July 2025 - With 3 Things - Tactile Journal Page with Sara Naumann Products {by Katy Norgate}

Hello everyone, it's Katy Norgate with you for another 'With 3 Things' challenge post.

For this feature on the PaperArtsy Blog 3 identical items are sent to 3 members of the PaperArtsy Blogging team. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a couple of Fresco Paints.

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 can incorporate 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 ...

So lovely to see products from one of PaperArtsy's Eclectica Designers, Sara Naumann in the post! We have stamp set ESN52, stencil PS090, Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Nougat FF39, and Infusions Dye Stain Black Knight CS12.

Those of you that have seen my recent blog posts, and other social media posts, will know rainbow is my favourite colour, so this for me, was a challenge in more ways than one! I was determined to work as truly as possible to the items provided, rather than adding too many other supplies. You will see below, as I played and explored the possibilities of the items, I didn't have an end result in mind, I just really enjoyed playing. Once the various collage fodder was brought together, I decided to make a journal page ... let's take a closer look at the finished result. I'm loving all the yummy texture and grungy nature of the page.

So let's take a look at how I created the collage fodder ....

I began by laying the stencil onto PaperArtsy smoothie regular cardstock (SCA4), sprinkling black knight infusion crystals over the top, then spritzing with water.

How beautiful and magical is that? I love how the colours in the crystals reveal themselves.

 

Adding a bit more water ...

Yumminess right there!!

I then lifted the stencil, turned it over and laid it onto another piece of card stock, to get the reverse image and not waste the crystals on the stencil.

Here is the result. I left this to dry.

Next I used the Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Nougat (FF39) and mixed it with increasing amounts of the infusions, to make a colour palette. Lovely warm greys.

Then I tried out the infusions with a matt gel medium.

You will see from my written notes, the different ways I applied the infusion crystals to the gel medium.

It was at this point I was still thinking about what to do with these pieces. After having had a good play exploring these mediums, a journal page seemed a natural option. I love making journal pages when exploring new things, since you can safely play without fear of making mistakes or having to share your finished pieces with others .... oooh, minor detail, I'm creating a blog post!!

I don't profess to be any kind of expert, I have lots to learn. I'm sure that will be apparent here to many of you, but what I do enjoy is the process, often much more than the finished results. I value the time I can spend to just play with collage fodder, using up odds and ends that I'm loathe to throw away ... I'm sure we are all the same.

I was naturally drawn to the large bird on the stamp set, to be the main feature of the page but didn't fancy a black image, so I decided to hunt out some old embossing enamel I had stashed away, that features white, cream and gold powders. I therefore inked the stamp with clear embossing ink, stamping onto black card stock, and heat set the embossing enamel.

I started to gather more of my neutral vintage like fodder, old stamps, hessian, tea bags and buttons. Not totally satisfied that I had enough fodder, I made another grungy page using old book paper, smooshing it with the fresco acrylic nougat and adding infusions. Once dry I applied some PaperArtsy grunge paste (GP190), through the stencil.

Now to put it all together. I sometimes prefer to work outside the journal and add it once finished, so I am using a gel medium to apply pieces of the papers I've made.

I applied more nougat over the whole page in a lovely scruffy way, with a palette knife.

I like to make sprays with my infusions, so a few squirts came next to highlight the texture on the page. I don't feel I'm being very arty unless I make a mess!!

I just love the effects in close up.

Once dry I added some stamping to the page.

 ...and a touch of gold, with the Fresco Finish Metallic Acrylic (FF20).

Time to arrange the ephemera. I decided to cut out the bird from the black card, using the leftover pieces in the collage too. I rearranged things a few time, adding pieces and then taking them out. I was delighted to find these New Zealand stamps from my old philatelic days.

I decided to add buttons ..... 

And hey presto I am calling this page finished!

It is fair to say that I enjoyed the process of making the various collage pieces, by playing with the infusions and paint, and sifting through old fodder stashes, far more than I am content with the finished page. Art is like that sometimes. Some will see a hot jumble of stuff stuck together, and some will see beyond this and appreciate the process far more.

Thank you so much for visiting and sticking with me to the end!! Here a few more close ups.

Bye for now,

Katy Norgate

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July 2025 - With 3 Things - Mixed Media Journal {by Tracy Hickman}

Hi friends,

It's Tracy from @anonymous.palette with you for another 'With 3 Things' challenge post.

For this feature on the PaperArtsy Blog 3 identical items are sent to 3 members of the PaperArtsy Blogging team. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a couple of Fresco Paints.

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 can incorporate other PA products into the mix if we feel it is necessary.

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

Today I have made a mixed media art journal spread with a pop up slide element highlighting the amazing PaperArtsy Eclectica Stamp Set designed by Sara Naumann - ESN52 as well as a coordinating PaperArtsy Stencil by Sara Naumann - PS090 and PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Nougat followed by a side of PaperArtsy Infusions in Black Knight.

Sandhill Cranes migrate through my neck of the woods and these pages are an ode to their travels… “Best Wishes for a Safe Flight”.

 

A detail of the pop up slide element.

A layer of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Nougat covers a few pieces of washi tape followed by some light stamping with several stamps in the set.

Who doesn’t love a good a good splatter session?  First, a layer of PaperArtsy Infusions in Black Night with a fan brush followed by those same Infusions mixed with Nougat for a wonderful warm gray.

I embossed a second bird stamp on craft paper and fussy cut that main image to apply on my slide element.

Making collage ephemera to continue the story telling… The measuring tape stamp was inked in black and colored with PaperArtsy Infusions in Black Knight (This makes the best shading color!).  The additional birds on PaperArtsy Stencil - PS090 by Sara Naumann were embossed on craft paper and bordered with new Sizzix die rectangles designed by Seth Apter. Some awesome ephemera pacs from AALL and Create added a bit of steampunk to the pages.

I applied opaque crackle paste from Ranger through that diamond pattern on the stencil and sprinkled a copper embossing powder on top.  The powder was heat set only after the paste set.

More Infusions in Black Knight were added with a brush and spritzed for additional grunge and shading around all those raised and embossed diamond areas.

A detail of that Infused Measuring tape stamp and embossed birds through the stencil.

The focal bird glued only on the bottom half to allow it to stand up when it’s popped up.

This paired so well with this steam punk ephemera from AALL and Create.

There is a beautiful warmth and pairing with the Nougat paint against the craft paper…

I absolutely love These 3 Thing Challenges and seeing the other artists interpretations of how the products can be used.  Grab a PaperArtsy Stencil, Stamp Set and a couple Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics, Mattints, or Infusions and see what YOU can create!

Creative Wishes!

Tracy Hickman

@anonymous.palette

2023 Topic 11: Monochrome {by Keren Baker} with Magenta & Scrapcosy stamps

Hi everyone, Keren Baker with you today.

What scares you, artistically speaking? Some of us find putting colour combinations together challenging. Others get freaked out by white space. Yet others (myself included) find a limited colour palette a little scary...but using just one colour? That's playing hardball!

So joining in with this Monochrome topic was a good way to push myself in a new direction. Resisting adding a tiny dot of extra complementary colour nearly finished me off!! I ended up with two finished projects- and here's one of them.

I don't ever really do art journalling and you'd be forgiven for arguing that this isn't either. But I wanted to use it as a piece of wall art, so didn't add it into my journal (even though I currently have a very bare one!!). I absolutely loved creating this A4 piece; not my usual pared back style- definitely a little too much product on one page for my level of arty calmness!

The pieces began with a pack of giant playing cards that I'd bought a while back and had been wanting to use. They measure 12cm x 17cm so are definitely super-sized. Nothing else was purchased for this creative session, I made do with what I already had.

My selection of products revolved around the colour pink; Cerise to be precise and then adding Little Black Dress and Snowflake both as contrasts and also to change the Cerise into shades (adding black) and tints (adding white). I had the beautiful nature-themed set ESC04 from Scrapcosy as my hero stamp set to act as my starting point.

I'll show you a pre-project photo. My original plan was to add in a neutral or two plus some Glaze but I decided against that. Let's go cold-turkey. Simply stick to one colour and black and white.

Breaking the 'plainness' of Smoothy Cardstock is always hard. I knew I needed some different tints and shades so started mixing colours and adding them lazily to my cardstock, diluting them down so I had more interest in depth of colour too.

Don't be afraid of 'letting go'. Let the paintbrush dance and allow it to move in random unexpected directions. Don't overthink (I'm definitely guilty of this one!).

I also needed to lay some colour down on the playing card. It is a plastic coated cardstock and I wasn't sure how the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics would do on that. I know that these lovely paints will go onto anything - but as I was diluting with water, I was interested to see what effect that would have. Added to that, Cerise is Semi-Opaque, so wouldn't give as solid and opaque a colour as I might have wanted.

My concerns were unfounded. Everything went down onto the cards justfine. If you need more coverage - add more paint, or, add in a little of the Snowflake / Little Black Dress which are useful fully-opaque paints.

Hold your nerve at this point. It's not looking too promising right now- but once we start to add layers, the piece will start to develop.

 

The next step was to use Grunge Paste onto both the playing card and the painted A4 cardstock sheet. My Grunge Paste didn't have much left in it and it also needed 'reactivating'. If you find that your paste has gone a little harder (but not rock hard 'set'), you can get it back by adding a little warm water and mixing (or chopping into it with a plastic knife) until it reaches the original consistency. You can always add more, so be sparing when adding water.

It's hard to know which stencil design to use. I like to 'audition' my stencils to see which one seems right. The Scrapcosy PS108 worked well.

After I let the Grunge Paste dry (doesn't take very long) I started to add more paint. This will colour the paste, and as I preferred a contrast, I simply sanded off the top with a nail file.

To add more texture to the 'flat' cardstock, I enlisted the aid of Infusions, which if you've never tried them- they're like unexpected magic!

I wanted the strength of the initial colour, not the secondary brown walnut stain that comes through more strongly as more water is added, so I dried them off fairly quickly with a heat gun. You can see here the other stencil that I used (my all-time favourite) PS021.

It was definitely time to stamp, and I grabbed the beautiful ESC04 set from Scrapcosy

You might be bothered that you've got to stamp over an uneven surface after using Grunge Paste- so 2 easy tips. Firstly- a stamp positioner is a really handy tool for situations like this. Secondly- I'd used the lighter-weight Smoothy cardstock (rookie error) and had thrown quite a bit of water and paint at it, so it was a little warped. One easy fix is to run it through your die-cutting machine, or leave it sandwiched in there over night. The added bonus of this is that it will flatten your Grunge Paste relief thus making it easier to stamp on!!

I wanted to focus all my detail into one area of the piece so as not to make it feel cluttered (design-wise). I trimmed some thin strips from some of the painted cardstock and created a small woven section.

To help 'ground' the focal point, I thought to add some of the stamps from the EC04 set but in a very delicate way. Using Matte Duralar, stamped and white heat embossed was a good solution, and helped that you could see a little of the underneath colours showing through.

It was heading towards the home-straight now, just a few little flourishes to add.

I love to add a quote - I do like CS Lewis and this quote fitted perfectly with the stamping I was about to do.

I rarely create projects without some sort of fibre or fabric and felt that this needed a few French knots. I was sorely tempted to add some turquoise knots at this point but managed to resist!! I also added a few pieces of washi tape and little tiny pieces of text that were under the butterflies in the Scrapcosy set.

I was looking for a mid-sized alphabet and the Ink and The Dog Words 2 (W2) is perfect stamped onto the larger Scrapcosy butterfly.

You can see the other finished playing-card project here. It's almost grungy!!

I did love the restricted monotone challenge and also how you can achieve interesting results just using a few simple techniques. I would definitely use the Metallic Glaze if I was doing something similar again and I'm looking forward to making more art with the giant playing cards. Wouldn't they look great bound as a book or with hinges on? So many possibilities. 

What could you create by editing your starting supplies? What could you add to increase the texture and interest on your journaling pages? Could you get a friend to challenge you - or hunt down one of the previously popular 'tic-tac-toe' challenges online.

I hope that you'll try a limited colour palette and see how freeing it can be...no more guessing which colours go with each other!! Thanks for being with me tonight,

Keren x

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