First Craft Workshop of 2016.... Making Your Mark!

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Our first workshop of the year was held at the shop on Wednesday the 27th of January. It was an evening workshop and everybody said they had a great time. It was an evening dedicated to making Crafty Bookmarks and the end results from everybody were beautiful as you can see in the picture above and those below. We wanted to say a big thank you to everybody that came on the night, we had a great time too.

Lyn and Dan

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So what products did we use? Well the rubber stamps were all from PaperArtsy designed by Jo Firth-Young and Lin Brown to name a few designers and also from Indigoblu. The backgrounds were created using Tim Holtz Distress Inks and the stamped images were coloured in using a combination of PaperArtsy paints and Crafter's Companion Spectrum Noir Pens. 

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

I'll Bee Back….

 Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

Well I did say I would be back with the Triple Decker, Double Stamping technique and here I am. I absolutely love the bees at the moment, they are so 'Summery'!

The card in the photograph above is made out of black card stock and as you can see there are three layers of a white card on top which is smooth white 300gsm. The black card has also been used to create the borders for each of the white layers and I think it frames them really well. All the layers were stuck down using a Crafters Companion Extra Strong Permanent Glue Tape, which is an easy to use double sided adhesive.

I used a PaperArtsy Stamp Set, JOFY Collection 30 from Jo Firth-Young. I used the honeycomb effect stamp first as the background which I used with a Rangers Archival Ink Pad in 'Potting Soil'. I stamped first on paper then on the white card. This made the background lighter to really bring out the bee stamp image, I used a Rangers Archival Ink Pad in 'Jet Black' to stamp the bees. The 'bee happy' sentiment is also stamped in the black and I did this last so not to smudge anything else.

To get the stamped effect on this card, you temporarily stick all the white layers of card together and then do the stamping. Once done you then put the black layers of card inbetween. You need to make sure that you line the card up so that the image looks continuous.

I coloured the bees with two PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints, 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Tango' using a water brush which allows you to blend the paints beautifully together. I think the bright colours against the stamped background and bees works really well, as it creates a real contrast.

I hope you have enjoyed tonight's project. We have had some nice feedback from people who have seen it in the shop.

Happy Crafting!

Dan

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P.S, Look out over the weekend for posts on new products we have in the shop and yes some of them are Christmas related! 

I also wanted to let you know that September is going to be Crafting Month at the shop in Wanstead. Look out for details on free demos, make and takes, workshops and lots more where you will have the opportunity to learn new techniques and see new products. We will also be showing you some techniques that customers have asked to see and have a go at again. 

You're the bees knees!

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

Take one PaperArtsy Stamp Set, JOFY Collection 30 from Jo Firth-Young and a WOW! Embossing Powder in Metallic Gold Rich and look what you get. A card which I think is simple in design but really quite beautiful. I used two rubber stamps from the collection, the large bee and one of the sentiments. It really is a great stamp set as it reminds me of Summer!

The base of the card is made from a beige/brown card, I think you can see the colour of the card better in the second picture. I stuck a piece of  'Milk' coloured Foundation card from Creative Expressions to the inside of the card using scotch double sided tape, so that the writing would show up and used a matching cream envelope.

 Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson 

All Rights Reserved

I used a Woodware Magic Anti-Static pad and rubbed it all over the card which is used to help eliminate smudges and fingerprints on the card. I have to be honest and say we use this every time we heat emboss. Next I used a VersaMark Watermark Stamp Pad to stamp the bees and the sentiment and I started with the bees from the top doing one or two at a time. So I stamped, sprinkled the embossing powder, removed the excess and then used the heat tool, then repeated the process until all the bees were done. I did the 'You're the bees knees!' last as I didn't want to smudge anything!

                                           

Happy Crafting!

Dan

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PaperArtsy Is The Bee's Knees….

                             Design and photograph World © Lyn Wilkinson - All rights reserved

Firstly I have to apologise for this post going out later tonight that I said it would on Tuesday's post, but we have been very busy bees (I know, I know, not a great joke). 

We have lots of lovely suppliers at Craft Boutique at 84 and PaperArtsy is no exception. As you can see from the photograph above, they produce great products for all craft projects, working in conjunction with some great designers. 

The newly released A5 JOFY rubber stamp set from PaperArtsy, JOFY Collection 30 is so much fun to work with. Designed by Jo Firth-Young it contains nine stamps individually trimmed on EZ mount. I wanted to try out the new postcard tags (available in manila and white) that we are now selling in the Wanstead shop and online. I used the honeycomb stamp with a Versafine 'Vintage Sepia' ink pad, to create the background and then combined that with one of the text stamps which I stamped using Rangers Archival 'Watering Can' and lastly added some of the smaller bees using a Rangers Archival 'Jet Black' ink pad.

I then stamped the larger bee, beehive and both sizes in the honeycomb stamps. Then I coloured them in using  some of the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic paints. I used 'Tango' and 'Yellow Submarine' to colour the bodies of all the bees, 'Chocolate Pudding' and 'Brown Shed' for the beehive and a mixture of 'Pumpkin Soup' with some other shades of brown for the honeycomb pieces. I applied all the paint using a water brush, which at the moment is my favourite way of working with the paint to create shading.

I cut out all the images I had stamped, covering the  large honeycomb shapes in Rangers Glossy Accents giving them a shine to contrast against the smaller shapes. Finally I used STIX2 foam pads to create a 3D effect and stuck all of my cut outs to the postcard tag.

I was really pleased with the finished tag, I had been wanting to use Jo's bees for a few weeks, so was finally excited to be able to do a project. It reminds me that Summer is on it's way!

I hope you have enjoyed tonight's project, look out for some exciting posts over the next few days.

Dan

SPRING SALE STARTING SUNDAY 10th MAY

WE ARE HAVING

A

SPRING SALE

AT OUR

WANSTEAD SHOP

UP TO 30% OFF ALL CRAFT PRODUCTS

SUNDAY 10th MAY TO SUNDAY 31st MAY 2015

THE SPRING SALE IS ONLY TAKING PLACE AT OUR SHOP IN WANSTEAD, THIS OFFER DOES NOT APPLY TO ANY PRODUCTS ON OUR WEBSITE.

A Tropical Combination

                                 Design and photograph Word © Lyn Wilkinson - All rights reserved

We are huge fans of PaperArtsy at Craft Boutique at 84, stocking their full range of Fresco Finish Acrylic Chalk paints, a large selection of rubber stamps and other PaperArtsy 'crafty stuff'. When there are new products available we love to order them in and of course try them out!  Pictured above is the most recent Limited Edition set of paints by Lin Brown. Fun, bright and versatile, from what I understand inspired by a trip Lin took, there are four colours in the set and they are called 'Banana', 'Tangerine Twist', 'Caribbean Sea' and 'Bougainvillea'. The set retails at £15.60 and is available to buy from our website or shop in Wanstead and being Limited Edition, they are only available while stocks last.

Also in the picture is a fabulous set of new stamps from Jo Firth-Young, comprising of five stamps individually trimmed and mounted on EZ mount. The set called JOFY Collection 32 has a butterfly, two different types of flowers, a honeycomb shape and 'thanks' wording and is priced at £19.99 from Craft Boutique at 84.

We really wanted to combine Jo's flowers in the stamp set with Lin's paints to give a tropical feel. As the paints are so versatile, using a water brush with them on the cut out flowers you can see that they create a very different effect to when they are not watered down, as you can see from the bright pinks and blues on the base of the Manila Tag. The cut out flowers have been finished off by using Rangers Liquid Pearls in the centre of them and then glueing them to the Manila Tag with Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue.

This was one of our favourite projects which we did last week because the products are great to work with, we hope you like it too.

Look out for more ideas and another 'crafty' project on Friday night.

Lyn and Danielle