Colour Outside the Box: Turning Christmas Stamps into Everyday Art

Hello lovely creatives! Hope you're having a wonderfully inspiring week. I've been buzzing with excitement to share a peek into a recent workshop that got my creative juices flowing (and hopefully sparked some for the attendees too!).

Back on March 2nd, I had the pleasure of spending a fantastic day with The Craft Together Workshop crew: Julia McNeill, Charmain Barrett and Lynette Jasper. For my workshop we dived headfirst into the colourful world of art journaling. 

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The theme of my workshop? 

To look beyond the obvious and discover the hidden potential in our craft supplies – specifically, those often-neglected Christmas stamps & stencils! I really wanted to show case that colour, how we position items & layering could make a Christmas stamp now ready to be used all year round!

What Christmas in March!

Now, you might be thinking, 'Christmas stamps in March?' And you'd be right! That was precisely the fun of it. The goal was to challenge ourselves to see these festive designs in a new light, proving that with a little imagination, they can be so much more than just seasonal.

During the workshop, we explored the beautiful world of Personal Impressions woodless watercolour pencils. Their creamy texture and vibrant colours are just a dream to work with, and they blend so beautifully on the page. We used the pencils with stencils with a blending foam, to stamp with and to colour our images. I really wanted to share that your colouring mediums can also do so much more than the intended!

We combined this gorgeous medium with our 'out-of-season' Christmas stamps to create unique A4 journal pages. The stamps we were working with were Shady Designs It's A Wreath & Shady Designs Those We Love. We combined this with Shady Designs Pucker Up stencil.

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The beauty of crafting is its adaptability

Why limit ourselves? We looked at how simple techniques like selective inking, masking, and creative cropping can transform a Christmas wreath into an everyday floral element. It's all about seeing the shapes and textures, not just the original theme the products were designed for!

Also not to underestimate the power of adding a shadow! But rather than using black or grey, we choose a turquoise blue/green as out shadow colour. This made our eyes focus on the parts of the stamp we wanted to be prominent and the Christmas elements could recede backwards. 

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Adapting the layout & colours to create new ideas

The magic doesn't stop there! Once you grasp the core techniques, the possibilities are endless. It's all about playing with different layouts and colour palettes to create completely different vibes. Adding a different quote or sentiment can change the look too.

New idea #1

For this page, I have repeated the main Shady Designs It's A Wreath stamp 3 times and added smaller flower & circles stamps to fill the page. Also, rather than use a stencil this time to add to the background, I have used the sentiment. To hide the baubles, I have coloured them green to appear as if an extra leaf! A few white splats and dots here and there, have finished off the page.

New Idea #2

The above art journal page is very similar to the one taught at the workshop. For this page I kept the stencilling inside the It's A Wreath design which gives a more contained, circular vibe. The washes of blue were just that and I wanted them to be looser and as if they are in the background and not our shadow layer.  The accent flowers are also softer too as the outlines were stamped in the same colour as the flowers would be coloured.

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My Workshop Philosophy

For me, workshops are all about unlocking that creative spark within each individual. It's about sharing techniques and ideas, but also encouraging personal expression and a playful approach to crafting. There's no right or wrong, just the joy of making!

It's such a wonderful experience to connect with other crafters, learn new skills, and leave feeling inspired to continue creating at home

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Looking ahead ...

And speaking of connecting and creating... I've got some exciting new workshop ideas brewing that I can't wait to share with you all. So, keep your eyes peeled on my blog and social media channels – there will be more opportunities to get crafty together coming very soon! You won't want to miss what's in store.

I hope this blog post makes you look at your Christmas stamps in a new light and see how you can adapt them to be all year round and not just for one thing! 

Until next time, take care,

Lou

xxx

For those of you interested in what was used in the workshop, supplies list is below:

Shady Designs It's A Wreath stamp set

Shady Designs Those We Love stamp set

Shady Designs Pucker Up Stencil

Personal Impressions Woodless Water Colour Pencils

Personal Impressions Water Colour Card

Versafine Clair Nocturne ink pad

Distress Blending Foams

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