butterfly notecards

 Whilst sorting out stamps, I came across these DL stamps - cut out, mounted but never used............I vaguely remember seeing Glenda demonstrating the kiss technique with them on Create & Craft many years ago, and at the time they were a must have! Much to my surprise, they are still in the Chocolate Baroque listing, butterfly blush for the solid images and just butterflies for the matching linear images.
The challenge this week on Make my monday is watercolour, so I decided to christen these stamps by trying the kiss technique with water-based marker pens.
I chose the largest image from each set, and randomly coloured the base stamp with 3 or 4 different marker pens. The matching stamp was then sprayed with water and placed over the solid image and pressed firmly.
This image was then stamped onto small 4" square card blanks - being cautious, I wsn't too sure it would work, and didn't want to ruin a larger card!
The result was a watery mix of colours, and I was quite happy with the result even though the linear image didn't always show up too well.

 The cards on the right show both images stamped onto white card - and also where I haven't lined the two stamps up perfectly!

I now have a set of small note cards which will be very useful for those quick thank-you notes

sneaking in.....

A very quick post to add this one to the Chocolate Baroque challenge - definitely last minute!
Stamp from thistle butterfly, stamped in black versafine onto a brusho and distress ink background. Coloured with marker pens.
Butterflies stamped onto spare bits of brusho-ed card, decoupaged over main image, and extra one added at bottom

thistles

Still playing with my new stamps - but this one also uses an old thistle stamp from the wild meadow set and a butterfly from briar rose as well as the thistles from thistle butterfly.
Background was yet another brusho inks one, thistles stamped with dusty concord distress inks. Main image stamped with black versafine, clear embossed and coloured with promarkers- highlights were clear jelly roll and white gel pens. Butterfly stamped on another piece of brusho-ed card, embossed and cut out.
Base card is a 6" square white, mats dull silver and lavender.
Am entering this for two challenges
addicted to stamps - make your mark
butterfly challenge - summertime butterflies

thistle again....

Another card using the thistle butterfly stamp and brusho inks - warning, this may go on for awhile, have a fair stack of brusho backgrounds, and there are several unused so far stamps in this set!
Background this time started out similarly with very wet card, but I added a few sprinkles of purple ink and used a wide flat brush to spread the colour around. I mopped up most of the puddles with kitchen roll, then added as-tiny-as-I-could bits of black ink and let the colour spread. Once it had spread as far as it was going to, I mopped up again with scrunched-up kitchen roll, which spread some more  of the black around the card.
I left it to dry overnight, then stamped the thistle butterfly with versamark and white embossed it - then went over the butterflies with clear wink of stella, you'll have to take my word for that, as it doesn't show up on the scan.
Cut down a bit, matted onto black card, then onto a 5x7 white card base that had been sponged with dusty concord distress ink round the edges and black soot in the corners.
Am entering this into the addicted to stamps and more challenge, which is ' anything goes' - thanks to Val for the link!

make a background

I finished this card yesterday, and struck lucky today with the new
  Make my Monday challenge, which is to create a background. This is something that is quite addictive, and I often take longer making the background than the rest of the card - meanwhile  a pile of dsp paper remains relatively untouched..........
All the stamps used here are from Stampin up, and the card was originally created as a sample for a craft day with a local WI.
Background started out as white card, and I used almost all of the stamps from the Gently falling set of leafy stamps to create it. the stamps were all inked with marker pens so that I could have 2 or 2 colours on the one stamp easily and randomly stamped over the sheet. I used all the green markers I had, also 2 blues and a coral - the intention was to create an autumn background, but it came out more summery..................
The main image is the big swallowtail butterfly, just stamped with versamark and embossed with black EP

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!