poinsettiia wreath

 I wanted to use the poinsettia stamp from the Chocolate Baroque  Holly bells set, but couldn't immediately  think of a way to use it on a card, so thought I would go mad and try to make a wreath.
Of course, I couldn't find a readymade wreath shape, so I liberated some packaging from a local supermarket and made my own, using 2 different sized plates to draw round and cut out. I cut two out, as the card wasn't very sturdy, put them together and wrapped green ribbon round to hold them together and make a hanging loop.
I added die cut leaves in green card using the tattered leaves die from Tim Holtz and glue gel.
Next I stamped loads of poinsettias onto red card using black versafine and clear embossing powder, cut them out and glued on with more pinflair glue gel.
Next was another layer of poinsettias on the inside of the first layer.


I thought that it looked a bit flat, so cut into some of the images and curled a few leaves up to give a bit of dimension, then went really mad and cut the centres out of the last few stamped poinsettias, and cut and curled the leaves before decoupaging them over some of the base images, then added a few more leaves as most of the first ones had been covered up by now!


I gave up at that point, and hung the wreath on the front door to get a photo of the finished  item - it wouldn't be suitable for outside use, though maybe if it was given a good coat of spray varnish it may last a little while outside.
Apologies for the photos, the flash was reflecting back off the images - would have been much easier if I could have scanned it!
Ones outside are much better.................amazing the difference a bit of sunshine makes........

steampunk?

The ATC swap theme over at Chocolate Baroque this month is steampunk - now this is SO definitely out of my comfort zone, and steampunk stamps are not in my   collection - though I admit to having the lovely CB  punk rose on the wish list - so I was somewhat stumped as to what to do. Thanks to the lovely ladies on the Wednesday chat session , ideas came in plenty - I ended up trying 2 of them out.
The quickest and easiest was to cover card with foil, run through an embossing folder and grunge up  - the only folder I had that approached steampunk was a Tim Holtz clocks one, so that was duly dug out. It embossed beautifully, but just didn't look right to me - definitely seemed to be something missing, so I tried again using dark grey coredinations card, which I inked and sanded down, then added a butterfly cut from the original foiled pieces using a  freebie die.                          
                              

The suggestion I liked best was simply to stamp something and grunge it up - now that I can manage! I remembered buying a set of mini stamps ages ago for the lovely tree images, and not using the rest .............I stamped the crackle and hessian texture stamps from mail art randomly across the cream card using SU crumb cake ink, overstamped with a script and the tunnel from mini scripts in early espresso ink, finally with the cyclist from curiosities in black versafine twice. A hefty smudge of vintage photo and black soot distress inks and some roughed-up edges to finish.
Not sure that either of them are really steampunk, but they're the nearest I'm going to get to it!

June quintiles

 The theme this month is 'brides' for the Chocolate Baroque quintiles - I thought this was going to be really easy, but have been struggling to get two finished!
Backgrounds used the same large stamp from the harlequin rose set, and both used the same Kaleidacolour birthstone ink pad on watercolour paper. They were both  liberally sprayed with water and glimmer mist after stamping - the first one with silver bells, second with perfect peach.
The first one uses my only CB  'bride' stamp, which is not easy to stamp cleanly due to the large expanse of skirt - I lost count of the number that ended up in the bin with a mark on the skirt despite liberal use of Qtips, baby wipes etc before stamping, to say nothing of what I considered to be very delicate application of an ink pad in the first place! Finally I decided to do some paper piecing to get round this, and after trying various bits of printed papers went for a Sizzix  embossing folder, and added glitter glue to the veil.

With time running out, I decided to make a wedding cake for the second tile, using strips of white pearlescent card and the same embossing folder again. The roses were made using the smaller flower from the Tin Holtz tattered florals die, cut with white card, edges brushed with victorian velvet distress ink before cutting and curling the flowers.

April quintiles

 April's theme is April Fool - which absolutely floored me, until several people said that they had used jester or mask stamps. I don't have any of  these, so decided to just cut a mask shape out of black card and stamp a rather baroque floral stamp over it and emboss with gold EP. Then I needed a background - desperation ruled again, and I dug out my TH distress stains and very ancient Ranger Posh Rainbow inks. For the blue one I mainly used the distress stains in gold, brass, bronze and picket fence - the pinker one had a lot of the rainbow inks added and some fired brick distress paint as well round the edges- just splodged over the card and heavily spritzed with water. I wasn't sure if the inks would react horribly with the distress stains, but they didn't.

They looked ok, but a little plain when they eventually dried - then I remembered that I had some TH tissue wrap untouched in the packet, so dug that out and glued over the card using some aqua glass varnish from an old Graphicus lucky dip box (also previously untouched!). This stuff was originally for serviette technique, according to the label - worked fine on tissue wrap, and made a much more subtle background from my splodges.
Am not too happy with these, so will hang on to them for a couple of days, just in case inspiration strikes - you never know what may surface from the combined process of clearing out the rubbish and finally putting workshop stuff away!

CB spring quintiles

 Panic set in when I realized just how little time I had left to do this months quintiles, followed by increasing panic when my original idea of blossom -laden trees just would not work.
Our long-suffering organiser Margaret agreed to give a few days grace - which I ungratefully overran - before awarding me a  huge black mark - many thanks, Margaret!
In desperation, I binned the trees, and searched my stamp heaps for inspiration, and came up with several sets of bird stamps - as the local birds are rapidly costing me a fortune in bird seed , peanuts and fat blocks/balls I thought  they were very appropriate to this perishing cold weather.

The top one used the main stamp from Chocolate Baroque Let your heart sing plate, stamped in black versafine onto a sponged distress ink background .The feather stamp on the background was from the Wise owl plate, stamped in versamark, clear embossed, then the card inked with distress inks.
The not very successful second tile started out with a background of glimmer mists over the foliage stamp from Tim Holtz urban tapestry set offset in green and blue inks - the image didn't fade into the background as much as I had hoped it would though. The bird image and the foliage were stamped again in black versafine and clear embossed - parts of the bird were highlighted with SU white craft reinker as my white gel pen decided not to co-operate.
I added distress stains round the edges in picket fence and burnished brass to add a bit of colour.

the last two.............

 The last two tags for the Chocolate Baroque alphatag challenge - I know they were not due till next month, but I still need to make my Christmas cards!
The Y is for yellow roses - not at all original, but I could find the stamp and the die, which helped! The embossed tag background used the SU Sizzix embossing folder called lacy brocade, which was inked up with summer starfruit (SU) ink before running through the big shot -funny, but having actually used this ink pad, I quite like it,  yellow is not a colour I would normally use....................which explains why this is the only yellow ink pad I own.
The rose is from the largest stamp on the  Harlequin Rose plate, stamped in black versafine ink and coloured with inktense pencils before cutting out and adding to the tag. Yellow roses were cut from yellow card using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die and the Sizzix (SU) blossom party die for the larger flower. All the flowers were heavily spritzed with glimmer mists in wheatfields and bronze.
Z is for Zoroastrian magi - the Magi are thought to have been Zoroastrian priests, who were renowned astronomers. The blue card of the tag base was stamped with the small star using a snow cap dabber, then white gel pen and finishing with a rhinestone centre. Tiny dabs of gel pen to represent other stars, then a shimmer spray finished the background. The 3 kings from an old DL Elusive Images plate were stamped 3 times on paper from the Echoes of Italy pack (had to grit my teeth a bit here and sacrifice this paper) using black versafine ink and clear EP. The various kings were then cut out and reassembled before gluing onto the tag. I did try using gilding flakes before using the paper, but the image is so finely detailed that it didn't work, and my eyesight is definitely  not up to colouring in a blank image!
Will have to post the swap tags separately when they have all arrived

woodland spirit woodcut tag

For once, I have got slightly ahead in the Chocolate Baroque alphatag challenge (am sure it won't last) and have done my W tag! Background was done using peeled paint distress ink and a duster brush (have to admit that this technique is much easier with the brushes) and Elaine's background leaf technique. The image of the woodland nymph is from an old Graphicus plate called earth spirit  featuring Carrie's designs - I know they are linocuts, but they could just as easily be woodcuts!
Anyhow, the image was stamped in versamark and embossed with black EP - leaves at the base of the tag cut from cored'inations card using the Tim Holtz tattered leaves die. I crumpled the leaves up, splodged with brown and green inks and finally a gold TH dabber before glueing onto the tag.

MMM romance

Make my Monday challenge theme is romance for this month, and this week we are asked for hearts and flowers, plus diecuts as an extra. I couldn't find a suitable heart stamp, so the hearts are on the background paper, which was a freebie from Glenda Waterworth. The various pink cards were chosen to go with the colour of this paper. The stamp is the harlequin rose from Chocolate Baroque, rose and scroll painted with H2Os, leaves and the script background with watercolour pencils. Flowers are from a Mariane die, centres are from an idea by Judith (large jump ring filled with seed beads and diamond glaze), and leaves from Tim Holtz die. The crochet trim is new from Stampin up.

alphatags 2

 This month at the Chocolate Baroque Guild tag swap, we have to do C and D. C was easy, I have the very little-used chess set of stamps, but I had quite a list for D, and in the end went with dragon, simply because I had the stamps out for something else (yea, I know, lazy, that's me).
C tag
I stamped the main image onto a white tag using versafine smokey grey ink, which was also sponged round the edges of the tag, with a little blue creeping in in places to brighten it up a bit. The letter is a Tim Holtz mask again. The king and queen pieces were stamped in black versafine onto white card, cut out and covered with glossy accents - I didn't get a very even coating, but decided I quite liked the bubble effect anyway compared to the crackle finish I tried as well. this time I added white and grey ribbons to the tag.

D tag
I stamped the dragon  in black versafine onto another white tag, then onto post-its and cut out a mask for him. The letter d was from the Tim Holtz set of masks again. Once the maks were in place, I  used adirondack paint dabber in snow cap randomly across the tag, then sponged over the whole tag with distress inks - mainly tumbled glass and victorian velvet I think. Once everything was dry, I took the masks off and painted the dragon with H2O paints, the wispy ribbons were from a mystery stash box 

My two swap tags were these two, A from Paula and B from Kirsten- thanks ladies!
Now I have to decide what to do with my tags , in the meantime they are safely held by a book ring.

alphatags

 These are my first 2 tags for the Chocolate Baroque Guild alphatags swap - 26 tags over a year to make a tag book eventually, usually 2 or 3 tags each month; hopefully I shall be able to keep up!
Paula has already blogged her first tag, which reminded me that I needed to photo mine and get them in the post, so a blog post while my memory is working!
The tags are cut using the Tim Holtz large tag die from Sizzix (had  a little trouble tracking this down at a reasonable price, but managed to find it in the end). I used TH masks bought ages ago for the letters, with chipped sapphire ink to outline them, and all the stamps are Chocolate Baroque. 
The angel tag uses the angel of light stamp - base layer embossed in gold on white card, halo painted with gold H2O,mounted onto backing paper from the Artylicious Seasons greeting cd (also from CB). Stamped again in black versafine onto white card, coloured with watercolour pencils, with clear glitter on the flowers.  I stamped the bottom layer of the wings in white onto vellum, then again in white onto some ancient fusible film - both wing layers were cut out and decoupaged onto the white layer.

The blue butterfly has a background using several flower/foliage stamps mostly from the wild meadow plate stamped with the chipped sapphire DI - the carnation stamp was stamped several times, then sprayed with water to blur the image. Once it was dry, the same stamp was repeated over the blurs using night of navy ink from SU , and the foliage stamps added to fill the gaps. The butterfly was stamped twice in black versafine and clear embossed before painting with H2Os, with the top layer decoupaged over the base layer.
Flowers were cut using the TH tattered florals die and a drinks coaster - the tissue layers were separated out, scrunched up and fasted with a brad before liberally spraying with glimmer mists and scrunching up again before being left to dry. Leaves from the matching tattered leaves die cut in blue card, edges roughly inked in the navy. The edges were distressed, and embossed with a mix of EP remnants in blues and sparkly black.
They have both ended up quite dimensional,  but the flowers are quite soft and ended up relatively flat, so hopefully they will be ok!
I have replaced the original photos with scans, which are far better!

fabric flower

This is a rather late entry for Bah humbug, where Ann and Max wanted something using fabric  - I thought I had some glittery fabric, couldn't find it, so dug out the felt and net I bought ages ago to try out with the tattered florals die. I cut one layer in felt, several layers in different nets - afraid they all look the same colour in the shot, but there are actually 4 different shades in there somewhere - and layered them up, adding a chipboard circle triple embossed and stamped with a poinsettia stamp from an old Elusive Images set. Leaves are paper from the tattered leaves die, and all mounted on a box created from the Sizzix  top note die from Stampin up
Am also linking this to the craftroom challenge, for flowers,  thanks to Kate !

Bah Humbug boxes

The latest Bah Humbug challenge 45 is for a gift box - so I used my Sizzix pillowbox die from Stampin Up. This is  a disappointingly small die - ok for jewellery, but too small for the mini chocolate bars I wanted to use.  I did try folding the card before cutting it to get a longer box, then decided it was far easier to just cut 2 out of different cards and put them together. I trimmed the flaps from the red card, and cut the gold one in half before glueing the halves  behind the red one. The greeting from Chocolate Baroque was stamped on white card with black memento ink, coloured with promarkers  - the extra fine tip was a great help - cut out and glued on top.
 The second  pic shows 2 more pillow boxes, the smaller one is the original size, stamped with a lovely flowery pear stamp by Artemio and embossed with detail gold EP - I went over the design on the par with a white gel pen, as I didn't think it stood out enough - next time, I will stamp onto white card and cut it out! The second box is another extended one, with a flower made from glassine and baking parchment using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die - the leaves were punched using an EK punch.
The bottom pic is what I call a cheese slice box, made from 1/3 A4 piece of card. The reindeer was from a die - Marianne?- cut from white card, glittered and a gem on his nose. The trees are from a chocolate Baroque stamp.

November craft club

last Sunday was the delayed craft club meeting at Moira's, and this was based on the card Janet designed. The background used the faux pearl technique, with white acrylic paint mixed with mica powder dabbed over the car first using crumpled cling film. Once this was dry, then we used various distress and dye inks sponged over to create the sky before multi-stamping the trees stamp by Clarity stamps in the foreground.  Greeting was also a Clarity stamp. My sky was supposed to be a sunset, but now I think it looks more like a misty landscape! I mounted the finished scene onto matt silver, then onto a white card previously stamped with the Tim Holtz pine needles stamp in weathered wood along one side.

The second card from an idea by Moira was a large card, basically a back-to-front easel card with a battery tealight inside, with a very fancy aperture cut using a big die and a caliber diecutter. Snag here was that I assembled it the wrong way, so took it to pieces once home and redid it. The image was originally a large Papermania nativity stamp, but I stayed with the Clarity stamp from the previous card, and did a proper misty sunset scene on vellum. As it was a large aperture, I could rescue it by using my largest oval to cut apertures from two A5 cards once home and sandwiching the vellum between them to make the easel card base.  The scan was done with white card behind the image, as I have found it almost impossible to get a good photo with the tealight in position. Actually, the easel card is lined with mirri card, which reflects the tealight.
Having got on a roll, I made two more, using the stamp I had originally hoped to use, from Chocolate Baroque, which was far too small for the original aperture.

this time, I used black card for the base, and stamped using black versafine ink and clear embossing powder  onto a tinted vellum. This was the best shot I could get with a tealight lit, and i think you can just see the gold mirri card lining the base card.
the second one used a slightly larger card, with a handcut rectangle aperture - as the aperture was offset, I cut both layers together so that they would line up properly. This version is lined with silver mirri card, and the palm tree image and greeting  (also Chocolate Baroque) are embossed in silver.

bah humbug 44

Bah humbug 44 challenge is to use a snowman - took me quite a while to remember that I had this Tim Holtz stamp, which had never seen ink before today. I made a tag, using DIs in antique linen, tattered rose, milled lavender, shabby shutters and tumbled glass for the background, and chipped sapphire round the edges. I ran the tag though the big shot with a snowflake embossing folder - no name on it though - brushed shimmer paint over the snowflakes and glued some snowflakes cut from glitter card with a Martha Stewart punch over some of them.
the snowman was stamped in chipped sapphire, and embossed with a holographic EP, then stuck on top - ribbon is a bit of shiny pale blue organza that was lurking in the bottom of the drawer

gift tag

Another challenge site that I haven't  been to for a long time is Moving along with the times - this week their challenge is food and drink. I couldn't find the original stamp I had intended to use, but did find this Christmas pudding from Chocolate Baroque, and decided to turn it into a gift tag to go with one of the Christmas cakes that I have started to bake.
The tag was stamped with a pine needle stamp from Tim Holtz using forest moss DI, then stippled and sponged with antique lined, shabby shutters and fired brick DI in a random way. once it was dry, the needles were stamped and embossed in gold round the edges, edges distressed and gold embossed as well.
Pud was embossed in gold on white card, then again with the image coloured in inks applied over versamark with cotton buds then clear embossed. It didn't work as well as I had hoped, so after cutting the pud out, I added more brown inks to the pud again with cotton buds. I cut the image out with an Xcut die, then sponged antique linen and shabby shutters round the edges, ran a versamark pen round the edges and gold embossed them. The coloured pud was decoupaged onto the original gold image, which was then added to the tag, with red and gold ribbon to finish.

vintage glassine

I really didn't need to add another challenge blog to the hopeful-to-do list, but I discovered Make my Monday through Val's blog, and as the theme is vintage, it fit in quite well with my current fixations on using the Tim Holtz kraft glassine aand making flowers! As MAWTT is also on the list, I decided to try a vintage style Christmas card - I stamped the angel from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) onto the glassine using Stampin Up  chocolate chip ink, heat dried it, then carefully scratched the flower detail and the edges of the wing feathers. The image was torn out, mounted onto a beige card embossed with a Provocraft houndstooth embossing folder which was then rubbed over with another SU ink, creamy caramel - I used to be rubbish at inking embossing, but have found that the mini pads seem to work better, probably because I can't be as heavy-handed with them. The edges of the embossed bit and the base card were sponged with  brushed corduroy distress ink. The flowers were made using the TH tattered florals die and old brown paper envelopes, with a quick spritz of copper glimmer mist to cover the different browns - gold leaves from an EK punch.

playdate 83

 The Playdate challenge 83 was to use black, white and a splash of green - I've got the black and white, but you have to look closely to see the green! Mind you, my poor photo doesn't help, as there was very little daylight left and just using flash indoors totally bleached it out.
The square base card is black, the embossed panel uses a cutlebug floral screen folder, which was brayered over with black ink before embossing the white card - the dye ink has come out more grey than black, and a second impression without reinking gave a lovely delicate grey (but too delicate for this, so saved for something else).

The paper flowers use the 2 smaller flowers on the Tin Holttz tattered florals die, 3 layers of each, and a daisy punch centre.(see previous post for how-to details) stuck on with pinflair glue gel.

I used 3 flowers, with the green leaves peeking out from behind cut using an EK punch

mica stencils

 At our last craft get-together Moira passed on a technique she saw demoed by Dot from the Stamp Hut at the recent Suffolk Papercraft show in Bury St Edmunds - basically stamping with versamark through a stencil, embossing with stamp'n'bond powder, then dusting with mica pigments (through the stencil? -I didn't see this, as there was almost always a huge crowd round Dot, and she had moved on to other things when we eventually got to see late afternoon)

 Being Moira, she thought it would be simpler to emboss the stencil first, which is what we tried. Being me and born awkward, I had to choose a large stencil - I thought I had something at home that would just go in the centre - well, if I did, I haven't found it yet! Still, I was quite pleased with the result - it probably doesn't show too well on the scan, but the base card is a dark green, with mica in autumn colours over the leafy swirls. I did several versions before the stencil got too filthy, and one has actually made it to a card!!! The base of this one was blue, and the mica was basically the leftovers from the others, mostly a mix of gold and silver. Having had a pre-Christmas present of a

big shot, I treated myself to the Tim Holtz tattered

 florals die. I cut it out several times in various gold cards, layered it up with a green cutout  and added it to the centre of the frame, and it just fitted.

The samll gift tag was more the sort of stencil everyone else was using, and I was quite pleased with the snowy effect using white and green mica, with a gold for the moon.

Maybe now Pauline and Moira will stop complaining about how bad a blogger I have been lately! (sorry ladies, couldn't resist that).