Blue Fantastic Florals card (posted by Elaine)

This launch of stamps contains some real beauties and you can imagine my delight at the nature themes as this really is my first love for stamping and crafting generally. This card is another blue one.

This one is an A5 size card. I stamped the square panel on white in Versamark and heat embossed in teal metallic EP. I cut out the panel, leaving the flowers protruding beyond the square panel. I sponged some Chipped Sapphire Distress ink around the edge. I used different shades of blue colouring pencil and a white Inkessentials pen to highlight the flower heads and butterflies. I mounted the panel onto the gorgeous fleur de lys nestie squares.

I stamped and embossed the stylised flower heads on white card and used blue pencils again to shade the flower centres. Again I edged the panel by sponging with the dark blue ink and added the square panel.  I stamped, embossed and coloured a couple of extra butterflies and cut these out and mounted them on the card using silcone glue to give a 3D effect.  I added the sentiment which I matted and layered several times on dark blue and silver card to add height. I finally matted the larger panel onto dark blue card before attaching to the card blank, and added white gems to complete the card.

Elaine

Carousel Horses by Debbie

This card is from the new stamps set Carousel Horses.

When I recieve new stamps for samples I usually stamp them with black ink and have them sitting on the work top in my craft room. I make notes and jot down any ideas I have. I couldn't wait and started applying colour immediately. This horse is stamped with black ink and embossed with clear powder. I coloured with Copic pens. Starting with light shades and adding colour for shading.

The backing was made by stamping and embossing with silver powder so not to take away the focus from the main image. I distressed with Tumbled Glass and Spun Sugar. A couple of ribbon strands attatched with a brad to finish it off.

When I stamped the horses I fell in love with them. They reminded me of a past holiday in Euro Disney with the family.

This is one of five horses and there is a length of fabulous bunting on the stamp plate.  Click on the image for a close up.

Debbie

On the fringe!

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying the artwork from my fellow DT members.

I've not actually posted on here since Chocolate Baroque started - lots of computer complications which I am not going to bother you with. Anyway with the launch of a new series of wonderful stamps I really wanted to create something which I could share with you all.

I have to say that swirls and twirls are always a favourite of mine, they are so useful aren't they? And I always love butterfly images - as I've said countless times, I think the butterfly is the most inoffensive image around and can be used for a myriad of occasions both happy and sad. So I just couldn't resist the large focal stamp from Butterfly Flourish Swirls.

The background was brayered onto glossy card using a Soothing Sunset Big 'n' Juicy inkpad, then I stamped the butterfly image using Lilac Posies Memento and the ivy corners, stamped with Tangelo Memento, are from the Wedding Belle stamp set. This was mounted onto a piece of cranberry card stock and then I added some highlights with Stickles and left it to dry.

I then wanted to add a little more interest to the card and decided on a toning background paper which was from the original guild paper pack. I added a strip of this paper to either side and then proceeded to cut into each strip to form a fringe. Took a little while (and a bit of patience!), but I was pleased with the result. Finally I mounted it onto an A5 card folded from the same cranberry cardstock. Voila!

Hope you like our take on these new stamps - remember to keep popping back to see what other delights the Design Team have to offer.

Lesley (W)
The Paper Engineer

May Each Day by ikki

My card today shows how useful stamps can be when you want to send a card saying you are thinking of someone at a difficult time in their life, and one of the most difficult to make!

I love decorative papers, but sometimes you need a little more.....on this paper from the Simple Elegance designs, the newly launched stamps Nature's Swirls are ideal.

The large flourish stamp is super - you can use different parts of the stamp and it looks like you have used multiple stamps!  Stamped in clear Versamark and heat embossed with White embossing powder it takes the lovely patterned paper to a new level!    When you add a sentiment from the Words of Comfort .....

you have a card for that difficult occasion! 

Materials used:

6" x 6" white card

Peach and white cardstock

Decorative paper: Simple Elegance

Stamps: Nature's Swirls and Words of Comfort

Nestabilities: Grand Square, Mega Rectangle

Inkpads:Adirondack: Salmon, Mountain Rose, Veramark

Embossing Powder : White

Flower, foam pads

My DT mates will be showing you more of their artwork over the next few days, so please come back soon for more inspiration and tips.

Happy Stamping, ikki

Blue swirly tree by Elaine

Well I have been lucky enough to play with these beautiful stamps and I seemed to be in a blue mood this month. Here is one of my cards using the Nature's Flourish set.

I worked on my favourite 8 x 8 sized card. I randomly inked a panel of white card with Stormy Sky Distress ink and Lavender Organza Paris Trunk dye ink. I overstamped with Cobalt blue archival ink using one of the large flourishes from the Nature's Flourish stamp set. I edged the panel with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink and matted the panel onto mauve card. I stamped the tree in Versamark and heat embossed using metallic blue EP and then cut the panel with a nestie oval, matted onto a dark blue scalloped oval. I finished off with a mauve ribbon, a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration plate and mounted onto a fancy label nestie die cut and some mauve dew drops. This was one of those colour combinations that is a real pleasure to work on, very soothing tones.

I love anything with a nature theme and these flourishes have oodles of potential for gorgeous designs. I'd say they are an absolute "must have"!

Elaine

We have a lucky winner!

Well, I gathered up ALL the comments left on this blog and on my own (some people have had problems with Blogger and couldn't comment here) and did the random number thing to pick a winner.  There is one lucky lady who I think is going to be very happy ...

And that lady is .....


JEAN STRAW!

Congratulations Jean, I'll be in touch with you about your prize.  Jean has a blog called My Crafty Corner - why don't you pop over and visit, I'm sure she'd be delighted to have you visit her.

Big thank you to everyone who left a comment, it is much appreciated by all of us and please keep checking back as we have more wonderful DT artwork coming up.  You never know when the random prize pixie will strike ...

I'll leave you with a card I made with the Fantastic Florals, chalk inks and Derwent Pastel Pencils ...

Woodland Tunnel Card (posted by Judith)

My card sample uses the Nature Swirls stamp plate. When Glenda sent us these lovely stamps, I loved the two little owls on the branch, and I wanted to make them the focal point of my card. One of our Guild members, Karen, had made a lovely tunnel card and I decided to use this idea as a base for my project.

I printed out a backing paper from the Essence of Nature CD, and stamped and embossed the swirly owl stamp onto the design. I then cut three layers from coordinating Bazzil card and another design from the CD, using Nestabilities in different sizes to create frames in each layer. I stamped and embossed the swirly tree onto watercolour paper, that I had coloured with Distress Inks, then spritzed with water. I also cut out two die cut leaves, using a Marianne die from purple card.

To assemble the tunnel part of my card, I created a concertina of card, by measuring, and scoring one centimetre intervals across two pieces of Kraft card. I stuck my layers to these concertinas at the top and bottom, so that they were seperated from each other, like pieces of toast in a toast rack.

To finish, I stuck the whole thing to a side opening A5 card, and added a little owl charm and a flower made from leftover water colour paper that I had used to stamped my trees onto. I cut the flower out using a Crealie die.

Keep an eye out for lots more samples coming your way from the other Design Team members this week.

Judith xx

Watercolour Spritz

Inkpads aren't the only thing you can use to transfer an image from a stamp - lots of water based products are great for applying straight to stamps.  Whether that's markers, inks or acrylic paints, you can usually get a pleasing result somewhere along the line.  However it does depend what stamp you use.  For images of people, faces or animals, line drawings that you want to colour in and very detailed designs, I would stick to inkpads.  But with slightly more decorative designs, you can experiment and come up with some really nice effects.

The card above was made with a stamp from Nature Swirls coloured with Aqua markers which are watercolour based markers. You could get this effect by painting watercolour onto the stamp, or try water based markers (Copics and ProMarkers won't work).  I spritzed the stamp lightly with water before stamping and stamped onto watercolour paper.  

Without applying any more colour, I spritzed the stamp again and stamped onto a piece of watercolour paper which I had misted with quite a lot of water. The result was this much softer impression.

They both make beautiful images, don't you think?  The second one uses a phrase from Words of Comfort and Cheer - a stamp set which goes beyond the traditional get well greeting and works for a range of situations where you want to convey a heartfelt, genuine sentiment to someone you care about.

I didn't think I would actually need to use the words quite so soon after I produced it, but the card above was one that I sent recently to the wonderful Sue who designs most of our stamps.  She is such a talent, but very shy of any limelight, and I generally respect her wishes and don't mention her much.  However, she recently had to have surgery and although she is now recovering well, I know she's been through a bit of a rough time with it and at the risk of embarrassing her, I am taking this opportunity to say a public thank you for all her amazing artwork that allows us to create such beautiful stamps.

More great cards to follow - watch this space!

Twirly Swirly Goodness

We have new stamps launching this weekend, they start shipping on Monday.

It's been a while since we did any kind of giveaway here on the blog, so I am going to brighten up someone's weekend as I'm giving away a full set of these stamps to one lucky winner.

Here they all are ...

 

I'll be back tomorrow with more details and some photos of cards made with this lot.  Til then, let your imagination dream up some ideas and you might just get lucky if you leave a comment.

It's Only Words ................

Hi Everyone,

A few weeks ago my lovely fellow DT member Debbie suggested a friendly challenge to make a card using only Chocolate Baroque words stamps.  The CB catalogue has some beautiful script stamps on several of the plates as well as some lovely quotes and sentiments.  I have used several different stamps from the various sets to make the card below and if you would like more details just follow the link from the sidebar to my blog.

I love script stamps even if I can't read them so this card was a pleasure to make.

Debbie also made a card for our little challenge which you can see on her blog by following the link.

Have a lovely evening all.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx