PaperArtsy: Floss Nicholls

Showing posts with label Floss Nicholls. Show all posts

Saturday, 6 June 2026

3 Things - Infused Tissue Journey {by Floss Nicholls}

Hi everyone, it's Floss from flossWORKSHOPart with you today for a 'With 3 Things' challenge post.

This feature on the PaperArtsy Blog is where 3 identical items are sent to 3 members of the PaperArtsy Blogging team. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a colour product.

We have no clue what PaperArtsy HQ is going to send, the whole idea of this challenge is to do something crafty in our personal style with these 3 items.

We can incorporate other PA products into the mix if we feel it is necessary.

So let's take a look at what I received from PA HQ ...

So there was no stencil this time...but I received tissue paper and some card stock too. It got me thinking straight away how I had never tried infusions on tissue paper before so it was the very first thing I did.

I started by sprinkling a little of The Sage Infusions onto my paint palette and sprayed the palette with water. I then used the colour to paint some detail onto the Seth Apter Printed Tissue paper. I painted the infusions on the front of the tissue.

I did not over mix the infusions dye stain so that it would allow the colour variants to still remain visible with the brush stroke. I was fearful that the tissue might rip when I applied the water (as I use water to rip tissue regularly) but I did not pull the tissue...I let it dry. The tissue paper was strong enough to take the 'wet' and so I thought I would become more bold in my approach and started to fill in areas with my brush.

I decided that parts of the tissue needed to be vibrant and so...

I used PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Heavy Cream acrylic paint on the reverse of the tissue paper and only after the infusions was fully dry to make the infusions colour more opaque and the areas where there was no infusions to be a solid strong cream. I did not add water to the acrylic as I did not want to reactivate the infusions dye stain.

There is definitely an obvious difference where I painted the ovals with the heavy cream as you can see here within the numbered areas with the cream vs the space around it left clear of paint.

The variety of colours within The Sage infusions was remarkable and so to give me more colour range in density I decided to sprinkle some infusions onto the Heavy Cream Acrylic on my paint palette...

I used it to paint other areas on the reverse of the Seth Apter tissue paper leaving the grains unmixed so that the dye would 'do it's own thing' within the paint.

It gave me so much more of an individual and slightly uncontrolled outcome.

Sprinkling a few grains of the infusions directly onto areas of the Seth Apter tissue and then spraying it made me wonder if I'd taken it a step too far, but again, the tissue held up to the wet spray! It gave me a softer palette with less of the powder being used.

I started looking at areas that were the same size as the provided card stock. To do this, I used the card to draw around and cut a window out to audition certain areas of the tissue.

It was a tough decision which areas of the tissue to use...or whether to use the whole window framed area...or whether to collage various different parts of the tissue to cover the framed area. I used the frame to guide my wet brush to rip different boxes from the whole tissue paper.

I then glued the sections I ripped onto the card stock and waited for them to fully dry.

Whether I decide to use the little cards as ATC trading cards, mount them together as a tryptic or in a square grid, for me, they needed more texture and attention to detail...and so by using PaperArtsy mini rubber stamps EM137 and EM141, I added further texture embossed detail to each card with opaque vanilla WOW Embossing powder.

And then collaged again over the top to create further texture.

I used partial stamps on this one...I like a little hint of embossing here and there. I achieved this by attaching masking tape over parts of the stamp after I'd pressed it into the embossing ink pad and before pressing it onto the paper, it allowed me to place the numbers strategically around the tissue design...

Using paper masks over the tissue design allowed me to add an embossed design section to each of the cards...

These two cards are still awaiting embossed details but I am now thinking that I could add stitching to elements of these cards...and maybe the others too...I guess it is because a lot of my art has stitching involved.

It seems that I am guilty of thinking I have finished a piece of art only to look at it a few days later and wonder what else I can add or change. Are you like that too? Looking at these images again now that they are on a big screen in front of me, I think they need stitching and that they could be used as journal fronts too...

It was a fun exploration and one I shall definitely be using again!

I hope that you will try this if you haven't already...

Much love,

Floss x x x

YouTube: @flossworkshopart

Facebook: floss_workshop.art

Instagram: floss_workshop.art

Website: flossWORKSHOPart

I couldn't resist it...I added some stitching...

Wednesday, 15 April 2026

ATC's in Series with Seth Apter stamps {by Floss Nicholls}

Hello everyone, Floss here with you today...

Would you believe, of all the years that I have been creating mixed media...or art in general even, that I have never made a batch of ATC's?! Today I changed that and made some in a series using Seth Apter rubber stamps.

The first thing I did was mark out my paper and added washi tape to give me a grid which left me with a clean white 3mm border all round the ATC card. I used a standard playing card size. I then used a palette knife to add PaperArtsy Seaglass acrylic to areas of the grid.

Closely followed by gesso onto some areas over and clear of the Seagrass and let that dry before sprinkling infusions onto newly wetted areas...

I worked it with a large watercolour brush to spread the colour...and leave puddles.

I used one of the stamps from the Seth Apter set ESA49 to stamp text to cover more than one ATC card so that only parts of the stamp were visible on a few of the cards.

I did the same kind of positioning with the circles stamp from the Seth Apter set ESA50, but instead of using ink, I painted the stamp with PaperArtsy's Blood Orange Acrylic to bring some contrast colour in.

And again using the feather leaf shape stamp using ESA49 and Pine Grove Fresco Finish Acrylic.

The long thin shape worked beautifully across two cards as well as the length of one card...it really did not matter that it went over the taped borders as I would be peeling them off at the end.

I used opaque vanilla WOW embossing powder for extra details. I used parts of the rubber stamp cross as well as whole crosses from the Seth Apter set ESA49 on the cards. I heat set the powder making sure all the powder had melted.

I felt like some of the embossed words needed something more...

and so I decided to use my palette knife to smear PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Squid Ink Acrylic over them...

I thought this made the words 'pop' a little more.

Once all the embossing and stamping was completed I was able to remove the washi tape...some of which I would keep for another project as it had some great textures on it!

I really liked how using the tape separated and spaced the design elements leaving a crisp edge which is very unlike me. I usually favour ripped or overspill edges!

Rather than using a guillotine or paper strimmer I decided to rip the borders against a metal rule. I tested which way to rip first so that I had the 'cleaner rip edge' I found that pulling the card image part worked best for my preferred outcome.

After I had separated the cards, I rounded the corners, edged finished them and finally added some of the 'squiggly lines' from stamp set ESA49 and embossed them using Opaque vanilla Wow embossing powder.