Pan Pastel favourites

Hello everyone, I am revisiting a couple of my favourite stamp sets today; Butterfly Dreams and Loving Sentiments.  I have chosen to use a couple of the smaller stamps to create backgrounds, using Pan Pastels to colour my card first, and then stamp the images over the top. This always seems to give a lovely crisp impression.

For my first card, I have used some linen textured card, and shades of green and purple to colour the background, before stamping the leaf image using Versafine Olympia Green and Archival Pum Ink over the top. I coloured a smaller piece of card in the same way, and stamped a sentiment using Olympia Green as before. I added burgundy card as a matting layer for the linen card.

I chose a piece of smooth card to colour with the purple shades of Pan Pastel, and then stamped a butterfly from the stamp set over the top, using Versafine Onyx Black Ink. I cut the image out, and added some flower stamens to replace the antennae.

For my second card, I coloured a piece of smooth card with turquoise Pan Pastel, and then stamped another leafy image over the top with Versafine Deep Lagoon Ink. Using Versamark Ink, I stamped the large flourish, and added a dark blue Pan Pastel to the image.

I coloured another smaller piece of card with the turquoise Pan Pastel as before, and stamped a sentiment. I added a few flat-backed gems to finish.

Don't forget to keep visiting the Design Team blog, where my team mates are revisiting their favourite stamps all month. Thanks for stopping by,  xx

Fifteen Minutes or Less

Hello everyone, we are launching a new bi-monthly blog post over on the Design Team Blog, starting today, and the theme will be cards created in fifteen minutes or less. We always try to provide inspiration on the Design Team Blog, using the stamps in imaginitive and innovative ways, and try to create a balance of styles and projects for all abilities. We do feel that sometimes the beginner stampers, or those looking for quick card ideas can get overlooked. The cards may be clean and simple in style, or simply quick to make. Hopefully, they will stretch the use of stamps that are already in your stash, giving you lots of new ideas as we work our way through some of our own stamps, and revisit some of our favourites. You will see samples created by both the Design Team and the Guest Design Team, who are joining us along the way.

I have made a quick card for the first blog post using a really pretty tree stamp from the Essence of Nature stamp set. I have not used this stamp enough, as it is such a lovely image. I created a mask using cheap copy paper, die cutting an oval shape from the centre. I sprayed some lime green Dylusion spray through the mask onto some card, and then carefully removed the mask. I dried the spritzed area with a heat gun, and stamped the tree image with Versafine Onyx Black Ink. I also stamped the image again onto spare card, as I wanted a few extra butterflies.

I spritzed some orange, yellow and pink Dylusion spray onto my craft mat, just a little bit, and using a brush, painted the butterflies with the spray. I cut out a few of the larger ones from the secon image, and stuck them to the original for dimension. I added a sentiment from the Birthday Words stamp set, and matted the background onto a black card blank.

Look out for lots of inspiration on the Design Team blog, it is a jam-packed issue, full of beautiful artwork from my Team Mates. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Spring Greens

Hello everyone, we are taking a bit of a retrospective look at our favourite stamps over on the Design Team Blog at the moment.  I have been a fan of Sue Page's images for many years, pretty much since I started stamping in the 1990's. So, I have a lot of Chocolate Baroque favourite stamps in my stash, as you can well imagine!I am sharing a card using just a few of my favourites with you today. For my card, I have chosen a lovely tree stamp from the Fantasy Woodland stamp set. I love the versatilty of this stamp set, so many different stamps, offering many possibilities.

To create my card, I stuck an old book page onto some thin card, and then stamped the tree image onto the card. I coloured the image with Inktense pencils and a water brush. I also tore some jagged strips of book page, and coloured them with various colours of green Distress Ink, darker at the top of each strip, and paler at the bottom.

I added a circle mask to a white card blank, and coloured the top portion of the card pale blue, using Distress Ink. I then removed the circle mask, and added a bit of yellow ink to the circle. I stuck the book page strips to the lower end of the card, and trimmed off the rough edges.

I stamped the tree image directly onto the card, using Versafine Onyx Black Ink, and added a bit of shading under the image using a dark green pencil. I decoupaged the image that I had stamped onto book paper over the background image. I stamped three birds from the Landscape Edges clear stamp set over the sun, and added a sentiment from the Mackintosh Sentiments clear stamp set.

This was a simple, card to make, and could be used for lots of different occasions. I feel that it has a rather Spring-like feel and have named my blog post 'Spring Greens', a bit of a pun there, sorry!

There is a competition running at the moment at Chocolate Baroque, as the Company is celebrating its fifth Birthday this month. We would like you to create a project using the theme of 'Spring', and email a picture to sales@chocolatebaroque.com you can find all the details here. There are some great prizes, and a chance to grab a guest spot on the Design Team! So get your thinking caps on and have a go, as it would be lovely to see what you create.

Thanks for stopping by, xx