Folk Art Garden

Hello everyone, I have two projects to share with you today, featuring The Folk Art Garden stamp set, which we shared on one of last month's TV shows on Hochanda. This beautiful stamp set features a wonderful intricate stamp, along with some delightful smaller images, all hand drawn by our designer Sue Page and some fabulous little sentiments which were added by Lesley.

I created my first project by stamping the main image onto some 160 gsm Luxury Smooth White Paper which is perfect for this kind of project. This paper is the same paper that the colouring pages, and the designer papers are printed on. You can colour with pencils, add inks, or watercolour on the paper, it is very versatile. I used Versafine Clair ink in a dark blue, rather than going for a stronger black colour. I partially masked the image using Masking tissue, and added some of the little worker stamps around the edges, to create the effect of a garden running along the bottom of the page.

I added some Distress Ink along the top of the card, masking off a circle for a sun, and using torn paper to create hills. I used a mixture of blue and pink to create the sky. I added yellow for the sun, and stamped a sentiment. I added two little birds from the Landscape Edges stamp set. I used Polychromos pencils to colour the flowers and butterflies. It may seem like it would take ages, but I sit in front of the TV, and the time passes without me noticing!

For the purposes of a TV demo, I needed to create a quicker version of this card, plus Masking Tissue never reacts well under the studio lights! I used the big acrylic block that we sold with the stamp, and covered it with two different colours of Distress Oxide Ink, one blue, and one green, and spritzed them with water. I smooshed the block across a piece of drawing cartridge, (that had a circle mask already added), covering the background in one go. Once the background was dry, I stamped the large image in a dark colour at the bottom of the page, as before, but towards the middle this time. I used the large image to stamp around the edges, filling in the gaps, so that the image was not floating by itself.

I coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor paints, as these cover the Distress Oxide Ink really well. I stamped a sentiment from the same stamp set to complete the card.

By varying the amount of Distress Ink that you add to the block, you can alter how vibrant your background will be. If you do not want such a strong background, add less ink to the acrylic block.

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

Make Do and Mend

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first post of the month for March. As you read this post, I will be on my way to Hochanda for the first of our TV shows for this month, with another show tomorrow. I do hope that you can watch or record the shows to see what Lesley and I have in store for you. The Design Team have created more beautiful projects to inspire you once again.

For my post today, I am taking you back to last month's TV shows, when I created some fabric samples, using the fabulous Haberdashery range of stamps, and want to share a couple of those with you. I have used stamps from Haberdashery, The Sewing Room, and Floral Mannequins stamp sets.

I created a card background using a damp tea bag, which I wiped over a piece of drawing cartridge, then sprinkled some sea salt on top, leaving the background to dry. Once I had wiped the sea salt away, I stamped a range of the little worker stamps from the sets over the background using dark  brown Archival ink. I created a tag using scraps of fabric and book paper, then added a mannequin which I had stamped onto kraft card using white embossing powder. I coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor paints, which colour on kraft card so well. The little sentiment was stamped onto a scrap of fabric.

The large tag would make a gift in its own right it is so pretty, I made another one in a softer colour option, it feels more vintage in these colours. If you are like me, you have lots of little scraps, and these tags are perfect for adding all of your little bits and pieces. For my TV demo, I simply used double sided tape to attach everything, and did not sew the pieces as I have done in these photographs.

My second project is a little needle case, using lots of the little worker stamps in the stamp sets. I stamped the images onto plain cream fabric using brown Archival Ink, and coloured them with Inktense pencils and a water brush. I added some pretty floral fabric which matched my colours to create the needle case, plus felt for the inside 'pages'.

This was a faily quick project to make and is a great way of using up little pieces of fabric.

I hope that you have enjoyed my projects today, and will try stamping on fabric. As I said during my TV demo, just hold the stamp on the fabric a bit longer than you would on card or paper, there is no need to press any more firmly.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Flowers, Butterflies, and Lots of Colour!

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share with you today, showcasing the lovely Perfumery range of stamps that we aired on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I am focusing on some of the smaller stamps in the sets this time, rather than the larger perfume bottles.

To create my first project, I stamped the rose image from the Rose Perfumery stamp set five times onto a piece of Drawing Cartridge, masking it each time. I stamped the leafy sprig in the gaps to create a wreath shape.

I added some Turquoise, Sea Green and Ultra Marine Brushos and spritzed the background with water before removing the masks. I coloured the flowers and leaves with the same colours of Brushos that I had used for the background, and added a bit of Stickles for sparkle. I stamped the sentiment in the centre, and picked out the letters with a white gelli roll pen.

To create my second card, I stamped the butterfly image from the Butterfly Perfumery stamp set onto fabric which I had gessoed three times, using Archival Ink. I coloured the butterflies with Colourcraft fabric paint, watered down slightly, and cut them out, leaving a small border.

I found a background in my stash box which matched the butterflies, and stamped a sentiment using Versafine Onyx Black ink and clear embossing powder. I attached the butterflies, and drew some stitched lines using a black permanent fineliner pen. A matching coloured card was used as matting layer.

I will be back next month, with some more fabric based samples to share with you. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Butterfly Tag

Hello everyone, over on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog today, we are sharing our monthly Fifteen Minute blog post, a bumper feature which aims to give lots of tips and ideas for creating quick cards and projects in fifteen minutes or less. I have a project within the blog post, a tag, and am sharing it here as well.

I have made a quick tag, which could be added to a gift, used as a bookmark, or added to a card. I have used a scrap piece of background from my stash to make the tag, which was coloured with blue and purple Distress Inks, (a favourite colour combination), and water, then sprinkled with salt and left to dry.  I stamped and embossed the butterfly border from the Butterfly Perfumery stamp set over the top and coloured it with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush. I chose two sets of contrasting colours for the butterflies, both of which worked well with the background. I added a sentiment, which had been stamped onto a piece of scrap card that I had coloured with the same colours of Distress Ink. I distressed the edges and inked them with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink. I distressed and inked the edges of the tag, and added a complementary ribbon through a hole that I had punched at the top.

The butterfly border is straight, but on my tag, I was going for a more curvy effect, it has worked quite well. I will be back soon with more projects to share with you. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Masculine Birthday Card

Hello everyone, I have needed to make a couple of masculine Birthday cards lately, and thought that this great image from France's Kevin and so was just ideal. It reminded me of someone sat in front of the TV in their comfy armchair wearing their favourite slippers.

I created a wrinkle free distress background using shades of blue, yellow and green Distress Ink first of all. I stamped the image using dark brown Archival ink onto a smaller piece of card, edging the background with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink, to take away the whiteness of the card. I coloured the image with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush, adding shading with darker colours afterwards, for more depth. A lttle bit of grey pencil around the chair legs and the foot helps to ground the image.

I added a sentiment using the brown ink as before, straight onto the background. I edged both pieces of card with blue ink before constructing the card.

This is such a fab, quirky image, my Father-in-Law laughed out loud when he opened his card! Thanks for stopping by, xx

The Smell of Perfume in the Air

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

For my first card, I wanted to show how to 'colour' the perfume bottle using the background paper. Lots of perfume bottles are made of lovely coloured glass, and this was the look that I was going for. I made two pieces of background paper using drawing cartridge, sprinkling Red, Yellow and Orange Brushos on one of them, spritzing it with water, and pressing the other piece of drawing catridge on top. I set the pieces of drawing cartridge to one side to dry.

I die cut an oval, and stamped the main image from the Butterfly Perfumery stamp set , stamping it again onto a piece of spare card. I coloured these images with Koh-I-Noor pencils, choosing colours to match the Brusho background, and cut out the butterfly and flower from the spare image. I also stamped the perfume bottle area onto the second piece of the Bruso background and cut that out. I decoupaged all of the elements onto the die cut oval.

On the first background, I stamped around the edge with the silhouette swirl to create a bold border. I attached the oval to a slightly larger black oval, before adding to the Brusho background. A black mat finished the card.

To create my second card, I made a winkle free distress background on drawing cartridge, using Distress Inks and water. I chose Fossilized Amber and Shabby Shutters to colour the background. I stamped the little leafy sprigs over the top, and coloured them with Distress Markers.

I die cut a rectangle of card, and stamped the main image from the Floral Perfumery stamp set, and stamped the image again onto spare card. I coloured the images with Distress Inks and a water brush. I cut the flowers from the spare image, and decoupaged them onto the main image. I added a sentiment, and a hand drawn border with a fineliner pen to finish.

These images are suitable for so many occasions, and so I have deliberately left them either without a sentiment, or fairly generic. They would make great Birthday cards, Get Well, or beautiful Mother's Day cards, what do you think?

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

Cup of Tea Anyone?

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping warm, and looking forward to longer, lighter days to come. As you read this post, I will be at Hochanda with Lesley for two days of TV shows, I hope that you will be able to catch the shows, as we have some lovely demos and great products to share with you. The Design Team have made some beautiful samples again this month.

For my post today, I am sharing some projects that I demonstrated on last month's Anniversary show on Hochanda, using the fabric panels. If you caught the shows, you will have seen these samples during the afternoon show. My first project was unfinished at the time, and I have now made it into a useful book cover, and I thought I would share a few photographs with you. Katya is from the set of 3 Ladies fabric panels.

I coloured the fabric panel with tea first of all, dipping the whole thing into a bowl of the warm liquid, and gently squeezing out the liquid, and letting the panel dry. You can decide how dark you want the panel to be, by dipping the panel more than once, or leaving it to soak a bit more.

Once the panel was dry, I coloured the image with Inktense pencils, and blended them with a waterbrush, to give a watercolour effect. The whole effect looks very vintage, which is exactly what I wanted. I like the blotched effect that the tea has given, as if the fabric is old, and has been in storage for a long time.

I created a book cover by adding some felt wadding, and two pieces of contrast fabric to make a 'sandwich', using a journal as my template. I turned the ends in to make the inside flaps, and hand stitched those in place. I really liked this red floral fabric, as I felt that it created a folk art feel to the project.

I will be able to reuse the cover once I have finished with the journal. The wadding makes the cover feel very luxurious. Katya's headdress would be fabulous for embellishing with beads and lace, you could really have lots of fun with this image. I have left it fairly plain, but why not have a rummage through your stash and see what you have that you could add to create lots of texture?

My second project is a canvas bag, from the Timeless set of fabric panels, that I showed as a finished example on the show. I had already coloured the Steampunk image with Inktense pencils as before. The panel had been dipped in tea, but I had created a lighter finish, which teamed up with the canvas bag perfectly. I used a blend of pencil colours to create a stone and metallic finish, so easy when you are colouring. I used green, orange and brown for the metal, to give a rust-like appearance.

On the bag itself, I used a couple of stencils, Tando Mini Cogs, and Chocolate Baroque Mask- Kaleidoscope of Butterflies to create a background. I used Inktense pencils, colouring through the stencils, and then used a waterbrush to spread the colour. I placed a piece of paper inside the bag to protect the reverse of the bag while I was working.

I decided to outline the butterflies with a permanent marker for a bit more definition.

I simply hand stitched the panel to the bag, but could just as easily have machine stitched it to the bag. I hope that you have enjoyed my projects, and reading about how I put them together. I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you, thanks for stopping by, xx

Using Up Your Scrap Papers

Hello everyone, I am back with my final project using the lovely bird stamps featured in last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I have created two cards using scrap pieces of paper as the main feature, to show that sometimes what might be considered as something to throw away, can be made into a great feature for your cards and other projects.

For my first card, I made a background using Distress Oxides in three different colours, and then stamped some foliage from the Nature Swirls stamp set to create a scene using coordinating Versafine Clair inks. I stamped and embossed some of the images from Sing Your Song and Live Out Loud, using Versamark and some two tone embossing powders onto scraps of Lesley's My Floral Soul papers. I cut the images out, and added then to the scene. These papers are so lovely, I want to use up every last inch of them!

For this project, I decided to use the large owl from the Wise Owl stamp set as my focal image.

I had been making some gelli print backgrounds, and had a scrap piece of paper that I had cleaned the brayer with. The multi coloured greens looked lovely, and the paper was too good to waste. I stamped the owl using Versamark, and added two different shades of embossing powder before heat embossing, a copper and a verdigris. I then stamped some of the swirls from Let Your Heart Sing and Dawn Chorus, using Versafine Onyx Black ink, and added some flowers from Orchard Design A Tree, which I coloured using Distress Markers. I also added the sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set.

For the background, I used a gelli print created with green Distress Ink and bubble wrap, and stamped some of the feathers from Wise Owl and Dawn Chorus with Versamark, and swirled some mica powder over the top. I added matting layers of black card to complete the project.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Kim Moody Nautical Stamps

Hello everyone, today on the Chocolate Design Team blog, we are featuring Kim Moody's latest stamp designs. Earlier this month, Lesley showcased the stamps in a one hour TV show on Hochanda, and the Design Team had a lot of fun creating some samples. Here are my projects:

I used one of Lesley's My Floral Soul papers to stamp the Harbour Master image, using a dark blue Versafine ink. I coloured the image using Koh-I-Noor pencils, coordinating the colours with the paper itself. I added a large 'porthole' cut from metallic card, and added some screw brads to complete the effect. A sentiment was stamped onto a piece of scrap card left from another project.

I stamped the main image from A Dip In The Sea onto kraft card using brown Archival Ink. I coloured the image using Polychromos pencils, deliberately keeping the image muted. I stamped the smaller images onto three circles from the White Board Hearts and Circles pack. I added a bit of colour around the edges with Distress Ink and coloured them in the same colours as before, before adding a thick glaze, and distressing the edges with brown ink.

I chose another piece of Lesley's paper as a background, and then stamped the lighthouse from Looking out to See! onto a piece of Drawing Cartridge. I extended the scene using a permanent black marker, and added the signs to complete the foreground. I masked the lighthouse and the signs before painting the background with Koh-I-Noor paints, stamping the clouds with Distress Inks. I edged the panel with black ink before attaching it to the patterned paper, and added a sentiment to finish.

Do pop over to the Design Team blog to see what my Team mates have made using Kim's fabulous stamps. There are even some projects from Kim himself! Thanks for stopping by, xx

Bright Brusho Bird

Hello everyone, I am sharing a project featuring stamps from last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

During these dull Winter days, I wanted to create something colourful and vibrant, and so I turned to my Brushos to make some backgrounds. I made some spare backgrounds for later projects, and chose some bright, zingy colours Sea Green, Turquoise and Ultramarine for one set of backgrounds, Yellow, Orange and Scarlet for the other set, adding in some gold Sprinkle It for a bit of sparkle.

I stamped the large bird panel from the Sing Your Song stamp plate onto a spare piece of the blue green background, using Versafine Onyx Black ink and clear embossing powder. I also stamped the central part of the image onto a piece of my orange background. I cut the circle from the blue/green panel, and adhered the orange panel behind. I stamped and embossed the words onto a piece of the orange background for added contrast.

I matted the bird panel onto a piece of black card, trimming this to loosely match the shape of the panel. I edged all of the other pieces of card with black ink before constructing the card.

I will be back later in the month with more bird related projects to share with you. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Speedy Anniversary Card

Hello everyone I have a quick card to share with you today, which forms part of our larger monthly Fifteen Minute blog post on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog.
 
I have used a Brusho background from my stash, created with red, yellow and orange Brushos, plus a bit of Gold Sprinkle It for added shimmer. I then added a mixture of images from Sing Your Song, Wise Owl, and Let Your Heart Sing, simply using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I added a sentiment to create a quick and easy Anniversary card.

Do head over to the Design Team blog to see what my Team mates have created. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Live Out Loud

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year to you all. I hope that you had a good break over the festive period, and are looking forward to the year ahead. As you read this post, I will be at the studios with Lesley for our Birthday TV shows, featuring some beautiful products, and I really hope that you can watch the shows, either live, or on catch up over the next week.

My project today features stamps from last month's TV shows, when I was unfortunately too ill to help Lesley out. Nonetheless, I love these wonderful stamps, and wanted to make something to share with you. I have chosen a fabulous sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set, which I feel is a really affirmative and positive message to give someone, especially if they need cheering up.

I created my background by using a piece of Textured Art card, blending Brushos with Tinting Base, and dry brushing the colours over the background. I coloured a whiteboard heart with the same colours. I stamped an image from the same stamp set onto the heart, and then used the leaves as a border. I used Jet Black Archival Ink for the stamping.

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