**!!/ crackle!

 February's technique tags are more variations on the resist theme, with crackle effect and vaseline resist being the chosen variations.
The crackle recipe involved painting the tag with dilute PVA, overpainting with acrylic paint and blasting with a heat gun.
Now Margaret had some lovely crackly samples she sent with the instructions - did I get artistic crackles? NO - what I got looked like the tags had some dread alien disease! The top 3 scans are the best of them, full of bubbles and blotches, but I think they may possibly be rescuable eventually with an image glued on top.............

Number 4 worked beautifully, much to my amazement - then I ruined it by not checking the embossing powder carefully. I found that it was possible to stamp with versamark over the acrylic and emboss, but you needed a very heavy hand with the anti-static powder first. I used an ivy stamp from the christmas foliage plate, embossed first in distress EP weathered wood, then in an anonymous green EP from a box of donated EPs. That was fine so far, but the ivy didn't really show up, so I decided to fill-in the design with a versamark pen and add gold - only snag was I chose a cosmic shimmer from the same box , which turned out be very pale and practically invisible - that'll teach me to test strange EPs first on something else!
 I then risked using one of the better failures , and found that the bubbles didn't like being stamped over, although using the more solid version of the ivy stamp worked better, and the word stamp embossed well with a 'known' pirate gold EP.
 The final version was stamped using green stazon, which gave a much better effect, although the crackle isn't as good on this tag

technique tags- relief stamping

This year we have a new swap theme at Chocolate Baroque - back to tags, with a different technique featured each month. Relief stamping is the first theme, and I thought it would be a doddle - I remembered doing this many years ago, using versamark as a resist on glossy card, and  it always seemed to work fine................sadly, it didn't this year! I rapidly cam to the conclusion that the glossy card I had was definitely not the same, as the inks wiped off almost completely, leaving a VERY faint watermark image behind.
So I had to resort to the second way of doing this - versamark again, but clear embossing before adding the ink. I ended up with quite a collection of tags, and these two are the ones that are going in the post tomorrow. I cheated and scanned them together, apologies to anyone who wants to check up close for the mistakes!
Top tag uses my current favourite stamp set, tranquillity - well, it is my newest one!- and I stretched the relief theme a bit here. I stamped the buddha image using black versafine ink, then coloured it with promarkers. I then stamped the iris image using versamark, and went over the buddha with a versamark pen before dunking the whole tag in clear embossing powder and heating it. I then added the background using distress inks and brushes, and the wisteria stamp along the top in 3 different greens.
The second tag uses a very old  Elusive Images stamp of the lady together with an appropriate quote from artistic affirmations. I used the relief technique for the words, stamped the lady using baked brown sugar ink
 from Stampin up, then sponged the background with distress inks in scattered straw, tea dye, vintage photo  and black soot.
 It will be very interesting to see what everyone else comes up with ! Next month is crackle, which I haven't tried before.......................

tranquil (and craft club)

 This is the second card using the tranquillity set from Chocolate Baroque - I managed to get a better scan by playing with the settings, although it looks squiffy here it isn't, homestly! The background blossom was stamped using marker pens to colour the stamp, before inking round the edges with green distress inks. The buddha image was stamped first, coloured with promarkers, then covered with versamark ink using a pen and clear embossed before sponging the background around the figure with distress inks. I extended the background across the base card as well after first stamping, colouring and embossing the stone lantern.

 The other cards were from an afternoon playing with Moira and Janet over at Gissing. Moira was inspired by a design team card by Janet for Clarity Stamps, and thought up this version using the wild meadow stamps from Chocolate Baroque. I filled in the stem of the cow parsley stamp in black, which I decided was a mistake - didn't help when I found that the fine-liner pen was running out............small butterfly hides the biggest gap! I added the trees as it looked as if something was missing. The butterflies have got grape stickles added so they shimmer in the light, if not on the scan.
When I got home I decided to redo the card, with a darker sky and a more interesting background (and a green stem) and just one punched butterfly. I scanned both together, and just couldn't get both on straight, sorry.
The second card was supposed to have used some partridge stamps, which I just don't like - fortunately, I had a new stamp with me , the clear peony from Chocolate Baroque, which I hadn't really used - Barbara also used this for her card .It was stamped twice in grey memento ink, and coloured with a waterbrush and watercolour pencils - I was trying to get a very pale colour, and it ended up looking rather washed-out instead , so I hurriedly brushed some green ink round the edges to give it a bit of definition before mounting it behind the cut-out heart and then onto green card.

tranquillity? - maybe!

Got my new tranquillity stamps from Chocolate Baroque on Monday, and this is the result of my first sessions - apart from an overflowing rubbish bin that is!
I was surprised at how big the buddha image actually is, for some reason had expected it  to be smaller, no idea why............so the first snag was that it didn't fit a 6x6 card, at least the way I wanted it to go! I really wanted the buddha reflected in the water, and just couldn't get it right - hence the 20+ in the bin -I ended up using a  midnight muse Stampin up inkpad as my favourite versafine just wouldn't co-operate, I could get a lovely image on the brayer or acetate block, but would it transfer to the card? no.
Anyhow, once I'd got something approaching lined up. I coloured the image with derwent watercolour pencils and distress ink pads, the iris was coloured with promarkers. Base 8x8 card was coloured with distress inks, aiming for a watery effect - wisteria stamped in distress ink, iris in verafine and promarkers again. Not really happy with the face, but going to use more stony colours for the whole image next time -and yes, i do have a decent image waiting to be coloured!

December quintiles

In even more of a rush than usual this month - why is it that Christmas always seems to suddenly leap out at you?
I did two different ones, as I thought that 2 with the huge  baubles background stamp would be cheating a bit, even if I did colour them in differently............ and to be honest. sponging skies in is far quicker than colouring baubles!
I did add some glitter to the reindeer from the old Christmas fusion set of stamps, and the buildings are from the town houses set randomly stamped along the bottom and coloured in with markers.

sporty masks

 Saturday was the last Clarity East workshop of the year, and Janet had chosen a stencil and sports stamps as the base of the day. . The top card is the first one we did, brushing distress inks over the stencil then stamping into the spaces. We used the full size of the stencil, 7x7", which was mounted onto green card in my case then onto an 8x8" card base.
As a change from masculine cards, we made the thank you card using the same stencil, embossed onto linen card before inking through the stencil in rather more feminine colours this time. The stencil was just cut into 2 strips about 4x11 cms, mounted onto toning card and then onto a 7x7" base card which I brushed with lilac inks first, the word panel was stamped in purple archival ink on colour-brushed card to match the stencilled pieces, then covered with versamark and clear embossed.
In the afternoon we went back to masculine cards, and made the golf card, using post-it note masks for the figures. I even did the wavy lines round the figures like I was supposed to..................think Janet is still suffering from shock!
I always have white card with me, knowing that I seem to work faster than everyone else, so I got 2 alternative designs done to finish off later - very useful, as I couldn't decide which sport I was going to use!
 It was  a lovely day, and we even had a raffle as Barbara had kindly sent Janet some goodies, and Iwon a set of stamps - sketched lady, Eiffel tower and a very nice corner stamp - now I need the Paris skyline mask to go with them.

November quintiles

 As you may have expected, the theme for November was fireworks - sounds simple - and obvious- but finding any Choc Baroque stamps that fitted it wasn't easy.  I was beginning to think I would be reduced to splodging colour on randomly when I thought of the wild meadow stamp set, which includes this stamp- can never remember what plant it is though!
Anyhow, I just used the flower head, and stamped it twice in versamark onto dark blue card then added random embossing powders - they all came from a box of powders I was given, and I used the most lurid ones, the photo doesn't really do justice to the bright pink, orange and purple  (perhaps thankfully!). I added splodges of holographic powder using a versamark pen around the flower heads to try to create a glow around the main colours.
The diecut houses are from a Tim Holtz die, cut in black card.