Funky Neverending Card with JoFY {by Martha Ponsanesi}

Hello everyone, Martha (@CrfatingMartha ) here with you today for a trip back in time! I am so excited to share an interactive 'never-ending' card, packed with warm colours, funky doodle layers, and a delightfully nostalgic palette.

The spectacular March release by Jo Firth-Young instantly stole my heart and inspired me to play with retro vibes using her new mini stamps and stencils. To bring this project to life, I also decided to dust off an older stamp set featuring those wonderfully bold, chunky flowers that scream 'flower power' to me.

To capture that authentic retro aesthetic, I curated a warm, earthy, and slightly dusty colour palette using PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics. I chose the Chocolate Pudding (FF42),  Cayenne (FF159),  Mustard Pickle (FF148), for a striking pop of contrast, I added Caribbean Sea (FF94) and Slimed (FF137). While the final color balance turned out slightly different from what I had originally envisioned, I absolutely love the result!
I used the three stencils from JOFY's latest release  PS512, PS513 and PS514 ( as usual, you can find the latest release products at the PaperArtsy stockist listed here ), to build my backgrounds, simply applying the paint with a dedicated sponge for each colour.

The beautiful vase stencil PS514 inspired me to create a layered pattern, overlapping the shapes in different shades to build depth.

By the end of this first stage, I had created a collection of vibrant, textured backgrounds ready to be cut down into panels.

As well as a background, I wanted to use the PS514 stencil to create a focal image too.

First, I stenciled a vase using a sponge and let it dry completely.
Next, I replaced the stencil exactly over the painted shape to act as a protective mask.
I then stamped some of the mini geometric patterns directly through the stencil opening. This ensured the stamped designs stayed perfectly inside the vase silhouette with crisp, clean borders.

I stamped some flowers from JOFY95 stamp set onto cardstock and heat-embossed the outlines with clear embossing powder.

Once embossed, I painted the petals using my Fresco Finish paints highly diluted with water, creating a beautiful, translucent water color effect.

Since I wanted to showcase some of the gorgeous new mini stamps, I knew a neverending card structure would be the perfect interactive choice.

You can find in the photo reminder of how to make the structure.

I cut out the squares and rectangles from my custom backgrounds to decorate each section of the card.

For these long side panels, I added some playful, abstract detail by randomly stamping the geometric curves from JM100.

I then fussy-cut the water coloured 'flower power' blossoms and layered them onto the central panels to create a striking focal point.

To prevent the busy backgrounds from becoming visually overwhelming, I made a conscious design choice for the other panels. While some images were stamped directly onto the stencilled papers, others were stamped on a separate sheet of cardstock, fussy-cut, and kept in crisp black and white. This created a perfect visual balance. For this part of the card I used JM97, JM102 and JM104.

Again, some images were stamped directly onto the background (with solid color this time, not through the stencil), with JM99 and JM102, while others were colored and cut out.

My absolute favourite spread is the one featuring the large Chocolate Pudding (FF42) vase. The pops of Caribbean Sea (FF94) dots on the vase, combined with the vibrant hand-painted flowers from JOFY123, feel so wonderfully retro.

And here is how the card unfolds, revealing its four different faces.

The defining feature of a neverending card is its continuous folding mechanism, which means you have to be incredibly mindful of the embellishments you apply. On two of the spreads, I made sure all my decorative elements stayed strictly within the square panels. 

However, on the other two spreads, I chose focal elements that crossed over the edges. To allow the card to fold seamlessly without catching, I had to carefully slice through these overhanging stamped elements exactly along the fold lines after gluing them down.

I still have a lovely pile of extra stencilled vases on my desk, just waiting to be filled with more funky flowers for some standard-sized cards. The possibilities really are endless!

Have fun!

Martha xxx

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2023 Topic 12: Designer Focus: JoFY {by Victoria Wilding}

Hi everyone

Victoria here with you today.

Before I get into my Christmas makes and as I start to wrap up another creative year, I'm already making plans for next years creative journey and boy am I dreaming of good things. A recent move to a new home, in a new area, means there's lots of good things to dream up with a new craft space being pretty much, top of the list! So as I dream up a bigger creative space to house all the stamps, stencils and colours, the big loopy handwritten sentiment in JOFY93 was just screaming at me to be the star of the show. And what a perfect fit it is for this quarters theme of typography, as the PaperArtsy team unravel an important aspect of mixed media projects and so many ways with letters. 

I'm partial to a bit of fabric in my work and I've been loving the work of Emily Notman popping up in my Instagram feed recently. Her pretty, pastel, landscape inspired layers catch my eye every time and I wanted to capture a stripped back version of the texture she so skilfully creates. The flowers from JOFY95 provided my favourite floral focal point and I love the mix of different textures in the finished piece and even removed the glass from the frame, so that the fabric stands proud.

My supplies list for this project is quite limited really. The two JoFY stamp sets, a range of neutral fabrics, a small photo frame , ink and scissors. I decided to use only a splash of colour as I wanted the neutral colours of the fabric and threads to really show through. I selected PaperArtsy Infusions in Lemoncello and Rocky Road to colour the linen strip and StazOn ink in grey and brown for stamping the gorgeous JOFY imagery.  

At this early stage, it is helpful to talk about the selected of PaperArtsy products. This colour combination for example is quite unusual. A gorgeous subdued, rustic pink and orange. You can point out concepts such as vintage meets bright, contrast and colour wheel theory tying into previous colour topics. How and why you land here really interests people, and can give cohesion to a project.

A riffle through my fabric stash turned out a real variety of fibres from cotton, linen, wool, netting and lace to name just a few. I cut out a selection of 8 inch strips so that I would have a little ice of fibres to choose from when building the background. 

From my fabric stash I selected a slightly ruffled cuff cut from an old linen shirt, which I thought would make a perfect layer at the base of the piece. I sprinkled this really lightly with the PaperArtsy Infusions and spritzed with water before setting aside to dry.

Next I stamped out the images I wanted to use. I started off by stamping out the 'dream of good things' sentiment from JOFY93 in brown ink.

And then stamped out some flowers in brown and grey ink and cut them out with fabric scissors, which was a bit tricky as the fabric was flopping around. Slow perseverance did the job eventually!

With all the fabric elements prepped, it was time to start building the project. 

 

I cut a piece of base card that I could glue my fabric to. I quickly realised I had too many fabric strips for the piece. So I started to reduce these down, trying to select a mix of different textures and colours.

I glued these in strips to the card, placing the ruffled piece at the bottom and the sentiment to the top.

Once the main fabric strips were glued in place, I added some more texture on top with some threads and these cute lace flowers. This helps to blend out the harsher edges of some of the thicker fabrics. 

Next I glued the fabric flowers in place, scattering them across the piece to lead the eye around all the different elements. 

 

I wanted to add a touch of metallic sparkle to the neutral colour palette and decided to add some stitching to the centre of the smaller JoFY flowers. I started off hand stitching these but soon realised the detail was soo tiny it wasn't going to have much impact. As I punched more holes in the background card with the needle, it was getting bumpy so I decided to revert to plan B. 

This consisted of rolling the thread into a ball and sticking it in the centre of the flower with fabric glue! I created much more texture and was really time saving, win-win!

I few more loose fibres glued in place, for a final bit of detail and the project was finished!

I placed the piece in a frame and removed the glass to cut the glare and allow the texture of the fabric to escape the frame slightly. 

 

I'll definitely be playing with fabric layers more in the future. They create a great backdrop and I'd really like to try this out with more colourful layers and perhaps some more stitching too. I hope you feel inspired to dig into your fabrics and stamp stash and play with some different combinations. 

Wishing you a happy, creative week!

Victoria

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