Friday 27 November 2015

brusho swirl flower

More brusho backgrounds and the swirl centre flowerhead.

The first one is very simple, the flowerhead stamped in versamark and white embossed onto watercolour paper before sprinkling with turquoise brusho powder - I brushed the colour out over the flowerhead .
Sentiment stamped in black, mat is turquoise card, base 7" square white card was randomly stamped with the flowerhead in broken china distress ink and the same ink sponged round the edges.
For the second card I used the same technique, but stamped all over with the flowerhead and used two colours of blue brusho - one was turquoise again, and the second was cobalt blue, added generously until the paper was covered. This was cut down to fit the black A5 card blank. I stamped the flowerhead again with versamarkonto black card and used bright pink embossing powder, fussy cut it out and glued onto the background.
I never for a moment expected to use this pink powder, which was among some I inherited from a retiring WI demonstrator some time ago - it is actually a shocking pink colour, the photo shows it as more of a lilac

Tuesday 24 November 2015

November postcards

 The colour theme for November was claret - this was the darkest winey red I had (it looks more brown on the scan than it really is).
I used the swirl centre flowerhead, as I thought that it looked quite like a single chrysanthemum, whihc was the flower option.
For the first card, I tried an experiment using PVA glue after I had seen a Facebook post by Barbara Cleggett - it did work (eventually), but when I do it again I will use less PVA so it won't take 3 days to dry in the airing cupboard and I won't ink the stamp up first with black memento ink! The back of the dried-clear PVA was coloured with red promarker and mounted onto a torn piece of watercolour paper coloured with ost red Brusho powder and sprinkled with salt while it was wet. I added some  microbeads into the centre of the flower.The strip of mesh was added to brighten the whole thing up, as it looked a bit grungy.
                                                                                      apologies, the post was by Doreen Sympson, which would explain why I couldn't find it last night! Check out doreenscards.blogspot.co.uk - the link should take you to the right post.........Barbara's blog is still worth a look!
I went back to normal for the second attempt - didn't have time to try the PVA again!- using the same stamp in black onto ordinary card and sprinkled with the ost red and purple brusho, sprayed with a lot of water, fussy cut out and clear microbeads added to the centre with double sided adhesive (PVA did work, but was too lumpy and uneven even for me in a rush!) and coloured with red promarker.

Thursday 12 November 2015

it takes two....

Good morning everyone - welcome to my first post as a member of the Chocolate Baroque design team, I hope you will like what you see!
I was thrilled when Lesley invited me to join the ladies, and would be taking a larger size in hats if I ever wore them. I have loved the stamps since their first appearance under the Graphicus label, back in the olden days of wood mounted stamps - and yes, I am that ancient (though I prefer the recycled teenager label!)

My first set of stamps from Lesley was the flowerheads, BIG stamps already cling mounted and ready to use, they make very quick cards on their own - the Brusho powders too longer to dry than the rest of the cards did to make.
I decided to use my Brusho powders for the backgrounds, and my first card uses the Swirl Centre Flowerhead, stamped with versamark onto watercolour paper and clear embossed. After spraying with water Brusho powders in lemon and orange were sprinkled round the flower (using the dinky little spoons in the accessory pack, which will hopefully be back in stock at some point), sprayed again with water and then brushed out with a paintbrush to fill the flowerhead.
Cut down to fit a 6" square  black card blank, sentiment from Loving Sentiments was stamped in black Memento, and the mat layers are black and dull gold.


For the second card I used the same Brusho colours, but this time the Circle centre flowerhead was embossed with white EP to make it stand out a little more from the background. I also added some brown powder to the centre of the the flower, which made for a more vibrant colour as it spread out into the petals.
The 7" square white card blank just had an orange mat layer, and the sentiment this time is from Words of Comfort and Cheer, again stamped in black Memento ink.
I have really enjoyed playing with these stamps and the Brusho powders.