Sunday 29 January 2017

Pink and Orange Pocket Letter


          
       
Hello Folks! Welcome back to Wendy's House. This evening, it's all about pink and orange. 

Restricting yourself to two colours is always challenging, especially when you are creating nine separate items. I ended up making a pocket letter for a Paperartsy Blog Topic this time. The topic is pink and orange and it would have been more sensible to make one greetings card, but where's the fun in that? Also, a bit more planning might have been a wise decision, but again, it sort of takes some of the fun out of it. So I started, as I often do, with a masterboard.




I used the two orange shades of Tracy Scott's new limited edition Paperartsy Fresco paints. I made an irregular checkerboard-type pattern over a sheet of heavyweight Smoothy Card with the square and rectangular mini Gelli plates. I wasn't bothered about being too careful and some shapes overlapped or didn't quite meet others. 


Next, I used Prawn on the square mini plate with a Darcy stencil (031) and then sponged directly through a Dylusions stencil (Fresh Dots) in the centre of the masterboard. Darcy's dangly dots were great for the edges and extra dots in the middle just satisfied my circle 'thing'.

It all seemed incredibly bright so I lightly brayered over the top with Sherbet and doodled into the patterns with a selection of Sakura pens...


...and dimensional gluey bling, namely Nuvo Drops from Tonic and Liquid Pearls from Ranger.


While that was drying, I settled on the idea for a pocket letter, although this was influenced by my declaration of "I'm in!" in a Facebook group I'm in called Mini Marvels. They have a challenge to create a pocket letter this month with the intention of sending it to another group member. That makes two ticks on my 'To Do' list in one fell swoop. Whoop! 

As I began to trim the chunky, lumpy masterboard into 2.5 x 3.5" pieces, I realised a big mistake. I should have either trimmed it before I added the dimensional bits (but I hadn't decided what I was going to make at that point), or I should have used a ruler and craft knife. As I used a paper trimmer, the blade struggled to get through the chunks and, consequently, my straight lines are ... let's say they're arty and contemporary.


ZA01, ZA05, ZA06, ZA07

The first four. Don't these ElenaZinskiArt stamps look right at home? Oh, I did add some googly eyes from my stash. I tried to use different media to colour the monsters and flowers so that they would stand a chance against the orange and pink background. This included Zig Clean Colour Markers, Copic Markers, Prismacolor Pencils, Chameleon Pens, Derwent Inktense Pencils all in various shades of Pink and Orange, of course, and Glossy Accents because you can't have too much shine. 




ZA01, ZA06 

Chopping up some of the larger characters and flowers so that they would fit in the diddy space available. I left these leaves overhanging at the top for a bit more variety.


Removing the bits that you can look through...


ZA07 

...doodle, doodle, doodle, fun, fun, fun... 


ZA01, ZA05, ZA06, ZA07, ZA08 

...squeeeeeeeze them all into the pocket letter pocket sheet... 


...pop some crafty goodies into the back (pink and orange, of course), et voila! 

I just have to write and hide the letter, but some things should be kept secret.

Enjoy making, sending and receiving pocket letters yourself. There are many groups on Facebook and on the internet. Just please be careful where and with whom you share information. Why not also restrict yourself to using two colours. It's great tonal practice. Keep it sweet. 

Love and peace,

Wendy x



The Paperartsy blog challenge is open to everyone and the topic changes fortnightly. 



Sunday 15 January 2017

Houses And Flowers And Birds, Oh My!

       
   
  Hello and Happy New Year!               

I am very excited to announce that Paperartsy have just released new stamps from Elena Zinski Art. I'm even more excited to announce that I, along with Lauren Hatwell, am one of Elena's wingmen!

Here is Leandra Franich with some of our samples...




Elena's new stamps are definitely born to mix and match. Hold onto your hats...




And to accompany these gorgeous stamps are some fun sentiment and quote stamps...


I love the birds, so I grabbed all of the birds from all of the sets, put them all together. There's always one, isn't there? ...


I covered a #8 Manila tag in Bora Bora, then stamped all of the birds onto Smoothy Card. Doing this made it easier to place the characters and the very cool quote. I had already fussy cut the branch, which I extended by masking with Post-It. Then I cut out the birds, but not the legs (life is way too short for those sort of shenanigans!)


Next, I stamped the birds into place and heat embossed the sentiment with Versafine Black Onyx ink and clear embossing powder, then paper-pieced the birds on top of their legs. A little bit of shading with Prismacolor pencils and the tag was done.

ZA05, 06, 07, 08 

Phew! There's a lot to get through this time.

More birds next and Elena's flower houses deserved a look-in. I stamped one that looked like it could hang as a bird house. Then I wrote the 'new home' sentiment with a black Pigma Micron pen...


...added flowers and leaves and a branch for the house to hang from and then painted the card using Bora Bora, South Pacific, Tinned Peas, Haystack and Pumpkin Soup. I then added more dimension with Prismacolor pencils.


ZA05, 06, 07 

Next, I cut out 5 pieces of Smoothy card at 2.5" x 3.5" for ATCs (artists' trading cards - my favourite!) Leaving one white, I painted the others with Rose, Bora Bora, Tinned Peas and Haystack.


I then stamped directly onto the cards and painted up the flowers and birds...

ZA06, 08 

Oh, well, I had to. This bird just looked like he was striking a pose, so he became John Travolta and the mirror ball was a flower 'tummy' that I heat embossed in silver and coloured in with a Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen.  It's funny what you can see when you sit and contemplate the stamps.

ZA07 

These flowers looked very much in love to me, so I surrounded them with hearts and painted them up.

I love the fact that you can look through some of the flowers. But, of course, it works both ways. You never know what might be looking back at you. I think a wee monster escaped from an earlier stamp set...

ZA02, 07 

More pretty flowers now and those fab sentiments...

ZA06, 08 

"More!" I hear you cry. Well I seem to have a thing about patterns and birds. Oh, I just love the birds in these sets. They're so full of character, they seem to have their own stories to tell...




The leafy corners joined together nicely to create little boxes for the birds...

ZA05, 07, 08 

Very convenient for a 6x6" Smoothy card base.

I've had a great time creating different samples from this Paperartsy Zinski Art release.  I hope you have as much fun too. I'd love to see what you make and I hope I've given you some inspiration.

Don't forget to check out the Paperartsy blog now for even more inspiration and a list of worldwide stockists. Enjoy!

Love and peace,

Wendy x


Paperartsy Fresco Acrylic paints used: Tinned Peas, Snowflake, Haystack, Pumpkin Soup, Rose, Claret, Bora Bora & South Pacific
Paperartsy Smoothy Card: 


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