Colourful Christmas Cards

Hello everyone, it's time for another weekly post on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog, and I am helping to provide part of the inspiration this week in the form of a tutorial.

I have created a set of Christmas notelets, along the same lines of my earlier floral cards for a previous colour challenge:

You can adapt the instructions to use any colours or stamps that you like, making the cards really versatile. If you check back to my previous post, you will see that I used Brushos rather than Distress Inks, so try using different water based mediums for these cards, and experiment with the effects that you can achieve for the backgrounds, but most of all, have fun and enjoy yourselves.

Materials:

Distress Inkpads: Squeezed Lemonade, Ripe Persimmon, Wilted Violet
Archival Plum inkpad
Versafine Onyx Black inkpad
Smooth Watercolour paper
Cream linen card
Selection of Christmas stamps and sentiments


Instructions:

Cut six strips of watercolour paper 5.5cms wide and 10.5cms long.
Colour each strip with a mixture of the three colours of Distress Ink, blending them where they meet. Spritz the panels with water if desired and dry with a heat gun.
Stamp the images using Plum Archival ink, and add the sentiments using Versafine Onyx Black ink.
To make the cards, cut two pieces of A4 linen card into three, approxinately 9.8 cms wide.
Fold the strips in half, at the 10.5cms point, scoring the fold to give a neat crease. Round the four corners of the card if desired.
Adhere the coloured panels to the linen cards.

For extra Christmas sparkle, you could choose to use gold embossing and add a bit of glitter to areas of the stamped images. These cards will be great for batch cards if you have lots of cards to make.

I used stamps from Christmas Flourish, Christmas Song, Fat Robin, Frosty Trees, and Stained Glass Christmas.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Beachy Birthday Blog Hop

Hello, and welcome to our SURPRISE Birthday Beach Blog Hop for the lovely Asha! You should have arrived here from Jessica Kaiser's blog. If not, start at the MHKDesigns blog to complete the hop for more chances to WIN!  We are celebrating a very special lady today, and we're doing so by creating beachy bithday cards to wish her many happy returns!

I was sent a digital package by the lovely Mynn from MHKDesigns to create a card for Asha, and was told anything goes using the digital designs. I decided to create a cheery glittery Birthday cake using plain gelli plate backgrounds, which I then printed the design onto, and decoupaged the cake onto another gelli plate background to which I had added some stamping.

I added some glitter to sections of the cake, and created a border using one of the Birthday words options that came with the cake.

I have also made a beach themed card using the colours in the swatch as inspiration. I used some stamps from Chocolate Baroque to create my card, from a set called Seaside Dreams.

I kept the card very CAS in style, stamping the image and sentiment on beige linen card, and adding some scraps of textured brown and teal card from my stash box. I coloured the image with Polychromos pencils.

Thank you so much for joining our Birthday Hop to say "Happy Birthday" to a dear friend! Your next stop on the hop is Judy VanZandt's blog!

It has been fun joining in with Asha's Birthday celebrations, and keeping the secret these past few weeks. Happy Birthday my friend! Thanks for stopping by, xx

Dots 'n Stripes 'n Swirls!

Hello everyone, I have a colourful project for you today, using two of this month's Baroque Ornament stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

I created a background spritzing magenta and yellow Decoart Media sprays onto a damp piece of watercolour paper, and added some more water to blend them. I blotted the paper with a spare piece of card, to help smooth out the colour, and also to create another piece of coloured card for my project. I edged the background with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, and added some stencilling using a Colourbox Swirldot stencil with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink.

I spritzed some turquoise, pink and yellow spray onto a craft mat, and picking the spray up with some water, created a wash of each colour onto some more watercolour paper. I dried each piece of paper thoroughly with a heat gun. I stamped several of the Dots 'n Stripes Baroque Ornament, the Tangled Baroque Ornament, plus the centre of one of the flowers from the Tangled Garden stamp set, and the clear Tangled Butterfly stamp onto the coloured backgrounds using Versafine Onyx Black ink and clear embossing powder. I cut all of the shapes out, and layered them up onto the background. I added a small amount of colour to the butterfly using Distress markers.

I drew some stems for the flowers using a fine-tipped pen and added Mowed Lawn Distress Marker with a water brush, before adding some doodles to complement the flower designs.

I hope that you like my funky project, and bright colours, and that it might inspire you to get creative with these super stamps. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Paisley Butterfly

Hello everyone, it's time for a brand new challenge over on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog this week, and I am providing part of the inspiration using the scrumptious new colours.

I created my background by adding some Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink to the centre of a piece of smooth watercolour paper, before placing my stencil onto the background. I then added Fossilized Amber, Ripe Persimmon, and Fossilized Amber again in bands radiating out towards the edge of the background. With the stencil still in place, I spritzed some gold shimmer spray over the background, and then removed the stencil. I dried the background with a heat gun.

I stamped around the edges with a small leaf design from the Nature's Paisleys stamp set, using Plum Archival Ink. I added the body of the large butterfly from the Patchwork Butterfly stamp set in the centre of the stencilled area, by masking off the wings, and inking only the body and antennae, and then removing the masking tape before I stamped the image.

I coloured a scrap piece of card with Shaded Lilac Distress Ink, and dried the card thoroughly with a heat gun. I then stamped a large paisley design using Plum Archival Ink, adding clear embossing powder over the top. I repeated this until I had four images. I stamped the paisley design onto a scrap piece of paper and drew a paisley shape arpund the image to create a template for the butterfly wings. I used the template over the top of the four Plum images on the lilac card, drew around the areas and cut them out. I added some shading around the edges of each wing with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink. I stamped an extra butterfly body onto a piece of card that I had coloured with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink, and cut it out.

I assembled the butterfly using dries clear glue, adding the extra body over the wings. I added a sentiment from the Butterfly Dreams stamp set. I used Seedless Preserves Distress Ink to add some shading to the edge of the background before matting it onto to some plum card, and then onto a large white card blank.

I hope that you will pop over to the Challenge blog to see the rest of the Design Team inspiration, check out the new colour swatch, and join in the challenge, you could win a £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque!
Thanks for stopping by, xx

Big Bold Christmas

Hello everyone, as part of our bi-monthly Fifteen Minute blog post, over on the Design Team blog today, I am sharing three quick and easy Christmas cards. In the current hot weather, the last thing you are thinking of is preparing for Christmas, however, I have created three Christmas card ideas for you, because it is never too early to start getting your Christmas cards on the go. I have used embossing on all three cards, and Brushos, selecting some of our Big Bold Background stamps, which make creating cards so quick and easy.

For this first example, I chose blue and purple Brushos, added white embossing when I stamped the snowflake image, and stamped the sentiment onto a scrap of card which I trimmed from the original background. I added a few gems in the centre of the snowflakes, and used blue card for matting and layering.

This second card was completed in much the same way, using gold embossing for the Christmas Baubles, but sprinkling the red, yellow and orange Brushos onto the baubles, and using the green for the background areas, before spritzing with water. I left the card to dry naturally before matting onto co-ordinating card.

For my final card, I stamped the Tangled Baubles with Versafine OnyxBlack Ink, and used clear embossing powder, for a crisp image. I painted the baubles using green, turquoise and lilac Brushos and a waterbrush. I then painted the background areas liberally with a waterbrush before sprinkling Black Brusho onto the areas very carefully. The black Brusho when wet creates a multi-coloured effect, which ties in perfectly with the baubles. Again, I chose a toning card to mat the background.

Do pop over to the Design Team blog to see the rest of the fabulous creations provided by my Design Team mates, showing that quick cards can be so effective. The post is full of techniques and inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Mixed Media Tag

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today. I have created a mixed media tag for the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog, as part of a short bio about myself. You can read the blog post here.


I have used a Tando long tag, painted with gesso, I added some texture paste through a Dutch Doobadoo Swirls stencil, and allowed it to dry. I spritzed the tag with Decoart media sprays, and then added a bit of water to dilute them slightly. I added some gilding wax to the raised area and around the edge. I then stamped a word from the Artistic Expressions stamp set, using Jet Black Archival ink. I stamped two butterflies from The Rose Tree stamp set onto a piece of scrap card, and painted them using some of the spray and a water brush. I cut the butterflies out, and glued them to the tag, adding black flower stamens for antennae.

 Thanks for stopping by, xx

Textured Ornaments

Hello everyone, I have two cards to share with you today, using the current stamps of the month from Chocolate Baroque.

I have used the Palm Fan Baroque Ornament stamp to create my first card, creating a wrinkle free distress background using a palette of blues and greens. I added a stencil over the top of the background.

I used silver Soft Form Relief Paste to create a textured focal element for my card. I spread the paste over the stamp, and left it to dry overnight. Once the paste was dry, I peeled the film away from the stamp, and trimmed away the rough edges. I added some green and turquoise paint using a baby wipe, taking care not to over wet the film, or it starts to break down. Once the film was dry again, I attached it to the centre of the main stencilled area, and added a large flat-backed gem.

The sentiment is from the Birthday Words stamp set, which I stamped using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I adhered the background to a large black card blank to finish.

For my second card, I created a wrinkle free distress background as before, using a colour combination of blues and purples, and used the Tangled Baroque Ornament stamp as my focal point.

I created a focal image using Gold Soft Form Relief Paste, in exactly the same way as before, this time using purple and blue paint to colour the film. I added some plum ribbon, and used Plum Archival ink to stamp the sentiment. The sentiment is from the Words of Gratitude stamp set.

Sadly, the Soft Form Relief Paste is not available on the website at the moment, but hopefully, it will be back in stock at some point. You could use alcohol inks to colour some card, and then once it is dry, emboss your image using gold embossing powder, as an alternative. Thanks for stopping by, xx