A Burst of Colour

Hello everyone, as the nights are pulling in, and the days are often a bit grey and gloomy, I thought I would share a few colourful projects that I made for last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I hope that these projects will brighten up your day and inspire you to get your inkpads out and have some colourful creative fun yourselves.

My first project was created using drawing cartridge and Brushos. I wanted a zingy background, and chose yellow, red and orange to create the first layer. I sprinkled the Brushos first, and added water to get the lovely mixture of colours. I blotted another piece of drawing cartridge over the top, and saved that piece for another day's project. I added some stencilling using red and yellow ink, and stamped randomly over the background using the Klimt Panel cling mounted rubber stamp. I held the stamp in my hand rather than on a block to get just bits of the image here and there.

I stamped and embossed some chess pieces from The Art of Chess stamp set onto black card using gold embossing powder, and cut them out. I also stamped the sentiment onto a spare piece of my background card. I mounted the backgrounds before adding them to a tag shaped card.

The backgrounds for the next three cards were all created in the same way, I simply finished them off in different ways. The colours are so pretty, and I really enjoyed making the backgrounds. I made a lot, and still have some left for another creative session. I used Distress Oxide Ink spread onto a craft mat, which I spritzed with water. I placed my drawing cartridge over the top, and then added some gold mica spray, giving it a generous spritz. I put some crinkled cling film over the background and left it to dry completely. When the cling film is removed, you are left with some beautiful patterns, highlighted by the mica spray. There are lots of variations for this technique out there on the Internet, so do give it a try.

For the first of the three cards, I stamped the heart from Music Fanfare five times on a pink background, and once on green. I cut the green heart in half, and edged the cut side with black ink. I stamped the large music segment twice using a toning ink, and added a piece of velvet ribbon to the background. I scrunched, then arranged the hearts into a flower, tucking the green segments behind to resemble leaves. I wanted the flower to look more 'crumpled', and by scrunching the petals first, it gives them far more texture. I added a big black button in the centre. To finish, I added a sentiment from the Loving Sentiments stamp set and matted the background onto black card.

For the next two cards, I used the beautiful Floral Grunge stamp. I used patterned papers for the first card, paper piecing the image, and adding a butterfly cut from the papers themselves. I added one of the ephemera stamps using toning coloured ink, matching the background colours. You can really see the shimmer of the mica spray in this photo.

Finally, I added a bit of pencil colouring to the image on this last card, adding some grey pencil around the flower to give some shading and to give a feeling of dimension. I chose toning colours once again, and although this was a very quick card, it would make a lovely Birthday card. I used a sentiment from the Birthday Words stamp set.

I hope that I have given you a few ideas, and that you will try out some of the projects that I have shared with you today. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Life is a Game of Chess

Hi folks, another day, and another sample from me using the new stamp set 'The Art of Chess', just released over on Chocolate Baroque

I've gone much simpler this time, using a lovely backing paper from a paper set called Echoes of Italy, which I'm hoping will be available again soon. It's from my stash. I created a frame for the central image by stamping it on scrap paper, and then using a circle Nestie to draw around the top edge. I then cut this out, and used the template for my backing paper. I then inked around all of the edges with Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink.

I stamped the image again onto white card, and coloured it with Inktense pencils, using a waterbrush to blend the colours, and then adding more pencil to create depth. I stamped a sentiment from the 'Artful Affirmations' set, to create the impression of a game within the window, and added two polymer clay pieces waiting to enter the game. I coloured these with precious metal paint, and added Inka Gold in Silver on the raised areas to highlight the design of the pieces.

Look out for more samples of these new stamps over on the Design Team Blog I have a couple more samples myself coming up over there this week.

Thanks for stopping by today, xx

Old Leather Music Book

Continuing on the theme of the new stamps released over at Chocolate Baroque this week, I have made a sample with the 'Music Fanfare' stamp set this time.

I wanted to make my project look like a tooled leather book, and after some thought, set about spraying some cheap photo copy paper with Adirondack spray inks, until I achieved the desired colour. I used Cranberry and Red Pepper. I cut three hearts from chipboard, using the heart music stamp as a template, and stuck these to my main piece of chipboard, before sticking the sprayed paper down. I pressed around the hearts, and the paper was soft enough to settle around them. I coloured the edges of the paper with Black Soot Distress Ink.

I created a central focal point with mount board, stamping one of the lovely music images with Versafine Ink, and triple embossing the oval. I worked out where it was going to go on my project, and stamped some leaves in Black Stazon to create a frame around the oval. Finally, I added hinges and a lock created with grungepaper, and coloured with Black Soot DI.

I'll have another project for you tomorrow, using the chess stamps again. Don't forget to keep checking over on the Design Team Blog for more samples there from myself and my team mates. A sample that I made using the 'Music Fanfare' set is now showing on the DT Blog.

For details on how I made this card, please pop over to the Design Team Blog to take a look.

I'll be back later today with my Forgotten Friday post, see you then!

Thanks for stopping by, xx

New Chocolate Baroque Stamps!

Over at Chocolate Baroque Glenda has launched two new sets of stamps, 'The Art of Chess', and 'Music Fanfare'.

These are both fabulous stamps sets, and very useful for birthday cards for both men and women. When I first looked at the chess set, I could see the potential for men's cards, but wanted to show just how versatile this stamp set could be. I set about making a much more feminine card, using a palette of yellow and gold.

I created a background using Ecoline ink and salt, which I dried, then stamped some images from the 'Royal Fleur de Lys' stamp set. I used a piece of yellow vellum, and embossed a pawn shape randomly, using gold embossing powder, and painted the images, using Ecoline ink again. I stamped the sentiment on a left over scrap of the background, and edged it with Distress Ink.

Finally, I stamped the image of a woman and coloured her with Polychromos, before mounting her onto an oval Nestie, as if she were a reflection in a mirror, adding a shrink plastic crown.

Hop over to the Design Team Blog to see Glenda's sample card using these fabulous stamps, and keep checking back over the next few days for samples from the Design Team members. I will be posting a couple more samples myself on my Blog, so do come back to see me here as well.

Thanks for popping by today, xx