Summer 2016 #3UP {Jofy}

Hi Everyone, Leandra here (slightly earlier than usual, we have 2 posts this evening) and this post is a stunning JoFY inspired #3UP! 

A feminine floral stamp collection such as Jofy, used with inks this evening is probably a very appropriate way to celebrate our first day of England's second ever Prime Minister, and wow has she been bold in her first day of office, shaking up the establishment today with much hiring and firing!

So let's see what bold blooms our lovely blog followers have to offer.

First up this evening we have Julie Bell.

Hi it’s Jules, I love crafting as there’s so many different thing to do, my favourites are stamping, drawing faces and art journaling. I love the #3UP challenge, as so many people get involved and its such fun to see what people create.

I love JOFY stamps, and the fact that they all blend together so well, every single set. We were given several sets of stamps and this photo shows the way they combine perfectly. I heat embossed the little bees with gold, and the same on the greeting.
(Stamps: JOFY32, 12, 09, JM48)

I used a blend of Dylusions and Lindy’s stamp gang stamps to create a blend and overlap of colours with some shimmer so I could choose the best part to stamp over, this also meant that the black Archival ink was nice and crisp on top.

To finish I used some Classic Treasure Gold, to dust around the sides. I wanted to try and get a good colourful project in 3D and with a bit of a vintage feel and I am very happy with the result. 

To see the full project please visit my blog post HERE. 

Places you can find Julie. 

Blog: Artful Days

Facebook: Artful Days

Next up we have Clare Messenger. 

Hi, I'm Clare. I live with hubby and my two children in the English Riviera. I absolutely adore creating with stamps, inks, paints & stencils! 

JoFy stamps are always a joy to work with! These fabby stamps lend themselves to so many different projects, from card making to mixed media, the possibilities are endless.

I stamped the dandelion head and heat embossed some holographic embossing powder over the dandy heads. Through a Jofy stencil PS007, I pulled through some grunge paste. This added more layers and created more depth to the picture.

This is my favourite part of the picture. I love the mixed, double layers of the fluttering dragonfly, he looks as though he might fly right of the canvas! All that's left to do is find somewhere to display my bloomin beautiful blooms.
(Stamps: JOFY38,13)

To see the full project please visit my blog post HERE.

Places you can find Clare. 

Blog: Crafty Clarey

Pinterest: Clare Messenger

Finally this evening we have Linda Fitzsimmons. 

I've always loved crafting from an early age and work with most mediums, stamps and dies. Recently I have favoured water colouring with Distress Inks and playing with Fresco paints.

This is an 8 1/2" square of watercolour card backed with black card, the images were coloured with Distress inks and a waterbrush.

My technique was decoupage, I cut several of the blooms and layered them to create height and texture. These were attached with gel medium as it dries clear. 

I love Jo's hive and bees. the bees were cut out and added with glue gel for height, the wings were coated with glitter.
(Stamps JofY 13, 26, 30, JM44)

To see the full project please visit my blog post HERE. 

Places to find Linda. 

Blog: Crafty Moments

Pinterest: Linda Fitzsimmons

Twitter: Linda Fitzsimmons

Instagram: Linda Anne J

Another three incredible projects, our guests have wowed us this evening with stunning colour choices and blending. 

This is the first of our posts this evening. 

Pop back in an hour at 7pm to see more amazing projects. 

~Darcy

2015 #15 Gel Resist {By Ellen Vargo}

 2015 Topic 15: Gels and Mediums

Hi everyone Ellen Vargo here, joining you this evening with a post about using gels medium as a resist. I have always loved a good resist technique, and gels work beautifully. We'll be working with gloss gel medium, distress inks, collage, and some of my favorite PA stamps.

Step One: Use a brayer to apply gloss gel medium to your stamp.  I used a brayer because the stamp I chose, the scratchy diamond background stamp from EEV07...

...has a very fine texture and I wanted nice crisp stamping.  If you are using a bolder stamp you could either lightly paint the gel medium onto the stamp, or spread the gel medium onto your craft sheet and lightly stamp into it.

Step Two: Let gel medium dry or speed things up by using a heat tool.  Then use ink blending tools to apply your choice of distress inks over the stamped gel medium.  The gel medium will "resist" the distress inks, which are water based and translucent, leaving a nice clean stamped image intact.

Step Three:  Next I applied some tissue paper, stamped with one of my favorite dotty texture stamps (EEV06).

I used Ranger Glue N Seal, another type of medium, for this step, It's slightly looser and thinner than the Golden regular matte gel, and so it dries flatter and more invisible. With Golden's regular gel you would still see brush strokes, less so with the Golden soft gel. All of these products have a nice matte finish that will vanish once dry.

Step Four:  I created some flowers using maps and my petals and pods stamp set (EEV09). 

I glued the petals to the circle base using glossy accents, yet another type of medium which can be used as an adhesive or as a way to give a shiny finish to any embellishment.  

The flower stems were stamped using just the stem from my sketched flowers stamp set (EEV10).

Step Five:  After adding a torn strip of map paper to the base of the card, I then added a quote from Lin Brown's ELB06.  I stamped the quote on white Smoothy card, cut out the words to fit the arrangement I wanted, adhered to card and outlined each word with a fine tip black pen.  I decided to add little white dots (Sharpie fine tip paint pen) to the center of each black dot to make them "pop" - I use this technique a lot - one of my faves.

And, once again, here is the final result.  I outlined the whole card with a black paint pen to give it a nice finished look.

I hope you liked today's project and if you haven't ever tried using gel medium as a resist, then give it a try!  You could use distress inks as we've done today, or you could use watered down paint.  I have had success with both methods, but distress inks give a cleaner, crisper result, in my experience.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Have fun playing!  ~ ellen.

Wow your resist really pops to show the fine detail of that gorgeous diamond scratchy stamp Ellen! It's so lovely to see how you use the fantastic 'petals' set of stamps with the map to make such cool flowers. Thanks for joining us tonight, we love to see your bright and cheerful projects! ~Leandra

We would love you to join in with challenge #15: Gels If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Gels link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 23rd winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.