Butterfly Dreams (by Doreen)

Hello everyone, we are delighted to welcome a new Guest Design Team member to our fold this month. Doreen Sympson is joining the Team, and will be inspiring you with three posts during the month. We asked Doreen to tell us a little bit about herself, so that you could get to know her a bit better.

Doreen writes:

I am married to Derek and live close to my Daughter Elizabeth, her partner and my two Grandchildren, Jake aged eleven years and Faye aged seven.

I have always crafted for as many years as I can remember, Mum teaching me knitting and sewing at a young age. The one that favours my craft room these days is one I have been doing for many years now after a friend introduced me to card making using card kits for decoupage, which back then were all cut out by hand. No die cut kits back then! I also enjoy mixed media and have more recently taken up watercolour painting. With all of these, there is obviously plenty of variety, and I love to try new techniques, but can't pinpoint a favourite in particular. Mediums that introduce texture into projects are also a firm favourite.

My first stamp purchase from Chocolate Baroque came after attending a workshop with the talented Eileen Godwin, who introduced me to bright colours...something I had always avoided. The stamp set I purchased was the Butterfly Dreams stamp set and to this day it is still a favourite of mine.

I would like to say thank you to both Lesley and David for this opportunity, and to Judith for making me feel welcome too.

I look forward to making samples for Chocolate Baroque and to hopefully inspiring others who are beginning their own Chocolate Baroque journey.

Many thanks,

Doreen x

Chocolate Baroque Butterfly Dreams

Using large square stamp and sentiment from the set.

1 piece of black and 1 piece of white glossy card.

Distress Ink: Wild Honey, Twisted Citron, Picked Raspberry

Black permanent inkpad

Clear embossing powder

Stickles

Cut white card to 5 1/2"x 7"

Blend three strips of coloured Distress Inks on a blending mat and apply to white glossy card using a brayer diagonally across the cut card. Leave to dry.

Use an anti static bag over the coloured card and stamp the square image using black permanent inkpad and heat emboss using clear embossing powder.

Cut card back to 5 1/2" square and keep scrap of card for stamping sentiment.

Cut black glossy card to 5 3/4" square.

Mat and layer onto a 7" white card blank.

Stamp and emboss the sentiment onto card and mount on a scrap of the glossy black card.

Apply stickles randomly and leave to dry.

Thank you for looking,

Love Doreen x

Doreen will be back next week with another project,