steampunk butterfly

My last post on the Chocolate Baroque blog this month focuses on the steampunk butterfly - absolutely perfect for masculine cards!

My first simple sample uses the cogs stamped in versafine clair in one corner, and gold and silver embossing powder sprinkled over quickly.  The butterfly was stamped once over the cogs in black in - too lazy to cut the antenna out!-  and once in versamark onto black card. White, silver and blue embossing powder sprinkled over, fussy cut out and glued over first image. Black mat onto white card blank to finish

this one is more grungy, black soot distress ink sponged round the edges, then the small butterfly stamped along the four edges in black ink, and again twice onto spare card. The spare images wwere sponged with black ink, and the single wings cut out and glued down to fill in the gaps in the rather wonky wreath shape. The flower from punky romance was stamped in the centre, then the large butterfly stamped in versamark onto black card and white embossed was cut out and glued at an angle on top- and this time I did cut out the antenna.....

 The prettier version has the large image from punky romance stamped in grey and coloured with watercolour pencils. Antique linen and old paper distress ink brushed round the edges, and the small cogs randomly stamped in the same inks. 
The large butterfly stamp was put on an acrylic block and inked in black versafine ink, then sprinkled with mica powders. The whole image was then covered with pva glue and left to dry. Depending on the depth of the glue it will take at least 24 hours to completely dry. Once dry, peel off the glue and trim the image with scissors, then glue in place. Cheap pva works just as well as the dearer stuff, so if you're planning to do several buy the kid's version!

 I owe Lynnda Worsnop for this idea, and Doreen Sympson on whose blog I originally saw this - thanks ladies!

i saw three ships

 Almost every year I promise myself I will start on Christmas cards early, and never do it -despite the variety of Christmas themed  challenge blogs!

Making sea themed cards recently for some reason i couldn't get this carol out of my head, so  actually made a Christmas card!

This one was using a gelli plate background with a brayered  versafine ink and brusho sprinkles that had been lying around for a while.  There was a light area in the centre, so i added a mask for the moon there and sponged round it with blue distress ink. 

Seashell collage from Chocolate Baroque has a lovely slhouette image of a tall ship which was perfect. Two ships were stamped using versafine clair black ink, and the centre one using versafine smoky grey ink. Dots of white ink for the seaspray, and the words were printed from the computer

I am linking this to these Christmas blogs 

The male room  #152- Christmas in July

kraftychicks #567 - Christmas

creativecraftcottage#142 -Christmas in July

craftyhazelnuts Christmas challenge #550- anything goes

the holly and the ivy #97 - anything goes

shopping our stash # 449 - Christmas in July

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sea shells....

Two seasonal cards today using the sea shell collage set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

The first card uses the seagulls, everpresent round the Norfolk coast on the look out for food.

Simply stamped in black versafine on white card and coloured with watercolour pencils, apart from the sky which was sponged with distress ink. trimmed, matted on black and mounted 0onto a base card sponged with distress ink and randomly stmaped with seashells in the same ink. the larger gull was stamped onto spare card, coloured and cut out, then glued onto the base of the card

My second card uses the smaller stamps to create a rough wreath shape, using orange and green iks for the shells and brown for the anchor and wheel. Parts of the text stamp and seashells were randomly stamped round the edges and the same inks brushed round the edges. Very light dusting of blue in the centre and the sentiment from punky expressions