fantasy castles

For my last post this month here are two cards using one of the stamps from fantasy castles, along with my favourite brusho powders.

They are both very simple cards, with the brusho background done first, then the image stamped using black versafine ink over a suitable part of  the background. I used A4 sheets of card for the backgrounds, and trimmed them down after stamping the castle -the spare unused bits always come in handy for other projects, so they are not wasted.

I used Lesley's brusho technique to colour in the trees and the domes - sprinkle the powder in the area you want to colour, then use a wet paintbrush with clean water to add the colour where you want it - brilliant for the trees, as you get all the different greens, and you just shake off any excess powder.
On the first card, I added an extra tree by stamping the tree on the left of the image again on the right, and on thesecond card I sponged hickory smoke distress ink through a stencil to create a foreground.

challenge butterfly

Patchwork butterfly for Chocolate Baroque colour challenge 35 - sadly this will be the last of the monthly colour challenges.

I found a box of elderly glimmer mist sprays recently, and surprisingly some still worked, luckily including purples and greens.... I sprayed an A4 piece of white card with two of each colour, then cut it down to 6.5" square, choosing the bit with the least blobs on it.I stamped the lovely Irish blessing and the large butterfly from patchwork butterfly and embossd with gold EP.

I had previously  brushed mica powder over the butterfly stamp for an earlier project, and there was still some mica left on the stamp,so I covered it with pearl soft form relief paste and left it to dry.
The result was very pastelly, and too pale, so I rubbed some very elderly wax over the raised areas before gluing it over the stamped butterfly image - I thought he would look better with his antenna!
The base card is white 7" square.

fantasy scene

The second of my samples for the shows last month uses one of the lovely images from the fantasy castles set of stamps - I have to admit these were far more my scene than the fairies!

This started out as playing with borrowed distress oxide ink pads on white card, without any idea where I was going, other than trying them out. Looking for inspiration later,  I thought that the palace stamp would fit here as it looked as if it was on a shore, and I already had a watery effect at the base of my very rough landscape, and the strange colour sky fitted the fantasy theme.
 I stamped it with black versafine and clear embossed it before adding colour with brusho powders and watercolour pencils. The palace was stamped onto acetate with the versafine, turned over and  matched up with the original, rubbed firmly to transfer the image onto the watery area. It didn't transfer cleanly, but that didn't matter.
I added foliage from the tranquility stamp set using first and second generation stamping to frame the scene and give an impression of depth - it also toned down the rather bright sky!

blue roses

This was my sample card for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge 34- have to admit I cheated a bit with the colours though, as it doesn't have any brown in it!
I used the lovely big floribunda net rose stamp, stamped in black versafine ink and clear embossed. I masked off the blooms and leaves with masking fluid before sprinkling brusho powders over the card and spritzing with water. I think I only used rose and sandstone, but could be wrong there......
Once everything was dry, I rubbed off the masking fluid and coloured with watercolour pencils before mounting on black and dull gold card and then onto a 7"sqaure white card blank.
You still have until 16th may to enter for this challenge, the link is here

dreaming skies

 If you saw Lesley and Chocolate Baroque on Hochanda last month, you would have seen these cards. I owe my friend Janet for the inspiration, she let me play with her new distress oxide ink pads - and did make sure she got them all back too! I loved the effect on black card, though it did seem to fade with time, so tried to get the same effect with what I had.
I used the silhouette palace 1 mask on black card, and sponged white pigment ink across the card to be the base of the sky, not worrying about any streaks.Once it was dry, I sponged ordinary distress inks over the top, to try to give a northern lights effect, using purples and greens - not quite right, but near enough for me!
The winged horse and the fairy were stamped using versamark and a glittery black embossing powder. Fairies are not really my scene, but I did like this one - so tried  a different version.
I used far more of the white pigment ink this time, and positioned the mask towards the bottom of the card - the sky looked better this time to me, the colour showed up more. The faory and the horse were embossed again with the same glittery powder, I added white to one side of the masked image, and the sentiment from the see beauty clear set with white embossing powder at the bottom.