August postcards

 The August theme for the Chocolate Baroque postcard potpourri swap was either gladiolus or poppy or orange.
My problem this month was that I have a LOT of poppy stamps, and was therefore faced with the problem of which one to use! I thought I was being very sneaky deciding to use a patchwork layout, where I could cram in as many poppy stamps as I could easily lay my hands on............what I hadn't though of was how long it would take to do!
I ended up with 2 versions, one with the hexagons just masked off and stamped and the second with them cut out and separated by a border from each other.
Images stamped with versafine in both, coloured with pencils and distress ink smudged round the edges of the hexagons.
I am blaming all this work on my friend who showed me her stunning patchwork and quilted wall hangings, but on the other hand I owe her thanks for the inspiration......

Christmas starts here..........

Yesterday was the regular monthly get-together at Gissing - due to holidays, it was definitely a case of quality over quantity, and the four of us did rather rattle around in the hall! It did mean that we got a whole table each to spread our stuff out, and we had a very pleasant time drinking coffee, eating cake and even doing some stamping!
Moira brought her new Christmas stamps from Hobby Art for us to play with - it didn't feel quite right making Christmas cards on a hot sunny day, but we managed. After last month's Clarity workshop, I now have 5 cards, which is already way more than at this time last year...........
I stamped the large greeting using Memento white ink onto black card, trimmed it down and added glitter with a glue pen. It was mounted onto silver card, which doesn't show up in the scan, then onto a base stamped using snowflakes and distress ink in broken china, milled lavender and iced spruce. Those colours didn't quite work out, so a quick sponge round the edges with more broken china to do a rescue job before mounting the panel on top.


The smaller Noel stamp from the same set as the first stamp was stamped in black versafine and coloured with watercolour pencils, as was the bird from the same set. Background card was randomly stamped with the holly swirl from the penguin set from last year, which was also coloured with pencils before more sponging with broken china.Another silver matt - I have managed to cut a bit off the left hand edge of this card scanning it, the topper is actually central!








The last card used the new Father Christmas stamp, this time coloured with distress inks, and a lot of glitter over the furry bits. Another snowflake background, this time stamped using a  multicoloured ink pad in blues and purples.
A silver matt again, and a diecut snowflake also in silver to finish him off (Memory Box die).

July postcards

quick post to add July postcards for the Chocolate Baroque postcard potpourri swap - I was even later than usual sending these off, but at least I did remember to scan them first!
This months themes were larkspur or waterlily and/or coral.
I completely forgot that I did have some small modern waterlily stamps, but did remember having the waterlily mandala  dating back to the days of Graphicus (showing my age here!) and I could even find them.........and, wonder of wonders, the set is still available!..The smaller image was stamped in versamark across a piece of coral card, larger image stamped in black versafine onto white card, coloured with promarkers and fussy cut out.

I have to admit that this was the fall-back option, after failing to make my not-so-brilliant other ideas work!
The only usable one of these was this one - image from the fancy flowers  set was stamped in black versafine and clear embossed onto watercolour paper, then sprinkled with orange and green brusho powders and heavily spritzed with water. Once it was dry, I added more orange in the centre of the flower and spritzed it again. Tore it out, then simply glued it onto a piece of the orange card.
The August theme is poppies - only problem here will be deciding which stamps to use, I have a LOT of poppy stamps - think there may well have to  be a patchwork theme here.......