Featured Artist: Amy Wanford

Today on the Paper Crafter’s Library blog, we’re continuing our weekly featured artist spotlight whereby each week we spotlight a different artist/designer in the paper crafting & mixed media world and introduce you to their fabulous work.

Today we’re thrilled to welcome – Amy Wanford

Before we show you her fabulous projects, let’s get to know her a little bit more…

Hey! I’m Amy Wanford, also known as Aimes. I’m a tea, toast and  paper-crafting addict from England and currently live in Sheffield with  my fiancé. I’ve always loved getting my craft on with various mediums and I discovered the joys of stamps and ink in 2008 and started my blog, Crafting Confessions in 2009.  I’ve been lucky enough to have my projects published in magazines such as Paper Crafts and CARDS and serve on design teams. I currently design for Clearly Besotted Stamps, Uniko Studio and the challenge site, CASE Study. The highlight of my crafting adventures so far has been designing stamp sets and seeing them being manufactured for purchase.

When it comes to creating, I’m a card maker and one that gravitates  towards a clean and simple style (CAS). CAS and graphic designs make my  heart skip a beat. I love to think outside of the box and use a product  for a purpose it maybe wasn’t intended for, or use items around the house and incorporate them into my designs. I also  get a real kick out of creating interactive cards: it’s like creating  magic before the recipient’s very eyes!

I’m delighted to be featured here on Paper Crafter’s Library and hope you’ll like my projects.

So, let’s get straight to it!

Card Projects

First up is a card that we as card-makers all struggle to create at one  point or another: sympathy cards. If I know the recipient well, then  I’ll brave a bit of colour in my design – otherwise I tend to stick with neutrals.

I find that vellum is a fantastic material to work with (and not just for sympathy cards), I honestly don’t use it enough! On this project I’ve emphasised the calming nature of that beautiful water lily stamp by embossing it on to vellum and using pencil crayons on the reverse to add colour. The result of shading on the reverse is a more muted, subtle splash of colour. Vellum is also used to mat and layer my focal panel onto an aqua card base. Using vellum means it will coordinate perfectly; acting as a lighter shade of whatever card I use as my card base.

 

Supplies

Card 1
Stamps: Water Lily and Sentiment from the set ‘With Love’ (Clearly Besotted Stamps)
Ink: London Fog (Memento)/Versarmark (Tsukineko)
Cardstock: Aqua Mist, Vellum, White (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Detail White Embossing Powder (Stampendous)/Canvas and  Linen Impression Plate (Papertrey Ink)/Pencil Crayons (Craft Supply)

Next is a bolder project that hits two trends on the scene right now: feathers and gold!

My feathers were cut using my Cricut Mini from white cardstock. I like  to bulk cut embellishments from white cardstock as I can add  coordinating colour to them later for future projects using alcohol ink  markers. So these feathers were originally white, but I coloured them with a black marker before dabbing my Versamark pad over the tips of them. I then sprinkled gold embossing powder over the inked tips and melted the powder with a heat gun to create this fun, trendy  embellishments. Tip: Make sure the alcohol ink is dry before sprinkling your embossing powder over the clear ink, otherwise it will stick all over the feather!

Supplies
Card 2
Stamps: Sentiment from the set, ‘Label Love: Thank You’ (Uniko Studio)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)/Versamark (Tsukineko)
Cardstock: White (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Black Alcohol Promarker (Letraset)/Gold Embossing Powder  (Stampendous)/Canvas and Linen Impression Plate (Papertrey Ink)/Feather  from Southwest Cartridge, Cricut Mini (Cricut)

 

We hope you have enjoyed today’s projects courtesy of Amy Wanford. Also, be sure to stop by Amy’s blog to see even more of her beautiful work (and let her know we sent you).