts, Quotes

I do find that words and numbers are such useful elements when building up backgrounds. For example, a script stamp is utterly indispensible, but so are number and alphabets stamps, no matter what font or size, they are very handy to have in your stash! In fact I'll let you into a little secret... one of our first releases of 2017 fits this category PERFECTLY... I wish I could share more!!! Guess what!? You will find out more tomorrow! I promise!

Claire Snowdon created this dreamy background using words and quotes with gesso to soften. The layers of paints and inks in pinks and blues is highlighted by infusions on top. I loved this, so simple and effective!

In a similar vein, Tricia started with Newsprint under her typographical imagery, and made her Tracy Scott stamps pop in the process!

Sanda showed us the entire process of her journal page with words and numbers in her background, it is always amazing to see other people's method of creating up close like this!

One to remember for next year! Keren's Christmas wreath made from a numbers mini stamp!

 

Topic 22: Alcohol Inks and Pens

I might be handy when it comes to gin recommendations, (here is my latest find, Nordes). I'm certainly not as competent when it come to alcohol INKS! Particularly pens. So I am fascinated by the posts for this topic! Very useful info! No I won't be tinting my gin!

My first pick is Kay Carley showing her wonderful skill with Alcohol ink markers. Just the daintiest touch of colour hits the spot!

Lauren shared the mind-blowing blending solution on a flannel for texture tip in this post! (I did not know that) She's another closet copic guru. See here for more... 

Jennie did a simple technique here, but oh my how cool does it look!!

Topic 23:  Bleach
 

The end results from some bleach techniques, can be very similar to alcohol inks (resists in particular), but as ever, the bloggers come out with a load more crazy-good ideas with a household available (craft) ingredient!!

For example, Corrie bleached out denim with a bold flower stamp so effectively! Details here.

Hazel had a blast using infusions with bleach! Oh and she got some numbers in there too!. bold stamps seem to be the stamps of choice here!

 

Nikki used bleach splats and more in this post. It's very elegant!

 Topic 24: Mail Art

Our final topic of the year, Mail Art, which was appropriate considering the postal service was somewhat overloaded at the time! Sadly we could only fit in 1 week of this topic, but we still saw a lot of loveliness! As Christmas was imminent I expect many of you missed out seeing these posts.

 

Roxanne (by Bun) enjoyed exploring her new love for Fresco Paints! Lots of awesome tips within her post too!

One of the HUGE reasons we put so much effort into our blog content year after year, is so that you are inspired to play along. Even though the mail art challenge came at the worst time of year as far as people's busy lives go, I was blown away with the challenge entries. This is what is is all about, sharing with us what you create in response to the blog. We LOVE to see that. Let me share a few with you...

For example in response to Mail Art, look at this from Pavla!!

 

Helen who is one of our most ardent blog followers, and she really should be called the most senior on high PAtwit (haha), killed 2 birds with one stone, and made some Christmas gift envelopes for her niece and nephew! I think she must have entered every challenge this year!

Claire used her EEA stamps for this gorgeous idea

 

Well there you have it people the final 4 topics of the year and only a smattering of the gorgeous posts highlighted. It's been an utter pleasure!

We hope you continue to follow us in 2017, and be aware, we have sneaky peeks starting TOMORROW of our imminent new releases.

Our sale ends today too, so be quick for that!

All the best for a safe and happy New year Celebrations

Leandra