Altered Spool

Hi folks, just to let you know that I have a project over on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team Blog today. There is a new stamp sheet out called Sunny Sunflowers, full of bold blooms and great leaves to make some fabulous projects. The Design Team will be posting lots of samples over the next few days, so keep checking the blog to see what they have made.

For this project I have combined the stamps with one of Lesley Wharton's super Downloads; Patterned Spools set 5, which is a lovely gold and plum colour combination. I have used a wooden cotton reel that was about the perfect size for this project. I primed this with gesso, and painted it a soft lilac colour, using Eco Green acrylic paint. I nearly always mix my own colours by combining a cream acrylic paint with a darker colour until I get the colour I want. I make sure that I have enough paint to finish my project though, as you never get the colour the same second time around! I then printed two of the spool sets onto card, and stuck two of the correct size together so that they would fit around the cotton reel. I edged the card with a little bit of Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I then stuck the downloads to the cotton reel.

I stamped three smaller flowers, and several leaves, colouring these with Distress Markers, toning the colours in with the download colours. I also stamped a couple of tiny Butterflies from the 'Butterfly Bliss stamp plate, and coloured these in as well. I stuck the flowers around the cotton reel, adding the leaves, and one of the butterflies.


I placed a large shrink plastic flower with two leaves that I had coloured on card earlier and the last remaining small butterfly onto the top of the cotton reel over a circle download. I punched a hole into the middle of the download where the hole in the cotton reel was situated.

My Husband very kindly provided me with a metal rod with three wires which he had attached through holes along the top part of the rod. I bent these to look like branches, and stuck beads on the end, and inserted the rod into the hole in the cotton reel, turning it into an earring holder.

I added leftover beads and jewellery findings to some shrink plastic images that I had made and hung these on my little 'tree'.

Here's a close up picture of the earrings:

These will be great for the Summer and only cost and pound or two to make. They are in my favourite colours, so they will go with lots of things that I wear. There is lots of space on my little holder for plenty more pairs of earrings, so I am going to rummage through my stamps to see what else I can shrink to make into jewellery.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Popping in midweek, whatever next?

Hi folks, it is unusual for me these days to find the time inbetween my Forgotten Friday posts to come and say hello. However, I have been feeling that my poor blog has been woefully neglected lately. My OH and I have just got back from an overnight trip at a lovely hotel called Dunston Hall on the outskirts of Norwich, in Norfolk. My two BILs bought us the trip for our Silver Wedding Anniversary back in November. It was a lovely gift, as it gave us a brief bit of time out, and the surroundings were lovely.

The hotel seemed very imposing when we arrived, but I loved the tall twisted chimneys.

The frosty mornings were just so cold though, I would have liked to have seen more of the grounds, but it was just too chilly to walk around. This week, I have been working on shrink plastic with my card class, at their request. I made a card with them based on a lovely project made by Linda Elbourne for the Craft Barn She used Tim Holtz fragments, Paper Artsy stamps, and shrink plastic. I started by getting the class to make a masterboard with Distress Inks, choosing Old Paper, Victorian Velvet, and Crushed Olive for myself. They chose completely different colours. I kept the application fairly light, as I wanted to add lots of layers afterwards. Now as my shoulder is still quite painful, my blending is still a bit off, so I misted my card with water when I had finished, which kind of smoothes the blending out a bit. I then used a chicken wire mask and went over the Old Paper sections again, using Old Paper DI over the mask. At this point, I chopped my card in half. On one piece of card, I started to add lots of small Paper Artsy stamps, using the DI colours that I had used on my background, to build up some layers. I then stamped the large flower head in Black Archival Ink three times. I stamped the word 'Fly' and the 'birds in the grass' stamp onto the plainer piece of card, again using archival ink, and heat set this. I stuck the fragment pieces over the top of these stamped images with Glossy Accents, trimmed around them, and smoothed the edges with a nail file. I then cut two Nestability butterflies from clear shrink plastic, after sanding it a bit, to give it a key. I coloured it lightly with pencils, and then stamped it with parts of a scroll stamp, using Stazon ink. I shrunk these, bending them slightly with my asbestos fingers, while they were still warm (very hot!) Then I edged these with a gold Krylon pen. Once the card was assembled, I stuck the butterflies to the card with Glossy Accents.

I loved Linda's original project, and I hope that she won't mind me casing it for the much simpler project that my card class really enjoyed putting together.

Thanks for stopping by today, and I'll be back on Friday with my Forgotten Friday project, xx

Chocolate Baroque Doodle stamps

Hi folks, today I like to show you a card that I made using the new Doodle stamps from Chocolate Baroque. We were given these on the Design Team to play with recently, and had a great time with them.

For this particular sample, I decided to use soft colours, and a Spring palette. I made a stair step card, and instructions for this can be found at http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ in the resources section. You do not have to be a member to use the resource section, just trawl through, and you'll find some great card shapes and techniques over there.

Anyway, I used paper from the Essence of Nature CD to cover the panels of my card, and matted this onto pale green card. I cut an oval, stamped my images with Versamark, and embossed them using pearl white embossing powder. I coloured the oval using Distress Inks. I stamped four butterflies onto shrink plastic, and attached those to the step panels, and added a piece of green seam binding ribbon. A sentiment finishes the card.

I loved working with these soft colours, as I often work with much brighter colours.
The other Design Team members have been posting some of their samples on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog, and their own blogs, which can be accessed from the Design Team blog. You can reach the blog from my sidebar. Do go and take a look. Thanks for stopping by today, Judith xx

Where does the time go?

This last couple of weeks has been incredibly busy, I've been away twice, and time is just whizzing by. Unfortunately, I just didn't manage a Forgotten Friday post last week, but Val and Sue, both posted on their own blogs. They have supported this post from day one, and I truly appreciate that. Girls, will you please get in touch with me, I know you both know how to, either via my profile, or on the Chocolate Baroque social site. You can see Sue's and Val's posts by reading the comments on my previous post.

The Chocolate Baroque website launch has been great, it's lovely to look at, and the new stamps are fabulous. I have made two cards from the new stamp plate 'Butterfly Dreams'

Of course I had to use the poppies first! I used gold embossing to stamp out the image, but I think that it will look stunning stamped in black. That will be how I try it out next time. I've used shrink plastic for the butterflies, but stamped one on the wrong side of the shrink plastic, to get it facing the opposite way.

This card became a Mother's Day card for my Mother in Law, and she was really pleased with it. I stamped the decoupaged butterflies onto coloured vellum which I bought years ago, as a job lot from a certain shopping channel, so I don't know if it's still available. I spritzed the stamped panel with Gold Sticky Fingers spray after I had coloured it with Adirondack inks, it is very shimmery, which you can see if the picture is clickable.
The Chocolate Baroque social site is humming with activity, there are lots of members now. Don't be put off if it seems a bit strange at first. There are lots of places to ask questions. If not, look for me, and I'll help you! The links for the website, and the social site are in my previous post, but there is a nice badge now in my sidebar for the social site for you to click on, and you can reach the shop from there.
I'll be back with a Forgotten Friday post this week, so don't forget to start looking through your neglected or forgotten stash, make something, add a comment to my post , and I'll come and visit you.
Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Masterboard makes

On last week's WOYWW post, I showed a masterboard that I had made with my card making class, and promised that I would post the finished samples. Now normally my class samples don't get finished, as I make them in a hurry, I have to be one step ahead of the girls, and they are rushed affairs, not necessarily my best work. I needed to finish the second sample for this week, so that they could see what to do, so I figured that I might as well finish the first one while I was at it. I got all of the patterned sections of card from one piece of A3 card, with a small section left over, for these two cards. The first card is based on Linda Elbourne's projects in the February Craft Stamper, making a pocket to put a packet of seeds in, or something of a similar size.

The second card is using the rest of the masterboard, and Vix Kennedy's design on page 83 of the same magazine, to make an easel card with a Post-it note block as the stopper for the card. On both cards, I have used large black beads to embellish my Wendy Vecchi butterflies, Paper Artsy stamps, and a mixture of Distress Inks and Memento Inks. I used a little bit of shrink plastic for the sentiment.

I really enjoyed working with these colours, they feel like Spring is just around the corner. It's too cold for that here at the moment, but we can live in hope. Thanks for popping by, Judith xx