Christmas Workshop No. 2 !!!

24 October 2018

Ooooh!  A little bit more Christmas creativity!

In this workshop we'll be working with Artist Trading Coins - a fab little size to create some festive art on - hang them on the tree, use as part of christmas wrapping... the choice is yours!
We'll be working on MDF coins which will take the weight of the embellishment and decorations that will be available for you to work with... and you can tailor them to your colour scheme.

The class will be held at the Leigh-on-Sea Community Centre, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex and run from 7.00-9.30pm.
The cost of the class is £25.00 and everything you need is included - substrates, embellishments, & materials.
To book a place, or ask any questions please contact me on jo@jofy.co.uk.

There will be glitter! Well it is christmas... and it wouldn't be christmas without a touch of glitter would it?!

Ho ho ho!!

Art Journaling.. No' 2...

... another journal spread with touches of neon paint (and why not!)... 

I wanted to create a spread using one of my new word stamps (JOFY68) and one of the reasons I chose these particular words is that they can be used at other times than christmas (except for 'christmas' obviously!)

This spread is a bit 'motivational' -  and I like how all the different fonts mix together..

Paint splatters, die cutting, flowers (JOFY62) and some Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers make for a nice less-is more-spread - well, I say less is more but the background is made up of layers of writing (painted over), stenciling, a splattering of stamping, painting around the edges and then the main images.... 

Thanks for stopping by...

Art Journaling....

... is a great way to 'play' in a constructive way... I use the Dylusions small journal a lot - I have a couple of the other Dylusion journals but the size of this one seems to suit me - in the same way as my thinking/planning journal (yes I have separate ones for that) is a 25x25cm spiral bound journal - I think the square shape fits my 'thinking' - not portrait or landscape... (and it obviously works for me  as I have a shelf holding 30 sketchbooks of that size - so it must a good fit! lol)

I think some of you must know what I mean - when you try a new journal, a different shape, or binding and it just doesn't feel 'right'... I once tried a rectangular journal where the binding was on the short edge.. shudder - that one just felt sooo wrong - I think I got about 5 pages in and gave up... it was stifling...

Aaaaanyhoo back to the small Dylusion journal - the thing I like about it is when its closed it is quite small (book pages are 5x8 inches) & rectangular but an open spread basically looks square - now you understand why I like it - its SQUARE!!!

#easilypleased

You might've started to wonder why I'm telling you all this... its just leading into showing you a spread from that journal...

look - no stamping!! none whatsoever.. not even a little bit in the background!

Its all sketches and doodles - and I think there's a little bit of stenciling under all the doodling and painting...  I worked on it (on and off) over the space of a week because each time I opened the journal and looked at the pages they seemed wrong... unfinished... unbalanced...

So I just kept working on it until it seemed 'done' - another set of doodles around the flowers... another flower.. just kept going.. and now its done.
I love the neon pink and 'Mermaid' blue colour scheme - and the black makes it pop!...

So, here's my 'advice' for the day - if I can call it that - try not to give up on a page: add something new, remove something - paint over something that bothers you and replace it something else...
If all else fails take a photo of the page (for reference - learn from what you did) and then glue the pages together! lol  I've done that several times because I don't want to keep seeing the spread when I look through the journal.

I'll post another page tomorrow.. with less waffle! lol

Thanks for stopping by

Christmas, and not so christmas, makes...

First up, a card using 'christmas' from JOFY68 and the stars from JOFY70...

  

Next is a gift bag stamped/decorated with the same stars.. and a tag using one of the circle/star/box motifs from JOFY65

A single one of these motifs can be used by masking off the the others (and the sentiment that runs above it)...

On that stamp set I designed word stamps that fit in the boxes but you don't have to use them - I left the box blank enabling me to personalise it with the recipients name...

Now something un-christmassy... the words can be assembled so they can be used for a birthday card...

I 3d mounted the stars, and added shading on the edges of the boxes to give the impression of 3d mounting... (Tombox pens were used for the colouring on this card)... great for mens cards ?!?

Thanks for stopping by

JoFY Bingo Wk.16

Welcome to JOFY Bingo Week16!  Halfway through the 32 weeks this little project is going to take!

These christmas stamps keep coming up in the draw don't they!  This week the numbers are 7 & 11- a nice mix to create cards with this...

I wanted to move away from the christmas theme and so created 3 birthday cards using - the first of which are created using the star on JOFY07 as the main motif...

I kept the design quite simple - stamping the stars on to a background created with Distress Oxide inks, cutting them out, embellishing them and adding them to card base decorated simply with the little background stamp also on JOFY07.  The word blocks are from JOFY11 - useful little motifs.

The third card I made uses one of my favourite techniques - paper piecing - and uses mostly the flower images from JOFY11 - but I couldn't resist adding bunting from JOFY07...

To create a colour palette for the whole card I used the same Distress Oxide Inks for the background and painting the flowers, and also the same pack of paper for the bunting and the flowers.

The hitch is that the bunting spells out 'noel' which isn't good for birthdays (unless the recipient is called Noel, but that's a long shot isn't it! lol) so it has to be masked off ...

I mask off parts of the design by stamping the image onto post-it-notes (across the sticky part), cutting out the required elements and adding them to the stamp...

This is how it looks when stamped with the elements masked off...

The masked off image was stamped several times onto patterned papers and then cut out ready to be added to the card design..

The bunting looked a bit plain so I added die cut hearts (cut from the leftovers from the star cards)..

Flowers were stamped in black ink onto the background and again onto patterned papers.  The images were cut out and matched up...

I drew and painted simple posts for the word blocks so they look like little signs...

Phew!... half way through the JoFY Bingo project!

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Card Workshop

  19 September 2018

7.00-9.30pm
Leigh-on-Sea Community Centre

Here's a little taster of what we'll be making in this workshop - the first workshop with my NEW christmas stamps! ho ho ho!

Working with paints, inks & stamps we'll make a selection of cards ready for the festive season!

For more information go HERE, or to book a place please email jo@jofy.co.uk

Hope you can join me - christmas sweaters are optional! lol  :o)

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

#30daysoflists September....

...update

I've decided to keep the #30daysoflists as an Instagram project - I won't be posting a round-up once a week - because I remembered that all the pages appear across the top of the blog!

So if any of you lovely readers wanted to take a closer look you can just click on the photo and it will take you to my Instagram page!... clever eh!*

Thanks for stopping by!

* I didn't create that feature ... I'm grateful a very nice techy person programmed it for me! :o)

Workshop: Tag! Slate you're it!

15 September 2018

Birds in the Barn @ Studio36

In this workshop you'll upcycle a large slate tag using stamps, paints, ink and a bit of fussy cutting... & personalise it with your choice of monogram - it'll make a lovely present for someone at christmas (or for yourself!).

Go to the Birds in the Barn website for more information and to book your place.

Look forward to seeing you there!