2020 A Year in Review {Topics 16-20}

PaperArtsy Blog 2020 Year in Review - Part 4/4

The view from the New PaperArtsy HQ in France

 

It's our final post from PaperArtsy HQ for 2020 and what a year it was, 

 

Time for some thank-you-s from us !

To our designers, who battled through to find ways to continue to bring new classes all year long instead of teaching in stores, they partnered with our stockists, and also offered independent content, both free and paid-for classes, to inspire, distract, encourage and share their ideas with all their newest products worldwide. Initially they were all very worried this would be a tricky path to navigate, but in the end, their willingness to shift to teaching online really fast was the right move and well received! Families at home, people struggling with day to day life, or those who had hours to fill all have joined with our designers as and when they could, and learned a lot along the way. We thank YOU!

 

January 2020 - Build up of the PaperArtsy Booth at CreativeWorld, Frankfurt.

To our bloggers who kept inspiration flowing when we moved from the UK to France. Without their flexibility to create, often at short notice in the void of an unexpected no-freight situation while we established new contracts here, and who came up with  non stop amazing content week after week. We thank YOU!

To all the independent retailers out there who carry our brand, thank you for your advance planning as we closed in the UK, and for your understanding when it took us a month longer than we anticipated to re-open in France. Your warm emails of support, your encouraging comments on our Instagram and for your unfailing loyalty to our designers and the wonderful ideas you and your teachers share with your customers. Your loyalty to the brand and our values is amazing. We thank YOU!

 

Squiggly Ink Christmas Post by Keren Baker

To Keren who has carried almost all the blog admin before, during and since our move, who is always cheerful, happy, funny and passionate about doing the best job she can. She has that innate ability to always do what is right or necessary at the right time! 

 

And to Mr PaperArtsy, you are a forward thinker and awesome researcher. Were it not for all the information gathering you did and continue to do, we would not be here today starting this new phase. I love that we get to do this together. Thank YOU! To our 4 now-adult kids. I know I have been a stressed, menopausal moody cow at times over the last few years, but you guys have all played your very important part to keep the show on the road. We did not expect to move to France with all of you in tow, but Covid had other plans. Your lives, studies and plans have been willingly put on hold, until travel is possible, but the way you have all stepped in to keep the PaperArtsy show on the road over the past 2 difficult years has been amazing. You have trusted in us and fully supported and helped, and there is nothing more fulfilling then having you be a huge part of this journey, making our new house your home too while at the same time also learning a new language and culture. This is not how we expected it to be, but I am so glad that you have all been a big part of this new journey.

 

Our final Christmas in the UK, Dec 2019 (minus Courtney!)

 

To all our followers, customers, friends, family far and wide. Thank-you for your support, words of encouragement and positive thinking when things looked like the dream was not going to come together in the necessary time frame. We hope you get to come and visit in the years to come!

 

So for our final post of the year, we look back on the more recent highlights from Topics 16-20: Hinged, Day and Night, Geometric, Words of Wisdom and Icy Christmas. Read on to see just a sampling of the fantastic ideas from our superb blogging team!

 

Happy New Year and much love to you all! Here's to your good health and we wish you every good thing for 2021 and beyond!

 

Cheers!

Leandra 

Topic 16: Hinged

I guess we were all feeling a bit un-hinged by this point in the year, but the bloggers held it together, and came up with some fun projects for this topic! 

 

My first pick is this amazing beauty by Ellie. She bound watercolour paper into a fantastic journal/ book and decorated the cover. What a beautiful idea. See more here from Ellie Knol (link)

Do we call this a hinged head? Perhaps unhinged? We love this new stamp from France Papillon, and Keren does such imaginative things with stamps, every time! Keren Baker (link)

Got to love a rustic hinge! and Nikki nailed it with her well executed rusty treatment of shiny metal to make it look perfectly aged! Nikki Acton (link)

I did not know washi tapes hinges were possible, but with Jennie all things are possible! A beautiful book, books really are great fun to create, and she has several delicately decorated pages within to enjoy Jennie Atkinson (link)

Topic 17: Day and Night

My first pick is this sliding beauty by Jo Firth-Young (link). Interactive projects are really satisfying to create, and Jo has plenty of these ideas within her classes or on her blog with her gorgeous stamps!

And I hope you didn't miss Claire Snowdon (link) and her contrasting Night-Day journal spread, what a great colour contrast with Tracy's stamps in B&W.

I adored how Helen Chilton (link)'s flower wheel really caught the day to night vibes, this would work so well for a seasonal wheel too!

Jenny Marples (link) has some many great projects using Sizzix (Eileen Hull) dies, and the way she pulled together Zinski houses with Kay Carley trees for the cover of this booklet was fabulous!

Topic 18 : Geometric

 

We have seen a lot of Geometric influences within interior decor trends in the past year of 2, and for this topic, I knew our designers would pull some gems out of their hats! I really loved this simple background Miriam Grazier (link) used to set off the Ellen Vargo flower.

I hope you didn't miss the amazing paper piecing Etsuko (link) did for this little booklet!

I was wowwed by Keren Baker (link)'s layer of geometry over this vellum, you can still see the Lynne Perrella stamp beneath, and the shapes linked to points on the stamps below!

Topic 19 : Words of Wisdom

 

We were all desperate for some wise words as the year came to a close! Jenny Atkinson (link) used lots of ephemera from the Ink and the Dog collection for her project.

 

Ellie Knol (link) filled tins with words of encouragement for her post! What a lovely and truly uplifting idea!

Miriam Grazier (link) is our biggest fan of Sara Naumann stamps, and she pulled out a beautiful sentiment for her contribution.

I really love how Amanda Pink pulls a project together. Lots of scripts, numbers are softly in the background, but her sentiment is perfect! Amanda Pink (link)

 

Topic 20 : An Icy Christmas

 

Christmas and cooler weather seemed a long time coming this yeaar, so perhaps it was not so Icy as we anticipated, but the blog was dripping with icicles and glitter!

Nikki Acton used painterly textures to great effect in this post with Seth Apter stamps and a handy palette knife to make some scratchy effects!

And I hope you didn't miss this stunning wreath by Helen Chilton with Tracy Scott stamps and Flower Foam!! (link) The technique to bring these to life is stunning so do check it out!

Kate Yetter made the cutest decorations with Gwen Lafleur stamps! I love how the composition was just idea for both gift tags and christmas tree ornaments!

And Jennie created this very Icy looking Christmas decoration, would be perfect on a mantlepiece, in soft shades of blue.

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Once again, we wish you all the best for 2021, take good care

Leandra and all of us here at team PaperArtsy

2020 Topic 22 Xmas Cards with EDY (by Lynn Good)

  2020 Topic 22:Icy Christmas

With an intriguing heat gun technique and some delightfully quirky stamps, Lynn has gone to town with some fab and fun Christmas cards. With the perfect amounts of bling and fake snow, these are going to lift someone's spirits for sure!
~ Keren

Hi everyone, it's Lynn Good from Memories On The Page, with you today, and I'd like to share with you a set of cards that I have made for this weeks topic 'Icy Christmas'.

I chose to use images from the stamp sets EDY25 & EDY26 by Darcy as I just love their quirky nature.  I wanted to make simple but fun cards.

The top two cards have a background that I created. This was to be the beginning of my project but as usual it took a turn on its own and turned out completely differently!!

I made the background using Smoothy Heavyweight cardstock.  I started with a layer of Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Paint in Cloudy and a metallic paint in silver.  Before the paint dried completely I used a heat gun over the metallic paint to cause it to bubble and create this wonderful effect - I was thinking of snow and ice at the time.  (This only works with metallic based paints).

I painted over it with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish - Blue Moon and before it dried, wiping away the paint on the bubbled areas that I wanted to highlight.

I then covered the whole piece with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Crackle Glaze for an extra effect.

I loved this effect and spent a couple of days deciding what I was going to do with it!! I decided to use it as a background for cards.

Using the same Smoothy cardstock I stamped out the images and added highlights of colour.  I have used the following colours: Smurf, Banana, Beanstalk, Limelight, Slimed, Candy Floss and London Bus.

I added some bling dots, liquid pearls and puff paint for snow. Here is each one:

I hope that you have found some inspiration to have a go at these quick and easy but great Christmas Cards.   They would also work well as tags for presents.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe Xmas and New Year.  2020 has certainly not been what we expected and fingers crossed 2021 will be kinder to us all.

Lynn 

2020 Topic 22 Wishing You Peace with ESN {by Jennie Atkinson}

  2020 Topic 22:Icy Christmas

Icy colours can seem cool and uninviting and yet there's something very warming and tranquil about Jennie's lovely Christmas decoration. There are so many ways to use a cotton reel but I reckon this is one of my favourite ideas.

~ Keren.

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live the Dream) here with you today sharing an Icy Christmas Crackled ATC block and stand. Whilst I love the traditional colours of Christmas I always decorate our study with blue themed decorations which I have collected over the years along with a white brightly lit tree as I love the peaceful feel of these colours. This current theme is just perfect for me to add to my little set of decorations!

I wanted to create the feel of cold and ice so turned to some of the lovely new blue Frescos and crackle paste. I wanted a rustic look...and a rustic look I got! (even if a little more than I was anticipating!)

I have layered Sara's lovely Christmas stamps over the crackle with napkin paper and used a stencil and texture paste over the top to create some texture.

ESN38

PS134

I started by splodging Cloudy and Crispy Blue Fresco Finish Acrylic over the ATC block with a paintbrush. It was all quite random as it was being covered by the crackle. To get a more rustic look I put this onto the paint with a palette knife, so there are thin and thick bits and even missed bits!

The cotton reel went through the same process but it was more difficult to adhere the crackle paste with the palette knife, so areas did get brushed but I tried to keep some areas thinner than others.

I have discovered recently that it is not worth paying for expensive tissue paper or Tissue Tex when layering stamping over uneven surfaces. If you use napkins for a similar purpose you will know that they always blend very easily into their background. So now I take the third outside layer from a napkin and stamp on that. Cheap, does exactly what I want...and I get to use the napkins as nobody notices there is a layer missing!

They take the ink beautifully and are easy to tear out and adhere with a clear drying multi medium.

As you can see no trace of the napkin edges and a good quality impression from the stamp.

Using the napkin tissue allowed me to wrap the images around the block as well and the small scale of the Fleur-de-Lis on the stencil was just perfect for filling in the spaces.

I am not a great fan of glitter but you an always add a little sparkle in other ways. The silver foil was a find at the back of the cupboard after my grandson asked for something shiny for his school project.

The glass drawer knob was a good find in one of our local shops and also reflects the light beautifully.

I kept the base simple as I didn't want to lose all the lovely crackle - a little bit of muslin, beaded lace and another silver foil was really enough to compliment the block.

Another decoration to add to the Christmas blue corner. Although we don't put our decorations up until a few days before Christmas, I am sure this will find a small nook over the next couple of weeks behind some of the fairy lights around the fireplace which these days stay up all year!

It is always good to try different Christmas colours and I hope you enjoy Icy Blue as much as I do.

Wishing you all a season of peace.

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream