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!

black/white/red

The challenge on 52cct. this week was a colour one, use black and white, with a splash of red. Took me a while to come up with this one, until clearing the desk revealed this old SU santa stamp  at the very back, unused since it arrived a while ago as part of an assortment of stamps from ebay.
Base card is a black square cut down from A4, and the embossed backing panels are using a snowflake die, I think an old quickcutz one. The black panel was swiped with a white ink pad after embossing, then sprayed with crafters companion silver spray - the white panel was just torn, edged with versamark and vanilla ice EP. The top note die was cut from the same black card as the base, spritzed with the silver spray, edged with versamark and vanilla ice EP again. The santa image was stamped in black versafine, red is poppy promarker, cut using an xcut die - the red layer uses the next size die from the same set, just twisted round.
This card also fits the simply stampin challenge I found a link to somewhere in blogland

alphatags

 These are my first 2 tags for the Chocolate Baroque Guild alphatags swap - 26 tags over a year to make a tag book eventually, usually 2 or 3 tags each month; hopefully I shall be able to keep up!
Paula has already blogged her first tag, which reminded me that I needed to photo mine and get them in the post, so a blog post while my memory is working!
The tags are cut using the Tim Holtz large tag die from Sizzix (had  a little trouble tracking this down at a reasonable price, but managed to find it in the end). I used TH masks bought ages ago for the letters, with chipped sapphire ink to outline them, and all the stamps are Chocolate Baroque. 
The angel tag uses the angel of light stamp - base layer embossed in gold on white card, halo painted with gold H2O,mounted onto backing paper from the Artylicious Seasons greeting cd (also from CB). Stamped again in black versafine onto white card, coloured with watercolour pencils, with clear glitter on the flowers.  I stamped the bottom layer of the wings in white onto vellum, then again in white onto some ancient fusible film - both wing layers were cut out and decoupaged onto the white layer.

The blue butterfly has a background using several flower/foliage stamps mostly from the wild meadow plate stamped with the chipped sapphire DI - the carnation stamp was stamped several times, then sprayed with water to blur the image. Once it was dry, the same stamp was repeated over the blurs using night of navy ink from SU , and the foliage stamps added to fill the gaps. The butterfly was stamped twice in black versafine and clear embossed before painting with H2Os, with the top layer decoupaged over the base layer.
Flowers were cut using the TH tattered florals die and a drinks coaster - the tissue layers were separated out, scrunched up and fasted with a brad before liberally spraying with glimmer mists and scrunching up again before being left to dry. Leaves from the matching tattered leaves die cut in blue card, edges roughly inked in the navy. The edges were distressed, and embossed with a mix of EP remnants in blues and sparkly black.
They have both ended up quite dimensional,  but the flowers are quite soft and ended up relatively flat, so hopefully they will be ok!
I have replaced the original photos with scans, which are far better!

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.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone, hope that yours will  be  all you could wish!
Bah humbug was my salvation last year - I actually ended up with a few spare cards, almost unheard-of before, although I have to admit to buying some charity ones for general use. Unfortunately for me, Ann and Max have decided to have a well-deserved break - then (thanks to Val) I discovered a similar new blog here, so I shall still have something to push me into making Christmas cards...............
Anyhow, this was using up one of the housemouse images I had already cut out but not used -  otherwise I would only lose the bits! I thought that this would also make a nice New Year card. Very simply matted onto green and gold, then onto a card blank covered with holly paper from the Artylicious Seasons greetings cd (from Chocolate Baroque)- and a new year resolution is to buy a new blade for the paper trimmer, as the current one seems to be catching................