JoFY Bingo Wk.3

Foliage and festive seems to be the themes of this week's Bingo draw of numbers 12 & 28!

I didn't go with either of the themes of the stamps sets but I did embrace the 'fun times' sentiment...

I've always thought if you turned the long blue bauble (JOFY28) upside down it would make a great base for a clown - and that's what I intended to do... but then I started thinking and playing and this happened on my desk... a monster mash party! lol   They come 'alive' as soon as you add the googly eyes! (and you can't not smile when you see/use those!)

I reigned them in and created this journal spread - I had so much fun creating this!  Flowers and leaves used as body parts (I'll leave you to spot which go where) and baubles as bodies... Lots of masking off and paper piecing were used to create this..

I call this little fella 'Fancypants Fred' - he's wearing his best party clothes and blue suede shoes and is strutting his funky stuff!

...but he's not alone.... (the eyelashes are so cute!)

I didn't forget about the bauble/clown... but those of you with a fear of clowns might want to look away now.. lol  (I think it the googly eyes that make this one a little worrisome! lol)

This was fun - I even added a little 'watcher' to my day book...

(Jo: put the monsters down, move away from the stamps!)

I made monsters out of the flowers and baubles but seeing stamps in a new way doesn't have to be this extreme - how about stamping the flowers out and building them up to form a bigger flower... just sitting and playing with them can create some fun things.


If you are inspired to join in here are the 'rules'... (they're more like loose guidelines really...) :o)

The numbers are drawn on Monday, along with a project I've made using the corresponding stamp sets, then the plan is to:

• Use/combine 2 stamp sets (use only those stamp sets - not all the stamps in each set - that would be too much of an ask but as long as there are one or two stamps from each set then its OK!)
• 7 days to create 1 project, makers choice:  cards... atc... journal page... dimensional project... tag...
• Use any paints/media, colours, embellishments, stencils/masks
• Load up your project to Instagram any time during the week.  Please use Instagram links #jofybingo and @jofyjo in the text (not 'tagging' me please) so I can find it :o)

If you don't have an Instagram account you can add your make in the comments on the Facebook post linked to this blog post (facebook links:  https://www.facebook.com/JoFY.JoFirthYoung/ or https://www.facebook.com/jo.firthyoung )

I hope you can join in - I look forward to seeing what you create!

ACP2: RED + D

This post on the ACP2 project is brought to you by the colour RED and the letter D... as with C there is lots of craftiness beginning with D.. and I had different plans for a 'D' project until I was hit with a cold/cough/sinus bug that floored me for about a week... sniff sniff cough sneeze lol  but I rallied (thanks to Sudafed, Strepsils, Karvol and Meltus lol)(other medicines are, of course, available lol).. and my project took a different route.

I've chosen to mix all shades of red from 'blood' red through to orange...  and my chosen topics were distress and doodling....

I like doodling... but its 'controlled' doodling - it has to have some sort of plan, structure.. purpose..
So I've been doodling in my small sketchbook/journal - it measures 6x4 inches - great for mopping up paint, gelli prints or just mini journaling or sketches..

Recently I've been starting my doodles by stamping images on the pages and working around them - the ones below started by stamping a Hero Arts flower (which I LOVE - I used it on a masterboard project for Craft Stamper - you can see snapshot HERE) (shocked to see that this was SIX years ago!!) aaaaanyhoo I digress.. here are the two spreads I made with that stamp..

There is something striking about the black and white isn't there.. I like leaving the white space in the centre - gives breathing space...  I wanted to give each flower a different pattern...

So that was all very nice and relaxing.. but its not RED is it!.. but I was in a doodling mind set so I bought a pack (from Amazon) of white (and black) blank zentangle squares (shown by Chris Cresswell in a photo on a Facebook page).  The 'tiles' are 9.5x9.5cm so not too big, not too small - ideal for what I had in mind.

So that's the 'doodling', the 'distress' part of my project comes in the form of Distress Inks.  I haven't played with these for a while and I'd forgotten how easy they are to work with.  I pulled out all the red and got busy ( Barn Door, Ripe Persimmon, Festive Berries and Dried Marigold)

I taped four of the tiles together to make a...... yep, a masterboard lol well I couldn't wait until 'M' to create one of these - M's not due as part of this project until  JULY!

The distress inks used were. I created the spots using the tried&tested old favourite technique of water flicking/splashing. :o)

Next came the doodling - I methodically doodled each type of image - worked each of the leaves, then small circles, etc - I like to be organised and methodical about the (apparently) free doodling. :o)
and eventually it looked like this...

It was ready to broken apart and used - I created two cards (I like to mount these panels on different coloured backgrounds because they can look so different depending on the mount..) I also added more doodling - this time in white pen... These panels remind me of batik printed fabrics...

The sketchbook I used earlier for the black&white doodles is shown above - now with a nice masterboard panel on the front cover.

I hope this has inspired you to doodle around stamped images - give them your own spin - or dig out some inks or paints you haven't used in a while (as I did here with the Distress Inks) - or just to doodle!

I'll see you back here on the 1st of March (if not before) for a new colour and 2 more letters of the alphabet - E & F - if you have any suggestions for crafting themes for those letters add them in the comments section on this post and I'll add it to my lists.

As part of my 'research' for the Alphabet Colour Project I created boards on Pinterest for each colour - you can see my RED inspiration board HERE

Thanks for stopping by.

J

ACP:2 Red + C

This is the first 'proper' post for the Alphabet Colour Project:2 .. I'm really enjoying putting together all the bits and pieces for the project... so much so that I have refiled all my decorative 12x12 papers in readiness! (the administrator in me raises its head again!!)

This post/project is brought to you by the colour RED and the letter C... lots of craft options beginning with the letter C (the further down the alphabet, the less options there seem to be - could you all please start thinking about options for x, y, & z! lol)(and yes, I have zentangle and zippers...)

Here are the colours I chose to work with red for this project... a kraft Cardboard base to create Cards.. simple..  I love seeing red with paler, tealy/turquoisey blues...

Cards with red as the focal colour, both basically created in the same way but different finishing touches and decoration...
I recently bought a couple of phrase/word block dies from 'Lil'inker designs' in America (www.lilinkerdesigns.com), and what with it being Valentines Day in a few days used the 'love you so much' die for these cards.
I die cut the word block from a panel of black card and trimmed it leaving just a narrow frame.

I die cut several hearts, cut parts from around their edges to make them slightly more asymmetric, then I doodled around the hearts to tie them in with the stamping on the red panel (image is from JOFY24)

The flowers on the card below are from JOFY12.

So that's project one of the ACP:2 project done and dusted.... just another 20ish to go... :o)

xx

Final class of the year.... Part 1...

... took place at Birds in the Barn, near Colchester in Essex... a 1/2 day demo and a class in the afternoon.

In the morning I worked with Emma Godfrey's new stamps for PaperArtsy - love these stamps!

They can be used in lots of ways... here are a few of my samples for, & from the day.. (please excuse the light quality!)... here are samples using EEG15:

Start of a journaling panel on chipboard/greyboard:  painted, printed with bubble wrap, stamped with images from EEG15 in 2 colours, the stars are from JOFY20 (on the top of the tree).

This is a more 'clean and simple version of the chipbard panel - this time as an 'any occasion' card.

This card started off as an experiment - one of the ladies at the demo (waving at you, Sue) thought that the swirls (running across the centre of the card above) could be flowers.. so we put together this card - the swirls had stems added, then I stamped on stems from JOFY12 (love these stems!)...

I added a touches of white to lift the images.  After the demo I attached the panel to a white panel and because I didn't have glue handy I attached it with staples.

This panel is a mix of demo'ing simple paint application techniques using Fresco Finish paints - the base is a colour blended background, stamped with bubble wrap, & using paint to stamp the images - the words across is just a reassuring phrase to not worry when you're painting backgrounds: its just paint on paper!

Here are samples using EEG13.. I wanted to show that this set is not just for love or valentines but when I look back at the samples they are a little bit loved-up! lol

This card is another clean-&-simple use of the stamps, this time from EEG13. (created by making a mask & stencil with the heart stamp and layering the images.)

 A page of book text rough whitewashed and rough painted again (when dry) with watercolour paints. The hearts are cut out of book text, glued in place and the edges darkened with paint and pencil.. the lines are hand drawn.

 This is a page created in my small sketchbook - pages are 6x4 - the dinky size is nice to work in - comfortable - and great for putting down quick thoughts.. The background was created by me cleaning off the roller and bubble wrap (there's the bubble wrap again! - I have bubble wrap and I'm not afraid to use it.. and use it... and use it...).  The three main hearts are stamped onto coloured paper, cut out, glued on and shaded around to make them lift of the page.

I {heart} the simplicity of this card - just two stamped images.  The heart is stamped on to a book page mounted onto card (to strengthen), cut out and suspended on a strip of acetate on the front of the card.

Then I started to mix it up a little...

Stamped the heart onto patterned paper, attached to the card and drew a stem.  Stamped small seedheads around the stem. I stamped and cut out leaves from green paper and attached these to the stem - now the heart is starts to look like a flower.

These stamps are lovely to work with - in stock at Birds in the Barn.

x