pastel steampunk

 This was a bit of a mad idea (for me, anyway!) - a heart-shaped hanger I found in my local craft store. I painted it with white gesso first, the brushed the edges with emulsion paint, using a couple of those little tester pots - mine even came with a brush included.  I used mineral mist and gentle lavender, as I thought I would try pretty steampunk instead of grungy.
Once the paint was dry, I used the studded lattice stamp and a grey ink to stamp the background, then added the small butterflies from steampunk butterfly in dark blue ink. I stamped the butterflies again, once onto a sticky label and once onto card, and fussy cut them out.
The sticky label one went on the top butterfly, the card one on the lower one. A lavender ribbon replaced the string hanging loop to finish.

The Country Market that I bake for is held at a local ex-servicemen's club, and they have far more beer mats than they can use from the breweries, and I was given a whole pack of them. So four got transformed into posher coasters.
White gesso again, then the blue and lavender paints as before, but this time the background was stamped using the cogs stamp. The butterfly was stamped onto the mat again, then again onto sticky labels, fussy cut out and glued over the original image - this way you have the antenna from the original stamping and don't need to try to cut them out. I found that the very textured surface of the mat didn't lend itself to a detailed stamp like the butterfly, and sticky labels were a much better solution.
I glued felt over the back of the mats to hide the original advert - not too sure how well they will stand up to use, suspect they will really need a coat of a matt varnish to last at all, will find out over Christmas!

thanks for reading, and have a very happy Christmas with lots of crafty goodies

steampunk rose box

I had a spare image of the steampunk rose that had been stamped into paper clay from when I was working on a sample for the recent TV show on the Craft Channel, and found that it just fit onto this small square box lid. Red, black and white just seemed to fit it, so I got out the paints.
The original box was kraft coloured, so a couple of thin layers of black acylic paint on the lid, and red on the base to start with.
The lid then had a coat of crackle medium,, then a thin coat of white acrylic once that was dry. I was hoping for small crackles, and was lucky this time. I coloured the rose with alcohol markers, then cut them out and glued them onto the lid.
I stamped the cog stamp onto the sides of the lid using versamark and a red EP - I inked the stamp up, put it face up on the desk and then pressed the lid onto the stamp.

The base looked a bit plain, so I added the same stamp to the sides of the base, this time using black versafine and clear embossing.

December postcards

A very quick post - these are my December postcards for the Chocolate Baroque postcard potpourri swap. The themes this month were poinsettia and/or dark blue, and for once I have used both.
The candle is from the Christmas angel of light set and the poinsettia from holly bells set. Both stamped using versamark , candle with a sparkly gold EP and pearlescent paints, ponsettia with a pearl green EP and glitter glue on the top layer.

candle and box

Loving the new background stamps, this one is called baroque orchids and reminds me of brocade, and it seems  a shame to cover any of it up!

Recently I finally managed to get a candle that looked ok when finished – previously they have looked decidedly the worse for wear and rather mis-shapen. Using baking parchment wrapped tightly round when heating the tissue paper onto the candle makes all the difference! Pushing my luck, I thought that I would have a go with this stamp and my last remaining candle.......

I stamped with black memento ink on to what I thought was white tissue paper (reminder, don’t choose your tissue paper by artificial light next time!) then cut out around the image to make a strip to fit the candle, which was too short for the whole image.  I tightly wrapped the candle with the baking parchment, and held it by this while heating gently – I still have a very old hairdryer type heat gun, which has a more gentle heat than the newer guns.

Those who saw the fab shows at the weekend with Lesley on the Craft Channel will notice that the image is actually upside down - it was a bit late by the time I realised this, so I carefully made sure that the image on the box lid was the same way up as on the candle when I took the photo...in my defence, I think it works any way up!

 The box was painted with black acrylic paint, and I smudged the corners with versamark and copper EP to make it a bit more interesting. The image for the lid was stamped in versamark onto black card, embossed with copper EP, cut to size and glued down.

Finishing touch was the tissue paper, black paper  randomly stamped using a copper pigment ink pad.

Fortunately my daughter doesn't have time to read my blog, as this is part of her Christmas present!

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

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.

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.