baroque ornaments and PVA

I remembered seeing a card on FB by Doreen Sympson last year that used a technique with PVA on stamps - I did try it, but wasn't too happy with the result at the time.
I decided to try again, but this time I used very cheap PVA instead of the decent stuff, and was much happier with the results. The first efforts with decent glue were too thick, the cheap stuff gave a much thinner result - drawback is that the glue itself is much runnier.
Basically, lay the stamp face upwards, and cover with PVA glue - you need enough to cover the image, but not enough to give a thick coat. It's a fine line between enough to hold together when you peel it off but not enough to spill over the edges of the stamp (if it does spill over, it is ok, just awkward getting it off everything, as you can almost guarantee that it will spread under the stamp)

I sprinkled brusho powders over the glue as well, and left them to spread.

Once the glue is dry - it will take several hours, I left mine overnight - carefully peel off from the stamp and trim if necessary. Two of my pieces were trimmed down considerably because the edges weren't thick enough to hold together when I peeled the set glue off the stamp -still, they made nice flowers!

 I added some silver rub-on wax to highlight the design, stamped the leaves and sentiment from the bold blooms set and added my PVA pieces. the smaller flowers use the palm fan baroque ornament, the larger is the teardrop baroque ornament.


A spare piece using the teardrop ornament went onto the cover of a small notebook, with a piece of leftover brusho card as background

CB colour challenge samples

 The current challenge colours are really vibrant, a definite change from the damp grey weather at the moment!

My first card uses my favourite Brusho powders and the lovely palm fan baroque ornament stamp.The stamp was stamped towards the corner of a sheet of watercolour paper, using black versafine and clear embossing powder.
I used brushos in purple, ost red and yellow randomly over the whole piece of card, but making sure that there was yellow and red on the image.
I used the purple and red as a paint to highlight the edges of the stamp and the centre to give a bit more definition to the image.
I cut round part of the image, then trimmed the rest of the card to fit onto a 15cm square white card blank - a bit fiddly, but just one layer to glue down



The second card used the same colours after first embossing the lovely big image from let your heart sing - an old stamp set, but still one of my favourites, and just perfect for these colours.
I trimmed the image right down and added a narrow mat of glossy black card.
Two pieces of left over card made the side panels with similar black mats.
Base card is 20cm square white card blank - made quite a change from my usual dl card using this stamp.

palm fan 2

 I felt that I ought to use up some of the brusho backgrounds that were left over from my previous post, so I cut them into strips first.
Having chosen 3 strips that went together, I trimmed them down, added streamer edges to the bottom, and glued them onto a 14cm sqaure white card. This was matted onto a matching turquoise card and then offset onto a 20cm square white card blank.
A separate piece of card in darker tones was used to stamp and emboss the palm fan baroque ornament, which was cut out and added with foam pads

The second card was a bit of a wild idea at 3am one morning , not too sure whether it counts as a dream or a nightmare though!
I had some stamped images on brusho backgrounds that didn't really work, so this was a chance to use them.
A plain brusho background using leaf green and turquoise cut down to 14cm and matted onto black card. Words are from words of inspiration, stamped with black versafine.
I cut out the centre fans from the palm fan baraoque ornament, and the outer flowery edges from the teardrop baroque ornament and glued them down to vaguely represent flowers.
Base white card blank is 15cm square.

palm fan and brushos

 There are some lovely new versions of mandala stamps out from Chocolate Baroque, and I have been playing with the palm fan stamp this week.
As you would expect, brushos came out again!

The first card I stamped several times onto a sheet of white card with versamark and white embossed - my versamark pads are all varying shades of grey, which is why the white powder!
I also stamped onto a spare bit of card and used black embossing powder this time.
Both pieces of card were sprinkled with tuerquoise and lime brusho powders and spritzed with water, rathe more heavily for the background piece.
Once dry. the background was cut down to fit onto a 6"square white card blank, with a dark turquoise mat. The separate image was cut out and mounted with sticky pads to give a bit of dimension.

For the second card I used much the same technique, but only one piece of card, stamping the image first in black versafine and clear embossing, then stamping around it and white embossing these. Brtusho powders this time were lemon, orange and ost red, with more of the red and orange over the black image.
I added black marker pen to the outer edges of the image to make it stand out a bit more, then cut it down to fit the same size blank, this time with a black mat.

tv sample

This was shown on the recent mixed media show with Chocolate Baroque for the Crtaft Channel - keep an eye out for repeats, some very tempting stuff on there......really loved the paints, but am trying to resist spending at the moment....

This was a small canvas from a well-known poundstore, which was claimed to be ready primed - but if it was, they hadn't used much primer! Still, I took them at their word, and tried brushos as a background colour. It sank into the canvas with great speed, but after several layers I did eventually get a colour I was satisfied with.
I added some grunge paste through a stencil, then more brusho, and stamped an image from gothic fragments in archival black, which faded to a lovely pale grey on the canvas.
The small images from the mini curiosities set  (only as a multibuy on the CB site, can be bought individually via The Craft Channel though) were stamped onto stampboard using versafine black, edges coloured with distress inks.

four seasons

 I recently acquired a heap of oblong beer mats, a size and shape that were completely new to me but ideal to stamp the tree from the Chocolate Baroque Spinney design-a-tree stamp set.

It took several coats of white gesso to hide the printing before I could decorate them, so it would probably have been easier - maybe not cheaper - to buy some greyboard or MDF shapes!

I used brusho powders as a background, they came out pastelly as the colour soaked into the gesso, but I added a little more after the first layer dried to intensify the colour in places.

The basic tree was stamped with black versafine ink, and then the mini  stamps from the set were used to create the foliage.

The foliage was stamped using a mixture of distress and pigment inks to hide most of the branches, varying the colours according to the season. Mostly greens, white and pink for spring; a mix of various greens for summer, and finally greens, oranges and reds for autumn. The winter tree was left bare.

I used some more of the green brusho to make a base for the trees, and used a black pen to extend the stamp to the edge of the shapes.

The finished trees were added to a 10"x8" canvas board, originally also coloured with blue and green brushos, then stencilled with grunge paste, more brusho added to deepen the colour, and finally some wax rubbed round the edges.

I hadn't tried anything on this scale before, and was quite pleased with the result.

I am linking this to the new challenge on
 Make my Monday, which is 'in the garden', though I may be stretching a point with a mini orchard!

Spinney tree

 Sample cards for the recent brusho show on the Craft Channel with the lovely Lesley Wharton - a rather surreal experience seeing your cards on tv!
Both made using the spinney design-a -tree stamp, with the quote from words of inspiration.
I used a sheet of A4 watercolour card, stamped the tree in black versafine ink and clear embossed it before sprinkling the brusho onto dry card - same for both cards, with the words stamped onto a cut-off piece.

The first one used leaf green and turquoise powders, with a tiny bit of orange. Most of the green was sprinkled over the tree to create the foliage, and the hope was that that I would get a landscape effect as the colour spread after spritzing with water. If you have enough imagination, there are sort of hills there!


For this one, I was trying to create autumn colours by adding red to the tree.
I cheated a bit by spreading the green round the tree with a clean paintbrush, and added a tiny bit more green powder at the base of the tree using the very tip of the paintbrush dipped into the powder.

The dried card was cut down to fit onto a 6"x6" square black card blank for both cards.