Doodling....

I bought this plywood box 'J' from Hobbycraft with an idea to fill it with a layer of buttons (using up some my stash of buttons) but wasn't happy with it.
I had a lightbulb moment while making my JoFY Bingo Week15 project (HERE)... I could stamp and doodle inside the 'J' !!!  Stamp my doodle images to doodle around!!
Couldn't get started fast enough! lol

Here's how I did it - nice and simple!

The J is about 3cm deep (22cm tall) but I wanted the contents (buttons was the plan) to sit higher so I cut lots of bits of cardboard and arranged them in stacks inside the 'J' so the base was raised by about 2cm... (you could lay contents in the base)

Drew around the plywood shape and cut it out..

... and laid it on top of the stacks...  When happy with the height and fit I glued everything in place.. (PVA will do the job)

Next I painted it in my chosen colour - I went for dark grey (PaperArtsy Fresco Finish 'Slate') but later changed it for black gesso.  Set it aside to dry.

To create a base for the doodles and stamping:  I drew around the letter on black cardstock...

I chose to stamp with white paint ('Snowflake' Fresco Finish - brilliant opaque white!) because I knew it would match white gel pens that I was going to use for additional doodling..
I started with stars from JOFY70.. leaving a nice amount of space around them.. (for additional stamping and doodling..)... and followed with the large doodle flower from JOFY64, and flowers from JOFY54

... and here is the stamping finished...  you can just see the outline of the 'J'...

The 'J' was cut out and I doodled into all the open spaces - but not inside the outline of the doodle flower from JOFY64

Here is the finished 'J' - the top edge of the sides of the structure has also been painted white to outline the 'J'

Detail of the doodling and stamping... I really like the monochromatic colour scheme.. (it reminds me of Mexican 'day of the dead' artworks)

We went to America (ahem) number of years ago and I bought this large papermache 'J' - I 'had' to have it!  

So it came home with us, along with its matching 'M' (for Jo and Matt (my husband)) because I was going to do 'something' with them.. they've come across the Atlantic and been through two house moves -Now is the time - its now or never - I am ready to work on the big 'J'.

I can feel a bit more doodling coming on! (I'll keep you posted!)

There are lots of paper mache letters available, & you could do stamp and doodle onto all sorts of objects - inside objects (a friend recently gave me a wine box to work with - thats definitely getting a doodled interior!)... they'd make great christmas presents! (oops did I drop the 'C' word... sorry - I was hoping to get through a blog post without mentioning it again).

Thanks for stopping by

Art Journaling: scraps but not scrappy...

.. at the end of a workshop or demo day I often have bits a pieces left over that are too nice to throw away and so I put them in a box on my desk to use later... (I decorated A LOT of my Flow Calendar book pages with bits and pieces from such a box!)

I came home from my classes at Birds in the Barn on saturday inspired & I wanted to do something with the days 'scraps' and so I put them together on this journal spread..

I'd painted the background during the class with left over demo paints this means that everything coordinates.  I added some DoCrafts rose gold foiled washi tapes that I'd recently bought - they really toned well with the Fresco paint colours as did the 'Fools Gold Embossing Glitter' by WOW! that I used with the compass background - such a lovely sparkly finish which is a nice contrast to the matt paint.

I used a white gel pen to add journalling to the centre of the page - I like how it fills the space but is barely visible.

Keep those 'scraps' - you never know when they'll come in useful!

EDIT: ooh I just thought: making nice things out of scraps makes me happy so from now on I'm naming projects like these 'HappyScraps' - sounds much nicer than just 'scraps' don't you think!


Thanks for stopping by

June Workshops....

I'm teaching two half day card making workshops at Birds in the Barn (Studio 36) on 30th June and there are a couple of places remaining...

If you'd like to spend the morning or afternoon creating lovely cards with paints, inks, embossing powders and stamps then head on over to Birds in the Barn's website and you'll find all the details you need!

Hope to see you there!

ALBOTAT: Doodle Flower....

I'd been wondering what the big blousy doodle flowers from on JOFY64 would look like if the two parts were combined to make an even BIGGER doodle flower...

Well, they'd look like this:

REALLY like how this looks!   Created with four of the 'half' flowers underneath one of the complete flowers, raised on 3d foam with the little background flower used on the centre....  the leaves are from JOFY61.

 Sometimes you just have to play BIG!!

Art journal doodle flowers....

In my recent release of stamps and stencils for PaperArtsy (you can see them HERE and HERE) I designed a big loose flower and matching stencil:

  

I planned to use them on a journal page and one of my 'clean your paintbrush and use up the paint' 'patchwork' pages seemed ideal:

I started by adding the flower stamp.

Then I added stencilled flowers in pale colours - making sure that the stencil IS UP THE RIGHT WAY!!... or the stamped image won't fit over the top! (not going to lie - I found that out the hard way on another project lol)

Here are the stencilled flowers with the line image stamped over the top...

I used a black pen to colour the background - I found this easier/quicker than using paint - this isolates and defines the doodled flowers...

I stamped the flower image onto book text and added pieces of this to the page... I finished the page with some white and gold pen doodles..

Really happy with how the flower stamp and coordinating stencil work together... I think this is going to be used often! 

Thanks for visiting

A little bit of journalling does you good!

I've worked in my small Dylusions journal again - I think this might be my 'go to' journal now I've finished my junk journal (I should make another one of those)... and for this spread I worked on another painty spread (where I've cleaned off my paint brush, or used up left over paint from my desk - shame to see it go to waste!)

It started like this:

I started adding some stamped letters (JOFY63) and little bubbles (JOFY45).. and the large flowers left over from other projects were something I planned to add to finish so kept laying them on and taking them off again to see how they looked on the background I was building... (flowers are from JOFY62 & JOFY64).

Next to be added were scribbles (JOFY60) and the stencil border from PS082 - this is a great border to use as whole or using single elements... its also a great border to use a base for doodles.

I used just the seedhead (without the stem, in green paint) from PS083 on each page - no need for the stem and it looks great and delicate in the background..

Here's the spread with the big flowers attached - all it needed to finish off was some white gel pen doodles - everything looks better with a bit of that, don't you think!

The finished spread (though now I'm wondering if it need a few diamantes/stickle spots)

This spread came together in a really relaxed way - didn't faff with it too much, which is unusual because I am a master faffer! lol

Thanks for popping by

New Year = New Stamps!

Welcome!

I LOVE designing new stamps and stencils, and this release really makes me smile!  I think this might be my biggest stamp and stencil releases since my first sets in 2012 with 6 A5 stamp sets, 8 mini stamps and 10 stencils in 3 different sizes! 

Over on the PaperArtsy blog this evening you can see all the products with samples made by me, followed by two further blog posts featuring samples by my FAB.U.LOUS wingmen Keren Baker and Clare Messenger .  They have been BRILLIANT and I'm so grateful to them for all their hard work and creativity - I couldn't have done this release without them. They have posts on their own blogs tonight too so please visit and take a look (click on their names to go to their blogs). 

LOTS of thanks of course, as always, to Mark and Leandra at PaperArtsy for being so very brilliant at doing what they do!

OK, grab yourself a drink, settle down - here come the pretty things....

JoFY59

JoFY60

JoFY61

JoFY62

JoFY63

This journal spread was created with the stamps from JOFY63, using the smaller of the images as focal points - you don't always have to put a flower head on a stem!  :o)

LARGE Stencil:  PS083

JoFY64

LARGE STENCIL:  PS082

Minis!

LARGE STENCIL:  PS081

This is a really useful stencil - I used it as a background for my doodle mushroom card and I wanted to show it to you without the stamping and paper-pieced mushrooms. Its nice to have a stencil which is quite tall but delicate at the same time.

REGULAR STENCIL: PS084

This stencil is great to use as a base for doodling - this spread in an A6 journal used 2 colours (Slate Fresco Finish and Jane Davenport Paint over Pen in Bali Blue.. and a touch of white gel pen (or course!)) and took around 15 minutes to create.

REGULAR STENCIL: PS085

This is one of the gelli print spreads I mentioned over on the PA blog post.  It uses PS085 and stamps from JOFY63.  I think the right hand page looks like batik tie-dyed fabric and is created by having a 2 colour gelli print onto the off'white pages of the journal.

REGULAR STENCIL: PS086

The two spreads below are taken from my gelli print journal - the first one uses the first pull of the print and the second using clean up/ghost prints... creating very different pages.

These pages are created with PS086 & flower stamps from JOFY62 - they work well together because they have the same geometric design construction.

This second spread using the PS086 has a very different feel - mush more distressed which was inspired by the ghost prints of the background.  I used mini stencil PM011 and mini stamps JM58 & JM59, the text strip is from JOFY63.  (The words are created using PaperArtsy distressed alphabet  'WORDS 2' (W2) a really useful alphabet.)

MINI Stencil: PM011

MINI Stencil: PM012

MINI Stencil: PM013

MINI Stencil: PM014

I hope you've enjoyed this (mammoth) blog post about my new JOFY designs - I hope you like them as much as I do and you're inspired. 

I'm really looking forward to sharing the projects I have planned with these new stamps in the workshops I have booked around the country - you can see where these are by tapping the 'teaching dates' button at the top of the blog.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for visiting!