butterfly notecards

 Whilst sorting out stamps, I came across these DL stamps - cut out, mounted but never used............I vaguely remember seeing Glenda demonstrating the kiss technique with them on Create & Craft many years ago, and at the time they were a must have! Much to my surprise, they are still in the Chocolate Baroque listing, butterfly blush for the solid images and just butterflies for the matching linear images.
The challenge this week on Make my monday is watercolour, so I decided to christen these stamps by trying the kiss technique with water-based marker pens.
I chose the largest image from each set, and randomly coloured the base stamp with 3 or 4 different marker pens. The matching stamp was then sprayed with water and placed over the solid image and pressed firmly.
This image was then stamped onto small 4" square card blanks - being cautious, I wsn't too sure it would work, and didn't want to ruin a larger card!
The result was a watery mix of colours, and I was quite happy with the result even though the linear image didn't always show up too well.

 The cards on the right show both images stamped onto white card - and also where I haven't lined the two stamps up perfectly!

I now have a set of small note cards which will be very useful for those quick thank-you notes

spring birds

I had a quick play with the bird song stamps from Hobby Art this week and my brushos. Actually I started out making brusho backgrounds to use for the current Chocolate Baroque challenge, then got diverted, as you do!
(I do have some nice spare backgrounds though......)
I stamped the branches in versamark and embossed them in white EP , then painted the entire images with diluted white re-inker before colouring with Stampin Up marker pens - I was aiming for an apple blossom effect,  but it came out rather darker than I had intended.
Birds are stamped in black versafine, again coloured with markers, then cut out and glued in place on the branches - they also had a quick once-over with a clear wink of stella pen.
Cut down to 5"square, mounted on black card and then onto a 6" card blank.
I am linking this to the Make my Monday challenge,spring inspiration,  and also to the current Hobby Art challenge, wings

pretty poppies

 Both cards use a stamp from the Chocolate Baroque pretty poppies set as the main image.
The first one was inspired by a card Janet demoed at Moira's the other week - this one was a lot less heavy-handed with the brown ink though! Background is distress inks in vintage photo, broken china, barn door and bundled sage brushed on, sprayed with water and blotted. I stamped a stamp from lace fragments several times on the left and one from  butterfly poppy on the right and at the bottom , all in vintage photo. Once the inks were dry, I stamped the main image using archival black and coloured it with promarkers and karisma pencils before sponging more vintage photo round the edges. The stamped images on
the base card are using tea dye ink, and the image was matted onto black and copper card.

The second card inspiration came from a post on the CB design team blog by Miranda, and is very different from her elegant monochrome card . I stamped the same stamp again with versamark and white EP before brushing distress inks in tea dye, barn door, bundled sage and broken china over it, keeping roughly to the design for the colours. A quick wipe with kitchen roll to clean off the embossed image, and matting onto red and green card. The base card was stamped with a stamp from poppy meadow using tea dye inks, and more sponged round the edges finished it off.

I am entering these  in the Make my Monday challenge, distressing

make a background

I finished this card yesterday, and struck lucky today with the new
  Make my Monday challenge, which is to create a background. This is something that is quite addictive, and I often take longer making the background than the rest of the card - meanwhile  a pile of dsp paper remains relatively untouched..........
All the stamps used here are from Stampin up, and the card was originally created as a sample for a craft day with a local WI.
Background started out as white card, and I used almost all of the stamps from the Gently falling set of leafy stamps to create it. the stamps were all inked with marker pens so that I could have 2 or 2 colours on the one stamp easily and randomly stamped over the sheet. I used all the green markers I had, also 2 blues and a coral - the intention was to create an autumn background, but it came out more summery..................
The main image is the big swallowtail butterfly, just stamped with versamark and embossed with black EP

Victorian romance

Challenge 37 from Make my Monday is Victorian romance - quite a change to do cards that are different from my usual! Victorian to me is sepia tones, so that sorted out the colours, and the image was a download from Craft Stamper. I used a Glimmer Screen mask for the background - the first effort, I used glimmer spray, but that was too dark, so the second try had old paper DI sponged through the mask, which was much better. I cut the image out with an Xcut die and glued it into the centre of the frame shape in the middle of the mask. The lace was picked up from a local market stall and dyed with coffee (started out rather a stark white), and the flowers made from vanilla seam binding - several of my friends are probably glad to be sitting down at this point, as I don't usually use such stuff as ribbons and lace!
I came across a tutorial showing how to make ribbon flowers, and adapted it to use ruffled seam binding - took me ages blog hopping to find it again, but you need to look on Sarah-Jane's blog.
Leaves are punched from a scrap of leftover brown gold-embossed card, sentiment part of a stamp from the artistic affirmations set from Chocolate Baroque, inked with brown marker, punched out with a Stampin up punch and inked round the edges with tea dye DI

MMM romance

Make my Monday challenge theme is romance for this month, and this week we are asked for hearts and flowers, plus diecuts as an extra. I couldn't find a suitable heart stamp, so the hearts are on the background paper, which was a freebie from Glenda Waterworth. The various pink cards were chosen to go with the colour of this paper. The stamp is the harlequin rose from Chocolate Baroque, rose and scroll painted with H2Os, leaves and the script background with watercolour pencils. Flowers are from a Mariane die, centres are from an idea by Judith (large jump ring filled with seed beads and diamond glaze), and leaves from Tim Holtz die. The crochet trim is new from Stampin up.

valentine challenges

I am trying to cover several challenges with one hopefully male card here............
The base card is a 7.5"square in white (easier to use this than fiddle around with A4 card), with a 7" sq mat in a bronze shimmer card - no idea where it came from, other than at the Thetford papercraft show last year, but I love it. The retired script stamp from Stampin up was embossed in pirate gold onto early espresso card (I think, I will have to remember to leave the labels on the card in future!) and torn out. The main panel started out white - the bella toile stamp (also SU retired) was stamped in early espresso ink, then liberally spritzed with water until the colour ran, leaving greeny patches. Once dry, I sponged wild honey DI over the whole piece to hide any white patches, then sprayed it with glimmer mist in suede. Torn out again, edges embossed with more pirate gold EP. I stamped the same stamp again onto chocolate chip card, and tried embossing with cosmic shimmer ancient copper EP - this is an ultra thick powder, and I wasn't sure it would work, but it did - it also added a bit of shimmer to the whole card, as a bonus. I cut out 2 heart shapes from this piece, went round the edges with a versamark pen and more pirate gold powder. Sentiment from the SU just believe set was embossed in gold on a scrap of the chocolate card, over stamped with the script stamp in versamark, and brushed over with the cosmic shimmer EP - i left the versamark to dry too long, so the script doesn't show up, but the shimmer is there! I punched it out with a SU label pinch, went round the edges again with versamark and gold EP.
The challenges are Make my Monday - romance - love letters
                            Simply Stampin - heartfelt
                            Snazzy's DT challenge -love/romance

dragonfly tag

the challenge this week for CD Sunday is 'tag it', and I combined this with the Make my Monday challenge 'butterflies and dragonflies'. I had plenty of tags cut out to use for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag swap, so used one of these as the base of the card. The stamp is an ancient one from Aspects of Design, that hasn't been used for ages - actually, that will qualify it for Judith's Forgotten Friday too! - stamped in smoky grey versafine and clear embossed. It was then swooshed through distress inks splodged on my craft mat and spritzed with water - mostly tumbled glass and peeled paint, but there was some broken china in there too. I coloured the dragonflies with H2Os - practically all the blues and greens I had just splodged on fairly randomly. I distressed the edges of the tag, then sponged broken china round the edges to give it a bit of definition, added some fine ribbony bits that must have come from a mystery parcel at some point, as I  am not noted for buying ribbon., and stuck it at an angle onto a card covered with paper from the Artylicious Butterfly bliss cd - something else that hasn't been used for months. I did go round the edges of the paper first with some more broken china ink .
The butterfly from Chocolate Baroque was stamped onto white card with black versafine, clear embossed, then coloured with watercolour pencils before a quick spray with spray & sparkle in silver and cutting it out - I did chop off the antenna as it was just too fiddly to cut out!

Christmas roses

A simple card this week, this lovely image from Chocolate Baroque doesn't need anything else IMHO - and lack of time has nothing to do with it!  The image was stamped in black versafine and clear embossed before colouring  - the foliage with pencils, and the flowers with H2Os . I cut the image out and mounted it  with foam pads onto a piece of white card that had gone through a cuttlebug folder, and rounded the edges. The two smaller mats were a bit of paper from a bagful of bits I was given, torn and embossed round the edges with a mix of EPs ( black twinkle and golden ocean) , the second was a bit of core-denations  card that went through the same cuttlebug folder before being sanded back and the edges distressed. The main backing sheet was most of my last sheet of a greeny gold paper bought from a show ages ago - am hoping I can find some more this year!

This card is for 3 challenges - am not usually that lucky.....

52cct - theme 1 - flowers

make my Monday 33- flowers and leaves

moving along with the times 133 - blooming marvellous

MMM32

the new challenge at Make my Monday is to create a scene - I wanted to use tree stamps originally, but couldn't find the particular ones  I had wanted to use, and the ones I could find just weren't right -grr - that will teach me to put stamps away properly  (perhaps!).

In the end, I did my scene using distress inks and sponges - sky is tumbled glass, broken china, tattered rose, milled lavender and wild honey;. the land is shabby shutters and peeled paint, with a little bit of forest moss as shading. The foreground stamp was the large image from the SU set Just believe - I couldn't resist this set when I first saw it, but it has sat in the heap ever since without being touched until today - why is that stamps you just need when you see them can then sit there neglected once you get them home? Tjhis stamp didn't seem to like the distress ink, so I used the SU always artichoke pad and stamped it 3 times across the front of the card.

The finished scene was mounted onto matt silver, then onto a square blank cut down from A4 in always artichoke card - I may not use the few SU stamps I own much, but I love their card!

This card is also for Judith's Forgotten Friday - I don't usually get around to this one, but this definitely qualifies!

MMM31 -animals

A very last-minute card for Make My Monday challenge 31 - animals. I got this lovely Jayne Netley Mayhew stamp of a siamese cat from Joanna Sheen as part of a Christmas voucher spend, and had to try it out. Very simply stamped in black versafine onto white card, cut out with an Xcut die and inked round the edge with SU crumb cake ink while still in the die.The markings on the cat are also crumb cake, applied with a cotton bud, eyes coloured with promarker. The mat using the next size up die was SU baja breeze card, darkened with baja breeze ink. The DP was a digi download, from Lesley Wharton many moons ago -have just checked her blog, and it was May 2009 -doesn't time fly! Mats are crumb cake and baja breeze card, and the white edges of the base card were sponged with baja breeze, as the white was too harsh.

Christmas housemouse

Way back in the summer, I used part of a gift voucher to get a set of Christmas housemouse decoupage from the wobbly shelves- I used one image, carefully stashed the rest away - they surfaced last week, so I thought I ought to use some more! As luck would have it (it has to work sometimes!) , several challenge blogs all have themes that would fit these little meece, so this is for the last Bah Humbug of the year (cute critters), CD Sunday (things with whiskers), Make my Monday (seasonal glitter) and the new Joanna Sheen challenge (Christmas).

I spent a happy afternoon at the weekend watching tv and cutting out meeces, finally deciding to use this pic of two snoozing  meece. I matted it onto some green glitter card, added a bit of glitter to the snow on the roof, mounted it onto a square card over a square of snowflake paper from the Artylicious Seasons Greetings cd (from  Chocolate Baroque, there may still be some in stock). The snowflakes were from a Sizzix die, cut from white card (wouldn't you know I didn't have any white glitter card ?) then glittered with Art institute crystal glitter - I now have a glittered carpet as well after dropping the tidy tray I was using ............and will probably soon have a glittery cat, as there is bound to be some I missed still there.
Now to start using up the others I have cut out................

White Christmas

Glenda Waterworth has a White Christmas challenge until the middle of December - check out this post for details - the possible prize is well worth winning!                                                                                      I decided to do an all-white card, which believe me I regretted when trying to photograph it, though I was quite pleased with how it turned out.The base card is a pearl 8x8", the plain white layer was embossed with a snowflake folder (no name on it, and I can't remember where it came from ). The angel image from  the angel of light plate from Chocolate Baroque was embossed with white detail EP onto a pearly vellum, torn out and matted onto another torn piece of plain white card, which had the edges swiped with versamark and embossed with vanilla ice EP - I used pinflair glue gel to attach the layers, so they are ever so slightly raised up. the flowers were cut from a pearly paper using crealies dies - 2 with flower die no 1 and one with no 11 - leaves were an x-cut embossing punch. I sprayed the flowers with a homemade glimmery spray - isopropyl alcohol mixed with Tsukineko shimmery ink in frost white - and added a dab of stardust stickles in the centre of each.

I am also entering this into the Make my Monday challenge, which is for a Christmas card with foliage, flowers or snowflakes - I've got all 3 here!