Summer Party Pennants with ESC {by Jenny Marples}

Hello everyone, Jenny here with you today to share my ideas for creating fabric pennants, perfect for decorating your garden at a Summer party. Fabrics are such forgiving surfaces to work on so it's actually easier than you might think to get great results! 

The new collection of stamps and stencils from Raquel Burillo (Scrapcosy) are just perfect for this purpose, with beautiful floral images, lovely words and clever accent pieces.

Here's a peek at what's coming up...

The stamp sets used all come from the latest release and include ESC56, ESC57 and ESC58, combined with stencils PS528 and PS529. These are all available from your local stockists now.

The pastel palette of colours used for these pennants include PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints (Cloud 9, Sand, Lemon Meringue, Guacamole, Spring, Cloudy, Mauve and Dolly Mix) which combine so well with Mattints (Acid, Fern, Bellflower and Foxglove).

To get started on these pennants you need to raid your fabric stash, ideally looking for non-patterned pieces in complimentary shades. I chose a neutral, vintage selection, dying some scraps with diluted Just Walnut and Lemoncello Infusions, though you may decide on a different colour scheme to suit your party theme.

Now grab those stencils and get to work, repeating patterns if needed to fill space. The fabric may absorb more paint than you are used to with paper so lift the corner of your stencils to check before you remove them completely.

I find ironing my fabrics before stencilling really helps to achieve that crisp finish. You can also re-iron them once the paint is fully dry. I know, ironing, but it's the fun sort!

Tear apart your stencilled fabrics into smaller pieces and begin to assemble them into rectangular pennants, adding in other scraps as required. A piece of muslin and a damaged lace tablecloth did the trick for me.

Make sure to overlap your pieces and I highly recommend temporarily attaching them together with a fabric glue pen.

A quick running stitch along the edges helps to make those joins secure and you can add extra translucent layers over the top to break up some of the larger areas.

Now it's time to add some colour with those floral images.

 

I felt nervous about stamping directly onto the fabric pennants so decided to make use of PaperArtsy's Blank Printed Tissue (PT10) using grey permanent ink to transfer the images onto one side.

It's a lot simpler to paint in blocks of colour on the reverse of your stamped images - the tissue allows for the colour to show through.

On the right side add a touch of shading with your Mattints.

Try adding a coat of Acid Mattint to the centre of your unpainted glass to make it look like it's been filled with an enticing beverage!

The Acid Mattint with also add that pop of yellow when painted over Cloud 9 paint.

You end up with a much larger range of colours to play with by adding Mattints over your painted images and it's worth experimenting on a scrap of tissue if you are unsure about any of the combinations.

With coloured images at the ready it's time to add them to your fabric pennants.

Use a matte medium like PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Matte Glaze to stick your tissue images to the pennants. Be generous with your application because the fabric will absorb more than paper. And notice how the colour becomes slightly stronger with the glaze applied.

Your tissue images will take longer to become fixed in place so allow for drying time. The upside to this is that you have a small amount of 'wiggle room' to reposition your images needed.

 

The ticket image from set ESC56 is perfect for letting you add some lovely sentiments. I added some extra pieces of lace trim to the pennants and repeat stamped the Greek key motif from set ESC56 on grosgrain ribbon to join them together. You can disguise the joins with little flowers for a seamless look!

And with that these Summer Party Pennants are complete.

Let's give you a closer look at my finished examples;

You can divide your images up to extend across several pennants - I did this with one of the butterflies, some tickets and the mixed flower clusters. 

I'm now thinking this could look good with a warm colour palette, possibly even more vibrant! Which colours would you choose?

Thank you for joining me today.

Jenny

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Woodland Wanders with Lynne Perrella stamps {by Mags Woodcock}

Hi everyone, nice to be back with you again

Mags here with you today.

This year on the blog, we have free rein to do a deep dive into a PaperArtsy product ranges of our choosing. For this post I have been exploring two fabulous Lynne Perrella stamp sets

Today I'm looking forward to sharing with you how I use a faux wood slice to create a woodland plaque with lots of texture and dimension within the layers. Lots of PaperArtsy products came out to play and it was fun to use several products to add colour in a variety of ways.

 I used Grunge Paste (GP190) combined with some Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics and Just Walnut Infusions (CS25) to add texture and vintage colour to my project. I also used quite a few Mattints to colour my stamped image, and I share how I achieved a lovely skin tone. 

 As you can see here, I chose some neutral colours along with a couple of greens to combine with the Lynne Perrella stamp sets.(LPC047 & LPC048) The stencil is by Kay Carly (PS061) and was the obvious choice for a delicate botanical feel. As it turned out, I didn't use the plain tissue or Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic, Snowflake , but instead stamped directly onto my faux wood slice

I'll take you through the other supplies I used, as I use them.

 

I wanted to add quite a lot of interesting detail to the background of my project. So I started by stamping the lavender foliage from Alison Bomber's Lavender Edition stamp set (EAB47) available from a PaperArtsy stockist. I used Ranger, Archival, English Ivy to achieve a lovely crisp images

The background was a little bright for my liking so I sponged on Nutty (MT02), Fern (MT03) and Ash (MT10) Mattints, available from a PaperArtsy stockist , working in a circular direction to follow the wood grain. Using the Mattints to add colour as well as seal the surface allowed me to colour the leaves with Fern followed by a touch of A Bit Jaded Infusions (CS02), The Mattints stopped any bleeding of the Infusions outside the stamped lines

I wanted to use some Grunge Paste to add texture to the background, so mixing it with some Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics , Magic Moss (FF130) and Castleton (FF231),available from a PaperArtsy stockists , achieved the colour I wanted.

I applied the coloured grunge Paste through the Kay Carly stencil, working in from the edges of the wood slice, and using various parts of the stencil to add variety. When the Grunge Paste was completely dry I brushed on a coat of diluted Just walnut Infusions (CS25) to add a vintage feel.

Whilst gathering supplies to possibly use on the project, I came across some gorgeous MDF leaves. They were perfect to add some more dimension. I used a sponge to add a base coat of Fresco finish Chalk Acrylic, Buff (FF96), followed by a mixture of Buff and Magic Moss. A touch of Castleton mixed into the mixture created a slightly darker shade, which I added to one edge of the leaves.

Continuing to add colour to nature themed elements, I had some chipboards that I thought would look lovely. There was one large circular piece that I wanted to include, plus some smaller elements. I used A Bit Jaded Infusions mixed with water and decanted into a spray bottle, and randomly spritzed the chipboards. I didn't actually use the large circular element in the project, but it will await it's turn to shine.

I was really pleased with all the elements and background I had created, It was now time to move on to the focal image for the project, and also decide on the colours to use. I had a couple of ideas, but as we all know things can change as we progress with a project.

My initial idea for the focal area of the project was to stamp out the two faces from the stamp sets, fussy cut them out, then layer them up to give the simpler one a "Beehive" hairstyle,  adding in the embellishments I had created. I experimented with this idea, but soon realised it didn't work to my satisfaction. I put my thinking cap on and soon realised that what was needed was a contrast. A contrast to the organic leaves, birds, feathers and other items.

I stamped the image from LPC048 on to Smoothy Card (SCA4) using Ranger Archival, Jet Black and created a panel with the image in the centre. The straight lines of the panel were just the ticket for adding in that much needed contrast.

Just Walnut Infusions came into play once more, to add a vintage vibe to the stamped image. I used a large brush to add a wash and then when it was dry, added a few extra splatters.

I coloured the face with watered down Ladybug Mattint (MT12) available from a PaperArtsy stockist and the cheeks with full strength Ladybug.

Now was the time for a big decision, which other colours to add to the image. I toyed with the idea of yellow, or green, but in the end Dragonfly Mattint (MT07) won the day. It would give the image the much needed pop of colour.

My focal image was taking shape very nicely, but it needed something to lift it from the background. I had always planned to mount it on something, but exactly what took a while to decide. I tried book pages, kraft card, and stamped card, none of which looked right. it was at this point I came across some small panels of wood veneers. They were just right for my purpose, only one problem, they were too small. After a bit of playing around I came up with the idea to layer up two panels to form a solid base for the image. Splitting the two remaining panels and distressing the ends before overlapping them worked perfectly.

It was now time to bring everything together on my wood slice background. I had some mini wood slices in my stash of possibilities, these were perfect to mount the focal panel on.

I used foam tape and Heavy Gel medium to layer up the focal panel on the slatted wood panel. This allowed for embellishments to be tucked in between the layers easily later.

I loved how everything was coming together and couldn't wait to add more. As always, I think it's the little details that make a project

The birds in the stamps were crying out to be used in the layers surrounding the panel. but also featuring on the nest, these were also coloured using Mattints, Glow (MT01), Nutty (MT02) and Dragonfly (MT07). I also added some grey board butterflies which had a base coat of Buff followed by a coat of Dragonfly Mattint, and the eyes from the face on stamp set LPC047 added

Coordinating buttons added some much needed colour to tie in with the Ladybug . A coat of Matte Glaze took away the annoying shine for a more vintage look

As you can see here, layering up the elements made the project multi dimensional and added lots of interest and texture.

The face on the seed packet stamped image was distracting so I covered it with some buttons from another stamp in the set, using Glow and Ladybug Mattint, and Just walnut infusions to add colour.

Colouring the white feathers from my stash was easy , I sprayed with just Walnut infusions and left to dry.

I have loved creating this project with all the little details. I hope you enjoyed seeing how it came together. I can imagine a set of tags or a journal cover using the elements and stamps I used in this project.

Take care and happy crafting................. Mags x 

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