seed heads and gelli plate

Today I am sharing some of the samples using the seed heads image from the glorious set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque.  I loved this large stamp - my samples were done using a 7" square card base, to give an idea of the size - and it was the perfect image to go with a stack of backgrounds I had.  The backgrounds were all made using inks and brusho powders on a gelli plate when doing a demo for the WI in February. I really liked the random nature of the results, even using the same colour combinations gave totally differing results - and the children having a go loved it too.
For my first card I used an autumn colour background, stamped the complete image using versafine onto the background and again on white card and clear embossed this one. I coloured the spare one with alcohol markers, cut the seed heads out and glued over the original image. I also added glossy accents to the front image to make it stand out a little.

The second background was more spring tones,and I stamped the words and the cracks from make your mark in grey ink round the edges before stamping the seedheads in black ink and clear embossing them. Seed heads coloured with alcohol markers - the centre of the background was light enough that the markers covered it quite well. Again i added glossy accents to the front image.

 Here I added the circles and cracks from make your mark, and the words from both of the main images of glorious randomly across the background. Seed heads stamped in black and clear embossed onto spare card, coloured with alcohol markers, cut out and glued in place.

 This version I stamped the image and words in black ink, onto  another gelli plate background, clear embossed, then used bleach on the seed heads. I used similar shades of distress ink to create a background for the base card using random stamps from make your mark.

 I just had to do a candle as well .......





When I cut the stamps out, I carefully cut between the main images and the words, so I could use the words separately if I wanted, but still line them up with the image as they were originally.....a tip from Judith that really works, it's a bit hair-raising the first time you do it though!

summer poppies

Poppies always remind me of summer and sunshine,  and I think we all need a reminder of better times now .
I have  two versions of a card using the lovely poppy stamp from last month's Chocolate Baroque Hochanda shows to show you today. I adore poppies, so I really loved this one, and kept things fairly simple.
For this first one I used a sheet of card that had been coloured with a very dilute walnut stain spray and stamped the image using black versafine ink and clear embossing powder.
The poppies were coloured with alcohol markers to make sure they stood out from the background.
The base card was randomly stamped with just the poppy part of the stamp using distress ink and holding the stamp in my hand. The mat is a dark brown card



For the second card I wanted the poppies to really stand out, so stamped in black onto white card, and then just part of the poppies in black onto a Tando  circle . I coloured just the poppies with alcohol markers then lined the circle up with the base image before adding a black mat layer.
Base card was sponged with hickory smoke distress oxide round the edges and parts of the ledger stamp stamped randomly to create the background.