PaperArtsy: Caribbean Sea

Showing posts with label Caribbean Sea. Show all posts

Thursday, 16 July 2026

Funky Neverending Card with JoFY {by Martha Ponsanesi}

Hello everyone, Martha (@CrfatingMartha ) here with you today for a trip back in time! I am so excited to share an interactive 'never-ending' card, packed with warm colours, funky doodle layers, and a delightfully nostalgic palette.

The spectacular March release by Jo Firth-Young instantly stole my heart and inspired me to play with retro vibes using her new mini stamps and stencils. To bring this project to life, I also decided to dust off an older stamp set featuring those wonderfully bold, chunky flowers that scream 'flower power' to me.

To capture that authentic retro aesthetic, I curated a warm, earthy, and slightly dusty colour palette using PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics. I chose the Chocolate Pudding (FF42), Cayenne (FF159), Mustard Pickle (FF148), for a striking pop of contrast, I added Caribbean Sea (FF94) and Slimed (FF137). While the final color balance turned out slightly different from what I had originally envisioned, I absolutely love the result!
I used the three stencils from JOFY's latest release PS512, PS513 and PS514 ( as usual, you can find the latest release products at the PaperArtsy stockist listed here ), to build my backgrounds, simply applying the paint with a dedicated sponge for each colour.

The beautiful vase stencil PS514 inspired me to create a layered pattern, overlapping the shapes in different shades to build depth.

By the end of this first stage, I had created a collection of vibrant, textured backgrounds ready to be cut down into panels.

As well as a background, I wanted to use the PS514 stencil to create a focal image too.

First, I stenciled a vase using a sponge and let it dry completely.
Next, I replaced the stencil exactly over the painted shape to act as a protective mask.
I then stamped some of the mini geometric patterns directly through the stencil opening. This ensured the stamped designs stayed perfectly inside the vase silhouette with crisp, clean borders.

I stamped some flowers from JOFY95 stamp set onto cardstock and heat-embossed the outlines with clear embossing powder.

Once embossed, I painted the petals using my Fresco Finish paints highly diluted with water, creating a beautiful, translucent water color effect.

Since I wanted to showcase some of the gorgeous new mini stamps, I knew a neverending card structure would be the perfect interactive choice.

You can find in the photo reminder of how to make the structure.

I cut out the squares and rectangles from my custom backgrounds to decorate each section of the card.

For these long side panels, I added some playful, abstract detail by randomly stamping the geometric curves from JM100.

I then fussy-cut the water coloured 'flower power' blossoms and layered them onto the central panels to create a striking focal point.

To prevent the busy backgrounds from becoming visually overwhelming, I made a conscious design choice for the other panels. While some images were stamped directly onto the stencilled papers, others were stamped on a separate sheet of cardstock, fussy-cut, and kept in crisp black and white. This created a perfect visual balance. For this part of the card I used JM97, JM102 and JM104.

Again, some images were stamped directly onto the background (with solid color this time, not through the stencil), with JM99 and JM102, while others were colored and cut out.

My absolute favourite spread is the one featuring the large Chocolate Pudding (FF42) vase. The pops of Caribbean Sea (FF94) dots on the vase, combined with the vibrant hand-painted flowers from JOFY123, feel so wonderfully retro.

And here is how the card unfolds, revealing its four different faces.

The defining feature of a neverending card is its continuous folding mechanism, which means you have to be incredibly mindful of the embellishments you apply. On two of the spreads, I made sure all my decorative elements stayed strictly within the square panels.

However, on the other two spreads, I chose focal elements that crossed over the edges. To allow the card to fold seamlessly without catching, I had to carefully slice through these overhanging stamped elements exactly along the fold lines after gluing them down.

I still have a lovely pile of extra stencilled vases on my desk, just waiting to be filled with more funky flowers for some standard-sized cards. The possibilities really are endless!

Have fun!

Martha xxx

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Friday, 17 April 2026

Cards and Tags with EGL {by Liesbeth Fidder-de Vos}

Hello everyone, Liesbeth here with you today.

As soon as I saw this lovely stamp set, I knew I wanted to make some cards this time. The small squares are little paintings in themselves, and they look so beautiful in the grid, without adding much extras. Sleek and clean, perfect!

I used two of the wonderful PaperArtsy Eclectica stamps by Gwen Lafleur: EGL24 and EGL16 .(A great font in a perfect size..and more!) For my techniques I searched for a series of bright colours and I ended up with PaperArtsy Fresco acrylic paints London Bus, Banana, Slimed, Caribbean Sea, Glass Blue, Berry Nice and Lily the Pink. As a surface I chose the PaperArtsy Smooth card, heavyweight. I love the thickness of it, for my tiny squares

Using the thick smooth cardstock and the paints, I made several backgrounds in different ways. I just played, it was so much fun and later on I decided how exactly I was going to use them

It creates a wonderful effect when you use a natural sponge for dabbing the paint

I did this sponge technique with all seven chosen colours paints and created a very colourful marble-like background

I also created some background papers using Leandra's amazing brayer technique. See HERE everything about how she does it

And another one: with a small round applicator I ,turned' three colours of Fresco paint onto the surface

The final one was just painting a kind of rainbow, small stripes applied with a paintbrush

I stamped some of them, and a white paper, with the squares and ticket from stamp set EGL24 wth black waterproof ink. I used Tsukineko StazOn-Jet Black.. At this stage I still don't know exactly how I'm going to use them, but it really inspires me already!

To create a bit more interest I heat-embossed some of the small squares with golden embossing powder. I used the three bigger square stamps for it. (EGL24)

After that I cut out every little square :-)

Time to create some cards. As you can see I used the grid stamp just the way it is...I think it's nice to let the tiny square ,paintings' be the focal point and let them shine. So I just glued them onto the stamped grid

I finished this card with layers of white, purple and brayered cardstock. I stamped the beautiful circle from EGL16 onto the brayered paper with yellow ink (Versafine Clair)

Another card: Here I use the painted purple/pink circle background, again with some gold embossed squares. This time I stamped the grid stamp onto one of my brayered backgrounds instead of white

This applies to every card: I sponge all the sides of the small squares with black ink, so that no white is visible anymore at the cutting edges

Here I used the rainbow-painted cardsstock, the small grid stamp and the three bigger squares from PaperArtsy EGL24. I stamped the grid three times onto a white card

The size of the letters from stamp set EGL16 is really perfect for the squares of the 3-compartment grid stamp! I stamped the word ART with three matching colours of Versafine Clair and decorated the cut out squares with a golden gel pen

This card was a bit to clean so I decided to decorate the letters and the grid with the golden gel pen.

These were the techniques I used for all of the cards, I'd love to show you the finished cards and some extra ideas here down below

25 tiny miniature paintings!

And again! I also love the fact that the small squares are not completely equal and straight. A very natural look

I love the effect of the rainbow striped card, how the colours blend

A detail of the rainbow card

Some small tags, a mix of the backgrounds and the techniques I did. For the ,Hug-tag' I used black ink and a white gel pen.

Who knows more nice three-letter words?? :-) Someones name will be nice too....Tom, Liz...

For this card I just mixed up the rainbow strips and added three times the nice ticket stamp. I cut it a bit smaller to let it fit perfectly. The letter background of this card is made with one of my brayered backgrounds. I stamped it randomly with some of the letters from EGL16 and yellow and red ink