evening trees

I tried just using one ink pad with these lovely stamps from the trees a crowd set . I used chipped sapphire distress oxide as i wanted a night-time scene, with the traditional torn paper to create the landscape. I stamped the trees first and did the landscape around them for the first card - the birds were drawn in using a waterbrush.
Sentiment is a favourite of mine and comes from the words of inspiration set

 The second card has the same colour scheme, but with the landscape done first and the trees added afterwards.




I used the same colour scheme for another stamp, which I used on the lid of the box I made to hold a set of coasters featuring different stamps from the set.





The coasters were originally beermats which were coated with white gesso before they were stamped and coloured. It doesn't show in the scans but they were finished with a very thin  coat of crackle medium to seal them.

Hobby Art playday

 had a lovely relaxing day at Costessey yesterday with Moira Walters and most of the usual crowd.


We started using the lovely hummingbirds stamps set, and created a this card. It took a fair bit to do, first making the distress oxide background panel and leaving it to dry.
The birds were stamped onto the spare watercolour card using black versafine ink, coloured with inktense pencils and a waterbrush and then cut out.
The flowers were stamped  onto the dry panels and coloured with inktense pencils and koh-i-noor watercolor paints.
The backing card for the panels was painted using the same colour as the larger flowers.

The first bird was was glued to the front of the card, and the second was glued to the back of the front panel, matching the beaks as closely as possible.








The second card used stamps from the
 bee friendly set, and also had a distress oxide background. The frame was diecut from cream card, and the cutout coloured with distress inks and using a woodgrain stencil once the first layer was dry.
The daisies were stamped onto the background, and again onto spare cream card. The spares were coloured with inktense pencils and the flower heads cut out . The large bee was stamped onto the background and again onto spare card, whcih was coloured and the body and wings cut out after colouring.  Sentiment added , then the card assembled onto a 7" square blank card, with stickles glitter added to the bees wings.

 The last one uses stamps from the same set, stamped omto another distress oxide background. The flowers were coloured with amixture of watercolour pencils and distress markers. The large bee was stamped onto spare card, coloured and cut out, and glitter added to all the bee wings.
Marker pen round the edges, and a toning red card mat.

quirky designer houses

 Good morning everyone, today I am sharing my samples of the gorgeous quirky houses from Chocolate Baroque - definitely something different for new home cards!
The stamps are book mark sized, but easily make larger cards...
The card on the left is 8" square, just to prove it can be done.  I started out with scraps of bleeding art tissue laid onto white card to create the background and brushed with water. Once dry, the tree house was stamped using black versafine ink and coloured with watercolour pencils. A narrow black mat, then glued to the card at an angle. The sentiment is from punky expressions





The next ones are both on diffent size card blanks, the left is 5"x7", the right DL. The one on the left has a distress oxide background for a night effect, while the one on the right is just stamped onto white card  and then edged with different coloured marker pens. they are both coloured with watercolour pencils

 The Heath Robinson house stamp was stamped onto grey card using black versafine ink and coloured with a mix of brusho powders and watercolour pencils. I cut it out into a sort of bubble shape to echo the bubbles, then cut the same shape out in black as a mat and orangy red to match the colours of the house. The sentiment was also cut into a shape and given a black mat, then glued at an angle

 The last one is simply stamped onto grey card  and coloured with brusho powders, mounted onto a DL card blank.

I loved these quirky houses, especially the tree house, and can see them getting quite a bit of use - the tree house would make a great halloween card.......

just playing...

 Sunday was the regular get-together craft afternoon at Wacton, and we all had a lovely afternoon playing with Tonic dies and Hobby Art stamps.

Being my usual awkward self I raided the stamp box and proceeded to get very inky - it is a good idea not to accidentally put your hand onto a koh-i-nor watercolour palette you have just used, the bright blue paint took forever to scrub off!


The first two used the garden wonder set of stamps and also the dragonfly, both designed by Janie Burnett-Bleach.  Distress oxide backgrounds, images watercoloured with clear glitter for the small dragonfly and  blue, green and purple glitters for the large one. The frog and snail were both stamped again onto spare card, coloured and cut out and glued in place.











This last card is the one i was supposed to have been doing all along.
 I liked the Tonic corner die but not the diecut flowers and butterflies the others used, so I added stamps instead, another Hobby Art set featuring bees. It did mean there wasn't such a queue for the die cutter!

heartful brusho

Two cards using the lovely heart full of love stamp set from Chocolate Baroque, and my favourite brushos. The heart was stamped in black versafine onto a brusho background and clear embossed.  The heart, leaves and small flowers were coloured using more brusho applied with a water brush. Once it was all dry, I bleached the colour out of  the larger flowers- it did take a couple of applications of bleach to get rid of all the colour.
Sentiment added in black, and a mat to match the heart to finish off.

Same technique for the second card, this time using the matching flower spray stamp and just bleaching the flowers out, before edging with a marker pen.

punky romance

Here are my ChocolateBaroque punky samples to start the month, mostly using my favourite brusho powders
This big stamp from punky romance was stamped with black versafine and clear embossed onto a piece of card already coloured with brusho powders,mostly using sandstone and a green.
I used more of the same colours to paint the image, with turquoise for the butterflies.
The sentiment came from punky expressions. I edged the card using a black marker pen before adding it to a square card blank

 These papier mache letters were found when looking for some boxes to decorate - I couldn't find the right boxes, but found these further along the shelf in the store........and thought I would have a play.
They were painted with white gesso first, then coloured with distress oxide inks . Some of the images were stamped in white directly onto the letters to make the background. Several other images from the set were stamped in black versafine onto white tissue paper,  torn out and added using modpodge.

These were the only boxes I had, they were quite small so i just decorated the lids.
The heart shaped one used a scrap of brushoed card, image stamped in black versafine , cut to shape and glued on. The oval one was triple embossed using a copper powder and the stamp pressed into the final layer while it was still hot.

folk art garden

I loved this huge stamp from Chocolate Barqoue which makes a card on its own.

While it is a very detailed stamp, just crying out to be coloured in, I wanted to try it in monochrome. It was stamped in black versafine ink onto a dull silver card ( using a stamp platform as it is so big) and clear embossed. I then coloured the butterflies and three flowers using white watercolour paint. It was then mounted onto a 8" square white card blank.







My second card has a pale brusho background , image again stmaped using versafine and clear embossing powder. I used brusho to colour the butterflies, flowers and foliage before trimming it down to fit onto an A5 card blank and edging with a black marker pen.







The final version has a brusho back ground again, with the image stamped using a toning distress oxide ink pad. This time it was cut down to fit a 5"x7" card blank, edged with black marker again, and the sentiment stamped in black.  I used one of the chipboard circles to stamp part of the image using black versafine ink, then coloured the flowere with watercolour paints before edging the circle with black marker pen and gluing in place.