Happy Valentines's Day!...

.... card made for Mr JoFY...

I love the contrast of the elements on this card - the grungy painty background against the solid black of the traditional (with a modern cut) silhouettes - softens the look but the pink/orange brightens up the kraft.  The 3 hearts are one of the word blocks from JOFY05.  And the Italian book text heart - that's cut from a page from a book I bought on our honeymoon... aaaaw bless  :o)  its all in the detail! lol

I 3d mounted the silhouettes to make them pop a little bit more.

Happy Valentine's Day to you all.

x

ps - 3rd post of the day! phew!

Flowers JOFY stylee...

... chunky little box canvases are fast becoming my favourite substrate - so chunky (2in deep) but small (4x4in square) .. even the 4x6in size is really nice.  I think I like them because if you stand them on a shelf they won't fall over and there's lots of surface to play on....

Here's what I made using some stamps from my new releases...

This box canvas is decorated from the 'leftovers' from creating flowers for Gladys the Garden Fairy... I created the flowers by stamping onto various papers using images from my new JOFY releases:

I arranged several flowers and leaves and glued them together.  Initially I planned to cover the top of the white box canvas with a panel of vintage book text and corrugated cardboard (gotta love corrugated card!):

... but I later abandoned that idea in favour of a distressed inked surface to the canvas - I felt that this better showed the flowers (some of which are made from the same book text that had been white-washed)

along each side of the canvas I stamped the mesh border image from JOFY10 in Olive Archival Ink, and distressed the edges in the same way and colours as the top:

 I used double sided tape to attach a panel of corrugated card, and wrapped Bakers Twine around the canvas several times:

I used Black Archival ink to stamps words chosen from JOFY11 to stamp onto small tags.. I further distressed the edges (using Distress Ink):

I arranged the 3 tags and 2 additional flower stems onto the canvas gluing them to the surface. The tags which lay ontop of the corrugated cardboard are attached with a glue gun so that the glue sinks down into the ridges - I find this to be the most effective way (that and Claudine Hellmuth Matte Medium - but the glue gun dries quicker!)(not that I'm impatient or anything lol)

I used Distress Markers to give the flowers shading and dimension, and to age them slightly - the pens are great because you can smudge the colour for further shading - especially on top of a surface painted with Fresco Finish.

This is the side view of the canvas showing the mesh panel image and the depth of the canvas:

So that's my mini stepped out project - I hope its inspired you to tackle a box canvas - they really are adorable little projects bases.

Take care

New JOFY stamps are in the house!!

...This is a looooong post so you might want to go and grab yourself a cuppa!

Are you sitting comfortably?... then I'll begin...

I first started thinking about this collection while I was on holiday.. I like to lay in the sun on holiday (hoping my freckles will join up and I’ll get a tan) but I get restless quite quickly (unlike DH who could lay there ALL day, turning a lovely shade of brown gggrrrr) and so I started sketching to pass the time.  The flowers started as one of those sketches:

This is plate JOFY09 that you have already seen and bought (thanks for that! I hope you're enjoying them!)

 ... and I designed 3 more A5 plates of floral designs that can mix and match together:

 JOFY10

These plates have flowers, leaves, backgrounds, borders and I really like the phrases that are on several plates...  I may have mentioned before on my blog/in tweets that I love a Doris Day film playing in the background while I work and the 'don't eat the daisies' phrase is a bit of a nod to that - so feel free to sing the song while you use that stamp! lol

JOFY11

JOFY12

There are also 8 minis:
I really like designing these text block - great for using as stand alone images for quick'n'easy cards or as tryptichs:

   

The 5 remaining minis are great for using complete as backgrounds or cutting up to use as motifs for layering with the images from the A5 plates.

  

  

I have been busy making samples for this PaperArtsy release and for the PA stand at this weekend's Stitches trade show in Birmingham:

I love a tag!!..... or two!

The other substrate I really like at the moment is the cardboard blocks that PaperArtsy sell here  Surprisingly sturdy to stamp onto to and smooth, lightweight so easy to hang, or attach to another substrate...

I also upcycled a 'something' that has been sat on a shelf for about 4 years (maybe! shocking)... its (yet) another item that I bought thinking 'I can do something with that!' (we all do that don't we?!).... and so four years later 'something' became... GLADYS!

She's called Gladys because, as the quote on her wings says, she the 'gladdest thing'... gladdest.... Gladys.. get it?! No? oh, ... just me then...  Gladys the Garden Fairy... and I promise this will be the last fairy I make... unless its a Critter type fairy where its a little bit 'wrong' (but in a nice way!)

 PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paints teamed with Distress Markers, Archival Ink and printed papers (and of course book pages!):

Several of the PaperArtsy Guest Designers have been busy creating too - here are some sneakpeeks of their very, very lovely pieces - follow the links to see the projects in full, and over on the PA blog Leandra has been busy too...

Darcy's pieces can be found here

... and Alison's pieces can be found here

... and finally Gillians pieces can be found here

Pop back later today when I'll have a little stepped out project to share with you using the little chunky box canvasses that are fast becoming my new favourite substrate!

Other samples using the stamps can be found in the March's Crafts Beautiful, and April's Craft Stamper...

Take care

Thank you and congratulations....

...thank you to everyone who followed the Craft Stamper Blog Hop last week - I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did, and were inspired to go and create something.

There was a spot prize on my my blog and.... drum roll please... the winner (randomly picked from the 145 comments, thank you for all the lovely comments by the way) is....

MaisieMoonshine!!

Please email me at the address given in the blurb under my photo on the left with you address so that we can send your prize.  Congratulations and enjoy your prize!!

CRAFT STAMPER BLOG HOP

Hello if you're a regular visitor to my little corner of the WWW, or if you've stopped by as part of the Craft Stamper Blog Hop - however you landed up here you are very welcome! 

(If you didn't arrive here as part of the hop then it'd be worthwhile to pop over to the Craft Stamper Blog to join in, as there are lots of prizes to be won and inspiration to be seen!)

If you are new to my blog let me introduce myself - I'm Jo and I've been stamping for about 13 years, teaching crafts for about 9 and on the Craft Stamper Design Team for 3+ years (wow, time flies when you're having fun!)... I love what I do - if there is paint & ink under my fingernails at the end of the day then its been a day well spent.  I also have my own line of rubber stamps 'JOFY' with the brilliantly creative team over at PaperArtsy.

The Craft Stamper Team were asked to LOOK BACK at what had inspired us last year, what had been a favourite product, or favourite project...  Well that was an easy choice for me - last year I created a line of rubber stamps with PaperArtsy which I'm really proud of and this year there will be more designs added to the range - this time with a floral theme - starting with the set below.  Its very exciting.

When I created my stamps I wanted designs that were versatile - that could be used not just for the theme of plate they were on but in other themes too - so as a mini tutorial/inspiration I have taken a few of the stamps from my christmas plates and repurposed them.

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I've said this many times - I love bunting!  So I have created a couple of pennants using motifs from christmas plates. The pennants are 15 x 21 cm in size and cut from white card.

I love the star on the above plate - the circles are great spaces for bling- gems, buttons, stickles - take your pick! lol

I coloured the pennant with distress ink, and stamped the small line image all over it using the same distress colour (peacock feather) and Champagne Encore Metallic (for a bit of shine).  I also water-distressed the surface.

I dragged the metallic ink around the edges too.  I dipped into my chipboard stash (one of my new years resolutions is to use up my stash of 'stuff') and pulled out letters which I then painted with the metallic ink.  I layered them up and stuck them on to the pennant.

I inked up a piece of white card with Champagne ink and stamped the star design onto it.  Mounted the star onto stripped corrugated card and stuck this on the pennant too:

This pennant was made entirely from christmas stamps but doesn't look christmassy at all - great for giving to someone when they've achieved something!.

Using the same set of plate I created a card with a very different theme to the pennant above:

I took the 'noel' banner & masked off the letters with masking tape which, when inked and stamped, gave a blank banner allowing space for any letters or designs/patterns.

I used PaperArtsy Ink & the Dog Words2 plate to spell out the word 'grow'.  I added some of my new flower designs to create a floral design.

One more pennant to show before you head off to finish the hop

This time I've used  plate05:

The long tiled image that runs across the bottom of the plate is great for creating a woven effect background (as does the block version). I used Walnut Stain distress ink to colour up the base of a pennant. Then used coffee Archival ink to stamp the image all over the pennant.

I used various distress ink to colour a selection of stamped flowers and leaves, arranged them with a couple die cut flourishes and adhered to the pennant. Embellished with a few buttons to finish.

Hopefully these little projects/samples might make you think about your 'christmas' stamps a little differently - just because they came in a christmas set doesn't mean they can only be used once a year!  :o)

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SPOT PRIZE!!!

Well done for getting around the Blog Hop - I hope you've enjoyed it.  I have a spot prize for you - to be in with a chance of winning simply leave a comment on this blog post by midnight on Friday 8th February 2013. The winner will be drawn at random week commencing Mon 11th February. Gotta be in it to win it!!

My spot prize is a set of JOFY stamps worth £20.50 supplied by Paperartsy! Your next stop on the hop is the Craft Stamper Blog at craftstamper.blogspot.co.uk where you will complete the blog hop's circle!!

Hopefully you have been collecting letters along the hop - the letter to collect from me is: N

Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed my post and blog - feel free to pop by anytime, you're always welcome!

Don't forget to pop over to Facebook as there is an event: http://www.facebook.com/events/384830431610801/

I hope to see you all again soon.

J