bluebells

 Saturday was Hobby Art day at Costessey with Moira Walters, and we used the new bluebells stamp set.
Moira had some lovely samples, but I had to live up to the rebel reputation and do something different!
Actually this first one is fairly similar to the sample if you take out the background and the sentiment...... the bluebell spray was stamped onto blue card and white embossed before colouring with mica paints. Having just collected my set of inspirational quotes I had to try them out..... I thought this one fitted, so used it to randomly stamp in the background and then white embossed on a strip of blue for the sentiment.

The other cards are very similar, just different inks for stamping. It was supposed to be the quick first card using white embossing and brushos, it ended up taking me most of the day! As the bluebell stamps are small, most people used a butterfly stamp, but I wanted to see if I could make a bluebell wood land scene.
The first time I stamped the bluebells with versamark and white EP before masking with drawing gum and stamping the trees several times in grey versafine and masking them as well. Grey brusho and water across the lot. Snag here once I had rubbed off the masking was that i wasn't too sure what was bluebells and what was tree in some areas! Also the colour I used for the flowers meant that they didn't stand out.
Version two i stamped the bluebells using black versafine and painted them first before masking. The trees were stamped with grey versafine again and masked before adding the grey brusho.
I was much happier with this version, but don't think I will try to do it again, far too fiddly.

colours of nature?

Just when you thought I had given up on them, here i am back with my favourite brusho powders and some samples from the Chocolate Baroque tv shows - I just love the vibrant colours and the randomness of the results!
The large honeysuckle stamp was ideal, I stamped and embossed with white EP before sprinkling the red, yellow and green powders roughly where I would like them to stay, then spritzing fairly heavily with water. The EP resists the water, and also traps some of the colour into the image.
Sentiment from Mackintosh words stamped in black versafine, image trimmed down to fit onto a square white card blank with a deep red mat.





This one is far more muted, just a very light dusting of yellow powder to create a background. Image stamped with black versafine and coloured with watercolour pencils - have to admit I can't remember which set the sentiment came from!


For my final TV samples this month I have used the lovely big tree stamp from essence of nature.
The first one is very restrained, not a speck of brusho in sight!
I used a square white card blank as the base, and stamped the tree stamp all over  to create the background. I used hickory smoke distress ink and held  the stamp in my hand so that only part of the image stamped at a time.

 The focal image was stamped onto black card with versamark ink and I used a rather ancient bonding powder (which thankfully still worked) before using the gold and coppery mix of gilding flakes. For some reason i never got on with stamping using glue when i had the gilding flakes with everything craze years ago, but the bonding powders worked every time...




My final card was back to brusho for the foacl image. Stamped onto white card using black versafine ink and clear embossed before using yellow, red and blue powders to create the sky.



I started with a square back base card , and added the background card at an angle. This was a square of white card stamped with the trees in hickory smoke distress ink and sponged round the edges.
I trimmed the brusho image down, added a black mat and glued onto the background.

old car

Eclipse cards an be very addictive! I have only tried them on a small scale so far, there is a limit using my bigshot, but the plus is that I have a magnetic platform for that which sio far has outweighed the size disadvantage.
The latest Male Room challenge for something with a car reminded me of the approach of Father's Day and the need for a few male cards in the box......
My only car stamp is from the eccentric Edwardian gentleman set for Chocolate Baroque, so maybe more of a grandad card? Anyway, I created a sponged blue/green distress ink background with random stamps from the set and cogs from steampunk butterfly in the same distress inks.
The car was stamped using black versafine, then I decided to add some  water for a bit more interest - flicking wet fingers produced rather more splodges than sprinkles, so maybe not such a good idea!
Letters were die cut before the card was mounted onto a piece of black card, then onto a white base card. Letter centres were glued directly onto  the card, then the letters added slightly offcentre using foam pads.

I am entering this for the following challenges,
The Male Room 
crafting from the heart
addicted to stamps
corrosive challenges

honeybees

Good morning everyone, it is another beautiful day here and I am sharing some of the samples for the last Chocolate Baroque tvshow using the honey bee stamps - I haven't seen many bees around this year though...
A bit late with this post, once you have no internet access, you realise just how much you need it! Hopefully all is now sorted .......



 My first is a simple tag, coloured with Distress Inks - Lemonade in the centre and Hickory Smoke round the edges. The foxglove, words and large bees were stamped using Versafine Onyx Black Ink and then coloured with watercolour pencils.
I added a bit of sparkle to the wings with a clear Wink of Stella pen, but it doesn't really show up.





For the card I created a background using the honeycomb stamp and a honeycomb stencil, and various shades of yellow and orange Distress Inks, spritzed with water to soften the edges.

The foxglove was stamped on the left using Versafine Onyx Black Ink, masked with Pebeo Drawing Gum then stamped again using Smokey Gray Versafine Ink. The bees were all stamped with the black ink. The foxgloves were coloured with Distress Ink and a waterbrush, and a bit of colour was added to the bees and some sparkle to the wings. The background was mounted onto white card with a layer of purple card.