Christmas Circles

Hello Folks, I have some cards on circular theme for you today, using the stamps of the month from Chocolate Baroque

For my first sample, I created a background using gelatos in shades of green and purple, which I added to a wet background and blended with my fingers. I dried the background then added a circle mask in the centre. I stamped an image from the Harlequin Fragments stamp set around the edge of the mask, using Pear Tart Memento Ink. I sponged a little bit of ink around of the mask to add some shading, before removing the mask. I stamped and embossed the holly and bell images from the Holly Bells stamp plate using gold embossing powder. I also stamped another set of  images onto a spare piece of card. I coloured the spare images with Distress markers and a water brush  and decoupaged them onto the background. I added some hand drawn 'string'. The sentiment is from the Christmas Magic stamp plate.

I have a couple of CAS cards that I would also like to show you. In these days of rising postage costs, flat cards are always useful to make, and these two cards would make good batch cards, that you could make in lots of different colour options as well. The first card was made using blue, lilac and grey Distress Inks, and I simply created a reverse mask, sponging coloured ink through a circle aperture onto my card. I coloured the top and bottom circles first, and overlapped the middle one last. I then selected three baubles, taken from the Santa Baby/Holly Bells Multi-Buy stamp set, and stamped them in the same inks that I used to create the circles, giving a tone on tone effect. The sentiment was taken from the Christmas Sentiments Multibuy

The last card was made in much the same way, except that I created a single circle, blending Dandelion and Pear Tart Memento Inks, and chose Orange Blossom Archival Ink to stamp the bells, giving a stronger contrast. The sentiment comes from the Bold Christmas Words stamp set.

I hope that I have given you a few more ideas with these stamps, and I will be back soon. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Blue Christmas

Hello Folks, I'd like to show you a coupe of cards using the newly released stamp sets fron Chocolate Baroque

My first card uses the Santa Baby stamp set. I wanted to use the sleigh flying through the air pulled by a reindeer, and so I looked through my older christmas stamp sets and found the perfect match on the Damask Reindeer stamp set. I stamped both of the images onto a piece of smooth watercolour paper, and then covered them with a mask. I also added a circle mask at this point. I coloured the background with a variety of blue Distress Inks, graduating to a deep purple at the bottom of the page. Around the circle, I added some yellow, to create a glowing effect. I spritzed the background with water to create a starry feel to the background, and added a little bit of Perfect Pearl spray for some extra shimmer.

I removed the masks, and coloured the images with Distress markers and a water brush. I stamped a tree from the Stained Glass Christmas stamp set along the bottom of the background, using Cottage Ivy Memento Ink and clear embossing powder. I added some grey shading to the moon, and stamped a sentiment taken from the Christmas Magic clear stamp set using black ink.

I have also created a card using the A Child is Born stamp set. I stamped the corner snowflake stamp around the edges of some watercolour paper using white embossing powder, and filled in the gaps with one of the smaller snowflakes to create a frame. I created a watercolour background using lots of blue toned gelatos. I blended them with my fingers and lots of water to get a soft effect. I added a touch of Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink around the edge. Once I was finished, I buffed the snowflakes with a piece of kitchen towel, so that they were nice and bright.

 I stamped the angel onto a separate piece of card, and coloured the image with pencils. Finally, I added the word 'Joy' to the background.

 My Team mates have some beautiful inspiration for you over the coming month on the Design Team Blog so please keep checking back. Thanks for stopping by, xx