New Stamps February 2018

A New Direction
{and a blog hop}

Woohoo! Today is an exciting day. Today is the day my newest stamps are launched by PaperArtsy. It has been a busy (totally crazy) couple of years for me as I work my way through my degree course. I was sad to not have the time for stamps last year and was determined to bring you something new this year. 

For one of my assignments last year I had to designs some illustrations for Grimm's fairytales. 

When Leandra saw these she thought that something similar would make great stamps, so this year I worked on some little characters, and here they are. 

EDY20 {Dottie and the Prof}

                                                        EDY21 {Joe and Lydia}

Keep an eye on your favourite PaperArtsy retailer for when these stamps arrive.

Here are a few samples to whet your appetite. 

Balloons. 
Here I created a drippy background before layering with a simple piece of smoothy card. then I stamped the little Prof from EDY20 before colouring with watercolour pencils. Finally I stole a couple of  balloons from Joe on EDY21, once they were coloured I added glossy accents to make them pop. 

Family Circle
A square card with blended stripes of just 2 colours, keeping the colours very similar gives a classy feel. I then drew a circle and cut that out, using it as a mask I was able to stamp the houses from Lydia's head. I admit to a couple of practice goes on just printer paper, but after that I was away and stamping around the circle. 

I finished by adding the welcome sentiment stamped onto acetate. Everything is attached on foam pads to add dimension. 

Joe and Lydia

A simple brayered background is the setting for Joe and Lydia. Do you see the little dangly hearts? they are from the side of the tree on EDY20. The flower centres are individual hearts from the border on EDY20, and it is all grounded by using my edge stencil PS031.

Welcome Home

A simple card now, ideal for a new home gift. the house from EDY21 is coloured with watercolour pencils and then the background is blended in afterwards using Fresco paints. I wanted to make the background  a little more interesting so I stamped some circles with a lid, but only very lightly, I didn't want them to be overpowering. 

Another card using the Prof, can you tell he is my favourite? I used the Snowflake resist method in the background and then just layered up the elements. Do you see those gifts? they are the windows of the house from EDY21. 

Now for a couple of stepped out projects, just to show you my working process. 

Loving the Moonlight

Step 1. A square of heavy smoothy with blended London Night and Moonlight, once the card is covered the colours were dry brushed to blend them. Next I used WOW embossing powder and the circle stamp from EDY21 and the hearts from EDY20, these were coloured with watercolour pencils. 

Step 2. I then added white circles using my stencil PS031, once dry I drew a scribbly outline around them in pen. 

Step 3. I drew around a roll of cellotape and cut this out, then painted it using Moonlight. the tree was stamped onto brayered card then the top section cut out. 

Step 4. I stamped the Prof onto smoothy card and coloured him using watercolour pencils, before cutting him out and mounting onto the centre circle. 

Step 5. Add the sentiment and some finishing touches with pens and glossy accents. 

Flower Spool

Step 1. I painted a wooden spool using Zucchini, I then stamped the 'welcome' sentiment onto a book page and glued that around the spool. 

Step 2. I added part of a wooden skewer, painted in the same colour. 

Step 3. I painted lots of bits of smoothy with my favourite bright colours and stamped out the flower from EDY20. 

Step 4. I arranged some of the flowers around the spool and others added to wire which was wrapped around the skewer. 

Step 5. Little Lydia was stamped and coloured with watercolour pencils, before being fussy cut. If you look carefully you can see I left a bit of card just at her feet, like a tab. This was bent to the back. 

Step 6. the tab was glued down to the flowers, and then small foam pads were attached to the back of Lydia which then cling to the stick to keep her upright. Final touches include white pen dots and self adhesive pearls in the flower centres. 

I hope you love them as much as I do, they really are fun little characters. 

Now for the blog hop!

My partners in crime have come up with great samples for you, they have had some serious fun with these stamps. 

First up is the fabulously talented Lauren Hatwell. Her ideas are  always ingenious, she can look at stamps and see them in a completely different way, I love that! She has made some samples that will make you squeal and want the stamps even more. go on over to her blog and see them HERE. 

Next up the bubbly Miriam Grazier, she was so excited to get her hands on the stamps, and couldn't wait to play. Miriam has a bit of a high powered job and she is always on the go, so in her downtime she loves to create. Go on over to Miriam's blog and see what she has created. HERE. 

Darcy x