2020 Topic #19 Happiness and Friendship with ECF (by Noguchi Etsuko)

   2020 Topic 19: Words Of Wisdom

A terrific trio of wise tags from Etsuko tonight. It's amazing how much design you can pack into a small space and despite having a unified theme, they are still all really unique and lovely.

~ Keren

Hi everyone, it's Etsuko My favorite things with you today, and I'd like to share with you 'Happiness and Friendship' tags using fabulous Courtney's stamps and Alison's quotes.

Since this fortnight being the 'words of wisdom' theme, I simply wanted to make three tags with a different design for each.

First I pasted old book pages with matte gel and when dried, painted with white gesso on the whole tags surface, (I used two tags with book paper.)

The third tag has been processed with Crackle Effect. I used a technique to create the Crackle Effect between the two Fresco paints--Toffee, Nougat. If you want to see the technique tutorial which you can see on YouTube 'Crackle Glaze Demo' by PaperArtsy.

This is how I made the tag's background; the two tags on the left I used Grunge Paste by stencils then after dried to painted with Fresco paints Bougainvillea and Yellow Submarine. Also I used ECF04 crackle stamp by Watering Can Archival. To on the left tag tearing off the washi tapes and stuck it on the edges. Smeared Grunge Paste in places, dried it a little and then stamped it with ECF04.

I painted the two tags on the right with Heavy White Gesso in places.

I have prepared materials to use for each tag--Oak leaf -ECF05, Bubbles -ECF06, Sign -ECF01, Stamps -ECF06. These were painted and embossed.

Finally I attached these materials to each tag and added Smoothy heavyweight white card and cardstock from the back and tied a ribbons or string to complete the project.

Just looked at each tag one by one. This pink tag is Alison's quote stamp EAB10 'Friendship' author is Plautus.

This is Alison's quote stamp EAB14, the 'Happiness' author is Mahatma Gandhi.

This is Alison's quote stamp EAB14, the 'Friendship' author is Walt Whitman.

Get closer to these tags!!

Making tags has been always fun and reminds me of when I started paper crafting. Courtney's stamps can be used as focal points and backgrounds, and the fresh designs are fun to work with and evoke new imagery. It was fabulous collaborating with Alison's quotes which I love.

Thank you so much for visiting.

Etsuko xxx

Blog: My favorite things
Facebook: Etsuko Noguchi
Instagram: Pixienest
Pinterest: Etsuko N

2020 Topic #18 Patchwork Patterns with I&D (by Jennie Atkinson)

      2020 Topic 18: Geometric

If you thought that patchwork was old fashioned, Jennie will hopefully shatter those illusions with her cool stamped and rearranged designs. With the simplest of supplies and a load of stitching, you can end up with some super stylish makes.

~ Keren

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream) with you today, sharing some patchwork pattern ideas for our current geometric theme. 

I am not a great lover of creating patchwork with material but I do love experimenting with patchwork patterns using coloured papers. There are so many pattern ideas on Pinterest that you can spend ages looking for different ideas and inspiration. I have kept my designs quite simple for these two cards, but they still look just as effective and make great cards for sewing minded friends.

I have used Ink and the Dog stamps to pattern my papers  looking for some smaller patterns with text and postmarks:

Clocks 1

Words 4

I created background papers using my brayer and some Fresco colours I thought would go well together: Venice Blue, Mulled Wine, Brown Shed and Green Patina. I am in a bit of "brights" mood at the moment with all the lovely autumn colours in the garden, which makes such a change from my usual soft choices. I have just brayered the colour directly onto Smoothy Cardstock.

I have stamped randomly, but not made a masterboard as such. I regretted using black ink initially thinking it was far too dark, but it did work in the end.

For this pattern I have cut 2" squares and then made half and quarter triangles. The design centres around the square in the middle. The base cardstock is 5½" x 5½" and although it was easy to find the centre it was more difficult to make sure the square was straight!

Stitching around the edges of each piece does make a difference and when layered onto two coloured layers really has the feel of patchwork.

I added a sentiment using a quote from Alison's Friends and Friendship stamp set and a little cluster of ribbon and a flower. 

EAB10

My second design used 1" squares cut into triangles and was much more fiddly!

I only needed a 4" x 4" background for this smaller pattern and it was easier to get started from the middle. It is a good idea to have your design set out before you start glueing as it is easy to get lost!

Stitching the smaller triangles was very fiddly and I took a few shortcuts in trying to keep a single run without having to keep stopping. I have used the same sentiment as before and a similar cluster around the tag.

 

I really enjoyed putting together these geometric designs but would suggest that keeping your squares to 2" makes life much easier all round. It was a great opportunity to experiment with colours I might not normally put together and I was also pleased to use some of my smaller text stamps which sometimes get lost on bigger projects. Needless to say I have a huge collection of pins on Pinterest with other ideas for designs, so will not be short of any ideas.

As always thank you for joining me and I hope this idea of using patchwork patterns provides you with some prompts for cards and layouts and provides a different style of creativity for your stamps.

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream 

2019 #2 Brayers: Friendship with EAB {by Jennie Atkinson}

2019 Topic 2: Brayers

Ohhh delicious colours from Jennie tonight, and such a delight to see how she pulls the layers togehter so thoughtfully!. Lots of old school stamps in the mix plus of course the newest from Alison finishes everything perfectly! ~Leandra

Hi everyone, Jennie (Live The Dream) with you today with a (colourful for me!) journal page celebrating friendship.

As our theme is brayers I just had to get out the Gelli Plate and use one of the fabulous new PaperArtsy brayers. I have been experimenting a lot with the Gelli Plate since the New Year as I was leading a session using one here in Shetland. I was a bit rusty and so have been seriously addicted to Gelli Plate Videos on Youtube. There are so many wonderful techniques that one doesn't really know where to start. So I have kept this simple ......

Alison's fabulous Friends and Friendship stamp collection (EAB10) was my main focus for the double spread journal page. There are so many wonderful quotes in this set it is very difficult to pick just one .... I feel a mini book coming on at some point!

I picked my PaperArtsy Fresco's quite randomly and it was only afterwards that I realised I had a mixture of transluscent and opaque which I think has worked really well in terms of the lighter yellow showing through.

I wasn't too sure whether these would work together, but after all it's only a bit of paper! I have used the single layer transfer technique (ie multiple pulls) rather than layering all my colours onto the Gelli Plate (single pull).

I started with Pumpkin Soup over the whole page. For the next pull I used Bora Bora, but keeping some lighter gaps. It was this layer that I used some old impression stamps to create a bit of texture. The next layer was Teresa Green very lightly here and there and the final layer was Hint of Mint around the outside edges. I also got a very nice ghost sheet too, although the paint dried quite quickly.

I also used my brayer to get an even layer of paint onto a flourish stamp. 

Mini 96

I used Chalk for this layer and the wider, larger brayer meant a good even layer of paint with no "blobbing" !

A stamping layer came next and I decided to keep the circular elements going with a clock and more some paint circles.

Most of the stamps you see here are my all time "go to" stamps for highlighting background papers.  There are so many wonderful elements in C1 for backgrounds and the two small bookplate stamps in Scrapcosy's set appear on just about everything I make!

Clocks 1 (C1)

Scrapcosy 03

My other go to stamp set is Ephemera 2, this time for collage pieces. In fact the Carte stamp has it's on acrylic block and doesn't leave my craft desk!

EA2

I have used the same ink throughout in terms of stamping and blending (Ranger Archival Ink Potting Soil). I feel this keeps everything balanced with the focus on the colours of the background rather than the foreground inking.

The collage is perfectly sized to sit in the lower corner without dominating the background pages.

The quote I wished to use was quite wide and only just fitted the width of my journal, so I tried to keep the design on this page more horizontal.

It seemed appropriate to leave a clear area of stamping at the bottom of the page.

I did add a few watery paint splatters as I felt the double page needed something to tie it all together.

When I started this journal page I was unsure as to whether the background colours would work together, and indeed whether they would compliment the vintage theme I had in mind. Limiting myself to one ink pad both for stamping, blending and colouring the embellishments has I think allowed it all to work together. This is really quite colourful for me! but I love that the Gelli Plate and Brayer allow me to blend out the colours and add different layers on top of each other to soften the look. 

As always thank you for joining me and I hope that our current theme inspires you all to get out your brayers!

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream