dreaming wings

 I loved playing with this new stamp set,from Chocolate Baroque so much so that i have a lot to show you today, so a coffee first may be an idea!
My first two were experiments which worked ok, thankfully. I remembered seeing a post where someone had stamped using brusho, so i had to try it out. Sprinkling powder onto a stamp and then spritzing with water was not a good idea - it took about 8 impressions to get a passable image!
A different stamp, using the paler grey powder with a waterbrush to apply to the autumn medley stamp and stamping onto damp card was much better! I wanted a dreamy effect, so added nore powder round the edges and spritzed fairly heavily with water then used a damp feather stamp to stamp into the brusho round the face. - it took a long time to dry, but I liked the efffect, though the feathers didn't show up as well as i had hoped. The large zentangled feathers and the sentiment from words of inspiration were stamped in versamark and white embossed.


 This one was my first attempt at an eclipse card. I used a distress ink background on and A5 piece of white card, and stamped the birds fron the curly birds set using black versafine ink. I masked the bodies and wings using Pebeo drawing gum before stamping the feathers in grey versafine ink. I have a magnetic platform for my big shot, which was a definite help diecutting the letters - you don't really realise how big the letters are until you try to fit a word in! I made an A5 card from black card and trimmed the stamped panel down to fit, gluing the centres of the letters in place before adding the actual letters on foam pads. This was very fiddly, and I think you would get a better result diecutting the letters several times and gluing them in place.

This one used another distress ink background, with the curly birds again stamped in black versafine and masked with the drawing gum before stamping the feathers with grey versafine.
The sentiment in black is from the feathers set.








The fourth one is fairly similar, except that I stamped feathers drifting downwards on the card  using versamark and white embossing powder before dusting with turquoise and grey brusho powders and spritzing heavily with water.
The feathers were masked with the drawing gum before stamping the curly birds in blue distress ink.  sentiment in black versafine ink
.I used the same blue ink on the white base card and sponged the edges as well before adding the panel.



My last card was cut down from an A4 sheet of card, so i have quite a bit left in case I need to make some quick cards.......




The feathers were stamped using versamark ink and white embossed before sprinkling turquoise and purple brusho over the sheet and spritzing with water. A corner of the card was trimmed to
5.5" square and mounted onto a slightly larger piece of black card before adding to a 6" sqaure white card.

summer and autumn ladies

 I have three of my sample cards for last month's tv shows to show you today. It was hard to have favourite ladies, but I think these two stamps are well in the running!
For both cards the summer fayre stamp was stmaped using black versafine ink and coloured with watercolour pencils, masked with masking fluid, and brusho backgrounds added. I have always liked the idea of blue roses, but have always been disappointed by the more lilac shade when they flowered......
For the first card I partially diecut the lady out, leaving the butterfly and poppies outside the die. The base card was coloured with distress oxide inks, leaves added using the useful leaves stencil and overstamped with the large crackle stamp. The poppies in the foreground are from the floral notes plate, stamped onto leftover paper coloured with brushos and fussy cut out.



The base card was done in the same way for the second version, but the lady was cut down to a rectangle and matted onto gold card. I  sprinkled red brusho over the green background to try to create a poppy field effect, but it didn't quite work....

For the autumn medley stamp I tried to create a wood effect with the brushos, using my version of a  technique found on Youtube. I started with a piece of white card, sprinkled brown and red powder at the top, and used a damp sponge to drag the colour down the page. The colours are more blended together than the original, which used acrylic paints to blend the powders, but i was quite pleased with the result. back ground mounted onto black and gold, then onto white base card blank.
The lady was stamped with black versafine ink,  coloured with pencils and fussy cut out. I stamped the hair part again several times onto a spare piece of card coloured with orange, yellow and brown brushos, and fussy cut out the best leaves and decoupaged them onto the original.

autumn medley

 The Chocolate Baroque DT theme for this month is autumn or halloween - had to start with autumn as haven't unearthed the halloween stamps yet!
I used the autumn medley stamp, partly because I like it and also because I could find it! (am trying to declutter my craft space, which only seems to create an even worse mess - hopefully only temporary).
My first was an experiment that didn't quite work, stamping and masking the lady then using a gelli plate to create the background - I was trying to get a leafy image using actual leaves, works fine with sponges and inks , but not with a gelli plate and paints. Still, it was an interesting mottled effect, so i used it! The lady was coloured with watercolour pencils, timmed down, matted onto a piece of kraft card that had been embossed with a woodgrain folder and sponged with brown and green inks, Final narrow mat of gold card, base card is A5 kraft card.

Second card I went for a very muted colour scheme, using shades of brown and green pencils. It ended up a little too muted, so Ioverpainted with red and yellow inks using a waterbrush, then highlighted some of the leaves with glossy accents.
Base card is A5 kraft again, with a single gold mat. The 'ribbon' strip down the edge was yellow card randomly stamped with the leaves from the autumn edges set in orange, green and brown, then sponged over with brown ink to tone the yellow down.Cut a thin strip off and added gold card mat.

The tag used up some of the stamping errors, where I managed to smear some of the ink - no way could I hide them, so cut the lady down to tag size.
I coloured leaves with pencils, then fussycut them out. Two sets were glued over the stamped images, the rest just dotted round.
To be honest, this one is my favourite so far.

Four seasons

 Four cards using the lovely new seasonal ladies stamps - big stamps that are an absolute delight to colour in.
The first uses spring awakening, stamped with black versafine, clear embossed, and coloured with pencils.
Die cut, then mounted on a 7" square white card blank randomly stamped with an old flower stamp from my stash using old paper distress ink, then sponged round the edges (Briar rose butterfly, currently available through the Craft Channel website)

 Summer fair is the next stamp, again stamped in black versafine and clear embossed before colouring with pencils. I stamped a mask using masking tissue and masked the image before adding a gelli plate background uisng distress inks.
Again an oval die cut, and a 7" square white card blank stamped with a stamp from poppy meadow across the bottom using peeled paint distress inks, with some of the colour dragged out with a waterbrush.

Autumn medley also has a gelli plate background added after colouring and masking the image, this time using acrylic paints and leaves from the garden.
This time the mount is an 8" square white card.
The wood -effect background is thanks to a link from Eileen Godwin - I used weathered wood, peeled paint and wild honey distress inks over the glue onto white card.

Last lady is winter dawn, stamped with versamark onto light blue card and embossed with silver. Coloured with pencils again, white chalk marker for the snow , rhinestones added to the snowflakes.
Base card was 8" square in silver pearl, randomly stamped with a snowflake stamp from a child is born using silver pigment ink.
The mats are dark and light silvers.