bliss and lace

 Having just collected my new punch from Stampin up, I just had to have a play! The challenge at Simplystampin this week is lace - and the punch is the lace ribbon one, so it just fitted - I also used some of my new card, this colour is wisteria wonder.
The stmap set I used is an old one,  (bliss) but I like the scrolly main image, and also the butterflies. I dug around in my old boxes of stampin spots, and found 2 inks that sort-of matched, almost amethyst and lovely lilac and stamped the image onto white card.
The first card the ink used was the almost amethyst, and the image was cut out with an Xcut die. I was warned that the punch does not like paper, but I had to try it anyway, as I wanted to pleat it round the edge of the oval, and card would be too thick. Surprisingly, I managed to cut a long strip (obviously a fluke, as it has steadfastly refused to cut paper since), which I cut in half lengthways and pleated onto the back of the oval using extra sticky dst. This  took quite a time to do, and I ended up with very sticky fingers, but I did like the effect. This was just mounted onto the base card and the butterflies were added - theywere stamped in the lilac, the second stamping gave the fainter image.

As I ended up with spare bits, I made a second card. This time the image was stamped with the lilac ink, and was originally cut out using the top note die - then I decided it was too large, so I turned it round on the die, lined the centre points up and recut it to give a fancy square shape. The ribbon was punched in card this time (and it really does work much better!) and stuck to the left of the card blank. Butterflies were stamped in amethyst, and one also inked round the edges with the lilac ink and stamped twice.

52cct -angel

52cct have an angel theme this week - and this is mine. I felt that I ought to use a different angel this time, and this lovely old one is from Stampendous.
When craft club met last Sunday, Moira showed us a background technique she had seen Sheena Douglas demonstrate on C&C, which basically involved splodging random colours of H2)s across paper , and we made a poppy card usiing it. I felt that it would make a good base for the angel, and duly splodged a sheet of A4 with various blues, greens and golds. The angel was stamped with versafine black on one half, and clear embossed, and the other half was put through a snowflake design embossing folder.The two pieces were then simply trimmed and  layered with silver mirri card onto a white card base.
The second card is the poppy one from Sunday, with a much darker background, with several splatters of paint - poppy stamp from Stamp in the Hand was embossed with a copper EP and layered with gold mirri and brown card.
am also linking this to Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge, as the angel hasn't seen the light of day for about a year!
Having just played around a bit with the settings, I found that I had some new followers - welcome, and thank you for taking the trouble to sign up, and I hope you continue to find it interesting

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.

holly

I came across this holly stamp from Elusive Images (available from Chocolate Baroque) whilst looking for something else, and it was ideal for the colour challenge 2 to use red,green and gold from 52cct.
the base card is A5, and the red is fairly accurate on the scan - but the next layer is actually a pale dull gold, not the orange it has scanned as! This layer was slightly smaller than A5 to start with, and I cut both short edges using the Tim Holtz on the edge snowflake die.
 The stamped image in black versafine was coloured with H2Os, and a very pale green wash added to the background to tone down the harsh white of the card. The matting layers for the stamped image are a brighter shinier gold and green, with the corners rounded on all the layers.
One for Judith's Forgotten Friday as well, as the holly stamp hasn't been used for over a year.

CHNC angel

I haven't got around to doing this challenge for ages, but this week the theme just happened to fit a card in progress - to use an angel or fairy. This is another all-white card, using my current favourite angel of light from Chocolate Baroque, but seriously blinged up as an experiment!
The angel was stamped on vellum and embossed with detail white EP. the matting layers start with crumpled white tisue paper printed with silvery dots that came from a wrapped present, then a white pealescent layer that was embossed with snowflakes, then a plain white layer under the angel., all on a white square card blank. Apart from the tissue paper, they were all torn out and embossed round the edges with a white puff sprinkle Wow EP. the flowers were cut from pearlescent card  with a crealies die, leaves from an EK punch with a scrap of white glitter card. I added gems to the angel's halo, flowers in her hair and to the centres of the diecut flowers. On reflection, the gems on the angel are too large, but were the smallest I had at the time.

alphatags 2

 This month at the Chocolate Baroque Guild tag swap, we have to do C and D. C was easy, I have the very little-used chess set of stamps, but I had quite a list for D, and in the end went with dragon, simply because I had the stamps out for something else (yea, I know, lazy, that's me).
C tag
I stamped the main image onto a white tag using versafine smokey grey ink, which was also sponged round the edges of the tag, with a little blue creeping in in places to brighten it up a bit. The letter is a Tim Holtz mask again. The king and queen pieces were stamped in black versafine onto white card, cut out and covered with glossy accents - I didn't get a very even coating, but decided I quite liked the bubble effect anyway compared to the crackle finish I tried as well. this time I added white and grey ribbons to the tag.

D tag
I stamped the dragon  in black versafine onto another white tag, then onto post-its and cut out a mask for him. The letter d was from the Tim Holtz set of masks again. Once the maks were in place, I  used adirondack paint dabber in snow cap randomly across the tag, then sponged over the whole tag with distress inks - mainly tumbled glass and victorian velvet I think. Once everything was dry, I took the masks off and painted the dragon with H2O paints, the wispy ribbons were from a mystery stash box 

My two swap tags were these two, A from Paula and B from Kirsten- thanks ladies!
Now I have to decide what to do with my tags , in the meantime they are safely held by a book ring.

52cct sketch - sort of!

52cct have a sketch challenge this week - we were told we could change it, so I turned it on the side, moved the'sentiment' across the card, then changed it to a strip of foliage............this may be a bit too much change, but never mind, at least this week I finished the card before the deadline! The main stamp is from the Christmas foliage plate from Chocolate Baroque, stamped on white card with chipped sapphire DI, clear embossed, then the flowers coloured using the DI ink and a water brush, then I went over them with a clear star jellyroll pen. I cut the image down rounded the corners, and added small black gems to the centres of the flowers and snowflakes. I had intended to use some embossed acetate as the back panel, but I didn't have the right colour card to show it up (well, am sure I do have, but I put the pack in a safe place - fatal!), so that got saved for another day. I did have a bit of DP and some card that almost matched it, so used that instead, with chipped sapphire sponged round the edges, and the edges of the base card. The strip of ivy foliage is also from the same set of stamps, again stamped with DI and clear embossed, painted, the the jellyroll pen and a white pen round the edges of the leaves.
Now if I order some more blue card tomorrow, hopefully the original pack will magically appear..............

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!