Eclectica³ Scrapcosy
Well it wouldn't be the start of a New Year without bringing you a new designer. I have been looking for a Vintage Style designer to bring into the fold for some time, and then as if by magic, Raquel Burillo (aka Scrapcosy) appeared on the radar. Earlier this year she did an amazing comparison video between Brusho pigments and PaperArtsy Infusions, which is really useful information. You can watch it here.
Raquel has curated a series of images into collections, each has its own flavour; Botanical, Floral and Vegetable. Each stamps set has stencils that also reflect those themes.
Let's take a look!
ESC01
ESC02
ESC03
PS049
PS050
PS051
Here's a video with plenty of inspiration and explanation!
Raquel is so new to the industry herself, but she is such a willing and ready learner, and it is her lovely manner with the Vintage Genre that I love. Her experienced wingmen (I call them the 'wise women') have been such a wonderful support to her as they have helped Raquel plan this release as a team so beautifully! See for yourself!
~ Leandra
Hi everyone, Raquel here from Scrapcosy. This is a super special night for me, I'm over the moon! It's great honour being here, as a guest designer for PaperArtsy, and showing you my very first collections of stamps and stencils.
When I open an old book and I look through its aged pages my heart fills with joy if I find a beautiful illustration hidden on it. While doing a research with the purpose of creating a paper collection based on coloured images, I started to find these other beauties in black and white, which captivated me. I couldn't help it, I had to get them out of the books, enhance them and bring them back to life, and what better way than in the shape of stamps?
The three collections of stamps feature vintage images dated from 17th and 18th century. I love that type of illustrations. The artists at that time really got into the detail and produced perfectly shadowed images, which despite being in black and white, didn't need much more to pop out of the paper and catch your eye. Luckily for us, the high quality of PaperArtsy stamps allows us to enjoy these images with the same level of detail. You won't believe it until you see (and touch) the real rubber, really... More about how the stamps and stencils came to life in a later section.
Now lets go to the good stuff... tonight I invited Jennie Atkinson and Lynne Moncrieff to help making samples with these new products. Thanks to both of you again, ladies! :) Please go and check out their blogs where you will find more detailed information about these stunning samples and the techniques they used to create them. Well worth a visit or two! Leandra is right, these are the 'wise women', so much to learn from them. I feel so lucky to have had them on board!
Since I couldn't choose, I had to flip a coin to help me decide... and the coin told me to start with Jennie! I love Jennie's style, so delicate, on the vintage and shabby chic side, always paying attention to the texture and the little details. She treated the flower stamps ESC01 as delicately as they deserved it and her use of infusions with ESC03 amazes me! I still can't figure out how she achieves her wood effect and the vibrant colours at the same time. I hope she explains it with more detail in her blog! She has the patience to cut the flowers and arrange them at will, mixing them with other elements from the other sets creating a stunning result. You better see it yourself!
'À la Fleur' using ESC01 and PS049 by Jennie Atkinson
Despite being very detailed, each image of this set stamps with absolute clarity. It was difficult to choose which stamps to use! but this set of three had the feel of a Victorian ladies botanical diary and really appealed to me.
The smaller stamps are just perfect for ATCs and smaller cards. I decided to make an ATC trio utilising these stamps and some of the smaller text images of ESC03. However, I think these images would make some beautiful seed packets for a gardening friend or a lovely cover for a gardening memories mini book.
Mixing the Infusions with Satin Glaze created a more vibrant colour and allowed me to create more depth of colour. I am not a “painter” but I found this little set very relaxing to create.
I have used some of the smaller images from the stencils to provide the texture. All of the stencils from this set provide so many possibilities and are so beautifully laid out it is easy to isolate a particular word, symbol or number. I am certain they are all going to become great favourites!
Painting the grunge paste lightly with gold Fresco paint makes for a lovely light vintage feel: I preferred this to tinting my grunge paste with the gold. The background was painted first with Chalk Fresco and finally vintage splatters added once the painting was dry.
'Vegetable Patch' using ESC02 and PS050 by Jennie Atkinson
Vintage vegetables are just wonderful for creating fun cards and gift tags for gardening friends and family. Who thought a cabbage could look so good!
This very detailed image stamps so beautifully clear and was very easy to paint with blended Infusions. A must for anyone who has a keen gardener in the family. I am desperate to make vintage seed packets for my gardening mad family.
The combination of the onion stamp and the gardening stencil makes for a great masculine card.
I have blended brown ink over the grunge paste to create a vintage look. The Chalk Fresco background also provides a wonderful base for stamping and painting.
'Tea in blue' using ESC03 by Jennie Atkinson
This is such a useful collection of stamps! The smaller stamps are just perfect for adding background stamping and the flowers are particularly beautiful and can be stamped flat or fussy cut to create layers. I know that this is a collection I will come back to time and time again.
As these stamps have such a wonderful “Tea Chest” feel to them I wanted to fussy cut and layer the flowers over a faux wood panel. Splattered Infusions over a Chalk Base provided a great background. I love the vintage feel of the Sleight Blue and Brown and with the touch of gold on the grunge paste.
The smaller stamps are fabulous for adding background images and I loved the added texture created using grunge paste through the stencils and then painting with a little gold paint.
This close up shows the wonderful depth of Infusions over the Fresco paint. I use lots of water with the Infusions to get the lighter hues which provides a wonderful base for the overstamping and grunge paste.
You will be amazed at how many of the little stamps I used on this ATC set! And think beyond ATCs! I often use these small works of art as the centre piece for a card and anyone of these ATCs would also make a lovely decoration to a gift wrapped box of tea.
Now it's Lynne's turn. What can I say? Seeing her use of layers and more layers is a pleasure. Her projects are stunning and also on the vintage side. She was also the perfect match for this release. It seems her samples (more on her blog) built up naturally, combining and mixing the stamp sets across, full of details, staples holding pieces of tinted fabric and many other details that you can only discover when you look twice or three times at each piece. Just have a look for yourself!
'Garden Variety', samples using ESC01 and PS049 by Lynne Moncrieff
This focal stamp (left tag) would work beautifully with blue/green tones for an oceanic theme. Turn the stamp upside down to use as foliage on a tree branch, colour the berries.
A layer of Satin Glaze (right tag) makes the smaller stamps “pop”. Imagine it with delicate watercolours / pencils / markers.
Perfectly sized for smaller sized art. This stamp would be perfectly sized for jewellery, stamp the flower head only for ear-rings.
The floral stamp is such a generous sized stamp but I decided to only work with a section of it.
Use any of those floral stamps to form backgrounds. What about using them as a trio to make gift wrap. Stamped onto kraft paper would make for quick gift wrapping solutions and then pair with a matching tag, simply stamping one of the flowers onto a kraft tag. I might just have to do this so I have some gift wrap to hand for when I need it!
'Rustic Vegetables', samples using ESC02 by Lynne Moncrieff
This stamp and all from the set bridge that gap from masculine to feminine making it such a useful set for greetings cards and also for gifts for any family/friends who love gardening. A fun idea if gifting a garden themed gift, stamp this image onto a gift tag to tie onto the store bought gift.
Stamp this beautiful onion stamp with a deep red instead of Potting Soil.
'Nature's Beauty' using ESC03 by Lynne Moncrieff
A beautiful stamp which is perfect for those who love to colour their stamped images or instead of applying ink, apply Infusions, mist with water to give a watercolour effect to the stamped image.
Using this stamp as a whole or just for a detail, perfect either way. I like it just as this small corner element on this tag. I would also stamp the whole of the stamp onto the corner of a square card then simply add a sentiment – this would make a quick card especially onto a background made with Infusions or brayered Frescos.
I really like this simple floral stamp, it has an under-stated elegance. This is a perfect stamp to pair with script, postal marks and other traditional collage style stamps.
So now it's my turn. I'll explain how each collection came to life and I'll show you the projects I've made with each of them in pictures and in videos.
Let's start with ESC01!
ESC01 was born the minute I found the dahlias bouquet, I fell in love, and then as by magic, the remaining flowers bloomed among the pages of the same catalogue to become a set (there were others which didn't make it... just yet!). As these are complete flowers, any of them can be a focal image of a card with a single sentiment, and we also have the dahlias stamp which is so big that you can use it as a background too.
ESC01
The stencil PS049 had to be designed as a florist shop which I named as 'Le petite dahlia' and I located it in the romantic Paris, Oh, la, la...
PS049
If you want to see how the first project below was made, here you have the first video in the series of three that I've prepared for tonight, for this first collection:
Project One
'Le petite dahlia' using stamp set ESC01 and stencil PS049 by Raquel Burillo
This first project is a card I made with one of the small flowers. This is one of my favourite stamps. I felt like using these new infusions in combination with foil (an experiment of mine), just a delicate touch for a delicate flower.
Here you can see the foil which stuck to the walnut crystals. These can only be seen when the light hits them properly
Step One: First I created a base layer with infusions and lots of water on a smoothy paper and I dried it completely. I believe this is Rusty Car:
Step Two: Then added more of the same infusions, mainly in the borders, spritzed some water, put foil on top and I passed it through the laminator twice. Can you see the gold spots?
Step Three: My next step was adding some stencilling using PS049 and grunge paste and I dried it
Step Four: Then I used gold fresco paint to paint the letters trough the stencil
Step Five: And here it comes the stamping! I stamped this beauty with Versafine ink vintage sepia
Step Six: I created a card base by folding a cardstock in which I painted just the borders using gold fresco again
Step Seven: Finally, I assembled the card with glue
Project two
'Simple flowers' using stamp set ESC01 and stencil PS049 by Raquel Burillo
These flowers looked so nice by themselves that I decided to make few mini-cards (ATC size more or less) with them.
I painted the base with Infusions (Olive green) and satin glaze, adding a little drop of gold fresco paint and I gave vertical strokes. I stamped with versafine ink black onyx.
For the stencilling, first I stencilled using black ink and then I off set the stencil and used grunge paste (tinted with gold fresco paint). By offsetting I get those nice shadows.
ESC02 is an unusual stamp set, maybe more masculine? It came out of another catalogue, this time about seeds and vegetables. Remember that in the 18th century there were not many cameras, so the only way to convince your customers that your seeds were the best in town was to show your vegetables in the nicest and most appealing way, so they hired the best illustrators. I don't know about you, but in my case, I want to try and plant those radishes (I bet you thought these were carrots, hehe) and see if they come out in 20 days as promised!
ESC02
In addition to cards or art journaling, this stamp set can also be used to decorate cookbook notebooks, or even to create Halloween or season decoration. And the 2 vintage labels are the perfect final touch that you can stamp, cut and stick to finish any project.
I wanted the stencil PS050 to be a sign of a shop specialised on the vegetable farmer's world, because I really had a project in mind, the one you'll see below. And I also wanted to incorporate other elements that could be used in mix media for your backgrounds.
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