Workshop with Jayne

As the workshop season now seems to be here it was time for a visit to the wonderful Jayne Nesotrenko's workshop in July.  I had missed her earlier workshop due to being away on holiday in Arizona and  as I had only been back a week was still suffering a little from Jet Lag - it had hit me hard this time.

I had a really good trip seeing such wonderful sights as the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell and the Rainbow Bridge, Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly.  I even signed up to the Michael's loyalty card and found a wonderful craft shop in Page that had gorgeous papers that I just had to bring back with me. 

Jayne's workshop was based on her new collection "Grande Journeys" from her "Just my Imagination" range and  I was bowled over by them.  Jayne had released them 3 days before I was due on the workshop and I did not really get a good chance to look at them before I went.  The samples that she had on display were superb and I had seen that we were going to make a Japanese fan card. 

The fan shape was made using the Glitter Girls Elegance & Fantasy board and we got to choose what coloured background card we wanted.  The scene in the background is Jayne's Kyoto Garden which we coloured, cut and attached to the card and Japanese  Geisha which we also coloured.  We had the choice of whether to decoupage the image or just have it as a single image.  I decided to decoupage and ended up with 4 layers. 

The flowers and fan were from "The Grande Journey Accessories" stamp plate and again were coloured and attached to the card. 

I really enjoyed making this card and the instructions to make this are on Jayne's website here http://nestorenkostamps.co.uk/project-1-geisha-fan-card/ .



Back to School Girl

I coloured this LOTV stamp a few months ago but have only just decided to use it on a card.  The stamp is called "Back to School Girl" and just loved the expression on her face.  There is also a boy stamp which I also bought at the same time that has just as good an expression.

I used Copic pens to colour her although I did not keep a record of which colours I used but think it was the Warm Greys. This was made into an 8" x 8" card due to the size of the doily used as I felt the image fitted into this well.  I used Rainbow card to cut French Pastry Doily die.

In the corner, I used a spellbinder die to cut out the corners in the same rainbow card to match.

This was then mounted onto Core'dinations card and then onto some 7Gypsy paper that I had in my stash. 

The flowers used were from Wild Orchids Craft Sweetheart Blossoms and Cherry Blossoms.

Parchment Fan

This fan was a labour of love as it did take quite a time to make all fourteen ribs of the fan but it was well worth it. 

It is  white work with cutting and a little gold tinta ink to make the embossing on the ribs stand out more. 

The ribs were joined with some thin gold metallic ribbon and a tassle at the end to hold it all together.

The fan does fold in on itself but the parchment is not strong enough to enable it to be used as a fan. 

It is purely for decoration and I am going to mount it on some black card and frame it. 

This is one project that will not be finding a home elsewhere.

Card for my Niece

As it is shortly my niece's birthday, I thought that I would use one of the Paintbox Poppet stamps to create a card for her and used With Love.

I used Spectrum Noir pens to colour the image and after colouring cut out using the Spellbinders Floral Oval dies.  Before removing the die, I went around the inside of the oval shape with Antique Linen Distress Ink, using a cut-n-dry pen nib to get a fine line.

I used two background papers from the Papermania Capsules range and also the Martha Sterwart Doily Lace Edge punch.

The greeting was printed onto card and then cut out using the Spellbinders ovals.  I then cut out the backpiece for the greeting using one of the  smaller Floral Ovals dies and mounted the greeting on to it.

The flowers were from Wild Orchid Crafts and to finish, I made 3 pearl beads with Cosmic Shimmer Pearl PVA glue by dropping them straight onto the card and letting it dry overnight. 

A Circle of Flowers

This card was made using  Ivory coloured parchment paper.  If you have not got coloured parchment paper, you can still achieve a coloured background by colouring your parchment paper with Pergamano Dorsos first.

Although it does not look like a card, it actually folded as a card.

I was really pleased with the way that this turned out and this is a card that I would certainly send someone special.

I first drew the pattern onto the parchment, apart from the outline of the leaves and stems with white tinta ink.  I used a nib to ensure the fineness of the line.  I then drew the outline of the leaves and the stem in sepia tinta ink.

From the reverse, I then embossed the flowers, leaves and borders. 

With the flower petal, I just used a light stroke rather then heavy embossing which gives movement to the petals.  With the centre of the flowers, I used the one hole tool to gently pierce them.

With a fine grid, I then pierced the spaces in the border pattern.  I then folded the card and pierced through the two layers around the outside of the border pattern and then cut away the excess to leave the shape of the card.

I have shown a closeup of flower and the border section.

Ships Aweigh Two

I was going to send the first card I made with this stamp desinged by Sam Poole and and the Couture Creations embossing folder to my cousin for his birthday but wasn't 100% sure about it.  I showed it to my mother and she said it was fine but then decided that I would make another one and change it a little. 

This time I made the card a little smaller to fit the embossing folder.  Once I had embossed some light blue card, using a cut-n-dry pen nib and Gathered Twigs distress ink, I coloured all the land brown.  Then using Broken China distress ink, I coloured the lines, compass and wording. 

I  then mounted some dark blue card onto a cream background and mounted the embossed card onto this. 

Then I stamped the ship using Brilliance Starlight Silver and then coloured in using the same ink with just a little purple and blue in the sea. I  cut the ship out using the Spellbinders Circles, using the Out of The Box technique for the top of the ship so that I did not cut that part off and using foam pads mounted onto the card.

Again, using the Starlight Silver, I stamped anchor, wheels and small ships around the outside of the embossed card, masking the embossed card so that it looked like the embossed card was mounted on the stamping.

I felt that this was a much better card than the first one and the right one to send to my cousin.

Using the Starlight silver again, I stamped a sentiment from the Paintbox Poppets stamp set and then cut with a circle spellbinders and mounted on the card to finish.

Pink and Blue Parchment

I really liked the way the colours showed through on this card.  This combines the techniques that I like as it includes dorsing, gridwork and cutwork.  It is acutally quite an easy card as there is not much work involved to get the effect. 

The pattern was first pierced using a straight grid.  This ensures uniformity of the pattern which would be extremely hard to achieve using just four hole tools. 

Once the pattern had been pierced, I then coloured the back of the parchment alternating between  Pink and blue Pergamano Dorsa colours.  

I then embossed around the pattern and the straight lines from the box and flower pattern. I embossed a circle at the end of each line from the box pattern using the Star tool and a solid circle at the end of each line from the flower.

Then I cut the crosses in the centre of the box of the pattern and the centre of the flowers with scissors and then cut the long slots and the top, bottom and sides of the box patterns.

I used a piece of pink card as an insert and cut around the edge of the card with shaped scissors to finish.

I have shown a close up of part of the card to show the cutwork in more detail.