Paperbabe Stamps January Release - Flourish and Grow Stamp Set - Alphonse Mucha-resque

Hello again. Today we're showcasing the Flourish and Grow stamp set and such a great set it is too! Perfect for building your own sentiment combinations or for that bold large sentiment that says it all, there are endless possibilities. I've combined it with the Flourishing Hair Stamps and Templates and the Female Face 3/4 View Left Dinky stamp set

Since my teens I've loved the work of Alphonse Mucha, I think, the original designer of illustrative posters and product advertising. 

I was lucky to see his original art in his birthplace, Prague and also a couple of years ago at an exhibition of his work at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. I can highly recommend the Walker for pre-raphaelite art too. His four seasons series of posters have been the subject of a few stamp sets from various companies over the years. Anyway, I thought of  his artwork when I saw these sets and lots of possibilities for the stamps. This is how I ended up with a long panel card with the hair swirling down, it was easy to join in the separate curl stamps to the main hair stamp as well.

All of the new sets will be on sale in the Paperbabe Stamps shop tomorrow and of course there is some fantastic inspiration from Kim and all my teamies linked at the Paperbabe Stamps Blog.

Back soon,
Chris x

Paperbabe Stamps January Release - Flourishing Hair Stamp Set & Templates - Golden Eye

Hi everyone, It's my first post of this year, I hope you're well and have had a happy start to the new year. 

I have my first project for Paperbabe Stamps January release and this gorgeous new set is 'Flourishing Hair stamps' and templates, I've combined it with a sentiment from the new Flourish and Grow sentiment stamps which are showcased tomorrow, the  sketchy roses stamp set and the Female Face Dinky Stamps.

You can see from the examples below the templates are the perfect masks so I was able to ink and stamp my background whilst retaining the paper colour for the face, absolutely brilliant and makes everything so quick and easy! I used distress inks in fired brick and festive berries and stamped the outline rose stamp in fired brick and chipped sapphire, I used coloured pencil to highlight the petals and for the face. I love the shape of the hairline in the flourishing hair stamps and there are lots of extra curls so you can make it your own, there are some sweet flowers too that I've scattered about and lots of lovely small accent stamps across the new sets that are so useful and which is something I really love about all Kim's stamp sets.

There's lots of inspiration with beautiful samples from Kim (sigh) on the Paperbabe Stamps Blog and links to teamies projects as well. I'll be back tomorrow with another project sample. 

PaperArtsy Blog - Topic 19 - Cute Critters

Hi everyone, I'm contributing on the PaperArtsy blog today where I'm sharing Party Cats card for the cute critters topic.

You couldn't get cuter or more fun than Elena's Zinski Art Christmas stamp set ZA50, the purrrrrrfect party animals! 

My background is a mix of Infusions, they are Olive Tree and Frankly Scarlet.

I did my paint splatter with Iceberg and Snowflake Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics and I also used the Snowflake to stencil in the background through Sara's Christmas stencil 114 with a stencil brush.

Intial colouring is with Inktense watercolour pencils, I've used a dabbing action to achieve the mottled appearance of the fur. You can see the stenciled pine leaves here, they make a nice border around the card. 

I added a touch of coloured pencil over the watercolouring here and there but I didn't need much. These two Infusions colours are gorgeous in the background and perfect for Christmas colour schemes.

There are more close up photo's and steps on the PaperArtsy blog and lots of inspiration over the two weeks of this topic if you love stamping cute characters.

Have a lovely weekend!
Chris

Paperbabe Stamps August Release - Mini Templates

Hi everyone, there's a new release reveal all this week on the Paperbabe Stamps blog with lots of new goodies to choose from which will be for sale in the Paperbabe Stamps shop on Saturday.

Above you can see the project in full using the new Mini sized versions of the dinky's previously released. It's good to have a template size for every type of project and I've made a large card with the Side Swept Waves, one of the Mini Torso's and the Mini Face stamps from an earlier release.

I started off with a sepia only colour scheme in mind but as you can see it couldn't be much further from that :D. The figure was originally coloured with vintage photo distress ink then I used coloured pencil over the top. There's highlighting with white gel pen and a mixed stencil background. You can see some of the new stencils to be revealed tomorrow here, I used Distress Oxide ink which I knocked back a lot for a muted effect in the background but I used the stars one again on her bodice where it's more prominent and outlined in white pen.

I enjoyed doing her hair and creating waves, highlight and shadow. Close up the black is blacker, the photo didn't pick up on it too well this time.

I hope you'll pop over to the blog to see all the lovely inspiration from Kim and links to the Paperbabe Stamps team.

I'm back tomorrow for the stencils reveal.

Chris x