3 Things - A trio of cards {by Helen Ranger}

Hi everyone, it's Helen Ranger from butterflywings_beautifulthings with you today for a 'With 3 Things' challenge post.

For this challenge, PaperArtsy sends the same three items to 3 people from our blogging team. It is really interesting to see how each maker comes up with different ideas and techniques with the same 3 items.  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 is to do something crafty in our personal style restricted to these 3 items.

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

I was absolutely delighted with the products selected for me to explore. The wisteria paint is such a pretty colour and it will be very interesting to use it for Christmas. The stamps are a lovely vintage style very much what I enjoy creating with and the stencil is super versatile, I know that I will be using this a lot in the future.

Lets take a closer look.

After a little deliberation considering creating a large tag on a chipboard substrate or maybe a

set of postcards I decided on something more practical. A trio of Christmas cards.

I love mixed media so these cards have lots of different elements to them. I am a 'more is more' creator, but if you are not, there are several steps you can bypass and still have a nice result at the end. 

I have not given you specific measurements for the background and matt layers as your card sizes may be different to mine. I used 5 x 7" 5 x 5" and  6 x 6" card bases in different colours to vary the look. So lets begin.

Above I have stamped some of the stamps using archival ink onto cotton fabric and heat set with my iron. You can only see tiny fragments in the finished cards so if you don't feel confident to do this you can leave this step out and use cheesecloth or patterned/coloured fabric scraps.

Above I stamped the leaves with a sticky ink pad onto Dura-lar film and used 'silver pearl' embossing powder to melt it. I love doing this technique on vellum and even tracing paper, and then I saw Katy Norgate using 'Dura-lar' film on one of her makes. Now I am hooked, a key feature that it is heat resistant, so it does not buckle when you use a heat tool.

Below I stamped with a variety of inks onto cardstock. As it happens, I didn't end up using all the different colours, so I now have spares for other projects. 

Next I set about fussy cutting the leaves, leaving a small white border around them. Yes I do my fussy cutting by hand, (I was recently asked this on the PaperArtsy people Facebook page.) I added rock candy glitter to the leaves for added sparkle.

I heat embossed the stars from the stamp set multiple times across my background cardstock.

This gives a lovely raised shiny finish for the background of our cards. We will be finishing the background off later on with the stencil.

A close up of the finished leaves fussy cut and showing the icy finish of the Rock candy glitter.  Alternatively you could add stickles, glossy accents or if that is not your thing just leave this step out.

I cut out the focal image with an oval die and heat embossed some of the stars onto it. 

I also coloured the leaves a little with coloured pencil and added a shadow around the stamp

and postage mark area. You can see this detail in the finished cards.

I love using different textures in my mixed media art so I knew straight away that I wanted to use my favourite background technique with the stencil; tinted grunge paste!

Above I mixed PaperArtsy Grunge paste with my Wisteria fresco paint. Grunge paste can dry fast, so I tend to quickly apply the paint/grunge paste mix through my stencil - a bonus that you don't have to wait too long for it to dry! Did you know Grunge Paste is an uncoloured product? You do not need to use too much paint to add a tint: opaque paint colours are best for this technique.

On two of the card bases I chose to cover the whole area, on another I used different parts of the stencil, I prefer the ones with full coverage using the entire stencil.

Wash everything as soon as you have finished with plenty of water.

This is what it looks like when the Grunge paste/paint mix has dried; I love the subtle shade it gives a fabulous raised textural finish.

Here is a close up of the texture and colour that you achieve, pretty isn't it? I love using this technique in my mixed media art.

I wanted the matting layers for the cards to coordinate with the background layer, to achieve this I used the Wisteria paint on the edges.

Here I am adding the Wisteria Fresco paint by dry brushing onto the card. I only add it to the edges where it will be seen. It looks a little bit scruffy here but in the end it will come together. The dry brushing gives a nice visual texture, if you don't like this then you can do a full coverage of the Wisteria paint to give a solid matt layer.

The finished matting layers for the three cards - I have machine-sewn around the edges. I enjoy crazy wonky stitches rather than neat straight lines, but you do what you prefer. If you do not want to sew you could draw lines around the edges instead with a fine tip pigment pen or a gel pen.

I chose to add some double sided foam pads between the layers for added dimension. You can see in the image below that the texture created with the dry brushing looks appealing with the background layer added on top.

I like some loose threads to be seen if you do not trim them off, pull the last stitch to the reverse of the matting layer and tie a small knot before adhering the background layer. If you are using a double sided tape or liquid glue you do not need to tie off the threads. The glue will hold it in place.

Now to bring all the elements together and finish the cards. Let's add some fabric scraps.

I have used vintage lace, stamped cotton and I found these wooded snowflakes and small buttons in my stash. Play with the layers until it is right for you; once you are happy glue it all into place.

Here are the finished Christmas cards, each one is unique which makes them an extra special gift to give.

I do hope that you enjoyed reading about the process making these cards. I don't usually create Christmas cards until later in the year but I found this to be great fun and now I have made them I feel happy that I might be more prepared than usual. It was so nice creating these without the usual pressure of having lots of other festive jobs to do at the same time.

The above has sisal fibres behind the focal element and I have layered the stamp and postmark area to give interest. You can also see the slight shading that I created using coloured pencils.

You can see tiny fragments of the lace and fabric scraps peeping out from behind the icy elements.

I am looking forward to creating a few more cards for Christmas with these products, I might try a few different colour ways and use up some of my left over stamped images. You could also make co-ordinating tags for your parcels or use the leaves for table setting place markers.

If you enjoy my style and want to see more of my creations you can find me here...

Blog: https://butterflywingsandbeautifulthings.blogspot.com/

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September 2025 - With 3 Things - Autumn Book & Box {by Helen Ranger}

Hello, Helen Ranger (butterflywings_beautifulthings) here with you today on the PaperArtsy blog. I was surprised and excited when PaperArtsy asked me to be a guest blogger for the September 'with 3 things' challenge. Some of you may have seen some of my creations on the PaperArtsy People Group on Facebook. I haven't been creating for very long compared to some and still consider myself to be a beginner with a lot to learn. 

For this feature on the PaperArtsy Blog 3 identical items are sent to 3 crafters. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a couple of Fresco Paints. 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.

When my parcel arrived, I carefully opened the beautiful bird paper wrapping to find a autumn inspired selection of Fresco Finish acrylic paints with Rusty and Kiwi Gold, a lovely Lin Brown stamp set ELB34 and PaperArtsy stencil PS002, also by Lin Brown. Ideas began to race through my mind.

Today I have made a mini book and its box, inspired by nature in the fall.

I have to admit nerves set in a little at this point along with a little self doubt for good measure. My usual style is to have delicate stencil backgrounds with very defined focals but this selection was possibly the opposite of that? 

I was feeling a little overwhelmed so I started with some exploration before taking any decision. I began to test the beautiful colors of paint with ink colours and paints that I thought might work well. All those rusty leaves gave me the idea to create a box with an autumn walk themed mini booklet inside.

I began my project by enjoy myself using my gel plate to make some backgrounds. I added small blobs of the two paint colours and used my brayer to blend them, then removing paint onto a spare sheet of copier paper through the stencil. This created a beautiful distressed textures.

I pulled the prints using the Heavy Cream Fresco Finish which toned down the colours a little. Perfect for a background!

Next I trimmed two of the backgrounds to the height of the reclaimed box I had chosen and glued the strips together to create a snippet roll. I used most of the stamps in the stamp set in various colors of ink all the way along the snippet roll. I did a lot of overlapping and some partial stamping. I finished it off with stitching along both edges.

I also needed to decorate the base of the box. Using embossing ink, I stamped onto one of the gel printed backgrounds using the distressed floral stamp. I coated this for two colours of embossing glaze then I added additional stamping and stitching. This way the base coordinates perfectly with the sides but has more texture!

I cut the snippet roll to size and painted the edges of the box in French Roast Fresco Finish I then glued the snippet roll inside and out fitting the base into the bottom of the box.

With the bow all pretty, it was time to begin creating my booklet. I sprayed some Distress stain and oxide through PaperArtsy stencil PS002 onto some card, adding water splats and drying. I brayered on a little of the Kiwi Gold Fresco, mainly around the edges. I glued another piece of the gel printed paper to the back. This will be the cover for my booklet

I wanted the booklet to fit snuggly in the box so I used the measurements of the box reduced by half a centimeter to determine to size of my covers. I cut a strip of the right height in the stencilled card and marked the covers width on each end. I glued on a second piece of card to the back of the booklet along the three edges, as shown above, to create a little pocket then inked up all the edges.

Then I began concertina folding the remaining strip between the covers. I wanted five pages so I created 5 peak folds, but you could have as many as you like. I finally glued together the valley folds on the outside of the booklet, stopping the concertina from opening. This created raised flaps inside the booklet to adhere my pages to.

I think I should have made the folds larger as folding the doubled card was hard on my hands and gluing the small folds was a bit tricky.

For my pages, I cut five pieces of the gel printed paper to the height of my cover minus half a centimeter and double the width. Each was to be folded in half and glued together sandwiching a flap of the cover, thus creating 5 pages.

Those pages now needed to be decorated! I brayered on matching ink to the one on the cover. I added scraps of the lovely tissue paper used to wrap my parcel (PT11 - Birds) and textures stamps to decorate the background.

I stamped many of the main leaves in the ELB34 set on card using different colour inks then painted them layering the two colours Rusty and Kiwi Gold. I also added a little bit of Claret Fresco Finish paint just around the edges as they felt a little "flat". I fussy cut these out and inked around the edges and the back as I knew that I wanted to bend some and I didn't want any white showing.

The next bit is intuitive to me as I love using fragments of fabric, string, book page and card/paper scraps to my nature work. Very often it can be the smallest of pieces. This process began when I created a junk journal for a year it was a period of healing for me.

I added these to the pages arranging the leaves, stamped words, scraps of snippet roll and text from a digital download.

I then added simple doodles, lines, dots and circles to each page.

Nearly there... I added leaves to the box and set about creating the finishing touches. I added some rusty paint to a metal token with a sentiment fitting the project. I let it partially dry and dapped it with kitchen towel. I glued the string inside the back cover so that the metal token dangled on the outside.

I fussy cut a moth and coated it with frosted crystal for my cover. A process I really enjoy!

I put cut off pieces of the base into the back pocket to use as a mini tag. (You didn't think I could create all this without a tag did you?).

All done! Here is a look at the different pages:

I loved all the processes to create this mini booklet and box which I can now fill with projects inspired by the upcoming season. I look forward to filling it and sharing my makes with you on PaperArtsy People!

Helen xx

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