Chequered Flower and Baroque Corners (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with some cards made for Lesley's shows on Hochanda. I've used Baroque Corners for my first sample

I love corner stamps as they are such versatile stamps, obviously great for decorating corners but also great for pattern building. I also love white embossing on kraft card so I combined the two to make this card.

It can be a little tricky to stamp exactly where you want and I don't have one of these fancy stamping platforms so  I used a pencil to lightly mark the centre of the card (horizontally and vertically) as this makes it loads easier to position the stamp. It also helps to trim your stamp very close to the image for this technique.

 I stamped the large corner 4 times with versamark, carefully lining up the centre of the stamp with my pencil mark and rotating the image to create a pretty doily effect. I heat embossed each corner before moving on to the next as this also makes it easier to see where you are stamping. I used the smaller corner stamp in the corners and then used it to create a border in between the corners, again embossing with white embossing powder. I didn't want to cover the pretty effect but I did want to add a sentiment so I tore a strip of vellum and stamped and embossed the sentiment (from Mackintosh Words.). I attached the vellum with a couple of pearl brads.

My second card features Chequered Flowers, such a beautifully detailed stamp. I've stamped and embossed it with silver embossing powder on a very sparkly Caught in Crystal background and it was very hard to photograph so apologies for the poor photo. 

I'd made the background a while ago, using shimmery inks, lots of glitter and some floor polish (the clear stuff for a shiny finish, I can't remember the make but it was from the pound shop) on tissue paper and then applying a layer of acetate I just stamped the image with versamark, embossed with silver EP and layered a die cut frame over the top. I find it's really handy to batch make backgrounds like this so they are ready to go when you want a quick card.

Last but not least I've made a tag using the same stamp. I created an inky background using Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers distress ink. I stamped the flowers along the bottom of the tag with versamark and embossed with gold EP. I also stamped the large Baroque corner along the top of the tag and again embossed with Gold EP.

I added some colour with watercolour paints and splashed some paint here and there too. Once it was dry I stamped the sentiment (from Artistic Affirmations) and again embossed with Gold EP. I edged the tag with gold gilding wax and used a scrap of eyelash fibre to decorate the tag.

Thanks so much for visiting today, 

Claire xx