scenic butterfly - and a giveaway

 A lesson in how to drive yourself nuts here, made worse by my not having cleaned the lovely patchwork butterfly stamp properly!

Inspired by some outline stamps seen recently, I thought I would have a go at using the butterfly in a similar fashion. The stamp was too mucky for me to just ink up the edges and wipe any overspill off with a wipe , so I tried masking the centre of the wings before inking the edges of the stamp and the centre body - after many attempts I got a pair of masks that worked fairly well and gave me a reasonable outline once I removed the masks and stamped the butterfly.

A second mask for the negative image was much easier! Once this was in place, I inked a background into the butterfly frame using distress oxide inks, then stamped the silhouette grasses stamp using black versafine ink, and added some small butterflies from butterfly blush. A quick sponge round the outline and a black matt finished the first off.



The orher two cards used the same technique and stamps but with an extra mask so that I could stamp a background scene as well, using the bridge image from kingfisher song. The base card  for the second card was inked randomly with the butterfly stencil.





I really enjoyed doing these once I got the masks sorted out, but don't  think I will be repeating it any time soon....at least not unless I get a clean stamp.........

Looking at my blog statistics, I have racked up almost 60.00 views for my ramblings, so to celebrate I am having a blog giveaway - if you would like to have either the patchwork butterfly set of stamps or the gothic fragments set, then leave a comment saying which set you would like by the end of June, and I will choose two random names. It would be nice if you followed my blog, but you don't have to!

spring scene

Been playing again with the recent stamps from Chocolate Baroque, and made a spring scene using the lovely bridge from kingfisher song and the daffodils from spring birds daffodil.
I stamped the daffodils twice in the foreground, then masking them off with masking fluid before stamping the same image again. Stamped the bridge in the background, and once the ink was really dry rubbed off the masking fluid.
The bridge and trees were coloured using watercolour pencils and a water brush, keeping the colour fairly light to give an impression of distance. Daffodils coloured with alcohol markers - I did the first two images in darker tones, then coloured in the others with paler tones.
Matts are black and gold mirri card, and the base is a 6" square card. there is p[lenty of room for a greeting, when I decide who will get it......
I am linking this to some challenges, not often i can find several that fit!
corrosive challenge #2 - anything goes
house of cards - make a scene
addicted to stamps 251 - anything goes

kingfisher tag

Another sample for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge 32, this time using up scraps.

I had covered a notebook for Lesley's first show on Hochanda last month using her crumpled tissue paper and brusho technique, and had a fair amount of paper over, not enough to cover another book though. I tore random chunks off and collaged them onto a tag, then dry brushed the edges using copper aztec paint.
The lovely big kingfisher from kingfisher song which featured as the one-day special  at the beginning of the month  (now on the CB website)was stamped onto white card using black versafine ink, and painted with aztec paints. I drew a branch for him to sit on, coloured it with a brown marker pen, then cut him out and glued him to the tag.

monochrome bridge

 The lovely bridge image  from kingfisher song from Chocolate Baroque was far too nice to just use in the background, so I thought I would try to create a nighttime scene.
I used a very light grey card to stamp onto using black versafine ink. I also used boulders from sticks and stones, and clouds from seashore scenes. Distress inks in black soot and hickory smoke spomnged over the sky, very roughly as I wanted the impression of clouds.
I used grey brusho for rthe bridge and river, watercolour pencils for the trees and boulders with white pencil for the moon and highlights.

For the second version I used a mask for the moon and hickory smoke for the clouds, and added some turquoise brusho to the grey for the river. The leaves in the foreground are the water iris leaves from kingfisher song, colorued with black marker pen - the same image has been repeat stamped on the base card.

quick cards

 Sharing two very quick cards today, as we all need them in a hurry sometimes.......

The first one uses my favourite brusho powders and the baroque meadow stamp, and I used a spare piece of card rthat had already been coloured  with red, yellow and turquoise powders - if you start from scratch, you would obviously have to let the brushos dry before stamping, so it would take longer, but I am sure that we all have some spare pieces of card left over from other projects!

I stamped the meadow stamp using black versafine ink, then trimmed it down. The base card is 5"x7", and the black matt is
4.5"x6.5", with the greeting from words to dazzle and sparkle stamped in the bottom corner with versamark and white embossed.

The second one is even simpler - and is stamped straight onto a white card blank. The water irises from kingfisher song were stmaped using black versafine ink, then coloured with watercolour pencils before stamping the greeting from words to dazzle and sparkle at the bottom corner.
If it goes wrong, just cut out the images and matt them onto another card blank, no-one will ever know your card didn't start out that way!

I am linking these to the corrosive challenge 2, as the theme is anything goes

kingfishers

 I hope that you managed to see Lesley on Hochanda earlier this week when she launched these gorgeous new stamps from Chocolate Baroque, which are exclusive to Hochanda for 10 days - so you will have to be patient if you missed them......
I spent a happy evening watching the shows that I had missed on catch-up, with a very contented cat snoozing on my lap without being turfed off, coffee being delivered by my long-suffering husband, who retreated to astronomy magazines!


The kingfisher image on all three cards is from kingfisher song, as is the lovely bridge; the boulders are from sticks and stones, and the sentiment on the last card from words to sparkle.





All three cards were stamped using versafine ink in black and smoky grey and coloured with a mix of promarkers and brusho powders.








I really enjoyed playing with these stamps, and am looking forward to more time to play after getting more ideas from the super samples on the shows!