2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour with ESN {by Sara Naumann}

  2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour

This is the cutest little pocket niche, and what a great tip to fold before adding colour and stamping so you can get the right details on the front facing sections! Love that clear embossing too! It really looks cool on those old papers to introduce a transparent layer!

~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Sara Naumann with you today, and I'm here to share an easy little pocket-style book. I have a thing for these simple folded booklets—I love how it makes a fun presentation for tag art, notes, little treasures, and could easily be adapted to any style or favourite colours. 

Speaking of favourite colours...(or "favorite colors" for my fellow Americans!), I was hard pressed indeed to choose as I tend to love them all! But blues and greens have always been my go-to colors and honestly, when I feel down or find myself crafting for therapeutic reasons (we've all been there, right?) then I tend to reach for those shades. 

Blue often represents sea, sky and open spaces, as well as freedom and imagination. Greens, of course, relate to the earth, renewal and hope. Blue and green go well together not only in terms of their colours, but also because of these feelings. In coordination with the nature theme, I've chosen a new and an older set of stamps: Eclectica ESN47 has those large leaves and inspiring quotes, and Eclectica ESN54 has our "magic" and seahorse. When I'm designing a stamp set, I always try to make sure it will coordinate with other, older stamps you already have so you can get the most mileage out of your stash!

This folded pocket book is a classic, and one that's easy to do in an afternoon if you're looking for a project that enables you to either go clean and simple or break out allll the stuff. Plus you can fill the pockets with all kinds of stamped, stenciled, and painty things.

 

First, you'll need an A4 sheet of cardstock—nothing too heavyweight, Smoothy 240 is perfect—and some paints and your brayer. When working with multiple colours, I find it's easiest to choose one dominant colour (Fresco Finish Marbles), then a secondary colour that I'll use less of (here,  Fresco Finish Aqua Duck Egg). Then, I pick a few more contrasting colours to use in smaller amounts as accents. I'm splattering with Fresco Finish Gold, then Fresco Finish Mouse Ears, and edging and reverse-stenciling with Fresco Finish Slate.

You can either fold your paper first, or paint first. I'm going to fold this one first. 

 

First, fold it into six even sections. 

Then, fold in each corner as shown. A bone folder really helps, you want those folds to be crisp!

Fold the piece in half the long way.

Position the piece with the long edge closest to you, then fold in each side as shown.

Tuck one corner into the other.

 

Then I unfolded the piece to paint it. This means I can plan my painting, stenciling and edging on which section will be in the front, and what will be on the back. When I brayer-paint my background, I'll put a little dollop on my craft mat, run the brayer through the paint and then across the cardstock. I like to leave some white showing for contrast. I brayered with Fresco Finish Marbles first, then let it dry and brayered a bit of Fresco Finish Aqua Duck Egg.  

 

I love some Grunge Paste texture! Here I'm using the PS272 stencil, which is a great one for abstract patterns. 

Scrummelling some Grunge Paste through your stencil gives interest and dimension—of course you can tint the Grunge Paste with paint but I'm a big fan of the natural bone colour that adds just the right amount of contrast to a painted background.

Bring on the gold! Splatters of watery Fresco Finish Gold paint give some metallic shine and more contrast. Let it go over the Grunge Paste-stenciled design too.

Then repeat the procedure with another colour of paint, like the adorably-named Mouse Ears. This is a darker, leafier green and you only need a touch to create some really gorgeous contrast. It seems to have blue tones as well as green, which makes it perfect in combination with Marbles and Aqua Duck Egg.

When the paint is dry, then just fold up your pocket. You can then have a look at what portions of the booklet you want to accent with more splattering or stenciling. I decided to pull out PS204 and stipple a bit of Mouse Ears on the inside back of the pocket.

Glue the bottom together—I use a bit of white glue on a toothpick.

Now it's time to fill up your book!

Each fold will create a little pocket, so you have space for all kinds of things.

So what to put in your pocket book? Well, I love little paper treasures and notes, personally... but you could also tuck in a gift card, a special recipe, a thoughtful note or small gift item.

  

This is a layered combination I really love—the ginkgo leaf from Eclectica ESN47 with the seahorse from ESN54 heat-embossed on top and painted with Marbles and Mouse Ears.

Here's the gingko leaf again, clear-embossed, cut out and layered on top of a reverse-stenciled background done with Fresco Finish Slate and the PS272 stencil. The text stamping is from Eclectica ESN54, and is the dictionary definition for "wanderlust".

This is a favourite quote and one that works nicely as a bookmark-style piece. The postmark "button" at the top is from ESN54.

The leaves here are from Eclectica ESN47. I stamped them with a blend of the blue and green paints, added some Gold and then clear-embossed on top to give some durability before cutting them out and placing them on the front of the pocket.

Then, just tuck your treasures inside the various pockets!

After everything is folded and assembled, you can add any finishing touches... more stamping, a bit more stenciling or splattering, some edging, twine or ribbon. And while I've only made one of these little pocket books, it occurred to me that you could make several and bind them together to be a larger book of pockets!

I hope you enjoyed the read today and the colour inspiration too!

Blog: Sara Naumann

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2021 Topic 5 Find Your Vibe with ESN {by Jennie Atkinson}

  2021 Topic 5: Find Your Vibe

Many of us would immediately recognise Jennie's beautiful style yet for those wanting to explore their undiscovered vibe and try a vintage shabby chic style, Jennie has outlined her process which will be invaluable for those wanting to have a go at it. What might seem at first glance a simple colour combination has much thought behind and you'll come up short if you don't consider texture, proportions and the all important lace! 
~ Keren

 

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live the Dream) with you today sharing my very distinctive vintage, shabby chic style. I tried to focus on what really makes my style and as a result this is quite over the top boudoir shabby chic! 

Certain colours really do it for me and so Taupe and Vintage Lace were the focus for my colours and then of course I had to add lots of lace and vintage elements which fit perfectly with Sara's new stamp sets ESN47 and ESN49 where again the focus is on ephemera, a major element of the style. And of course I am always making journals, mini books, wallets.. they seem to be the mainstay of my style too. So this project pulls all of these elements together.

I have used two envelopes to create a small wallet with a few tuck spots for ephemera.

As you open up the wallet you can see these little spaces for ephemera...

and another large pocket on the side of the wallet. I love using large pieces of lace to create pockets and as these are best sewn into place there are always options for adding other strips for tucking in bits and pieces!

I have used two of Sara's new stamp sets and a stencil and added in ephemera from an Ink & the Dog plate (one of my favourites!).

ESN47

ESN49

PS218

EA1

This is where I started, gathering all my favourite colours of Frescos for this style, along with some Infusions, lace, tea dyed ribbon, calico, muslin, buttons, hessian.. just about anything I thought I might use. I knew I would not use all of them, but it is good to start with a wide base.

The two Fresco's that I think really sum up shabby chic are Taupe and Vintage Lace.

The smokey grey really compliments the light pink and works well with the light coloured lace and tea dyed lace and ribbons.

At this early stage I also stamp on different substrates to see the effect. These were all stamped with the same ink, but I got different colours depending on the substrate used: text paper, calico, thick calico and dyed coffee filters. Also at this stage I had no idea of making a wallet from envelopes! However, tidying up the desk.. 

Recently I have been experimenting with different combinations of envelopes and used two for this wallet. It is quite a simple construction and I have used cheap brown envelopes.

The brown paper of the cheap envelopes creates quite a shabby look and I love the addition of the texture paste.

The two pages were created in the same way, layering stamped text paper over the painted cardstock and then adding texture paste through the stencil.

On the second page I have added a deep lace pocket and stitching seemed the best way of adhering it.

I added the same lace to the front but used glue this time as the pocket had already been created.

This is such a perfect quote for the theme !!

I had plenty of scrap pieces left over to create ephemera.

It has been quite interesting looking inwards and trying to focus on the main elements which create one's style. Whilst Vintage Lace has been a favourite colour since forever, I have only just started using Taupe and really love how they work so well together. Starting with a broad palette of items at the beginning did allow me to focus in to what worked rather than starting with a single colour and trying to find something to match. I do generally work that way and am often surprised by the results filtering out what I think will not work and ending up with quite a tight palette.

I had thought I might regret using the cheap brown envelopes as I did have some better quality ones, but again I love the shabby way the paint has adhered to the waxy finish and adds another unexpected element!

I hope this project gives you some ideas even if you are not a lover of shabby chic!

As always thank you for joining me !

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream
Instagram: @atkinsonjennie