eastern dream

 To me, this turret house stamp from Chocolate Baroque looked very Russian, so that is the effect i tried to get.
I stamped onto black card using versamark, heat and stick powder and gilding flakes, trimmed it down and mouinted straight onto a 7x7 white card blank with the sentiment stamped in black

 This one I coloured directly onto the stamp using distress pens, and stamped onto damp card. The colours spread to give a blurry image that was a bit too dreamy, so once it was dry I overstamped with black versafine -  as i used a stmping platform, there was no problem matching the images.

Sorry for the poor scan, this one was a DL size card.  Coloured again with the pens, and I just huffed onto the stamp to wake up the inks. It was a faint image, so I reinked the stamp again and stamped a second time to get a more definite image.

poppy cottage

 Three cards using the lovely Poppy Cottage stamp from Chocolate Baroque  - sadly a limited edition stamp from a Kim Moody drawing of Judith's lovely home, but still available at the moment......
You know I had to use brusho powders at least once, so that is the first one to show, get it out of the way! Simply stamped with black versafine , clear embossed and sprinkled lightly with brusho over the roof and walls then spritzed generously with water. Stamped the sentiment in black then trimmed down to a square. Letters were then die cut from the image - I have a magnetic platform for my big shot, which helps keep the letters in place. A piece of red card was added behind the image, which was then matted onto a light brown card  and then onto a white base card blank. The cut out letters were then mounted slightly offset
                                                                                  using foam pads

Version two I coloured the stamp with  distress markers, spritzed lightly with water and stamped onto white card.It was a rather vague result, so I inked up the stamp with black versafine and stamped again once everything was dry - I use a stamping platform, so no problem matching the image up.

The third version also used the distress pens to colour the image - this time i just huffed onto the stamp to wake up the inks. I used a stamp from the butterfly  poppy plate to create the background, inking with markers again and just stamping part of the stamp

crafty weekend

Sometimes everything comes at once - after a few days playing with new stanps from Chocolate Baroque (look on Hochanda tomorrow at 10am and 2 pm to find out what they were!) there was a workshop with Janet Pring on saturday and our regular craft club on Sunday....
we used stamps by All&Create  on Saturday and got nicely inky and painty.
 I loved the poppy stamp we used in the morning, but not so much the afternon sets - have to admit I didn't like the matching dies, the white edges really annoy me, so fussy cutting it was.....

Whinge over, parade of poppies - first two have similar distress oxide backgrounds overstamped in the same colours with the smaller smaps from the set. The first one I used antique linen  and frayed burlap , the second peeled paint and twisted citron. The poppies were painted using koh-i-nor watercolours.

 this is almost what Janet hoped we would do, a gelli plate background with some overstamping - well, very little overstamping and I left out the stencilling and the decoupaged poppies........just a more minimalist version!

I borrowed a different set of stamps that we had used the previous workshop and used the flower head to create a background, stamping it in several colours of distress oxides and swiping a baby wipe over to mix everything up into a blurry background.

Both sets were designed by  Tracey Evans, sorry can't remember what they are called though

 Afternoon we used the gelli plates again, with stencils for texture and the new animal sets of stamps and matching dies. Went mad and used the unicorn band set, which i definitely regretted by the time I had cut them out!

 Sunday was craft club and Hobby Art stamps brought by Moira - these were new stamps, with a lovely main image that was just right for quick Christmas cards.......and I just could not get mine to stamp out properly. So went off-piste (as Janet says) and just used it in my hand to create a background. I stamped the single pine cone in grey in the centre 4 times - which of course stamped beautifully - and again onto spare card.
I coloured with koh-i-nor watercolours and decoupaged the pine cones.

I then  just played with the pine cone, and tried it out as a wreath, the first one is using a 6.5" square piece of card and the second a 5.5" square of card -  they just need sentiments now.