new stuff!

 Had a quick play with some new stamps from Chocolate Baroque - not really brand new, but new to me! Also had to try out the Spectrum Noir pencils that I just had to get after trying out one of Janet's set at the last Clarity East workshop.........there's just too much temptation around these days, leaving aside the question of the really new CB stamps, like the luscious orchid............
Anyway, I started out with the fountain scene stamp, versafine black ink  and a spare piece of brusho'd card - luckily the trees came out onto a greener bit of card, purely accidentally!
I bleached the fountain out, and tried the bleach on the dome and top storey of the building, but the blue resisted the bleach.
I did manage to get a bronze effect on the dome using the pencils. The trees and edge of the fountain were also coloured, and the colour under the arch was deepened as well.
Matted onto dull silver, then onto blue card stamped with one of the stamps from gothic fragments in versamark and clear embossed. Actual card blank is  5"x 7".
I am linking this to the current Addicted to stamps challenge, which happily is anything goes.

The second stamp was the February year of stamping image, tulips, just right for really trying out the pencils. Not wanting to go too mad, I just got one set of pencils to really try out, and have to say that they do work well so far, haven't tried anything really fancy with them yet. Downside is that one set really limits the colour choices - really prefer the better mix of shades in my watercolour pencil sets!
The white tulips had a coating of clear wink of stella , and greeting came from a magazine freebie stamp set. this is a 6"x 6" card blank.

potpourri daisies

 The April challenge for Chocolate Baroque postcard potpourri was to use daisies, and/or cayenne red.
I wasn't too sure just what shade cayenne was, and was pretty sure I didn't have any card or ink that  came anywhere near what I thought it ought to be - so daisies it was.
I was using the daisy butterfly set of stamps, and had intended just using the main image ..........after ending up with a binful of ruined card, I gave up and went with one of the other stamps, which worked beautifully first time.
Think I was trying to be too clever - and failing miserably!

Still, I now know that masking fluid works beautifully on water colour card, and is a total disaster on smooth stamping card - and that my watercolour card is another disaster zone as far as trying to get a decent stamped image on it was concerned. (and yes, I now have a smoother watercolour card that I hope will work ok)
The first one was stamped in versafine, background was brusho ink - daisies were bleached out before colouring with pencils. Butterflies coloured with marker pens, and the second one hides the daisy that just wouldn't bleach out!
The smaller image on the second postcard was stamped with versamark and gold embossed onto card coloured with brusho ink and a lot of water. Daisies bleached out and coloured with pencils again. I needed something to fill in the big hole on the left, the butterfly looked too lonely there on it's own, so used the tree stamp from teeny tiny meadow set, traditional torn paper and a sponge with color box chalk in in amber clay to make the scene.

chocolate baroque challenge

 Very last-minute entry for the current Chocolate Baroque colour challenge !
Brusho backgrounds, poppy stamp stamped with versamark and white EP for both cards.
Lesley's pretty download for the backing paper on both.
The one on the left, i painted the whole image with diluted white reinker and left it to dry overnight before colouring with marker pens and a waterbrush. I couldn't get the darkness i really wanted in the centre of the poppy, so had another go, this time using an ancient box of Karisma pencils to colour the image, no reinkers on this one.






The colour is more what I wanted, but the blending is rubbish - and guess what, i couldn't find any blending fluid to try to improve it either!

swing card

This is the swing card I made this afternoon at Gissing with Moira Walters - had to scan it as not enough light to even try to take a decent photo.
All the stamps used are from the forest friends set by  Hobby Art, owls coloured with Stampin Up markers and the rest with distress inks and a sponge. The dies used were spellbinders. The owl in front was stamped on a separate piece of card and cut out before gluing onto the card.

This is the inside of the card laid out flat

 have added photos of open card

spring birds

I had a quick play with the bird song stamps from Hobby Art this week and my brushos. Actually I started out making brusho backgrounds to use for the current Chocolate Baroque challenge, then got diverted, as you do!
(I do have some nice spare backgrounds though......)
I stamped the branches in versamark and embossed them in white EP , then painted the entire images with diluted white re-inker before colouring with Stampin Up marker pens - I was aiming for an apple blossom effect,  but it came out rather darker than I had intended.
Birds are stamped in black versafine, again coloured with markers, then cut out and glued in place on the branches - they also had a quick once-over with a clear wink of stella pen.
Cut down to 5"square, mounted on black card and then onto a 6" card blank.
I am linking this to the Make my Monday challenge,spring inspiration,  and also to the current Hobby Art challenge, wings