blue roses

This was my sample card for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge 34- have to admit I cheated a bit with the colours though, as it doesn't have any brown in it!
I used the lovely big floribunda net rose stamp, stamped in black versafine ink and clear embossed. I masked off the blooms and leaves with masking fluid before sprinkling brusho powders over the card and spritzing with water. I think I only used rose and sandstone, but could be wrong there......
Once everything was dry, I rubbed off the masking fluid and coloured with watercolour pencils before mounting on black and dull gold card and then onto a 7"sqaure white card blank.
You still have until 16th may to enter for this challenge, the link is here

babushka

Thought I would try something a little different with the babushka dolls, and make a pop-up box card. Normally I would cut out the box, but as I had some ready-made blanks I used those for speed - they were rather shorter than I would have preferred, but worked quite well in the end, as I think that the size I usually make would have been too tall.
Apologies for the picture-heavy post, I felt that I ought to show how they went together if I could.
I used the babushka dolls plate and the silhouette palaces stamps with a mixture of markers, pencils, brushos and distress inks.
The folded flat box fits into an 8"x8" square envelope, and the top panels are 85x80mm, side panels 85x105mm , and the back 85x185mm - sorry for the mix of measurements, but inches didn't work accurately for the panels.

 I stamped the buildings from babushka onto
80x75mm panels for the fold-down flaps, and also at the top of a 80x180 panel for the inside back of the card,using black versafine ink. They were coloured with watercolour pencils.
The pic shows how they were glued onto the base card.

 The side panels were 80x100mm, and here I stamped the smaller stamp from silhouette palaces using black archival ink, then sprinkled lemon, rose red and turquoise brusho powder before spritzing it for the sky.





The same stamp was used at the bottom of a 80x180mm panel for the back, this time using smoky grey distress ink and sponging round the edges with the grey as well.

I stamped 2 large and 1 medium dolls onto white card using versafine again and coloured them with marker pens so that they stood out a bit from the background.
The blank came with 2 bars for the inner box, so the smaller doll was glued to the front of the back bar and the others to the front and back of the front bar at different heights.






two more photos of the completed box from different angles

chocolate baroque challenge 12

Colour challenge this time was to use red/russet, orange, green and grey - like a lot of people, the first 3 colours shouted poppy at me!
Easel card, base card and poppy 'stop' are die cut.
Stamp is from the pretty poppies set, stamped with black versafine and clear embossed onto a brusho background, then coloured with a mix of karisma and spectrum noir pencils.
Am hoping I may get another entry done before the deadline

80th and May postcards

 This is the birthday card I made for a friend's 80th birthday recently - she loved it, so it is safe to post now.
I used the butterfly daisy set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque that I used for the April potpourri card challenge swap the background was brusho, image stamped and embossed in gold, flower petals coloured with pencils and leaves were diecuts. The greeting was from Stampin Up, the small butterfly from Hobby Art and the large one hiding at the back also from butterfly daisy.

I actually got way ahead with the potpourri postcards this month, which is almost unheard of! The themes were lily of the valley and/or shamrock green - as you can see, I went for the colour again.
I stamped the lovely fountain scene onto a green brusho background, and used bleach on the top of the building and on the fountain before colouring with pencils. The image wasn't quite large enough for the postcard, so rather than mat it onto green card I stamped an image from gothic fragments down one side and gold embossed it. I thought it looked suitably eastern...................
For the second card, yet more brusho background (you can tell I like this stuff, can't you! I just love the totally random effects)
The hearts from one of the old Elusive Images damask sets which is still available from Chocolate Baroque were stamped onto green card and black embossed, then cut out and stuck onto the base card with foam pads to form a shamrock shape - at least, that is my excuse.

sundae club cards

Results of a peaceful afternoon at Gissing with Moira Walters and Janet Pring.
The first card was my favourite, using new spring stamps from Hobby Art. I went a bit mad with the masking, trying to create a field of daffodils in a valley in front of the church- as I eventually cut off most of the stems, could have saved myself a lot of fiddly cutting of masks if the idea of fussy cutting the border had occurred to me earlier!
Everything coloured with Derwent watercolour pencils.








Janet's card used chicks from Claritystamp- coloured using a mix of pencils and marker pens.
There isn't a mark on the card above the chick on the left, honest - obviously need to try to clean scanner!

karisma pencils

Got distracted last night - was meant to be mass-producing Christmas cards with my new stamps from Chocolate Baroque and Hobby Art (couldn't resist the special offers last weekend!) but found a box of Karisma pencils when picking up a heap of crafty stuff that ended up on the floor................. I remembered buying these at the NEC many years ago, but they didn't look as if they had ever been used, and I think they are long discontinued now.
I stamped off some birds n berries and had a play - I wasn't greatly impressed with the first ones I tried (much prefer my watercolour pencils), possibly as there wasn't a lot of colour choices in what was admittedly a smallish box.
Then I had an idea - to try using just the black and red pencils, so this is the result. The birds haven't landed on the holly properly, but it was ok as a trial run. I was much happier with this version, and will probably try it again with the watercolour pencils or promarkers, as I think it will make a nice card done properly!

in the night garden

The challenge this month at craft-a-scene is to make your own garden - I decided in a rash moment to try a night-time scene.
The cottage and trees stamps came from Chocolate Baroque - I stamped the cottage first in black memento ink, masked it off and added the band of trees to the right. While the masks were in place,I added the moon mask and brushed distress inks in broken china, stormy sky and chipped sapphire over the sky, with a few touches of milled lavender. After removing the masks I added clouds using chipped sapphire and a piece of cut'n'dry foam.
Cottage and trees were coloured with watercolour pencils, then I used torn paper and cut'n'dry foam to make the lawns, using a ix of peeled paint, forest moss and bundled sage distress inks.
The flowers at the front are from Crafty Individuals - many thanks for the Facebook freebies! - I only used the top part of the stamp, stamping twice at different heights to create the flower border over the green inked lawn. For some of the flowers I used a waterbrush to remove some of the green ink, others I just coloured with pencils, and some I left green. Enough colour didn't come off as i wanted, so I added some dots of white gel pen, and then some clear wink of stella .
Edges were sponged with black soot before matting onto first matt silver then dark blue card before mounting onto a 7" square white card blank.

4th of July

4th of July was the theme for this month's quintiles - as usual, the one you think will be so easy turns out to be anything but!
My first thought was to do a scrapbook-type page using a photo of son in his American Football gear with a stars n stripes background - after hours spent trawling computer files, came to sad conclusion that it was one of the photos lost when a hard drive failed some time ago (not only that drive, but the backup failed too.....)
I couldn't get any vague ideas using said stars n stripes to work, then I found the file box with the Choc Baroque townhouses and cottages sets of stamps, which had seen vary little use so far. Some of the buildings looked vaguely American to me, so decided to use them. I brushed distress inks in shabby shutters and broken china over the edges of the card first, then stamped the houses and trees. Everything was coloured with inktense pencils, and a banner added with foam pads - pennants were just strips of card cut into rough triangles. White card with red promarker stripes and blue card with white stars drawn on with gel pen.
Sentiment is from SU, and believe me I held my breathe when I stamped it !
Tiles now in the post to Margaret - all I need to catch up with now is the ATC swap..............

bah humbug shape

bah humbug want a shaped card this week - I ended up with this one after trying to make a rocker card with an oval die and failing miserably (well, I did end up with an ok one, but it was sooo small...........). Mind you, this one isn't too wonderful - the faulty cutting really showed up on the scan, so obviously I should have measured it rather than just cutting round the original shape!
The stamp is by Stampin-up (assume it is an old one) , and came in a batch of Christmassy stamps from ebay - this and a santa were the ones that caught my eye originally, although I started out looking for more angel stamps.............. Anyhow, it was coloured with watercolour pencils after stamping with black memento ink before being cut out and matted onto white glitter card

pastel poppies

Pastel colours were the challenge on Less is More this week - think I may have gone a little too pale here, as the scanner at first decided it was black and white.............I usually stamp and emboss this Elusive Images stamp in gold, and have the traditional bright red poppies, but for this card I stamped in smoky grey Versafine, and coloured the poppies with watercolour pencils in pinks and lilac. I matted it onto a pink card, not quite the right pink, but the nearest one I had  and I think it came out as quite a pretty card - will probbaly become a Mother's day card eventually.

colour splash

Play Date challenge 71 is for black, white and a colour - after rejecting several favourite stamps, I decided to use this image from a set of stamps by Carrie Dennison for Elusive Images as I thought that all it needed was a touch of green for the grass - I was very tempted to just add pale blues and make it a winter scene, but it was nice and sunny today!
The image was stamped with black Versafine, and coloured with watercolour pencils - backing strip is from the Essence of Nature cd by Glenda Waterworth