Butterflies and Bubbles

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share with you today, showcasing stamps featured in last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

For my first project, I wanted to compare the card that we brought to the show, a mixture of gloss and matt card, and to see how each surface worked with ink. I embossed an image from Punky Romance on both pieces of card using Versamark and white embossing powder, before creating a background, blending Versafine Clair Ink on the surface. I used a mix of purple and mustard, which is very cheery. I stamped another image from the same stamp set using Memento Ink in a deep purple shade over the top, taking care to rub away any ink that covered the white embossing with a piece of kitchen paper.

It is not very easy from the photograph to tell the difference between the two surfaces. The glossy card (on the right) really shines, and takes the ink very well. The matt card (on the left), apart from the embossing, looks printed, it is so smooth. It depends which effect you prefer, I like them both. This card will be a staple product on the website in the future, just like our Drawing Cartridge and Textured Art card.

I embossed three butterflies onto vellum using the white embossing powder, and cut them out, adding them to the background to complete the card.

To create my second card, I created a wash over a piece of drawing cartridge, using blue watercolour ink. I added a bit of sea salt and left the background to dry. I stamped the heart image from A Heart Full of Love onto another piece of card using dark blue ink. I coloured the image using Ecoline markers and added a bit of sparkle using a silver sparkle pen. Once the background was dry, I removed the salt and stamped around the edge with a bubble image from Floral Heart to tie in with the bubbles on the main image, adding highlights with the silver sparkle pen once more.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Fifteen Minute Cards

Hello everyone,  today sees the monthly Fifteen Minute Cards blog post over on the Chocoloate Baroque Design Team blog. I have created two projects for the post, the first card was created by stamping and embossing the heart image randomly over a piece of scrapbook paper using a teal embossing powder. I used the same colour for the sentiment on a smaller strip of the paper. I edged both pieces of the paper with Teal ink, allowing them to dry before assembling the card.

For my second card, I stamped the broken heart using red Memento ink onto a white card blank. I then stamped the heart again onto a mini gelli plate before then using the gelli plate as a stamp and stamping the image from the gelli plate beside my first stamped image on the card blank to complete the heart. I added the sentiment using black ink, then flicked some watered down red Distress Ink over the card to create splatters.

Do hop over to the Design Team blog to check out the projects that my team mates have created.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Hearts Full of Love

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you from last month's TV shows on Hochanda, featuring the lovely heart stamps.

My first projects are three very quick cards, 4" square, using images from the Floral Heart stamp set. I stamped straight onto the card blanks to create a set of clean and simple cards that could be used as little notelets.

The first card uses three different colours of blue Memento ink and the bubble heart, around one of the sentiments which was stamped in black ink. I covered the card very quickly, simply stamping the heart in the different colours to create an all over background.

The second card was created by stamping the large heart, and then stamping the flower cluster down the side using four different colours. I then painted the flowers in the large heart using the four colours and added white highlights.

The third card was created by stamping the heart in second generation randomly over the background with red ink. I stamped the sentiment in black ink as before. Using a small white board circle from the Hearts and Circles pack, I added red ink before coating the circle with UTEE, heating it with my heat gun and stamping the same heart image into the hot embossing powder. I brushed some gold mica powder over the image to pick out the detail. The variations that you could create using this little stamp set are huge, and these little cards can mean so much to someone. I quite like working on this small size!

The following cards were shown as a demonstration on one of the TV shows last month. I created a Toile de Jouy background using the flower sprig from the A Heart Full of Love stamp set, stamping onto 160gsm Luxury Smooth paper I cut a smaller square of the paper to stamp the corresponding heart image. I coloured the heart with pencils, before matting both layers with coordinating card. I coloured a piece of ribbon with Distress Ink to get the ribbon to match the project exactly. I created a couple of colour options for the show, one pale, and one much brighter, to show that by changing the colours, you can create a very different effect. Apologies for the photo of the paler card, it has been given away now, so I cannot photograph it again.

I stamped the first card using a Blue Archival Ink, and the second using Grey Archival Ink. They are not necessarily colours that you would think to use, but once you start to colour the images,the ink colour recedes into the background. Toile de Jouy is created in lots of different colour options anyway.

I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you, thanks for stopping by, xx