Paper Artsy Inspiration from Helen Lindfield

Purely by chance, this month I have started following the Paper Artsy blog. Talk about a feast of creativity! There is a new project posted every night around 7.00 pm and a monthly challenge. Early on I saw a great journal cover made by fellow WOYWWER Helen Lindfield,  who I know just loves all things Paper Artsy. The bright fresh look of it appealed to me and as the challenge is to make something inspired by one of the designer’s I thought I’d have a go.

here is Helen’s journal cover

I thought I’d try a couple of tags because I have some peeps to send things to and thought they would make nice gifts. So I chose my paints from my meagre collection of PA FF paints - Ice Blue, Honey Dew, Lilac and Spanish Mulberry. Then I painted the tag blue, and stencilled some flowers through a PA stencil with the honeydew. Ok, it’s pretty, but why isn’t it ‘fresh?’

Oops, lack of concentration - meant to do that the other way round!! Oh well that’s my creative process I guess, because I have the attention span of a hamster.

Sighing, I went on a search for a flower stamp that would work with the stencils - I wanted something a little more detailed but still ‘stylized’ - and found a very, very old set of acrylic stamps (possibly early Dawn Bibby?) that I thought would do. Wondering why Helen had opted to stamp her contrast image on tissue paper, I stamped the flower and the sentiment and then coloured in. Finished with a ribbon and  voila.

For the second tag thought I would try and stick to my original intention (darker stencilling on white) but after I had painted the tag white it seemed too stark – I don't have the PA chalk white - so I changed that for Nougat.
Using the same stencil with Zesty Zing I stencilled my background flowers and then stamped the other flower onto tissue – well I might as well see why Helen thought it made a difference. As I was cutting them out, of course a light bulb went on – Helen had been decorating a journal cover and  the stamping onto tissue was to ensure a good image – doh.
Still I’d already done them so I stuck them on. I wondered if the black overstamping on the stencilled flowers Helen had done made a difference – I didn’t have a similar stamp so just used a black pen to add a few lines – it worked on this tag but I felt would overwhelm the sentiment on the blue one.
Helen had used some fabric flowers as embellishment – I tried die cutting from hessian which worked, but probably won’t stand up to much handling due to the loose weave. Made them into flowers with bits from my stash and added buttons.
And there you have it. Inspired by, but nothing like really!!