CraftWorld Masterboard Challenge

 I've been on the CraftWorld forum for a few years but haven't participated in any challenges but then last week I saw a challenge that sounded right up my street. This is going to be a long post!

The idea is to create an 8x8 masterboard and then cut it as follows:

6x4 postcard

4x4 coaster

2.5x3.5 ATC

2x2 twinchies (2)

1x1 inchies (2 but I managed to cut 4)

It's been years since I last made a masterboard and as I'd only recently unearthed my Oriental box of ephemera I decided to go with an Oriental theme.

I find masterboards great for using up those sheets of patterned paper that you get in a set but don't really care for. This sheet was from an old Papermania set called Simply Elegant.

I started by sticking some torn strips of  Oriental newsprint (no idea if it was Chinese/Japanese/Korean). Then randomly applied some texture paste coloured with seedless preserves DI through a stencil. A small Hero Arts fan and a tiny oriental motif were stamped all over and I finished with some splatters of playful peony Twinkling H2O. When dry I cut out the various base elements and brushed the edges with faded jeans DI.

It's been such a long time since I made an inchie but I had managed to cut 4 (2 more than required) so I decided to make them all. I had a look at the 4 bases and tried to work around the bits of background on them.

The first was just folded bits of origami and washi paper with a gem. Next I used some Mizuhiki cord to make a tiny knot and added some gems.Third was a dragonfly punched out of washi paper. Lastly I stamped a Simple Expressions text stamp in Impress cherry pink and added a washi paper punched cherry blossom embellished with some Nuvo Drops.

I rounded the corners of both twinchies. The first was overstamped with an Oriental background stamp in Memento sweet plum and a postmark in Memento love letter. I made a small origami flapping bird from patterned paper, stuck it on a circle of vellum and added some Nuvo Drops. I had an image of a Japanese lady which I cut out, stuck on and outlined with a fine grey pen.The flowers are cut out from some patterned fabric tape and embellished with gems.

The ATC uses the Simple Expressions stamp that I used in my previous post with an origami paper obi. The sentiment is a stamp I had made many years ago.

The coaster took a while to come together. I wanted to use this beautiful old wood mounted stamp by Stampington called Cinnabar. Unfortunately the stencilled texture on the background was exactly in the centre of the 4x4 coaster. I decided to stamp the image so that I got the hair ornaments on the coaster and then to cut out the main part of the image separately to add on top. The image looked too stark against the background and I was thinking about what to do when I spotted a mask I had made for the image for another project. If the mask is reusable I tend to keep it with the stamp - in this case it was actually on top of it. I must have used it to overstamp a fabric texture and traces of it were still on it. It gave me the effect I was looking for and I found some coordinating green and gold washi paper to go with it. The text is a Paper Artsy stamp and I added a floral sticker, a Japanese symbol sticker and a small gem in her hair.

Looking at the postcard I feel I should have added some gesso to it to knock back the background  before adding the stamping but it's done now. I added a Chinese calligraphy stamp in Memento love letter and stamped the brush stroke bird. The text is by Paper Artsy and some washi type was used on the edges.

I really enjoyed this challenge, time-consuming as it was.