All buttoned up....

... JOFY-stylee!   I may have mentioned once or twice how much I love buttons.. & an idea/plan has been bouncing around in my head for a while:  make my own buttons...

I bought a bag of inexpensive wooden buttons that seemed ideal for what I had in mind - nice size, the colours of the printed design was quite pale & they were smooth - no ridges around the edge -  ideal for sanding off/painting over.. so I chose several & lightly sanded them to give the wood a key ready to be painted.

Then I had a look through my JOFY stamps... JM34!! Perfect!

I painted the buttons with JOFY Limited Edition Dusty Teal Fresco Finish Paint in various tones. Next I stamped (using JM34) and painted the detail... 

...and here they are...happy little flower buttons..

 now I need to find/make a project to add them to..

xx

New teaching dates....

.... can be found on the 'Teaching/Demonstrating' page - press on the photo below to go there :o)

Contact the shops to book a place - I hope you can join me for some inky painty creative days..

:o)

oooh I do love a day of demo'ing...

... and this Saturday (01 March - oh my goodness MARCH!!!) you'll find me at The Craft Barn where I'll be demo'ing my new PaperArtsy JOFY products - stamps, stencils and paints.. oh my!
:o)

I'm really looking forward to demo'ing the new products- I hope you can come along - it'll be lovely to see you.

x


I also have a workshop booked at The Craft Barn on 09 March:

"Get Stamping - This fab class is aimed at beginners and those who feel they are not getting the most out of stamping. You will learn how to stamp, how different ink pads work and when to use them, heat embossing, creating focal points and basic backgrounds"

Love to see you on that too - its nice to go back to basics sometimes!  

:o) 

TAG!! You're it!...

... and by  'it'  I mean winner!  Thank you for taking the time to leave comment - or 2 in some cases! lol....

The winning numbers picked at random were  5  &  28  ...

Comments at those numbers were made by  Gillian W & Sarah B  !! Yay!  Congratulations! You've won a set of the JOFY stamps - please send me an email (address in top left corner of screen - under my smiley face lol) with your choice of NEW stamps (sets 21-24) :o) and your address and I'll send you a set of stamps!   I'd love to see what you make with them!

:o)

... and because 'tag' is also an item we all love to craft on and pretty up.... (in best Blue Peter stylee) 'here's one I made earlier'..

Thanks again for joining in, leaving lovely comments and stopping by the blog.

xx

I've got it covered ....

... over on the PaperArtsy blog this evening...

click on the photo to take a look at the blog post....

Here's a little something made out of a rescued piece ... it started out as a one of the covers for the projects over on the PABlog post above... it went 'wrong'.... but it was too nice to throw it away (& I'd invested too much time on it) (& we all have pieces like that don't we??)(you're nodding aren't you...lol) ...

...so, from discarded book cover to decorative arch...

Created using the new PaperArtsy Chatsworth papers, Fresco Finish paints: Chalk, Amethyst, Tinned Peas, and JOFY stamps: JOFY13, 22, 24, JM40....

Stitches 2014...

... was a whirlwind weekend - creative & inspiring!  Its a really good trade show - full of inspiring stands (Sizzix always creates a beautiful stand) and exciting new products...

On the Saturday myself and Lin Brown taught classes to PaperArtsy retailers (nice to put many faces to names) - a really fun day where the retailers made some lovely pieces using the new products that PaperArtsy are launching at the show...

 (Leandra came in and took this photo..)

Here is the morning class busy painting their projects...

... and here is the project I designed for them using the new JOFY Limited Edition Fresco Finish Paints, Stencils and of course new JOFY stamps
:

The PaperArtsy stand looked fantastic- lots of art boards of beautiful samples (of which I took very few photographs! very unusual for me!) opposite these products racks was a wall of art boards - very lovely:

The boards were all filled with amazing samples but these in particular caught my eye - top one is showing the new (beautiful) Lynne Perrella stamps:

 .. and these are misc samples.. love the rich red tones:

Lovely to see all the JOFY stamps and products on the stand.

Here are the beautiful JOFY artboards created by members of the PaperArtsy DT - thank you all (again) for your fabulous samples!

The last sample is by Liz - lovely coppery tones - warm and opulent... I'm not a fan of yellow but I love the flowers on this:

Not may photos of the show itself - sorry about that :o/ ... lovely to see everyone and to meet people in-real-life - not just through twitter etc... and now to get busy designing classes and projects with the new stamps...

xx

JOFY 2014...stamps & stencils & paints... oh my!!

.... thank goodness!  I can now show you my latest JOFY designs for PaperArtsy... (can't tell you how hard its been not to show you teeny tiny little sneek peeks here and there!... I'm almost at bursting point!

... and its not just stamps this time - the range has been widened to include stencils and paint!! This is all so exciting for me - I loved designing the stencils & the very lovely (in my humble opinion lol) paint.
Big thanks to the lovely supportive & encouraging Mr & Mrs PaperArtsy who work so hard to bring all these designs to you.

I hope these new products inspire you to get creative!... :o)

STAMPS:
4 new A5 stamp plates... 8 new minis...

I designed an open alphabet so that can be used by scrapbookers, journalers, cardmakers and zentaglers - everyone hopefully!:

 JOFY21

 JOFY22

Lots of lovely new flowers that will co-ordinate with previous plates.. and a vase to put them in:

 JOFY23

JOFY24

JM33

 JM34

JM35

 JM36

JM37

JM38

 JM39

JM40

STENCILS:
4 flower designs - great for colour, texture paste etc etc etc..  good weight of acetate - lots of exciting possibilities..

 PS007

 PS008

 PS009

PS010

& PAINTS:
4 Limited Edition Opaque Fresco Finish paints...  oooh be still my paint loving heart!

All new JOFY stamps, stencils and paint will be available via your local stamp store in the coming weeks.  I hope you have fun with them.

If you came here directly, thank you, & I suggest you now head over to the PaperArtsy blog where DTGuestDesigners have created some gorgeous samples using the stamps stencils and paints...

Brand new stamps are exciting & I'd like to get you all inspired and creating - so leave a comment (before the 20th February) & two lucky peeps (picked at random) will win a set of new JOFY stamps.  
Good luck!  :o)

x

15 February 2014: PaperArtsy {Retailer Training Day} at Stitches...

.... is where myself & Lin Brown will be teaching workshop for retailers..  I'm really looking forward to these workshops - very much!!

Lots of information about new products and ideas - Leandra has written a great blog post to tell you all about it- so if you're a retailer click on the image below to go to the PaperArtsy site, & we all look forward to seeing you at the show..

What a colleague of mine would call sorting out the knickers and socks....

... by that he meant tidying up the computer files & information pathways on the computer... so that is what I'm doing today.

I'm receiving a steady stream of 'friend requests' on Facebook which is lovely and I'm pleased to get them from blog readers, users of my JoFY stamps & class attendees  :o)
but I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear/read my conversations with my friends about our nights out & and how, yes, we all loved our friend's new hair style!

So, can I please point you in the direction of this:

The JoFY facebook page :o) Click on the photo and it should take you to the page - taaadaaaa - where the focus is less waffle and more information.  I've had it for a few months so you'll be able to see what sort of updates are on there and my plan is that there will be more - I'll post information on this page about up coming classes, new design releases and general crafting info that you might find interesting.   It also has the feed from my blog.
Please 'like' & 'follow' the page and the new info should come direct to your timeline.

EDIT:  The blog page will continue to send a prompt onto Twitter. :o)

Also - if you are already a friend on Facebook (through crafting, not personal) can I ask you to please go and like the JoFY page and then 'unfriend' me/my personal account.
I'm asking this because I want to stay in contact with everyone about my crafting work but its tidier (those knickers and socks again) to do this on the Facebook page and not through my personal timeline - I hope you understand...

Look forward to seeing you all over on the JoFY Facebook page!

:o)

I'd like to introduce you to a new friend...

... in my first blog post for PaperArtsy over on the blog which I'm very excited about. .. please pop over and take a look  - not just at my project but at all the other great and inspiring projects that are on there.

This is the little friend in question - please pop over and say 'hello' - I think she's going to be a fun addition to the PaperArtsy family!

x

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, creative and fabulous 2014!!
(though I am still wondering where 2013 went - flew by didn't it! lol)

Sometimes its good... part 2

.... so remember the other week when I showed you my little sketchbook and it looked like this:

well I spilled paint on the cover by accident & so had to pretty it up- & now it looks like this (nothing that a touch of opaque Fresco Finish paint can't fix!):

I took the book on holiday with me - a nice portable size - I also took with me a 'travel kit of arty bits' - we went to Mexico for 2 weeks and I'm not good at laying in the sun (I don't go brown fast enough!)(and I get restless - unlike MrJoFY who happily lays in the sun ALL day!)- so I like to pack a 'things to do when the sun gets too hot!' emergency kit... (which probably helps to explain the weight of my suitcase lol)

Its not just the cover that has changed - the pages are looking different too.. as I started working in the book I realised that little flip up/flip out pages weren't the direction I was going in and so they were taken out and re-stuck in the back.. just in case I needed them (too interesting to throw away!)

(I like how these mini pages now flip up, down, sideways & over... interesting ... and great for 'hidden' journaling)

here's part of the 'entrance ticket' page:

On other pages I painted Snowflake Fresco Finish through stencils and then washed over them with Koh-i-noor watercolour (dye) paints and created a resist... then I doodled over the top - love how these turned out..

The page below was a little different - stenciled and painted over the top in 2 colours and then watersplashed the page - flowers on right are created by doodling over the white circles created by the water - trying to disguise or make use of them..

 This page was filled by one big word, and then later added borders - once you start doodling its hard to stop!

Page filled with circles an flowers - doodling circles is very relaxing...

painting, stenciling, bit more painting... bit more stenciling...

The sketchbook is now very inky/painty and is only just closing shut(with the help of a VERY big bulldog clip!) - and this is  how the page edges look - great colour combo...

So thats the quick tour through some of the pages of my mini sketchbook.. I'd really encourage you to try pages/books that are out of your comfort zone or not what you would normally reach for when creating - you might find something that you really like..

xx