Serena the Winter Lady (by Debbie)

Good morning

I have the pleasure of being the last post of the month. There are many, many inspirational cards and projects lined up for the month of September and I know that Lesley has some fantastic ideas lined up for the future.

 

I truly gasped when I saw Serena, her name suit her so well.

 

She was stamped onto white card with Black Versafine ink and embossed with clear powder. I feel comfortable using alcohol pens for skin so did her face first and the rest was watercolour pencils. I used lighter and darker pencils for her hair, to give depth to her hair. Serena is a large stamp and the dies I chose frames her well. The sentiment was added under Serena.

 

Thank you for stopping by

Debbie

Christmas Tags (by Julie)

Hello! We are sadly coming to the end of the fabulous Christmas stamps so here is the last post from me using them.

First to show you are these vintage tags which have been created with stamps from the Christmas Candlelight set. These tags are very easy and have just been stamped with Watering Can Archival ink and coloured with Polychromos pencils. As you can see, both tags have been edged with the foliage from the hanging candelabra and a dusting of Tea Dye Distress ink has been added to create a more aged look. I  have threaded the tags with Organza ribbon and a few beads have been threaded onto thin wire for a decorative effect.

My second card is quite straight forward and has been created with stamps from the Sparkling Trees  set and the sentiment is from the Last Minute Christmas set.

I inked up the snowflakes with Versamark ink and stamped along the edges of the base card before dusting with copper Pan Pastel. To make the Pan Pastel more permanent I sprayed it with a fixative but this is not always necessary.

I secured a strip of burlap ribbon down the centre of the card with double sided tape and added the stamped sentiment which I had cut out with a shaped die and coloured with Distress inks.

The two sparkly stars were stamped with London Fog Memento ink and coloured with Mustard Seed and Dried Marigold Distress ink. Once they were die cut I added flat back crystals and dabs of Crystal and Platinum Stickles before gluing to a black circle die cut matt.

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you again soon.

Dream Landscape (by Lesley)

Hello everyone I hope you have been enjoying all the wonderful artwork from our Design Team this month. I have to say I think they have excelled themselves once again with their interpretations of our   new Christmas stamps

Well today I thought you may have had a surfeit of the festive season and so although I have used an image from the Sparkling Trees set, it bears no resemblance to Christmas!

• The trees were stamped with a selection of Distress inks in autumnal shades on to 160gsm cardstock,  then a waterbrush was used to pull out some of the colour. 
• A piece of 15cm square greyboard was covered with pink scrapbook paper and the 'hills' were curved shapes cut from plain and green patterned scrapbook paper. 
• After fussy cutting out the trees they were glued into place and and a die cut circle added in the sky. Finally the word 'Dream', from Artistic Expressions, was stamped with Versafine Olympia Green ink.

So there you are, not a Jingle Bell in sight! Thank you as always for dropping by and leaving such wonderful and encouraging comments. Please pop back again tomorrow when normal Christmas service will be resumed!

Stamping in my Journal (by Dominike)

Hello,

I’m very proud to be part of your DT and I hope you will enjoy my art. Here are two more different projects I made for the month.

Merci à vous de m’accueillir ici. Je suis très fière de faire partie de cette DT. J’espère que mes premières propositions vont vous plaire. J’attends vos commentaires avec impatience.

Art journal pages 1 and 2

I am found of Art Journals and I usually have one or more in progress. This one is a work about the Gelli Plate. I made my layers with acrylic paints, stencils from Crafter’s Workshop and images of an old fashion show. Then I stamped with the new Chocolate Baroque’s stamps, Christmas Candelight and Sparkling Trees, with Versafine Inkpad Onyx Black which I embossed with clear powder.

Journal d’art pages 1 et 2

J’aime beaucoup cette forme d’expression et j’en ai toujours un ou plus en cours. Celui-ci est un travail autour de la Gelli Plate. J’ai réalisé plusieurs couches avec de l’acrylique, des pochoirs Crafter’s Workshop et une image d’ancien défilé de mode. Puis j’ai appliqué mon tampon Chocolate Baroque issu de la planche Christmas Candelight et Sparkling Trees Rubber Stamp avec de la Versafine noire que j’ai embossée à la poudre transparente.

See you soon and please come again to see more from the other Design Team ladies.

Dominike

A Haunting we will go (by Lesley)

The clue to our latest stamp releases is definitely in the title because our new sets for September are both themed on Halloween.

We have two A5 sets, Put a Spell on You

and Hocus Pocus

plus these are available as our money saving multi-buy

There are some truly amazing and unusual images in these sets and our Design Team have had a spooky time of it creating some extraordinary projects for you.

Here is a quick make from me using the fabulous bat dragon, or is he a bat devil? Either way he is a wonderful little creature and he is featured on the Hocus Pocus set.

This image was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and then coloured with a mixture of watercolour crayons and pencils. Then he was cut out and attached to a die cut circle, with the sentiment attached on a die cut label.

So there you are, this is Chocolate Baroque's take on Halloween and a huge thank you to our stamp designer Sue for once again creating some unique and mouth watering designs.

Happy Haunting everyone!

Three Sparkling Trees and a Reindeer........and lastly a lantern.

Hi Everyone,

It's Lesley (E) here again with my final Guest DT shares using the beautiful new stamp sets Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees.

Once again this first card has lots of white space but relies on careful stamping and relative simplicity of design for impact.

It required careful placement of the stamping to appear in the diecut partial circle in the top layer and masking to create the hint of snowy hills in the background.

My final card was simply made from one of my offcuts and is mainly just stamping and watercolouring with Distress Inks and a little metallic paint.

If you would like to see details of how these cards were created please hop over to my blog for the lowdown.

I do hope you have enjoyed my shares with you this month as much as I enjoyed making them and thank you for the kind comments.  I am sure I will be making more cards with these stunning stamps in the run up to Christmas which I will share on my blog.  I look forward to sharing more Guest DT makes with you in the future and am looking forward to seeing what fabulous inspiration my fellow guest designers have coming up for us in the meantime not to mention the wonderful designs from the main DT members.

See you again soon

Lesley  (E)  Xx

Christmas Joy (by Asha)

Good morning, friends. It's my turn to show a couple of projects featuring this month's fabulous festive stamps.

My first card showcases one of the new individual cling mounted stamps called Rejoice!. I prepared the background by blending several colours of Distress Inks and masking off sections to create mountains. I stamped and coloured the angel with alcohol markers and the wings are heat embossed on vellum. I fussy cut and adhered both onto the inked background, leaving most of the wings free so she looks like she's flying.

My second card is an easy number. I started by making the background by blending Distress Inks. Then I stamped the deer, trees and snowflakes from the Sparkling Trees A5 sheet and created a scene. Next,  I coloured the images with water colour pencils and finished the project with Stickles and Liquid Pearls.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you're having fun with these stamps and getting ahead with your Christmas makes. The rest of the team have lots of design inspiration to share so please swing by often. As always, more pictures and details of all products used can be seen at my blog.

Beijinhos,
Asha 

A Light in the Window (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have another CAS style card to share with you today, mixing and matching stamps, which I love to do whenever possible.

I have stamped one of the candle stamps from this month's Christmas Candlelight stamp set and then masked the image, before stamping the Dressmaker's Window clear stamp. I coloured the images with Polychromos pencils to give a soft effect. Finally, I added a sentiment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

By the Candlelight (by Anne)

Hope that you like this traditional styled card. I really love the Christmas Candlelight stamp set, it has fabulous detail and is filled with hours of relaxing colouring possibilities.

• Stamp the candlelight image onto white card and colour with pencils. Fussy cut around the holly sprigs and use a shaped die to cut the top of the image. Use Distress ink around the top and side edges. 
• Trim cream pearlescent card to layer onto the card base. Draw ‘distressed’ stripes with an alcohol marker and stamp the image from Texture Fragments at the top with pigment ink. Whilst the ink is still wet, add distress ink over the surface of the card, blending into the edges of the textured area. Dry with a heat gun and add a fine line border with red alcohol pen.
• Attach the ribbon.  Cut scrap cream card into soft curves and apply to top and bottom edges. Layer onto the card base, then add the topper, die cuts and PVA pearls. Finally use glitter glue on the flowers, along curved border edges and radiating from the candle light.

There is still more inspiration to come using these wonderful stamps, so please come and see us again soon.

Anne

Christmas angels......day and night (by Miranda)

Hi there,

Today I will show you my creations made with  Serena, the lovely Christmas Angel.

 I have made an Angel of Day and an angel of Night, at least that is my interpretation! I love working with faces and these beautiful designs are a joy to work with, thanks to our talented designer! 

I have worked on a background made with acrylic paints and fluid inks, like Ecoline.  Also sprinkled some Iridescent medium which creates lovely shimmer.
The ' Angel of Day' has pale colors and I've combined her with the flowers of the Christmas rose sheet. They are a perfect match with the flowers of the image. I have colored the image with colour pencils and  decoupaged them.

Here is the card.........

And the Angel of Night........here I've added another stamp, an ivy leaf that I've colored with all the matching colors. It's from the New England Winter sheet. Here I have colored the image and the decoupaged items using waterbased markers and gave some accents with a white acrylic marker.

Well, I hope I have inspired you with these beautiful angels! Thanks for your visit and I always enjoy reading your comments!

Stencils and scenes (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with a couple of very different projects using some of this months new stamps. I've created a large tag using Bearing Gifts and stamps from Sparkling Trees and some stencilling for the background. My card features stamps from Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees used to make Christmas scene.

I've used one of the Ranger Giant Manila tags for this project. I began by splodging some Distress Stains (Gold, Picket Fence, Tea Dye and Broken China) onto my craft sheet and misting with a little water. I dragged the tag through the colour several time and while it was drying I splashed on a little water. I stamped the stars from Christmas Candlelight with Versamark ink and embossed with Gold embossing powder and then applied texture paste through a star stencil. Once the texture paste was dry I added gilding wax in shades of gold, silver and copper to the stars.

I stamped 'Bearing Gifts' and coloured with Derwent pencils, cut the image out and layered it up over some hessian, gold mesh and a little green ribbon. I added a sentiment from Christmas Magic, stamped on a little kraft tag and embossed with Gold EP.

I love to create scenic cards so I really enjoyed making this one. The stamps from the two A5 stamp sheets work beautifully together. I began by stamping the images using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I used PanPastels to add colour to the background so I didn't need to mask the stamped images as PanPastels are erasable. The only thing I had to mask was the moon.

I used shades of Blue and Grey PanPastel to Create the sky and the snowy hills and I added some silver to the moon for a little shimmer. I used a black fineliner pen to extend the post under the lantern. Next I coloured the trees, reindeer and lantern with coloured pencils. It was looking a little bare in the top left corner so I used one of the tree stamps as a branch, again colouring with pencils. Once I'd finished colouring I applied lots of glitter but the photo hasn't picked the sparkle up at all.

I've matted on white and red card and added pearls, ribbon topped with buttons and a little charm to finish the card off. The sentiment is from Christmas Magic, stamped with Rhubarb Stalk Memento Ink.

I hope you're enjoying all the inspiration from my talented teamies, they're sure to give you a kick start with your Christmas card making.

Claire xx

Glittering Trees (by Zoe)

Well here is my second post and I'm loving working with these Christmas stamps and today I'm showing you some samples using the Sparkling Trees set.

For my first design today I've created a simple tag using Distress stains in Christmas colours. I used the "wrinkle free distressing" technique, where you put ink onto your craft mat, spritz with water and swoosh the tag through the colours, drying between layers. I then inked around the edges and lightly over the tag using a Black Soot Distress inkpad. I flicked some water over and blotted with a paper towel and dried. The tree  was stamped with Onyx Black ink and I finished off by adding glass glitter to create the tree baubles.

For the second card I used a stencil to create the SnowGlobe with Distress inks, Hickory Smoke and Cracked Pistachio, then leaving the stencil in place I used another stencil to lightly add texture. Next I stamped the Snowflakes using Versamark ink and heat embossed using a sparkle embossing powder. The trees were stamped with a black ink and heat embossed using silver embossing powder. Finally I added some chunky irridescent glitter flakes.

Thank you for all the lovely comments I have received, you have made me feel very welcome. I look forward to sharing more designs with you soon and please keep calling back to see what else the rest of the team have created for you.

Zoe