Book Making Using Recycled Materials

Hello everyone, I have a few more projects to share with you today showcasing the fabulous stamps that we brought to last month's TV shows on Hochanda. The collection of stamps had a little bit of something for everyone, and I enjoyed working with them so much. I am sure that you will love them too!

My first project is a handmade book, I love books, and used to buy so many of them. Nowadays, I like to make my own, from simple accordian books, to fabric covered books that I have stitched together and used more complicated bookbinding techniques. This project uses a corrugated cardboard envelope that I received from a mail order company, and I have simply taken advantage of the fold of the envelope to create the spine of the book. I folded twelve pieces of drawing cartridge in half, splitting them into three groups, and these became the signatures of my book. I popped the pieces inside each other, so that I had four pieces of drawing cartridge sitting neatly inside each other, in groups of three. I made three holes up the fold of each group of paper.

I cut the cardboard envelope to make a cover so that it was slightly larger than the drawing cartridge, and made three lots of three holes in the spine, which would enable me to sew each signature into the cover in a simple bookbinding method. There are lots of You Tube tutorials for this, just do a search online for 'simple bookbinding', and you will find lots of help. If I were to make another one of these books, I do think that I would put washi tape on the spine for added strengthening, but I am not intending to put this book through a lot of tough use, so it will probably be okay.

I used bookbinding thread to sew the signatures into the book, but you can used dental floss if you do not have any specialist supplies.

I used black card as a matting layer, this really sets off the zingy colours that I chose for my masterboard background. I used Distress Inks to blend across some drawing cartridge, and added tone on tone stamping using the bubble wrap effect stamp from Make Your Mark stamp set. I added the cracked stamp and circles in grey ink, and some of the word clusters to build up the background. To finish, I stamped the large circle using black ink onto a piece of scrap card, added the words once more, and matted it onto black card, to create a topper. I felt that these words were perfect for a journal, and especially in these uncertain times, they can remind us that life is not so bad after all.

You could create lots of these masterboard backgrounds and cut them up to make cards, bookmarks, book covers, all sorts of projects, it just goes to show that these mark making stamps can be the stars of the show and not just for backgrounds.

For my next project, I created a background of soft greens, and added leaves and a word cluster from the Glorious stamp set using a darker green ink. I stamped the Floral Study onto a smaller piece of card, and coloured the image using watercolour pencils. I edged both pieces of card with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

The background on this card contains a bit of everything! I coloured the drawing cartridge using Distress Ink, and added some stamping using the Large Crackle Background stamp. The circles,words and bubble wrap image are from the Glorious stamp set, and I have used the Chocolate Baroque Strip Stencil set. I have stamped and embossed the Poppy Ledger image onto kraft card using white embossing powder, and coloured it using Koh-I-Noor paints.

Finally, a super quick little masculine card using kraft card once more. I used the tape image from Make Your Mark and three different colours of ink; red, brown and white. I then stamped the sentiment onto one of the strips, which is something that Lesley had always envisaged with this strip image. You could change the colours, as some of the other Team members have done, and make really colourful versions of this type of design.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Glorious Flowers

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you today showcasing the fabulous new stamps that we brought to last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

My first two cards use the same stamp as the focal point, but show what very different looks you can achieve with the same stamp. For my first card, I created a bold background, adding texture paste through a Chocolate Baroque Strip Stencil, and then stamped images from Make your Mark using coordinating colours, plus black ink for the circles. I chose to stamp the words in grey ink for a softer effect. The circles are just the right size to add these word collections, and I will be using this effect a lot for backgrounds, as I really like how it looks.

I took a smaller piece of card and stamped the seed pods and masked them with Masking Tissue. I then stamped the Square Bubbles and added colour as before. I took away the Masking Tissue and coloured the image with Polychromos pencils, and added some grey shading along the edge of the image with a pencil for dimension.

For my second card, I coloured a piece of book paper with Scattered Straw Distress Ink and stamped the seed pod again several times up one side, masking it each time to create  a cluster of pods. I added the small flower sprigs from the same Glorious stamp set, and coloured everything with Polychromos pencils. I edged the book paper with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

I stamped the single leaf and flower sprig randomly across a larger piece of kraft card, using green and purple Versafine Clair inks, and also stamped the sentiment onto a small piece of kraft card. These pieces of card were also edged with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

My final card uses the large fantasy flower from the Glorious stamp set. I stamped the image onto a piece of cotton fabric using Archival Ink. I coloured the image with Inktense pencils, and blended them with a waterbrush. I frayed the edges of the fabric and adhered it to a layer of dark card using strong double sided tape.

I created the background using a piece of drawing cartridge stained with tea, but you could use Distress Ink, or any other water based medium, it's up to you. I like the speed of running a wet tea bag over the drawing cartridge, and tend to colour several pieces in one go, as I make a jug of tea especially for this purpose. I then have lots of backgrounds ready for future projects.

I stamped a couple of images from Make Your Mark randomly over the background, giving the loose impression of cracked plaster, by sticking to a warm brown colour palette.

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

 xx

Stamping on Surfaces

Hello everyone, I have a few more projects to share from last month's TV shows on Hochanda. This time, I have been looking at various surfaces and how the stamps could be used to decorate a project.

My first make is a card, using the Snowdrop Script stamp set, and I have chosen a simple colour scheme of pastel blue, reminiscent of the bluebells that I have chosen to stamp. I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge using Distress Ink, and then stamped the bluebells repeatedly, using blue ink in first and second generation stamping, to create a bluebell meadow. I coloured the images with Koh-I-Noor watercolour paints, using blue, green and purple.

I edged a whiteboard heart with blue ink, and again stamped a single bluebell image and painted it with the Koh-I-Noor paints. I added the word 'Bluebell' to finish.

I took another whiteboard heart and covered it with texture paste. I spritzed the large bird from Doodle Butterfly with water, and pressed it into the paste. I allowed the paste to dry completely, and them coloured the surface with beige coloured ink, adding a deeper colour into the bird image and around the edges with a dry brush. I also added some copper wax around the sides of the heart.

I used a piece of texture card for the background, and painted it using acrylic paint and tinting medium. I added a border from the same stamp set using Archival Ink.

For my final project, I stamped a collection of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies from both Doodle Butterfly and Doodle Birds onto circles cut from Designer Papers 8" x 8"- Chic Script, which I then coloured with pencils. I adhered these to Circular Acrylic Tags, which would make really pretty additions to cards, or lovely gift tags. These were fairly quick to make and colour beautifully.

I hope that you will try out some of the ideas that the Design Team have given you this month with these fabulous stamps. Thanks for stopping by, see you next month!

 xx

Stamping on Black Card

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you today using the stamps that we brought to you on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. All of the projects share a common technique; stamping on black card with acrylic paint, which suits these doodle style stamps really well. I was shown this technique a long time ago by the very talented Lin Brown, and certainly do not try to pass it off as something I invented myself.

For my first project, I painted a piece of sticky backed canvas with some paint, watered down slightly, blending the colours where they met. I dried this layer, and stamped a flower from Doodle Butterfly over the top using white acrylic paint, for a subtle effect. Once dry, I stamped some of the words found on Snowdrop Script and Edgy Edges, using Archival Ink. I added some doodle stems using green Archival Ink.

To create the flowers, I added white paint to the stamps, then added the other colours over the top, before stamping onto black card. I chose a mixture of blue and green paint over the white. I fussy cut the images, leaving a slight border, and adhered them to the tag shape, which I matted onto black card as well. Some coloured ric rac completed the tag.

For my second project, I coloured a whiteboard tag with green and blue ink before stamping the image from Edgy Edges using Teal ink over the top. I created two butterflies as before, and stamped the sentiment onto a strip of left over card, which I then cut into pieces before adding to the tag. Blue and green ribbon complete the tag.

This card feels a little on the busy side! However, I wanted to show you what you could do with these stamps, and you could certainly leave some of the elements out, or incorporate them all!

I started by colouring the background with Distress Oxide Inks, and adding overstamping with a mesh design from Rustic Fragments. I used a darker version of each colour from the background for a tone on tone effect. I edged the background with the top of the flower head using black ink for a decorative border.

I created the flowers and dragonflies in the same way as before, using green, yellow and pink paint on top of white paint.

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

xx

Pastel Blueprints

Hello everyone, I have some more projects to share with you showcasing the fabulous new stamps that we aired on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I have really enjoyed working with these beautiful stamps and have so many ideas that I still want to try out.

For my first project, I took a piece of kraft card, and embossed an image and sentiment from the Calla Lily Blueprint stamp set, using white embossing powder. I coloured the image using Koh-I-Noor paints. The white paint in the set is particularly effective on kraft for creating delicate effects on flowers.

For my second project, I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge with tea, and then stamped a small worker image from the Freesia Blueprint stamp set randomly over the background. I coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor watercolour pencils. I stamped the main image from the same stamp set onto a piece of fabric, (these detailed stamps still work perfectly even on a surface such as fabric), using Archival Ink. I then coloured the image with Inktense pencils.

For my next project, I coloured a canvas with acrylic paints. I blended the paints using a baby wipe to get a smooth effect. Once the paint was dry, I stamped an image from the Sweetpeas Blueprint stamp set onto a piece of tissue paper and coloured it with Polychromos pencils. I tore around the edge of the tissue paper, using a waterbrush to make tearing the tissue paper easier. I then stuck the paper to the canvas background using matte medium. I stamped a sentiment onto a piece of scrap card which I edged with black ink, and stuck that to the background to finish.

As we become ever more conscious of the effect of our actions on the environment, I did not simply want to throw the baby wipes away. I dried them off, and look how cool they are!

They would make fabulous backgrounds in their own right, you could tear them into strips and layer them with other papers, lace and ephemera to make layered backgrounds, or simply stamp onto strips to make a decorative type of washi tape. I chose to use some for a mini card as follows....

I stamped a sentiment from one of the stamp sets and a flower from the Wild Cornflower Blueprint stamp set onto one of my baby wipes and cut them out. I adhered them to a coordinating piece of drawing cartridge using matte medium and added a layer of black card to mat the background.

  Thanks for stopping by, xx

Blueprint Florals

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today using the fabulous stamps and stencils that we brought to you during last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

My first card was created using the beautiful Freesia Blueprint stamp set. I used the Dotty stencil from the Strip Stencil - Collection 1 set and added some texture paste to a piece of drawing cartridge. I coloured the background using Distress Oxide Ink once the texture paste was completely dry. I added some background stamping using one of the smaller images from the stamp plate.

I stamped the main freesia image onto another piece of drawing cartridge, and coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor watercolour pencils. I stamped a sentiment onto a small piece of card, coloured in the same colours as the main background, and edged all of the pieces with brown ink.

To create my second card, I took a piece of glossy card, and embossed a couple of images from the Wild Cornflower Blueprint stamp set using white embossing powder. I then covered the background with blue Distress Ink and polished the card. I stamped the main image from the stamp set onto a piece of smooth stamping paper using blue ink, and coloured the image using pencils as before. I added a sentiment, and some shading with blue ink, before edging the paper with dark blue ink.

Using a piece of drawing cartridge, I added some yellow Distress Ink to create a wrinkle free distress background, and then drew lots of postage stamp shapes using one of the inserts from Triple Postage, another one of the Strip Stencil - Collection 1 set. I stamped the smaller images from all of the stamp sets into the postage stamp shapes, and coloured them with pencils, adding a sentiment into one of the shapes. For extra definition, you could add shading around the shapes to give a 3D effect, making the postage stamps look as if they had been stuck onto the background.

My final card was created by adding one of the beautiful Designer Papers A5- Background Splash, designed by Lesley, onto a card blank. I stamped one of the engineer's drawings from the Sweetpeas Blueprint stamp set three times across a piece of drawing cartridge. I varied the height of each image. I added some foliage in between the images and coloured everything in with pencils. I stamped the small sweetpea flower head onto a scrap piece of the patterned paper three times, and cut them out. I stuck each flower head into the top of a 'bulb'. This piece of apparatus is actually a flagpole, but I thought that it resembled a quirky specimen jar and made a perfect home for the flower heads.

I edged the card with black ink before attaching it to the coloured bakground.

I hope that you have enjoyed my first batch of cards this month. I will be back later on with more inspiration to share with you. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Quick Gelli Print Cards

Hello everyone, I have a couple of cards to share using the stamps featured on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. Both cards follow the same basic recipe, but with a few tweaks here and there, I have created two very different cards, one for a male and one for a female recipient.

If you have a spare afternoon, create a few gelli print backgrounds, or rummage through some of the backgrounds that you have already made to see if you have something suitable for this project. I simply used a brayer to apply two colours of Distress Ink to the gelli plate, then stamped a dotty tool over the top to get the background effect before pulling the prints. You could press bubble wrap onto the gelli plate for a similar effect.

For my first card, I stamped and embossed a couple of cog images from the Punky Flowers stamp plate along the bottom of the background, using gold embossing powder. I stamped an image from Steampunk Funky Fish and added a sentiment from Punky Expressions, using Archival Ink. I coloured the images using Koh-I-Noor watercolour pencils. Finally, I edged the background with blue Distress Ink.

For my second card, I created the background in exactly the same way, and then stamped an image from Punky Flowers using Archival Ink. I masked the flowers and stamped the image again a few times using Versafine Clair in a toning orange colour. I added a sentiment from Punky Expressions, and coloured the images with pencils as before. Before I attached my background to the card, I edged it with pink Distress Ink.

Punky Expressions is a very versatile stamp set, with words for lots of different occasions. These cards will be great for lots of different purposes, and can be sent to cheer someone up, just because, or for a particular reason. I hope that you will be inspired by my projects and try the ideas out for yourselves.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

A Steampunk Garden

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today, featuring stamps from last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

I love a bit of steampunk every now and then, and these sets are amongst my favourites. I have created a garden scene using flowers from the Punky Flowers stamp set, stamped onto tissue paper, coloured with Polychromos pencils, and adhered to a painted canvas with matte medium. I then stamped the owl from Steampunk Birds onto a piece of drawing cartridge, coloured it with pencils as before, and attached the image with wet glue.

The sentiment is from Punky Expressions.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

A Wish For New Year

Hello everyone, as we come to the end of 2019, I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the very best for the coming year ahead. The past year has been a very busy year for all of us at Chocolate Baroque, and we cannot believe how quickly the time has flown by. As Lesley mentioned in her Christmas Day message, we sadly lost Sue, our designer this year, we will miss her amazing creativity, but as you continue to use her designs in your artwork, her memory lives on.

One of the highlights of our year was a trip to Doncaster to Stamp Magic, where we had a stand, and I helped out with a Make and Take area. We were incredibly busy all day, and I thought that I would share a few of the samples from the classes. The format was the same throughout, but the colours and stamps varied. We used Distress Oxide Inks to create a background on Drawing Cartridge, and then stamped over the top using Versafine Clair Inks. We coloured a whiteboard heart with the left over Distress Ink, and stamped an image over the top, adding some extra colour with a water brush. White highlights could be added for an extra pop.

The hearts make great gifts in themselves, as Artist Trading Hearts, so I also designed one card with a strap across, so that the heart was detachable:

I also used stamps from Crafty Individuals on the day, as we shred a stand with Jean and Malcolm. Some of my samples became a mixture from both companies, which, when you are crafting at home, is probably what you would naturally do anyway. I have not finished colouring some of these, because they were made on the day as quick examples. However, I now have a nice collection of cards almost ready to give when required, and only need to add a touch of colour to the hearts and a sentiment or two.

Enjoy a very happy, creative 2020.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Coaster Journal

Hello everyone, I have a project to share today showcasing lots of the stamps featutred on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. If you did not catch the shows, then you will be in for a treat this month as the DT share their beautiful projects with you on the blog.

I have made a little handmade journal using a couple of coasters which were no longer wanted, and some Drawing Cartrige for the inside pages. I painted the coasters with some clear gesso, to give them a base to work on, and once this was dry, I added some acrylic paint. I stamped the Remembrance Tree on one coaster and the Harmony Tree on the other coaster, using Archival ink.

I cut strips of Drawing Cartridge just slightly smaller that the coasters, and scored them to make pages. Each strip made three pages, and I stuck them together with other strips to make one longer strip so that I had lots of pages to decorate. I added gelli print backgrounds, printed papers, or simply used Distress Inks to colour the pages.

I used the pages to try out ideas that could then go on to make bigger cards if I liked the ideas. These little journal are a great place to experiment and play. A small space gives you freedom to try something and move on. Sometimes a big space can feel a bit daunting.

Once I had decorated the pages, I added some ribbon inside the front cover, and attached the covers to the front and back blank pages. You could construct the book and decorate it afterwards if you want to. It depends how messy you are!

Here are a couple of the card ideas that came from the little book itself. A set of little note cards, useful for any occasion:

A film strip idea, expanding on the version in my little journal:

I hope that I have given you lots of ideas, and that you will try them out. Thanks for stopping by, xx