2024 Topic 3 : Vintage PaperArtsy Stamps {by Autumn Clark} on the PaperArtsy Blog

Hi everyone!  It's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint here with you today.  

I've been super excited about the Vintage Topic, as it's by far my favorite of creative styles.  With our underlying theme for the quarter being Glazed, I began thinking about how to incorporate a little "trash to treasure" in with a vintage glaze concoction using the new PaperArtsy Mattints...

The reason I'm enamored with Mattints is their gentle ability to transform the color of the surface on which they are placed, especially tissue paper.  It's magic to see the tint and glue abilities work simultaneously!  

I thought long and hard about a mash up of designers and chose to work with PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1507 (HP1507) as my focal imagery and a beautiful background Eclectica stamp set 03 by Courtney Franich (ECF03) to compliment.  

I pulled together a super simple palette of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Calypso and Mulled Wine with Stone as my neutral.  My goal was to create an earthy brown glaze from Mattints in opposing colors: Squeezed and Dragonfly and I hoped to add some Just Walnut Infusions for good measure, since this is a Vintage Topic after all.  

You might tilt your head a bit when you see this color palette.  As beautifully styled as the photo is, the colors just don't go together do they?  I really had fun with this experiment and hope you will enjoy it just the same.

We've shown a lot of tissue paper techniques lately with the gorgeous range of PaperArtsy Printed Tissue evolving to include designs by Jofy, Tracy Scott, Alison Bomber, Seth Apter, Scrapcosy, Hot Picks and even Frames.  I decided to go old school and make my own Hot Picks tissue by stamping stamp set 1507 (HP1507) onto plain white upcycled gift tissue.  

Some tips on stamping your own tissue: always stamp over scrap paper to absorb the excess ink and always use permanent ink, which you heat set. The fun thing about working with tissue, whether stamped or printed, is having the ability to paint the reverse side for unusual effects.  I colored my tulips and butterflies with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Calypso and Mulled Wine with a detail paint brush over scrap paper.  I did make the mistake of painting the front of some of my images, so I learned to tape down the tissue as not to confuse the front/back along the painting process.

A couple of years ago I shared another Hot Picks post, found HERE, where I showcased stamped tissue.  With the addition of Mattints to the PaperArtsy line, I've since posted on the beautiful stain/glaze facet of Mattints on THIS post and fallen in love with the tintability concept of glazes, which previously I had used untinted (i.e. ModPodge of matte medium).  I saw a post by our Mags Woodcock on the PaperArtsy People FB group mixing the various colors to create an unlimited array of tints.  Thanks for the inspo Mags!  I wanted to create an earthy brown, so I picked Dragonfly and its opposite on the color wheel, Squeezed, knowing that blue mixed with orange creates brown.  

Next, I tore the flap off of a cardboard package and used my mix to adhere my painted stamped tissue.  Waste not, want not, right?  If this was a total failure, what had I lost?  I did an equal mix of each color for this first test and found the Dragonfly was more dominant in pigment.

I thought some 3D embellishment would work well on the panel, so I fussy cut the butterflies, which I had colored with pencils on kraft card and given the same coat of mixed Mattints.  I stapled them over some sisal fibers.  Then I used the pencils to add a bit of highlight to the coloring work on the dried glazed tissue and edged the panel with Colorbox Chalk Ink in brown and black.

To add the final vintage touch, I dipped the panel in watered Infusions in Just Walnut for some good splotches of deep brown.  The sentiment is from a piece of printed music I found in the recycle bin at the church where I work.  :)

I wanted to use the other two pieces of painted stamped tissue I had created earlier, but was at a loss for a different type of substrate.  While procrastinating, I looked through my own blog posts labeled "vintage" and found a cool post from when Distress Oxides had just been introduced.  In the post, found HERE, I created an unusual effect by dipping my card into Oxide, then brayering over it with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics.  The result was the Oxide bled up into the painted layers.  I thought this would be fun to recreate.  I dipped a couple of kraft panels (to tie in with the brown from the cardboard) in Distress Oxide in Vintage Photo, then brayered with Fresco Acrylics in Stone.  After the paint dries, you can mist the panel and the Oxide will bleed up.  What a fun, mesmerizing process!

Now, in all honesty, during my procrastination a day had gone by and my Mattints mixture had dried up completely.  I thought it was a good chance to even out the brownness of the color and remixed using one part Dragonfly and two parts Squeezed.  You can see below how much warmer this mixture is and hopefully notice how the Oxide blends up into the glaze.  Now the cool part to me was that the Mattints glaze sealed in the Oxide.  When I misted these dried panels the Oxide did not bleed through.  And as I said in my last post, the paper like texture of the dried Mattints is AMAZING!  It's as if there is nothing on the surface, no glaze at all.  100% totally matte!  

I decided to add some embossing to all of these projects using the peeled paint texture stamp from PaperArtsy stamp set 03 by Courtney Franich (ECF03).  I used an old PSX brass embossing powder for this and love this color for a vintage vibe.  I added some sticker sentiments and sewn crinkle kraft paper.  

This one of those play by ear projects where I learned a lot.  The thing about playing this way is that the outcome may not always be our favorite work, but the techniques discovered usually become favorites indeed.  

These simple projects showcase some of my very favorite Hot Picks stamps and I hope the simplicity will inspire you to play with similar imagery, even if these stamps aren't part of your collection.  And I hope you will experiment with your own mixed glazes and paint combos.  After all, don't we all have a cardboard box lying around these days?  :)

It's always a pleasure to join you on the PaperArtsy blog.  Until next time...

Autumn

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2022 Topic 12 : Minimalism {by Jennie Atkinson} with Courtney Franich stamps

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream) with you today, and I'm here to share with you a clean and simple scrapbook layout using a selection of stamps designed by Courtney Franich and Frescos in a lovely soft palette to complement a favourite photograph of my grandaughter.

Clean and simple (C&S) scrapbooking is not my normal go to as I am by admission a messy crafter! But I do love the C&S style as it ensures the photograph is the main element on the layout, everything else being there to highlight and not swamp it. Other simple elements are arranged in a smooth, unlayered way on a plain background and everything is in balance. 

I find that teaching this technique is very beneficial to both beginners and experienced scrapbookers as it really makes you think about placement, balance, colour and design...and to love the "white" space. (It might not necessarily be white! but is known as the white space.)

This is a favourite photograph of my granddaughter Caitlyn who is now aged 8 and an avid stamper and crafter when staying with Nana!  I thought it would work well with Courtney's small scale background stamps and a simple cut shape.

I do like to have a clean cut edge to photographs and shapes and so I started by playing around with some dies to see how I might be able to cut the photograph into an interesting shape rather than the usual portrait style photograph. Using dies to cut the elements on the page ensures a nice neat cut and if you have die sets, as here in terms of squares, you can play around with different sizes to get a balanced and unified look.

I then looked for complementary colours. I didn't want to use bright pink as I wanted the photograph to be the main focus, so went for PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Powder Pink FF220, Vintage Lace FF18 and Pewter FF21, brayering the colours onto some Smoothy Cardstock. (In the event I didn't use the Pewter but it is good to have a few colours to work with.)

                                        FF220                     FF18                      FF21

I do like to cut a frame so the actual area of my layout is not the full 12 x 12. My ruler is 1.5" wide, just the perfect size!  I have also brayered this with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Vintage Lace.

 

Reducing my layout paper to 11½ x 11½ and then scuffing up the edges just makes the whole layout area feel much smaller and manageable. 

 

 

After working out a rough placement of the photograph and other elements I used a light colour ink along with stamps and a stencil to create a background. I love this simple layered look and use it on cards, scrapbook layouts and journals.

ECF03

ECF06

PaperArtsy Stencil by Scrapcosy (PS293)

I start with a light layer of ink through the stencil and use the same ink on my stamps. The stamps are not put on a block but lightly touched onto the paper with my fingers. I always like a combination of little postage/franking stamps and text, so these two sets by Courtney provided both.

I used the same stamps and a combination of brown and grey ink to stamp on the brayered pieces of Smoothy Cardstock.

I then used my dies to place and cut out the areas I wanted using a selection of different sized squares.

 

I am not a great fan of journalling on a scrapbook page, much preferring a quote or title to sum up my layout. I thought this lovely quote from Alison Bomber's Stamp set (EAB07) was just perfect for Caitlyn's expression. It made sense to use the same shape to keep things in balance.

EAB07

 

I liked the shape of the photograph but just felt it needed something down the side so I kept things simple with this die cut from Smoothy Cardstock. Just tucking the photograph under the little leaf embellishment gives it a feel of a frame without being overpowering.

My die cut shapes were carefully stuck down keeping everything in line. This is where I can really mess things up ! I always manage to get an inky finger print or a bit of glue stuck where I don't want it. I took my time and kept washing my hands...however, the little bit of ribbon and flowers are hiding a little accident! but thankfully look as though I had planned to put them there.

To keep things balanced I have made a simple collage of leftover die cuts at the bottom of the layout. There is a "hint" of the stencil and stamping in this area to complement the collage.

Clean and Simple doesn't necessarily mean easy and quick! I find using this technique time consuming in terms of thinking about the design and how the elements are going to work, in addition to taking time to keeping everything crisp and clean. 

The technique also benefits from good quality cutting and so die cutting shapes is for me the way to go - keeping things simple by using different sized dies of the same shape. It also allowed me to cut an interesting shape to my photograph. So often in scrapbooking photos are left as straight portrait or landscape but an interesting shape adds to the design and I feel gives many more options for playing around with design elements to complement the main focus of the layout.

Courtney's stamps were just perfect for these small and medium sized squares as well as working well in the background. Again using dies meant being able to isolate individual areas of the images for full effect.

This design and technique would work equally well as a card or journal page.

As always thank you for joining me.

Jennie x

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