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

dreaming skies

 If you saw Lesley and Chocolate Baroque on Hochanda last month, you would have seen these cards. I owe my friend Janet for the inspiration, she let me play with her new distress oxide ink pads - and did make sure she got them all back too! I loved the effect on black card, though it did seem to fade with time, so tried to get the same effect with what I had.
I used the silhouette palace 1 mask on black card, and sponged white pigment ink across the card to be the base of the sky, not worrying about any streaks.Once it was dry, I sponged ordinary distress inks over the top, to try to give a northern lights effect, using purples and greens - not quite right, but near enough for me!
The winged horse and the fairy were stamped using versamark and a glittery black embossing powder. Fairies are not really my scene, but I did like this one - so tried  a different version.
I used far more of the white pigment ink this time, and positioned the mask towards the bottom of the card - the sky looked better this time to me, the colour showed up more. The faory and the horse were embossed again with the same glittery powder, I added white to one side of the masked image, and the sentiment from the see beauty clear set with white embossing powder at the bottom.

more Katya

Today I am showing you two more samples from the Chocolate Baroque tv shows using the lovely Katya - you can tell she was my favourite, can't you!
Katya stamped with black versafine, clear embossed and masked with masking fluid. The buildings from the babushka set were stamped using an old Adirondack multi-coloured dye ink pad that was so old the colours had all merged into an apology for black - very different from the original! It worked for the buildings, as there were still traces of the original colours when the background was spritzed with water to activate the brusho powders, so I got a misty skyline effect.
Once everything was dry, I rubbed off the masking fluid and coloured her using watered down aztec metallic paints.







The second version is a bit more dramatic , and a tad more complicated.
It started out the same way, stamping and masking Katya before stamping the castle from the fantasy castle set, as I thought it looked sufficiently Russian. I coloured the castle with brusho powders and a waterbrush, mostly using sandstone, lemon and leaf green powders. Katya was coloured with mica powders and a waterbrush. I created a layered effect by trimming the castle to a square and cutting round Katya where she was outside the square. I added a square gold mat behind the castle.
The background was randomly stamped with the silhouette palaces stamp using the same ancient ink pad and grey, purple and black brusho powders which all sort of merged into a misty nighttime effect.
I

Chocolate Baroque challenge 35

I thought the colours for this month's challenge were exotic enough to give me an excuse to use the lovely Katya  again.
I used my ancient Adirondack multi-colour ink pad (well, it was multi-colour years ago, now an interesting single colour) to stamp the large palace stamp behind Katya after masking her out with masking fluid. It needs to be masking fluid, as I find that brusho powders tend to leak behind a normal self-adhesive masking paper, which does nothing for an image where you need a clean face.....
I used brusho powders and a mist spray for the background, tilting the paper to let the colours run - mostly used sandstone and turquoise powders this time. As the Adirondack ink was waterbased, it merged nicely to give a misty effect in the background.
Once everything was dry, I rubbed off the masking fluid and added some colour with marker pens.

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

Happy Easter

 This was my card for the current Chocolate Baroque colour challenge, using two of the latest stamps from Chocolate Baroque, the lovely large crackle background stamp and the Russian exquisite egg stamp.
Have to admit that I struggled with this colour combination, and this was the only effort that didn't make the bin...........I stamped the egg onto white card using a browny adirondack ink pad, (I think it was labelled raisin under the ink smudge...) and clear embossed it. I coloured it using an alcohol marker, which came out rather paler than I had hoped, cut it out and stuck it onto the background kraft card that was randomly stamped using the crackle stamp and the same ink pad, with more sponged round the edges.

The second card was one that I made for the tv show, using a piece of scrap card as a background. One of Lesley's fab ideas - smudge leftover Aztec metallic paints onto a piece of black card using a baby wipe  and you get a lovely marble efffect eventually.
The egg was stamped using a white pigment ink and embossed with white as well to make sure it showed up on the marble background. Silver matt and a black 5"x7" base card to finish it off.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter

katya

The first of my samples for the recent Chocolate Baroque tv show - loved playing with these Russian themed stamps!
Katya is a big stamp, and this card is 8"x8" to give you some idea of size.
She was stmaped in black versafine and clear embossed before masking with masking fluid.
The background was stamped using the larger of the stamps from silhouette palaces, which was stamped using an ancient adirondack multicolour dye inkpad - so old that the original colours had all merged into a sort of purply grey, which was perfect for creating a misty background. Grey brusho powder for the background, and the palaces bled slightly into it when sprayed, which only added to the mistiness. Sometimes you are just lucky!
Once everything was dry, I rubbed off the masking fluid and coloured Katya with alcohol markers before adding a gold mirri card matt and mounting onto the white card blank.