Super Exciting Newness from Emma

Oh my! I was so excited when I was asked to be Emma Godfrey's wingman for her new PaperArtsy Halloween and Christmas stamps. They are just GORGEOUS and have so many uses beyond these holidays! The video introducing the stamps is below (Mum, my Christmas makes are from 7:45!) and has some amazing projects from some seriously talented folk.

Let's start with Halloween

 

I was allowed to keep my Halloween makes (my Christmas ones were posted off to PA HQ - that's how they're in the video!) and so I wanted to make a page in my journal.For a more spooky feel I randomly applied the Purple Rain paint with some Cut and Dry foam. I didn’t want a perfect finish and when the page was dry I lightly sanded it so there were some areas of interest. The nice thing about journal pages is that you can resist the urge to be 'perfect' and so the patches of lighter and darker areas are to be embraced!

When I saw the stamp set the first thing I saw was skull flowers and so I made some stalks which took some cutting out but were completely worth it! By painting the paper first you don't lose any of the detail of the stamp - but if I'd carefully painted the reverse of tissue paper I wouldn't have had all that cutting out - a note for the future there!!!

My journal is pretty small so I didn’t crowd the page with too much detail but loved the stamped detail in the background making the skull flowers ‘pop’! Those skulls are fabulous!

Bingo Journal

These fabulous images lend themselves nicely to a Halloween Bingo journal page and so I blanked some parts of a stencil so I get nice large boxes for my images.

Having first stencilled straight onto the page I didn’t like it so redid on some card and then, when dry, sanded it and the card took on a purple hue. Unexpected bonus! The images fit perfectly! The cobwebs are going to prove to be a really useful stamp and they work really well in the background! This might work well as a Halloween invitation... mmm... food for thought!

Now on to Christmas - in case you didn't know, as much as I long for hot summer days, Christmas is my favourite time of the year! I am always on the look out for new Christmassy things and this stamp set is perfect!

The snowflakes in this set reminded me of a 1950s book I have and so I tried to recreate it! I used Concrete as a base and the Sage on top so there was a good depth of colour.

The snowflakes are so cool and look fabulous with a little paint to accentuate them. I love the huge tag and the wonderful sentiments fit it perfectly. I added brown Distress Ink at the edges and suddenly the whole project took on the retro feel I was going for!

The circle stamp on the edge gave me an idea for my next project! 

Snowman

The circle stamp looks like snow falling and I realised I could make a winter scene! The varied the intensity of the background so it’s whiter at the bottom so it looks like the snow has fallen. The snowflakes I adore are stamped on circles to make a snowman’s body and I cut of a top hat from a Lynne Perrella stamp. 

I was beyond excited when I saw my snowman take shape! There is a huge versatility with these stamps - I think the snowflakes could easily be satellites with a retro space feel or flower heads or even a strange underwater creature! Such possibilities!

A HUGE thank you again to Emma for asking to me to play along - I LOVED every minute!