Showing posts with label JOFY26. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JOFY26. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 August 2021

2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour with JOFY {by Jo Firth-Young}

  2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour


We do love a JOFY mini book, and even better when it's a pink-black-gold combo! Jo goes through her back catalogue to show just how perfectly all her stamps can work well together in the background and of course she also manages to find the perfect focal points to adorn each page beautifully.
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jo Firth-Young (www.jofy.co.uk) here with you today, and I'm here to share with you a small concertina book I made using my 'favourite' colour - I say my 'favourite' colour but it really is so hard to pick just one colour isn't it?!!
I chose PINKS, - including HOT pink - the gorgeous Cerise. Hot pink seems slightly rebellious - it says 'look at me!'  It makes a statement doesn't it. I've teamed it with Sherbet, Gold and black to quieten it down a little... but not too much. lol

The mini book I created (final size 8x8cm) came together quite easily - I didn't start with any expectations of what it was going to be... but I took inspiration from 
an even smaller book I have on my desk (I do love tiny 'junk'/art journals!). 


It features lots of the small designs that are on my stamp plates and I've been wanting to make a slighter larger project using phrases.
 
So I gathered up Smoothy card and paints and just started playing - I used lots of bits of 'this and that' - I had FUN making it, no pressure.  I used many of my favourite techniques - and all that HOT PINK colour!! 
The finished book just makes me smile- it has a really positive feel to it - I chose to feature lots of the little phrases & words that are dotted among my JOFY collection - I wanted to give them their '5 minutes of fame'. lol


I started by creating a master-board on a 13x6in panel of Heavy Smoothy. I painted it with diluted Sherbet Fresco Finish paint, used stencil PS250 to add small spots in Cerise and larger spots in Kitsch Flamingo Distress Oxide.  


Then, I added letters (JOFY101) in Gold Fresco Finish to break up the pink and add a touch of shine to contrast the matte pink paints. I intentionally left 'open' spaces.



Once all the painted layers had dried I added more details: I stamped blocks of small dots (EM57), and drew around the large dots with Stabilo All pencils in white and black diluting the lines with water.


I folded the panel into 4 x 3in strips, cutting off the remaining 1in strip.
 

I realised that 4 rectangle panels didn't give me enough space to work on - not enough pages, and I thought rectangles might be slightly restrictive so I cut the rectangles into 8 7x7cm squares - much more versatile and more pages! win win!

Now to decide what colour card to mount the squares onto for the concertina structure.  I often try out several backgrounds colours before making a decision - its definitely worth looking at different options - some might surprise you!  I tested white, black and my firm favourite: kraft. The different background colours definitely create a different look - the white is fresh, the black is very dramatic and the kraft gives a softer look. I decided on black for my book- a change from the white or kraft that I might normally reach for.


I measured and cut a strip of black card to mount the squares onto allowing for a border to frame each piece.


.... and when all the background details were finished I sewed each panel in place.
 

Here are pairs of page with the details of stamps used... details on the panels are die cuts, stamping, stenciling - created from pieces cut/created for this piece and from project 'left-overs' - repurposing bits and pieces. I really like adding all these little details to these small pages.

'Life is good.... ' is from JOFY46.  The numbers on the right hand page are from JOFY88 - this was a 'scrap' piece saved from a previous project (its always worth hanging on to interesting bits and pieces). These numbers were part of the planner sets I designed but it great to see them being used for something else.





The left hand page features bud stems from JOFY26 and 'Grow' from JOFY97 is part of a phrase but works just as well on its own.
I heat embossed most of the images stamped in black - the gloss of the embossing is a nice contrast to the matte Fresco paints.
The flower on the right hand page is JOFY61, and this page features one of the background stamps I added for more detail on some pages - the white embossing really makes it pop.
 
 






'Be a rebel' (great phrase) comes from JOFY50 - the ombre painted word uses Cerise and Sherbet. The flowers on the right hand page are from JOFY26 (shown above) - I stamped the flowers directly onto the background and added an additional one for added interest.




Here are the final two pages featuring JOFY72 (I like how the word 'you!' is accentuated by embossing it in gold), and JOFY102. 






Black and pink is such a great colour combination isn't it! and with those pops of gold and white!! Fabulous! 



I hope this encourages you, inspires you, to take another look through your stamps sets - look for the smaller stamps that are tucked in around the bigger images - bring them out, play with them and make them the feature of your pages - there are lots of little treasures in those sets - I'd love to see what you create!  

Take care

Jo


Website: www.jofy.co.uk
Pinterest: @jofyjo
Facebook: JoFY Jamboree! group
Twitter: @jofyjo
Instagram: @jofyjo

Teaching dates - ONLINE workshops
28.08.21  Loobi Crafts, www.loobicrafts.co.uk ...Wonderfully Wintery

Every Friday until December:  Festive Friday, 18.00 (UK time), in my Jamboree group: Free demo/Card making class 

Sunday, 4 July 2021

2021 Topic 8: Nature's Treasure with JOFY {by Kay Carley}

2021 Topic 8: Nature's Treasure


We love it when a designer uses another designer's products. It is super-interesting to see the outcome, and on this occasion, Kay Carley has used Jo's stamps to create a wonderful floral, buzzing summer scene. Her explanation of the process she uses to build those amazing garden layers is super helpful!
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Kay with you today, and I'm here to share with you a decorated wooden hanging plaque that I created using JOFY stamps. With all the media coverage about bees at the moment I definitely wanted to create something involving these wonderful insects for my Natures Treasure project as we would be lost without our bees!

To go with the bees I chose to create a garden full of flowers for the bees to collect their pollen from. I've found that the trick to creating a pleasing, layered composition such as this, is to keep my colour palette quite contained, so although I have used quite a few different Frescos I've kept the colour palette to tones of greens, yellows and pinky/purples.

To begin my project I assembled three pastel colours of Fresco Chalk Acrylics to create a random background and chose a contrasting Fresco colour to stencil on top.


You can see that I kept quite an ethereal feel to how I applied my paint which was achieved by sponging (using a sponge wedge) rather than painting with a brush or brayering.
 

I also kept the stencilling soft as I didn't want any defined imagery at this stage - I just wanted subtle interest.
 
 

Next I wanted to create some foliage as a backdrop for my garden. It's important to get the backdrop right at this early stage, as it is quite hard to add it at a later date once all your imagery has been stamped and painted.


I chose just two colours of green for this and switched to using a No.8 round paintbrush. 
 
 
The secret to applying the paints to create this effect is to have a very wet paintbrush. If you don't have enough water you cannot get the two paints to mix and merge together to create this watercolour effect. Note that you can still see my original background peeping through. It's all about creating that depth early on.
 

 
Next up is to stamp your composition and have fun colouring it! I mainly used Fresco Chalk Acrylics for this but I did add some details using Polychromo pencils too. To sink the smaller flowers into the grass I only inked up a small amount of the stem. Once I got to the base of the panel I inked up slightly more of the stem to help with perspective.


You can see how I have layered up the imagery using a combination of JOFY stamps. Overlapping some imagery helps with creating depth to the scene. I also lightly stamped some wording into the background first using Ranger's Distress Ink (Picket Fence).
 

I chose two of Jo's stamp sets to create my scene with namely (JOFY26) and (JOFY30). (JOFY 26) contains both the little and big flowers thus allowing me to create lots of interest by dotting the smaller flowers all around in the grass. Whereas the larger flowers allowed me to create some depth and perspective when stamped in front of the beehive and each other. I also used a variety of Ranger Archival Ink to stamp my imagery namely (Leaf Green), (Olive) and (Jet Black).






 
To really frame the composition I needed to add some imagery around the sides of the panel so I delved into my stash of stencils to achieve this.


After stencilling leaves all around the panel I added some more of watered down Hyde Park in amongst those stencilled leaves to further help frame the picture.
 

You can see how I have purposely stencilled leaves over some of the flowers to help add that depth to the scene. 

 

Creating scenes like this does take a little bit of time but you can begin very simply by just overlapping a couple of images to create some depth. Perhaps try stamping an image and then stencilling something to slightly overlap part of your stamped image. The beauty of working with PaperArtsy's Fresco Chalk Acrylics is that many of the colours are opaque which makes it so easy to block out an image that is underneath, so no fiddly masking is then required! 

Love Kay x

Blog: Kays Crafty Corner
Facebook: Kay Carley
Facebook Group: Crafting with Kay Carley
Twitter: @carleycards
Instagram: kay.carley
Pinterest: Kay Carley

At this current time, all of my teaching is being done online. You can find details of all of my past and current online workshops over on my Crafting with Kay Carley Facebook Group.