February postcards

 The challenge for this month over at Chocolate Baroque was either violets or the colour lilac - not having any violet stamps, that meant the colour again. I'm none too sure that these even vaguely class as lilac, but the ink pads were the nearest I had, and I'm sure I have seen lilac growing in different shades of purple - that's my excuse, anyway!
I was a bit stuck for ideas too, then came across one of the Paris sets of stamps, and thought that might go - city of romance etc and valentines day in February............
The top one was one of the first efforts, using a piece of brusho'd card , very roughly overstamped with a stamp from gothic fragments.  I used a stencil of Paris found at the recent Thetford papercraft show with dusty concord ink over that, then added the image of Notre Dame stamped in black versafine on white card, coloured with victorian velvet ink and cut out. I darkened the stencilled birds with black soot as I didn't think they stood out enough.
I felt that this was a bit on the dark side, so tried to get a lighter effect with later efforts.
The second one was sponged with victorian velvet ink first, then the same stamp from gothic fragments in milled lavender. . The stamp and stencil were again in dusty concord, which was also sponged around the images.