Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Blog Candy {JOFY} competition results

Well, after much ado comprising discussion of random number selection processes.... Jo Firth-Young herself pushed the magic button to draw 3 names randomly from the hat to get our three winners from last week's launch of the JOFY collection of stamps....

First up

BloggerBondGirl said...
Well done Jo!!!

Will be popping by the paper artsy stand with baby bella to say hi!


 

....and indeed she did, but baby Bella slept all day at the Harrogate show....so no cuddles for me ;(

And next

Deborah said...

Jo, you had me at JMO1 :-)

And then it just got better and better. I love the colour reccomendations too - so refreshing!


 

And the lucky last winner is only my slightly bonkers stalker...she will be beside herself with excitement I am sure....



Siobhan Brignull said...

well done Jo on a superb take on xmas stamps, love the rows of hanging ornaments . . mwah


Each of you is invited to pick an A5 plate and a mini from the JoFY collection...please email me sales@paperartsy.co.uk with your preferences, and we shall get them out in the post.



For the rest of you who missed out on the lucky dip, you can always go and order your gorgeous JOFY christmas stamps here.



Just look at all the gorgeous samples Jo has dropped off at HQ. Lots of inspiration for you to get cracking on your cards and tags for Chrimbo!



We are packing up and ordering like crazy for the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking (Midlands) show that is on at the Kettering Convention Centre this weekend. THis show is organised by the same people who run the Ally Pally Stamping Shows.

We are hoping that JoFY herself will be able to put in a guest demo appearance on Sunday...so watch this space....or my twitter feed.....





Have a great week



Leandra

 

 

Saturday, 6 October 2012

International {card making} day

It is international card making day today. We are having a quickie competition. Today only.

  1. Make a card.
  2. Blog the card, and leave a link to your post on this blog post OR tweet me (@paperartsy) a picture
  3. We will select a winner (randomly) and you will get 2 A5 stamp sets of your choice.
Good luck and enjoy your Saturday !!

 

And the winner is?..... ( after a particularly complicated system of listing twitter and blog entries, selecting numbers, random application of other random numbers......etc etc.....LOL. Ot really..... tadaaaaaa the name we drew from the hat (call me old fashioned) was

Liesbeth fedder, who said and did this...

How great is this ! Thanks Leandra !


This is my entry:


http://liesbethart.blogspot.nl/2012/10/international-card-making-day.html


Happy Card Making day to all ! Enjoy !



I don't know how she did it, but all kinds of Lynne Perrella stamps and lovely use of colour. Simple but oh so effective!

Liesbeth, please email me sales@paperartsy.co.uk with your choice of 2 A5 stamp sets and your address, and we shall pop them in the post to you! Congratulations!

A big thanks to everyone who entered. I have had a lovely evening mooching around your blogs, oohing and ahhhhing over all the wonderful cards you have made today! This was fun! Thanks for sharing all of you, you are all amazing!!

Friday, 5 October 2012

Great Northern PaperCrafts Extravaganza {Harrogate}

Well, I can't even begin to tell you how crazy this past week ended up. Almost all deliveries arrived a day later than expected, so long story short, van for Harrogate not packed until the wee hours of build up day (Fri) So we had to drive through the night, through the worst rain ever with dodgy van windscreen wipers for the whole trip. Bit yuk.

Was so tired when we left the stand tonight I forgot to take any photos, but check out my twitter feed in the morning to see pics ( @paperartsy )

But, hey ho, just had the most amazing veal with mushroom sauce in my life ever at Gianni's /Brios in Harrogate, a fab Italian place. It was so tender was simply incredible, so hope that tops up the energy status for tomorrow, as its pretty low right now. Blurry eyes. Sorry if veal is not your thing, I know in UK it is one of those taboo meats, but I've not experienced that attitude in other countries, so I enjoy it without a negative historical viewpoint.

Anyways, we are so totally looking forward to the show tomorrow. I have not been oop north at this show for I don't know, maybe 6-7 years. We are right at the far end of the hall - furtherest end of hall from the loos - we back onto the cuppa tea and chat zone. And next to us is decopatch and the MDF man. Between us and them its substrate city!

What's new on the stand? Well for this show we have Liquid Leaf, the most metallic paint you will ever see!! Some nice new washi tapes, we have the most amazing chunky canvases, from £2-£4 pounds!!!! You must come and see those! Really cheap and really nice! They are all 4 cm deep. Wicked! New moleskine style journals at a great price too. Amazing chunky paint bracers for paint effect, mini spray bottles to spray your fresco paints .....stencils......

We have treasure gold, portfolios oil pastels, paint in bulk buy packs at a good price. Mark has bargain buckets of all kinds of constantly changing goodies at the till to feast on, and of course MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL THINGS NEW ....we are launching Jo Firth-Young's new Xmas stamp collection!!!!

So come down to our stand and say hi!! We are at the Harrogate event centre, Harrogate, Yorkshire.

It's going to be fab!

 

Leandra

 

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Photo Transfers with {Satin Glaze} - easy!

Image Transfer - SO. MUCH. FUN.

Image transfer art by Julie Harrington - onto old book paper
How many books have you read, how many methods have you tried, how much product have you used trying to get images to transfer onto other surfaces? Well you are not the only one, but this is the method I come back to time and time again. 
Image Transfer to altered background by Leandra Franich

I love it because it is:
  • Fast
  • Easy
  • Reliable
  • Versatile
I'm not sure why this is is not a more commonly used method to transfer images. I have loved teaching and demoing this technique for more than a decade, and have used a variety of mediums to do so. I used to use Fluid Matte Medium, but it is still thicker than it needs to be, so you often get scratchy results where the image does not transfer (see 'sweet' example above). It still looks nice and distressed, but if it is part of the face that ends up scratchy, then its not a great result. I don't really like an absent nose, mouth or eyes! Actually a bad eye isn't too bad, you can put a button on top of it! LOL

The thing I have realised over time is the thinner the 'glaze medium' the better the results.  And lucky for us, we recently also realised that our own Satin Glaze product produced the best results of all products I have ever used, and it's loads cheaper than some mediums out there!

For beginners to this technique, start with fabric. You have a long 'open' time, so you can wait for ages before lifting the transparency off. Once you get good at this move onto card, paper, metal card. I have even transferred onto microscope glass! I am sure anything is possible, but the hardest surface to transfer to is vintage old book paper, as it is so fragile. If you don't get the timing right, you actually stick the transparency to the paper, or part of the paper tears, so you have to be pretty quick.

Bear in mind that if you are transferring to a less absorbent surface, you will need less Satin Glaze than you might use on fabric, because the fabric really sucks the glaze into the weave.

So what do you need?
  • fabric, fine weave cotton is best. I use curtain lining and bleached calico. You get great results on unbleached calico, but the cream colour of the fabric can suck the colour out of your image.
  • An image printed onto transparency film through an INKJET printer. Inkjet printers are the type that spray the ink onto the paper, this technique will not work with toner printers - they pretty much roll the powder onto the paper and set it with heat.
  • Satin Glaze from PaperArtsy
  • a damp baby wipe
So check out the video, and then I'll run you through a bit of nitty gritty stuff that might be helpful.



 A note on Images
  • Colour boost. Before I print my images, I boost the colour to maximum contrasts in photoshop and try to make them as zingy as possible. The brighter the better, you lose a lot of the colour when you transfer.
  • Transparency film. Some brands have a rough side, this give a bit of 'tooth' for the inkjet ink to grab to when it goes through the printer, so make sure you put it into the feed tray the right way up. Often they have a strip of removable paper at one end so the printer can sense and grab the sheet more easily. You can't use any old acetate or clear film, you need to buy the stuff specifically made for an INKJET printer.
  • Printer settings. Your printer might have a pre-set recommendation for Overhead transparency film. I override this setting, and i print on 'best' or the same setting you would use for high quality glossy photographic prints. The reason I do this is that the printer puts a LOT more ink onto the transparency film, which means more colour , more pop, and more ink to transfer onto your receiving surface.
  • Being efficient. The film is expensive, so make sure you design a whole A4 sheet with a variety images, don't just print one image per clear sheet, you pay about £1 per sheet. I buy a box of 50 from Staples (their own brand), and it does work out cheaper than a box of 10-20, but shop around. Don't make your images too big. I have transferred a wedding photo onto an 8x8" canvas - but it is harder the larger the image to ensure the Glaze is equally damp all over the fabric.
Image transfer - the dried result from the Video demo
So here is the dried result direct from the video demo. If you look closely, the most brilliant thing is there is no trace of glue, often with mediums you will get a shiny plastic coating still visible.
And if you look really closely, you will actually be able to see the weave of the fabric, it looks like the image has actually sunk into the weave. I love that effect, and that is what Satin Glaze can do.

You can do the same thing with our gloss glaze too, and that will have a slightly glossy finish to it.

And if you wish to add more colour to the image, then yes - water down the fresco paints liberally and build colour. This is best done with our translucent paints, or mix satin glaze into opaque paints to increase their translucence.  

Hope you enjoy that tutorial. Let me know how you get on. Practise makes perfect!

Have a great week

Leandra




Sunday, 30 September 2012

Fanfare Noise!! {NEW Designer alert}

YES!! We've been hinting that something new was in the developmental phase for the last few months...and finally we can make the BIG announcement. (such a relief)

And so just WHAT and WHO is JOFY?


Jo Firth-Young of course! JOFY is the name of JO's NEW STAMP COLLECTION (collective squeal please)

I have loooooong known Jo..... even before PaperArtsy the stamp company was born. She used to come to the classes we taught (that was me, Bodgerbird aka Essex Lynne with crafty friends Anne and Debbie) monthly in Hutton, Brentwood and at that time she was doing her City/ Guilds training in textiles, mixed media, and all the other Paper-Craft stuff she enjoyed. Every month we were itching to see what Jo came up with in the Altered Book round robin. She quickly became a firm friend through these monthly get-togethers. And of course I think we learned from her as much as she from us!
These critters above are typical of Jo creating cool textile thingies - just cos she can! Our PaperArtsy Mascot is also one of Jo's critters - he's called PAMM (PaperArtsy mini mascot).

She has always had an amazing eye for colour, composition, and a clever way of interpreting and presenting her own Jo-style. She is full on into messy, altered art, yet she does it in a way that is crisp, clean tidy and not over-complicated. I adore what she creates. It is always stunning. Here is a typically Jo textile-stamped sample with a stamp from our Lynne Perrella collection.


Her Crafty CV is very full!

Some of you will already know her as the most highly craft-qualified of all of us who taught at ArtsyCrafts - yes Craft IS her day job! And she's certified...LOL And yes she even is a slight bit bonkers which is always a good quality in a crafter. We think she deffo lives in her own little Jo-land world, and if you've been in one of her classes you will know exactly what I mean....well let's give you a current example shall we...she has designed a headless snowman....who else would do that? .... of course he's very endearing, you just want to put that melty head back on his shoulders to cheer him up. LOL But of course this is the kind of thing that comes out of Jo's head and tickles her fancy. And we love her for it! And then she does something like this below.... just makes me laugh...

Jo teaches and demos regularly in and around the Essex area at Birds in the Barn near Colchester, Essex, The Craft Barn in Lingfield, Surrey, and Imagine That PaperCrafts in Upminster not far from PA HQ.

But it's likely that most of you will know her for her regular contributions to Craft Stamper magazine. She has been cover girl on more than one occassion! She creates a variety of projects with fabric, card, paper and, well pretty much anything. Here is a snippet of a fabric bag coloured with PaperArtsy Fresco Paints, and stamped with Claudine Hellmuth images.
So enough of Jo ...I guess you want to see what the stamps are like that she has designed for us!!

As 'tis the season (well nearly) and all that ... we asked her to do some Christmas themed bits and bobs, and I think you are going to love these very much indeedy!

First up the 8 minis. These are Credit card size, perfect for gift tags with the feature images, and the background designs will be useful in all kinds of ways, as you know; layers, texture, wrapping paper etc.
JM01
JM02

JM03


JM04

JM05

JM06

JM07

JM08
She also has created eight A5 sized plates. There are borders, phrases, central elements, dangly bits, pressies, a headless snowman.... LOL..... and of course, in her inimitable meticulous manner, Jo has tweaked, planned, tweaked some more, amended, changed, re-drawn, coloured...tweaked and so on for the best part of the last month to get all these images working perfectly together in oh so many ways. Just for you!

I know you will start to see examples emerge on  Jo's blog in the coming weeks.... she has great plans for her new babies, so keep an eye on her blog for more inspiration. 

Read to the bottom of this post for info about getting your hands on these new stamps ASAP!
JOFY01

JOFY02

JOFY03

JOFY04

JOFY05

JOFY06

JOFY07

JOFY08
So...what do you think? Do you likey? And how do you get them?

You could:
  1. See Jo demo with them herself in person at The Craft Barn this coming weekend at their Mini Fest Free Demo Day, Saturday October 6th. 
  2. Take a class with Jo at The Craft Barn in December using these JOFY stamps. Booking info here.
  3. Come to the PaperArtsy stand at the Great Northern PaperCrafts Extravaganza at the Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate this coming weekend, October 6th and 7th.
  4. Order online now, click on the links under each stamp. Or click here to see them all. Shipping estimated to start Tuesday 9th October, but could be sooner.
  5. Ask your local Stamp store to stock these little beauties. They can contact us sales@paperartsy.co.uk to order them wholesale from us.

BLOG CANDY ALERT

To enter in the festive spirit of goodwill and to celebrate this wonderful launch, please leave a comment for Jo below. I can't tell you how hard she has worked on this release, so your feedback will be so much appreciated I am sure! On Tuesday 9th October THREE people's names will be randomly drawn. Each will receive an A5 plate and a mini of their choice from this new collection. 

Please make sure we can contact you! If you comment is anonymous, then it makes it hard for us to track you down. We will blog post again on Tues 9th with the winners names and some new art samples, so keep watching this blog in case you are one of the lucky stampers to get your hands on Jo's stuff first. 

Have a great week, as you know, we are busy getting ready for the Harrogate show, GNPE - a new show on our calendar this year. Do drop by the stand if you can, we'd love to meet up with you.

Take care

Leandra


Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Hidden {treasure} ohhhhhh

I know quite a number of you were wowed by the Treasure Gold excitement at Ally Pally this last weekend, my next shipment should arrive tomorrow by my calculations, so I figured now was a good time to show you more pictures and explain a bit about what it is, what it does, and ways to use it.

I also have a few less complicated samples from Ally Pally that I also want to explain, as there are certain question I get asked time and again, so a few tidbits of hopefully useful info might be contained in this rambling too.

Crackle Glaze. It's a doddle.


  • First coat either dark or light, this is the colour that will show through the cracks. I have used Inky Pool. DRY IT
  • Next scrape on with a spatula a THIN layer of crackle glaze. DRY IT. (Heat tool is faster)
  • Lastly apply your contrasting coat of top coat, I used Nougat. As it dries it cracks, so work fast, and use just one stroke to apply. DRY.
PLEASE NOTE:

  1. Apply the top coat thickly for big cracks, or thin for fine cracks. Try cut and dry foam, it gives a porcelain crackle effect because the paint is applied evenly and thin, a paint brush gives long linear cracks.
  2. If you start sanding the edges before it is one dry, you will easily be able to sand away to the bottom layer for an even more distressed paint effect.
  3. Apply brown distress ink on top also gives ore of a weathered effect, but also dry dabbing away excess distress with a baby wipe.
  4. I have sealed the sample above with a 50/50 mix of metallic glaze with satin glaze. The metallic glaze has mica which gives a soft sparkle on light colours such as nougat. If you use it 100% direct from the bottle you get mega sparkle, so reduce the mica content by mixing with satin or gloss glaze. You can see the effect top left and bottom right of the sample above.
Puff Paint. It's a doddle.


  • It comes in 2 colours, black or white. The white can be mixed with other colours of paint, and will still puff, even at 50/50 ratio. The black dries kind of grey, but shows off mica powders, embossing powders or treasure gold and liquid leaf beautifully. Both colours are kind of sticky to the touch once heated and puffed, so if you are using mica or embossing powders, they will grab instantly without the need for any adhesives.
  • Apply with a spatula, brush or finger to the receiving surface (wood, card, tag etc). For a wood grain effect, scrape on quite thin. For veins (like in leaves) splat at it with a palette knife. For bubbles (or warts) leave a thicker layer of product. For stripes, use a rubber texture tool - we have a 3 sided one offering different groove widths.
  • Heat with a heat tool, and the product will dry off, then start to puff. Once puffed it will look matte.
  • Now you can paint, emboss, or rub on treasure gold to highlight the texture
White puff mixed with South Pacific paint, and dabbed onto Artemio branch
Treasure Gold. it's a doddle.

Left to right a few of the colours: Spanish Topaz, Indigo, Olive Bronze, Onyxite, Green Amber.

This product is a metallic wax used for furniture restoration, and closely resembles gold leafing effects. You can custom mix your colours by mixing different shades together or layering them. It will work on all kinds of surfaces (paper, card, glass, metal card, wood, plastic, acrylic paints), is permanent, dries instantly and looks glam!

Looks amazing on the crunchy waxed craft paper. Here is our Tall Heart die, embossed, then rubbed with Spanish Topaz.

And on this sample, the crunchy has been crumpled, then rubbed with copper treasure gold. As have the puff painted lumpy bits on the tag. The number 9 was painted black, then lightly brushed with copper. So easy, and so effective because the colours are awesome.

You can also put it onto painted crunchy. In this sample, the crunchy was die cut (Grungeflower 1), then embossed, sprayed with watered down Snowflake Paint, then rubbed with Onyxite and Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold. Also the plastic Artemio button has been brushed directly too, it sticks to the texture so easily, and doesn't rub off.

On this sample it is on the metal card petals, around the lumpy bits of the central brad and on the leaves.

On this one you can see the amber green is really picked up on the left hand side popping off the green tones in this painted background.

And down the right hand side of this tag you can clearly see the chocolate tones of Onyxite. It's on top of the green amber treasure gold.

And lastly, prepare for a shock. Not something you see very often from me....a purple sample.

The tag background was painted in a mix of pansy and beach hut, with eggplant and rose thrown in for good measure. Sky was sponged through a stencil. Black puff was applied to the Artemio wood frame, and then it was rubbed with Indigo Treasure gold, followed by a touch of Spanish Topaz.

W
You can see it better here, and the crochet flower was sprayed with mermaid watered down. Love the Indigo applied to a scallop flower die cut from metal card and embossed. I did sand the metal card before applying the Treasure Gold.

And here you can see I also added a touch of Treasure Gold to the lace trim too! And the word charm.

And how did I get the image onto the fabric? I used Satin Glaze to transfer it....and that I shall save for another post!!

Lastly a word about Liquid Leaf , as above: florentine, renaissance, copper, brass, white fire, pewter.

This is a very runny metallic paint, again used for furniture restoration. It can be used on all surfaces including, well everything. It dries fast, is permanent, and does not leave any brush strokes. The samples above are made from puff paint thru a stencil, then painted (one coat) with liquid leaf. It is truly amazing stuff, and I shall be demoing it at the upcoming shows in October. But you can already buy it now from the website, it is in the same category as Treasure Gold, so don't get the 2 muddled up.

Hope you find that info useful. And I'll be adding the rest of the colour pictures of the Treasure Gold colours to the site as soon as I get my paws on the new stuff when it arrives! (Tomorrow)

Take care

Leandra

Saturday, 22 September 2012

Ally Pally September 2012

Had a great day today at Ally Pally. Lin came along to demo too, and between the two of us we showed many people lots of ideas with paint, stamps, embellishments and all the new goodies we have on the stand.

Lin was the master of orange and claret, and showed many times how to make a deep orange with a mix of pumpkin soup and brown shed. Yes, those 2 colours! Who knew! Check out the results.

And this one, think its a French roast combo under the crackle. Look how great the treasure gold wax looks on the crunchy waxed craft paper.

And she made this gorgeous little green one, the background shows off the stencils perfectly. And a Lynne Perella image stamped onto fabric and coloured with watery fresco paints.

I was channelling Anna Dubrowska today. Lots of people asking about our class we went to in Cork a few weeks back, and so I made a few flower clusters on tags, and then added images, either stamped directly onto the tag, or onto fabric and added later. Anna tends to spray with dye sprays, but I had a blast using fresco paints watered down and sprayed over the flowers and other embellishments. It worked a dream due to the opaque nature of our paint. Highlights of treasure gold are so pretty.

I also showed ways of using puff paint. The white puff can be mixed into fresco paints up to 50/50 mix, applied as either a thin scraping, or you can add texture with a rubber texture tool, and then heat. It puffs easily, but of course it's coloured. There is also black puff which is great with treasure gold or embossing powders on top of the lumpy bits.

And here is a similar tag background, with decorations on the top. It still needs a few more bits and bobs.

Next up is one which was sprayed heavily with watery fresco paints, dried, stamped, and with the treasure gold on top. This was an epic demo! It was so much fun, and the pictures really don't do it justice at all.

This is one where I stamped directly onto the tag, I then sprayed colour around, and it softened the black square edges of the stamp. Love that. You can see the Spanish topaz treasure gold really popping in the foreground. Ad then copper treasure gold on the 'spinner' adds a nice touch too!

Last sample to show you is this lovely green one. The puff paint BG was painted, stencilled a little, and the topping was a Lynne Perrella image stamped directly onto. Manila tag in versafine ink, clear embossed, then painted with frescos. It's turned out really nice.

So, if you can make it to the big stamping and scrapbooking show at Alexandra Palace, do come along to the last day of the show tomorrow, and I can show you in person how to have a go at these techniques.

It would be great to see you. Otherwise, have a lovely Sunday whatever you are up to!

Leandra