If you’re into photography you’ve probably heard of bokeh. If you haven’t heard of it before, bokeh has roots in the Japanese word, ‘boke’ meaning ‘blur’. You can spot the effect easily in photographs as they’ll feature a soft, blurred out-of-focus background. The technique brings depth and dimension, with crafters trying to translate the effect into their projects with great success; you’ll often see soft shapes which are characteristic of the effect such as designs featuring overlapping circles, or layers of shapes including the front layer containing lots of white circles.

You don’t need to stick to any particular colour scheme or shape to achieve this on-trend look to your projects, although I personally think the best look is from using circles as this is akin to the original look.

There are various ways you can achieve the look yourself from the easy to more advanced techniques. If you’re a beginner and you don’t fancy getting messy in any way, why not use different coloured vellum or just overlap lots of shaped white vellum pieces? Or you can go one step further and incorporate the look in the a quick and easy way by using a bokeh-style patterned paper!

If you fancy playing with inks and paints to achieve the bokeh effect, start by stamping some basic colours and shapes, overlapping some of them, to create a gentle look. If you don’t have circle stamps, punch or die-cut circles from cardstock or acetate to create stencils and apply ink or paint through them. If you fancy taking it up a level, why not paint a multicoloured background with a medium such as watercolours, ink or paint and then build up layers of white or darker colours and using lighter concentrations of colours or white in the background with a thicker more opaque layer in the foreground.

You’ll find that your bokeh-inspired projects will echo a soft and even ethereal look. So why not give it a whirl and try your hand at creating your own beautiful bokeh projects today?

1

Stamp circles of different sizes using light coloured inks onto a 13cm-square panel of white cardstock then stamp darker circles on top, overlapping the circles

2

Stamp white circles over the top of the piece, ensuring that they overlap the circles stamped in Step 1

3

Affix a 13.5cm-square piece of orange cardstock onto the card front, die-cut the sentiment from the stamped panel and layer it on top of the orange panel

4

Use 3D foam pads to affix the die-cut sentiment onto the card front over the aperture created in Step 3. Add the stamped word ‘BIRTHDAY’ and sequins as shown to finish

Happy birthday- groovy effect stamped card with shadow effect sentiment
Groovy overlaying stamped circle card with die-cut shadow effect sentiment and sequin embellishment
Stamping1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 14cm-square card blank
  • White & orange cardstock
  • Lawn Fawn Let’s Bokeh stamp set
  • Waffle Flower Flower Circles stamp set
  • White, pink, light pink, orange, yellow & light yellow ink
  • Manual die-cutting machine
  • Wplus9 Happy Trio die set
  • Pink, orange & yellow sequins
  • Snow Hero Arts Hue Chalk Ink inkpad
  • 3D foam pads
Count your rainbows- stamped circle card
Simple pastel faded circle repeated stamped one-layer card with cute motivational sentiment and sequin embellishment
Stamping1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 11x20cm card blank
  • White & pink cardstock
  • Lawn Fawn Let’s Bokeh stamp set
  • Reverse Confetti Count Your Rainbows stamp set
  • White, pink, light pink, dark pink, red, blue, teal & yellow inkpads
  • VersaMark inkpad
  • Pink embossing powder
  • Heat tool
  • Sequins
Shine bright- striped vellum circle shaker card
Striped background circle panel shaker card with colourful vellum cut-out elements and cute string bow
Shaker cards1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 11x16.5cm card blank
  • White & yellow cardstock
  • Peacock Feathers, Broken China & Salty Ocean Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink
  • Onyx Black VersaFine inkpad
  • White inkpad
  • VersaMark inkpad
  • Totally Teal WOW! embossing powder
  • Heat tool
  • White acrylic paint
  • Manual die-cutting machine
  • Creative Dies Star Nesting Die set
  • Acetate
  • 3D foam pads
Shine bright- striped vellum circle shaker card
Striped background circle panel shaker card with colourful vellum cut-out elements and cute string bow
Shaker cards1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 11x16.5cm card blank
  • White & yellow cardstock
  • Peacock Feathers, Broken China & Salty Ocean Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink
  • Onyx Black VersaFine inkpad
  • White inkpad
  • VersaMark inkpad
  • Totally Teal WOW! embossing powder
  • Heat tool
  • White acrylic paint
  • Manual die-cutting machine
  • Creative Dies Star Nesting Die set
  • Acetate
  • 3D foam pads
Hello- stamped, overlapping multicoloured circle card with sequins
Greetings card featuring colourful overlapping stamped circles and central circular nesting panels with gold embossed sentiment
Stamping1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 11x12cm card blank
  • Orange & white cardstock
  • Watercolour paper
  • Watercolour paint
  • Lawn Fawn Let’s Bokeh stamp set
  • Waltzingmouse Stamps Hello, Happy, Thanks stamp set
  • White, light blue & pink inkpads
  • VersaMark inkpad
  • Gold embossing powder
  • Heat tool
  • Manual die-cutting machine
  • Creative Dies Circle Nesting Die set
  • 3D foam pads
  • Sequins
Simply amazing- beautiful light-catching colourful vellum string curtain card
Beautiful easy but impressive card draped with strands of light-catching multicoloured vellum circles with sequin embellishment
Die-cutting1 min read08 Aug 2019
DISCOVER

You will need

  • White 10x14.5cm card blank
  • White, pink, green, orange & blue vellum
  • White thread
  • Wplus9 Quite Like You stamp set
  • Onyx Black VersaFine inkpad
  • PVA glue
  • Various circle punches
  • Sequins