2019 #11 Retro Colour Palettes: WOOF with Cat's Meow {by Nikki Acton}

2019 Topic 11: Retro Colour Palettes

It's always lovely to see samples with our older collections, and the Cat's Meow is often forgotten. In itself is has a very retro vibe, so a perfect match for retro colours too! ~Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Nikki with you today from Addicted to Art and I'd like to share with you my retro colour themed design with one of PaperArtsy's older stamp collections - The Cat's Meow.

I decided to create a painty, layered card with my tag as the focal point. 

I selected three main colours to keep the composition relatively simple as I was adding lots of layers - I love colour but I find it too easy to get it horribly wrong if I use lots!

First of all I played with some Retro colours and made some swatches of colours that (hopefully!) work well together.

I added colour to my Smoothy Card using a brayer before adding my second colour through a stencil using a sponge. The stencil is PS092. I used Fresco Acrylic paints in Peach Nectar, Blue Oyster, Caramel, Eggshell and a little Chocolate Pudding for layering.

I cut these backgrounds to fit onto my 6x6 inch card base layering onto white and then my Chocolate pudding base layer. The scraps were used to stamp the words on - using black Archival Ink.

I stamped the tag from the stamp set (Cat's Meow - Dog) on both a background of brayered Peach Nectar and also white card so I could layer it. The resting dog was also stamped and fussy cut to layer.

The finishing touches were all the words, the stars (fussy cutting again!) and some glossy accents on the dog's nose to add a little dimension and shine! 

If you haven't seen these stamps do check them out - there are 12 designs in the range with various themes. If, like me, colour can be a challenge - try creating little swatches to see what works - it certainly helps me!

Nikki x

Blog: Addicted to Art

Instagram: @Nikki_Act
Pinterest: nikacton

2019 #11 Retro Colour Palettes: Nostalgia with ECF {by Jennie Atkinson}

2019 Topic 11: Retro Colour Palettes

For Jennie this is quite a colourful post! Love how she builds such stunning layers. This painty background and the way the light catches it is a delight! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live the Dream) with you today on a trip down memory lane! 

I started my paper crafting life scrapbooking memories and I still do, although in a more mixed media journal way rather than the classic layouts of the past. What I do love about scrapbooking is hunting out a photograph and letting it speak of the past. 

After pulling together some 70s colours I got stuck into an old album to find photographs of the period which brought back so many lovely memories. So my project contains many little evocative references to 1975 when this photograph was taken ..... yes its me! 

I have used Courtney's fabulous leaf stamps as I felt they had a real retro feel and added a little background stamping with a mini.

ECF06

Mini 23

These are the Fresco's I pulled together which to me evoke the 70s - it was a good mix of opaque, semi opaque and translucent which led me to get the gel-plate out.

Pumkin Soup, Autumn Fire, Bora Bora, Brown Shed and Toffee (although in the end I didn't use the Toffee).

This was quite a mix of colours so I started with a frame of Bora Bora ...... 

...... and took repeated pulls adding a little colour at a time, along with a little stamped interest. You can see how I brayer in all directions ... !

And this was the final result which I loved - it reminded me of some of the early Basic Grey papers!

I am never too confident stamping directly onto background papers I have taken a little time to make and which I know will never come out right again. So I always stamp on tissue so I can experiment with placement.

I used the mini numbers stamp to fill in some of the spaces around the tissue edges which merge so beautifully into the background.

In the photograph I am wearing a long cream linen dress which had a Belgian lace top ... the bees knees at the time (I still have it!). It was bought from a little French shop which had just opened in the town. So in keeping with these memories I used French script paper, a little lace backed by pieces of muslin which was also very fashionable for those peasant tops at the time. The little wooden button speaks of the period too.

I cleaned my brayer on some left over Smoothy Cardstock which gave me a lovely surface to stamp the leaves in Tsukineko Versamagic White Chalk Ink - the circles on the leaves and flowers a reminder of the orange and green retro circles on wallpaper and dress fabrics.

This really was a lovely project to pull together and brought back so many wonderful memories. I always start my scrapbook projects with the photograph and let it sit for a while on my desk as it is amazing how this triggers tiny little events, colours or emotions. I prefer my scrapbook memories to speak to me in colours and little bits and pieces of embellishments rather than long sections of text journaling. The finished size at 5" x 7" also sits nicely in a standard photograph frame allowing me to enjoy the finished project rather than having it stuck in an album.

I hope my explanation of my process and thinking for this project might prompt you to look back in time through a photograph in order to create a project which is personally creative and nostalgic.

As always thank you for joining me today.

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream

2019 #11 Retro Colour Palettes: Paper Dolls with Lynne Perrella Collection {by Helen Chilton}

2019 Topic 11: Retro Colour Palettes

These stamps by Lynne Perrella are great fun, and Helen has turned one into several with bespoke clothing! This could be a fun holiday activity for any budding school age crafter, or even older ones! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Helen with you today, and I'd like to share with you my retro colours project. I decided on a retro toy to go with my 50's colour scheme. I remember Jo making one of these for a post a while ago but these new Lynne Perrella stamps lend themselves perfectly for this so I'm giving it another go. I've also added another type of doll to the collection.

The hardest part of all was choosing the colour palette! If you put 'retro colours' into Google you get so many results you don't know where to start. All I knew was that I didn't fancy the 70's brown colour scheme as the wallpaper in my first flat was a large brown, orange and purple floral design - gave me nightmares! So I've picked what I hope is a sort of 50's diner colour palette

I just stamped the doll onto mountboard using an ATCoin to draw the base and make the stand.

She'll stand like this:

The clothes are stamped onto glossy card - note the different necklines to add variety.  I coloured these with Distress markers which is very quick and easy. However when I tried to colour the doll herself the same way, the mountboard was just too porous to allow for any blending so I used pencils instead.

Here are all the outfits embellished in different ways. I've added a few dotty areas as I felt that gave it a '50's' look - might be quite wrong there, but I liked it! The bow is made from the butterfly wings:

Once I'd started I was on a roll so decided to make a jointed doll. You need two stamped images for each doll:

Then you just cut out the pieces ...

... and join them together. At this point you can go on and add a string pull to make the legs and arm move, but I've always thought they look a bit peculiar so I left it at this.

You can have great fun posing them - they're really quite athletic (unlike me!)

My original plan was to create a different coloured outfit for each decade but I got so confused with all the colour palettes that I gave up on that idea! 

When you do stamp the image for the outfits it's worth drawing on the tags before you start cutting out as it's very easy to just cut them off. I've had a lot of fun making these - as usual there's a lot of detail in the Lynne Perrella stamps which makes them easy to embellish. Just think, you could make a whole dancing troupe of the jointed dolls - add some net skirts and the can-can comes to mind!

Helen

Blog: A Splash of Colour

2019 #11 Retro Colour Palettes: 1950s Diner Style with Hot Picks 1605 {by Lotte Kristensen}

2019 Topic 11: Retro Colour Palettes

Lotte has selected her retro colours and applied them and stamps in an interesting block formation to create a wonderful journal cover with a selection of vintage genre stamps. 
~  Leandra

Hey everyone, it's Lotte here - Retro Colour Palettes, what's not to love??!  I was hard pushed to choose between 1970s orange, brown, yellow and teal - or 1950s diner style fire engine red, robin's egg blue and black and white (like the tiled floors).  But  in the end I went with the 1950s combo, because I just love the pale blue with the red - it shouldn't work, but it does!  

(I got the photo off Pinterest, unfortunately there was no mention of who took it or where it came from, or I would have credited the photographer!)

I went with red and light green-blue, and some buff to offset both:

So, I decided to make a faux Midori style journal, because you can never have too many journals, right?!  And because I wanted to make squares of colour (echoing the black-and-white tiles of a 1950s diner), I looked for stamps which were largely rectangular in shape:  

 

Oh yes, I fancy myself sitting in cool coffee shops, sketching and making wry observations on the behaviour of 21st Century man (and woman):

So, let's get started!  I first cut two pieces of heavy calico fabric to measure roughly 21 x 30 centimeters (the inserts measure about 10 x 19 cms), and painted the top layer (which will be stamped) with a good coating of white gesso, and when that was dry, I spritzed a wee bit of Distress Spray Stain in Tea Dye:

When all that was dry, I lightly marked out squares with a water erasable pen (or you could use a pencil) and filled in with my chosen colours - Vintage Lace, London Bus and Mermaid Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints.  I'd already done a test run on a piece of normal paper to give me an idea of colour and stamp position: 

Next, I stamped a selection of the stamps all over, but within the rectangles, in Shadow Grey Ranger Archival Ink Pad:

And then it was time for the main stamping, which I did in Onyx Black Versafine Inkpad:

When this had dried thoroughly (Versafine takes quite a bit of time to do so properly), I glued the two pieces of calico together along the spine bit, let that dry and then punched two holes at the top and bottom of the piece, before adding silver eyelets.  Next I stitched the two pieces together on my sewing machine.  If you don't have one of those, you can just glue the two pieces together and stitch the flipped over bit by hand (next step!):

I positioned the blank notebooks inside the cover and folded over to determine where to stitch the flaps down:

Then it was time to thread some elastic cord through the holes, to keep the notebooks in place: 

Now, you can keep the cord long to wrap around the journal when not in use:

Though personally, I prefer just to keep the ends short - I would've added some beads if I could've found some suitable ones:

And a view from the back (almost the same as the front LOL!):

So this was quite a nice and simple project, for a change - as I said already, I love journals, and hand made ones are the best because you can completely personalise them and get something no-one else has.  I've already planned to make some for Christmas pressies - hoping if I start now, I might actually end up being on time LOL!

Until next time :D

Lotte x