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Sunday 31 July 2016

Quick, Easy and Stylish- More Fifteen Minute Cards

Hello everyone, we are back with another Fifteen Minute blog post for you, the second of our monthly visits for July. We really enjoy sharing our speedy cards that still contain the Chocolate Baroque magic that we all love.

The Design Team girls have pulled some lovely creations out of the bag once again for you, so scroll through their projects, and read how they have created each one. Enjoy!

Anne has used some pretty papers for her backgrounds, and then stamped her images directly onto the papers. She has added some minimal colouring. Adding a sentiment creates a quick but very effective card.


Brenda has produced some beautiful cards again for us this time. Her first card was created by using brushes and Distress Inks to create the background, a very quick way of colouring. She used masking fluid to mask an area for the sun, and applied three colours of Distress Ink. She then removed the masking fluid, and spritzed the background with water, and dragged the brush through the colours. She stamped the sentiment and focal image from the Echoes of Italy stamp set, and bleached out a little bit of colour from the main image.

For her next card, she started by stamping the berry branch from the Autumn Poppy stamp set, and sentiment from the Pretty Poppies stamp set with black Archival Ink. She drew a line around the edge with a black pen and a ruler, and finally coloured the berries with Wink of Stella pens.

For her third card, Brenda used brushes again to create her background, using a sun mask, and torn paper to create the background hills. The fairy, trailing leaves and sentiment, are all from the June Fairy stamp set, and the grasses are part of one of the stamps from the Glorious Spring stamp set.
For her next card, Brenda stamped a quote from the Words of Inspiration stamp set using Coffee Archival Ink. She then used a leaf from the Autumn Poppy stamp set using different colours of Distress Ink to ink the stamp and spritz with water to blend the colour a little.
For her last card, she stamped the image from Pretty Poppies using Black Archival Ink, and coloured it with sparkly pens. She sponged around the image with Distress Inks, and tied some ribbon across the bottom of the card.
Claire's pretty seahorse card uses a Pan Pastel background with an embossed seahorse. The pretty sequins add a lovely touch to the card.
Next up, we have some projects from Magda. Firstly, a trip of musical cards. These are so pretty, Magda has created a very geometric baground for the focal image, changing the colour each time, creating a fabulous set of cards.
Her second card uses Brushos to create a vibrant background:
For a quick seasonal make, I have created some gift tags, die cutting the tags from watercolour paper, but you could use any pre-cut tags that you already have. I stamped and embossed a selection of trees and snowflakes across the top section of the tags, leaving the bottom area clear. I used Versamark and white embossing powder for this step.

I then masked the bottom strip of each tag, and coloured the tags with Brushos. I sprinkled the powders onto the dry tags and spritzed the tags with water, and blotted each tag with some spare card. I will save these bits of card for future projects.

I removed the mask from each tag, and added the sentiment, and some matching twine.

Rachel has created two cards using one of our newest seasonal lady stamps. Her treatment of the stamp in the two card shows just how different the stamp can look. The first is very clean and simple in style with an added sentiment and simple framing border:
The second has lovely complimentary background stamping:
Vronnie has created some super Steampunk style bird cards for us this time. She has used the magnificent cockerel from the Steampunk Birds stamp set, giving him a set of blue green feathers.
The cheeky little birds on a spring are up next, these are sure to raise a smile. She has added a bit of shading to ground them, and this subtle detail makes all the difference to her cards.
Finally Zoe has created some beautiful grey-toned Christmas cards for us, which can be created using lots of our Christmas stamps. Sticking to a simple colour scheme allows you to create your cards quickly in batches.



She has made a lovely floral tag, which would decorate a gift perfectly, the lovely pruple tones and black netting are very elegant:

Her last offering is a very simple card using border stamps combined with a vibrant flower for another quick make. Adding a sentiment completes another quick card.

We hope that you have enjoyed our inspiration and that our projects will inspire you to create some of the projects yourselves. You can click on each Design Team member's name to reach their personal blog for further information and even more inspiration.

Keep visiting the Design Team blog for more projects from our regular posts, and we will be back with another Fifteen Minute post next month. Thanks for stopping by,







Saturday 30 July 2016

Winter Dawn ( by Magda)

Today I want to show how to make a simple card with the Winter Dawn stamp, one of the four beautiful seasonal ladies set.

1. Stamp Winter Dawn with Versafine Onyx Black on a watercoulor cardstock
2. Colour the face and the neck with watercolor marker and cover those with Drawing Gum
3. Blend with a blending sponge, all the cardstock with Distress Inkpad Stormy Sky to create the
    background
4. Rub away the Drawing Gum when it is dry
5. Fill the circles and the centre of the snowflakes with Stickles Star Dust
6. Roll on Gelli Plate with the brayer different shades of  Distress Paint blue
7. Crease a piece of backing paper, create your monoprint, and let it dry
8. Cut the backing paper in strips, you have created your washi tape !
9. Glue with Ranger Triangular Collage Glue, the strips as a frame around your Winter Dawn image.

I hope you have had some new ideas from my project and enjoy these last days of July

Magda


Friday 29 July 2016

Four Seasons for Four Ladies (by Anne)

Good morning. I am so loving the new Four Seasons Collection of stamps. I love the new Tangled Birch too – will have to make something with that very soon.
Running behind with time to get my post done for you today I thought that I had better make something quick and easy with a clean and simple style (CAS). The stamps are so gorgeous in themselves that they really do not need much adding to them. I started with the gorgeous Summer Fair, simply stamped with Versafine (Onyx Black). I then quickly coloured the flowers and foliage by scribbling with watercolour pencils and brushing over with a water brush. Voila! A lovely CAS quick card – all I had to do was mount her on a card blank.





However …… those of you that know me, know that I struggle a little with this style. I am definitely a ‘more is more’ girl – tee hee. I thought … ‘well I have to do a set of 4 to include all 4 seasons’. Off I went to make the others with Autumn Medley, Spring Awakening and Winter Dawn.
But then I thought … ‘wouldn’t they look good with my Art Nouveaux style die cut frame’. This then involved die cutting, matting and layering. Cutting the oval from the stamped images also required a little bit of care as parts of the image overhung the frame. I have included a pic for those that are new to this technique. You need to snip into the image so that you can leave the overhang free from the die.


But I didn’t stop there! I then thought ….. ‘oooh, wouldn’t they look good with some of my die cut flowers and leaves’. So my quick to make single CAS card turned into a mammoth make. I did have fun though.




I hope that you like them …. And you could always stop at the CAS stage. Anne xxx.

Wednesday 27 July 2016

Glorious Sunshine (by Corine)

I can't believe we have reached the third and final post for Corine, has time got wings? She has delighted us over that last couple of weeks with her beautiful projects and todays is no exception with her bright and sunny sunflowers.

Hello!

Today it is my 3th and last time to post a card a guest designer. I hope you enjoyed my samples. On this card I used a sunflower of the sheet Sunny Sunflowers, one of my favorite sheets.





I used stamps from the sheets:
Sunny Sunflowers
Abstract Fragments

I started with a template, modeling paste and embossing powder. After drying and heating I used brusho and water te create a coloured background. At least I stamped with Distress ink and used a template to create circles.

The flower is embossed with Silver Pearl embossing powder and the leaves with Metallic Platinum. I used ZIG-markers for colouring the flower and leaves.

Kind regards and till next time,

Corine van Kuilenburg


Thank you for three terrific weeks of inspiration Corine, we look forward to seeing you next time. 

The regular Design Team girls are still beavering away creating gorgeous samples to inspire you so please keep dropping in for more helpings of crafty goodness.






Tuesday 26 July 2016

Quick and easy Summer Fair (by Miranda)





Hello there,

Here Miranda with another version of the Summer Fair lady. The first time I did a lot of coloring and I can imagine that it sometimes encourages people who does not want to spent so much time in coloring.
 So just plain black stamping this time and I've added some die cut flowers which give a splash of colour. I have use the Crealies flower die nr. 24 and you can find it here.

I have stamped the Summer Fair lady using Versafine black and added the Poppy edges which is a perfect match. 
The sentiment is from the ' Butterfly dreams sheet'.


So as you can see it's possible to create a quick and simple card with this lovely stamp too. Hope to have you inspired!

Thanks for visiting and hope to see you next time!


Monday 25 July 2016

Icy Colours (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a project to share today using another of this month's individual lady stamps, Winter Dawn.

I am not a Winter person, I do not like the cold, preferring to stay indoors wrapped up warm, but I love this Wintery image, and had a lot of fun creating a card to go with Sue's super design.

I stamped the image onto smooth watercolour card, and masked it before colouring the background using the acrylic block technique. I then stamped over the top of the background using a stamp from the Abstract Fragment stamp set. I added some partial stamping using a stamp from the Decorative Edges stamp set by stamping with Versamark and white embossing powder.

I removed the mask and coloured the image using Polychromos pencils. I added some flat-backed gems and some ribbon, before attaching the background to a white card blank.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Sunday 24 July 2016

Four seasons by Veronica

 Four cards using the lovely new seasonal ladies stamps - big stamps that are an absolute delight to colour in.
The first uses spring awakening, stamped with black versafine, clear embossed, and coloured with pencils.
Die cut, then mounted on a 7" square white card blank randomly stamped with an old flower stamp from my stash using old paper distress ink.(Briar rose butterfly,  can't find it on the website at the moment, but it is avaiable from the Craft Channel website)
 Summer fair is the next stamp, again stamped in bl;ack versafine and clear embossed before colouring with pencils. I stamped a mask using masking tissue and masked the image before adding a gelli plate background uisng distress inks.
Again an oval die cut, and a 7" square white card blank stamped with a stamp from poppy meadow across the bottom using peeled paint distress inks.
 Autumn medley also has a gelli plate background added after colouring and masking the image, this time using acrylic paints and leaves from the garden.
This time the mount is an 8" square white card.
The wood -effect background is thanks to a link from Eileen Godwin.
Last lady is winter dawn, stamped with versamark onto light blue card and embossed with silver. Coloured with pencils again, white chalk marker, rhinestones added to the snowflakes.
Base card was 8" square in silver pearl, randomly stamped with a snowflake stamp from a child is born using silver pigment ink.
The mats are dark and light silvers.

My teamies have made some wonderful creations, so keep checking to se them all!

Saturday 23 July 2016

Winter Dawn (posted by Claire)

Good morning folks, Claire here with a card featuring one of the beautiful four seasons stamps from Chocolate Baroque. This one is called Winter Dawn and the other 3 ladies are equally stunning. 


I've coloured the image with Graph'It Markers and added a little glitter and some gems here an there. I've distressed the edges with Tumbled Glass distress ink and layered her up on some silver card. The background was made using distress inks and i've just added more gems and some wintery die cuts to finish off .

Thanks for visiting today, have a lovely weekend 
Claire xx

Friday 22 July 2016

Spring and Summer by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies, back with my second post featuring the stunning new stamps.

This time using Spring Awakening, Summer Fair and Tangled Birch

This time my ladies were coloured in using watercolour pencils, I stamped and coloured twice, cut out elements and decoupaged, I've added glitter glue to the flower centres.

 

Another very simple Sketch pad page, simply stamped and using scalloped edge stencils and distress inks I added clouds and hills.

Speaks for itself this last one CAS

Thank you for joining me today, I hope you like my designs, have a wonderful day xx Zoe xx

 

Wednesday 20 July 2016

Lacey Flower (by Corine)

It is week two for Corine to share her latest design with you, so without further ado here we go.

Hello!

Here I am again. This is my second post in July. I will show you today a card with a flower stamp from the sheet Fancy Flowers.


I used stamps from the sheets:

On this Mixed Media background I placed a flower. For the background I used modeling paste, Distress ink, templates, embossing powder, water and Memento Luxe ink.

The lace and flower are embossed with Silver Pearl embossing powder. I coloured these with Distress Inks and ZIG-markers.

I love to create background with several layers.

Hope you enjoy this.

Kind regards,
Corine van Kuilenburg

Such a bright and pretty card, very delicate. Thank you Corine for yet another inspiring design. Wonder what she has in store for next week on what will be her final post.  We will wait in anticipation.

In the meantime join our regular Design Team girls every day  as they share even more loveliness with you.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Spring and Summer Beauties (by Julie )

Hello and welcome. Today I have two more cards created with the fabulous new Seasonal Ladies.
My first card is with the lovely Summer Fair lady which I stamped onto Kraft card and coloured with Polycromos pencils. The base card was stamped with Pretty Poppies and coloured with Polychromos pencils. I wanted to create a washed out, bleached kind of look so added Picket Fence stain to the main design and base card. To finish off I added a die cut butterfly coloured with gilding wax and a piece of gold cord threaded with beads.


I have loved working with the Polychromos pencils and Kraft card so for my last card it will come as no surprise that the lovely Spring Awakening lady has been created in a similar style. I have just added die cut flowers around the main image and stamped bubbles from the Rustic Fragments in the background to add some extra interest. To finish off I have added dabs of Crystal Stickles and sentiment.


That's all from me this month, but please pop back very soon to see some more Design Team inspiration.

Julie xx

Monday 18 July 2016

A light breath of wind (by Dominike)

Hello every body.
For the second post on July, I introduce you my new summer book.
I make it with great sheets of paper. Here is the right page. I made a lot of layers with the gelli plate. I used Autumn Medley and Tangled Birch.

Bonjour.
Pour ce second post du mois de juillet, je vous présente mon nouveau livre de l'été. Je le réalise avec de grandes feuilles de papier Canson. Voici la page de droite. J'ai fait une succession de couches à la gelli plate. J'ai utilisé les deux nouveaux tampons Autumn Madeley et Tangled Birch.

Un léger souffle de vent agite la chevelure de notre Lady.
A light breath of wind shakes the hair of the Lady.


I hope you enjoy it.
I will be very happy to read your comments.
Kind regards.

J'espère que vous aimez. J'aurai plaisir à lire vos commentaires.
A bientôt.