Christmas star hanging decoration (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing a fun and easy Christmas decoration created from toilet roll inner tubes. I embellished it with die cut snowflakes and stamped images from Chocolate Baroque; my favourite reindeer stamp from the Sparkling Trees set and sentiment from Christmas Candlelight.

Materials:

• Sparkling Trees and Christmas Candlelight stamp sets
• Toilet roll inner card tubes, white stamping card, pearlescent white and gold mirror card
• Hot melt glue gun
• Acrylic glitter glue and glitter (red mix and gold)
• Versafine Inkpad (Onyx Black)
• Fine tipped glitter pen (red)
• Dies: mixed snowflake and a decorative Xmas circle

How to make it:

Press the toilet roll inner tubes flat and cut into 1cm strips. Arrange into a 6 petal flower shape and glue with hot melt glue gun. Fold remaining strips in half and glue sections around the central ‘petals’ to make a star – building outward.

Apply wet glue to all the edges and coat with red glitter. I coated the front and back as I want to hang it in the window. Build up the centre further with folded strips and coat these with gold glitter.

Glue on the die cut snowflakes.

Stamp and cut out the reindeer and sentiment. Colour with glitter pen and glue in place.

Finally tie on a bit of string or cord for hanging.

Christmas Candlelight Card (by Anne)

I have been busy with Christmas makes this week. This one was made with the Christmas Candlelight stamp set. I was aiming for a vintage style – think that it worked as it looks like something that has been dragged out of the attic! Tee hee.

I made the card blank with shaped die cuts using cream and Kraft card.

The background was created by stamping the pine cones and colouring with pencils.

The main image was stamped onto smooth cream card. The border was hand drawn. Again coloured with pencils before cutting out.

The image was mounted onto a scalloped mat cut from gold mirror card.

I finished the card with gold and green ribbons, dark gold PVA peals and gold glitter.

Christmas Birches card (by Anne)

Good morning. I have had some little Xmas bauble stickers in my stash for years and thought that they would be perfect hanging from the Tangled Birch for a Christmas card. Think that I will make a few more of these and get my stickers used up.

Unfortunately I had a little trouble photographing this one. It is mounted on shiny mirror card and has lots of sparkly glitter texture which is very difficult to see in the photo. It looks lovely in real life. It would still work without the baubles, or perhaps with some gems of die cut snowflakes. I hope that you like it.

Materials:

• Tangled Birch stamp and sentiment from Christmas Candlelight
• 12 X 17cm black card blank, silver mirror card and white stamping card
• Ink sprays (blue, yellow, orange, opaque white and clear mica)
• Inkpads: Versamark and Memento (Tuxedo Black)
• Heat embossing powder (silver with glitter)
• Alcohol markers (black, mid and light grey)
• Watercolour pen (yellow)
• Glitter pens (red and green)
• Christmas bauble peel off stickers
• Fine crystal glitter

How to make it:

1. Stamp the tree and heat emboss with sparkly powder.
2. Cut a small circle to act as a mask and spritz the background with sprays. Remove the mask and colour the moon with yellow watercolour pen.
3. Add touches of colour to the stamped image with glitter pens. Add some shading around the outside of the trees and at the base of the scene with grey alcohol marker.
4. Trim the card, outline with black marker, mount onto mirror card and glue to the card front. Stick down the baubles.
5. Stamp the Christmas banner with Memento ink. Colour with alcohol and glitter pens. Cut out and glue to the card front.
6. Finish with fine crystal glitter on the foreground and tree branches.

2 or 3 little things

Hello
It is unsual for French people to send cards for Christmas. The tradition is for the new year. So these cards are examples of what I realized for 2016. "Meilleurs vœux" is "All my best wishes".

Ce n'est pas habituel pour les français d'envoyer des cartes pour Noël. Traditionnellement c'est réservé à la Nouvelle Année. Voici quelques exemples de celles que j'ai faites pour 2016.

This one is made on a glossy paper. I apply 2 colors, yellow and red, on paper and pull the colors to obtain the effects. Then I apply the stamp.

Celle-ci a été réalisée sur du papier glossy. J'applique 2 couleurs, jaune et rouge, directement sur le papier et je tire pour obtenir l'effet souhaité. Puis je tamponne.

 This one is made on a piece of paper painted with acrylic. I paint the branches and the light with Zig.

Celle-ci a été faite sur un morceau de papier peint à l'acrylique. Les branches et la lumière sont peintes au feutre Zig.

And the last one is made with a piece of Canson paper painted with acrylic.

Le dernière est faite sur un morceau de Canson peint à l'acrylic.

I hope you like. Thanks for your comments which give me a great pleasure. Kind regards.

J'espère que vous aimez. Merci pour vos commentaires qui font toujours plaisir. A très bientôt.

Dominike

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.

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

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

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

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

More Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees.

Hello Again,

It's Lesley (E) here with my second Guest DT make to share with you, again using the beautiful stamps on the Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees sets.  I am so enjoying using these stamps and the possibilities for a multitude of different Christmas makes are endless.  Once again, if you would like more of the finer details you can find them on my blog HERE.

Christmas card and Gift Bag

I love Kraft card and white embossing with a touch of red for Christmas makes and I've added a teensy bit of Diamond Stickles as well.  I love that Merry Xmas scroll greeting so I've separated it from the main candle image so that I can use it on multiple projects more easily.  I can still marry it up with the original stamp when I need to.

 

And here's the matching gift bag to accompany the card.  I think I might also stamp the same images onto some tissue to cover the gift in the bag.

I'll be back next Wednesday with my final Guest DT post with these beautiful stamps.  Hope to see you then.

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

 

Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees - Cards by Florence

Morning everyone

Today I would like to share with you two cards made using the beautiful Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees stamp sets.  The multi buy offer on these stamp sets can be seen here.

These are great sets of Christmas stamps.  They have been very cleverly designed so that you have very classic images but they are so versatile you can easily give them a modern twist depending on your style of card making.  Brilliant!

For this card I wanted an aged effect but also a contemporary feel about it.

Please click on the photo to enlarge.

 On thing I would like to share with you about the the candle image is that the image has the most beautiful fine lines and stamps perfectly every time.  A really, really lovely stamp to use.

To make this card

Stamp the candle image using a brown Distress Ink say, Frayed Burlap or Walnut Stain.
Color the image with either diluted Distress Inks or diluted felt pen ink and a small paint brush to create a soft watercolor effect.
Flick some lemon juice onto the card and heat it with a heat gun to create the scorched droplets and background.  This is a very old idea that some of you will remember from back in the day.
Take a mask/stencil and Distress Inks and create the circle pattern.
Stamp the sentiment using Archival Ink.

Make up the card as seen.

My next card is a very quick and easy CAS card.

 

 To make this card

Stamp the tree image onto coated card stock using Archival Ink and leave to dry.
Again, using Archival Ink, stamp the tree decorations and the sentiment
Make up the card as seen.

Thank you for looking
Happy Stamping

Florence x

 

Pine Cones Frame (by Debbie)

Good morning.

 

 

 

 

 Using the pine cones with branches I decided to make a frame for a die cut label

with sentiment to sit in.

I started by lining up the four corner stamps, then stamped the single pine cones to make a rectangle. The single cones are ideal as more can be stamped to make other sizes and shapes.

I stamped with Versafine Black ink and coloured with watercolour pencils. The edges were softened with Vintage Photo distress ink and the label was also coloured.

The sentiment is from Christmas Magic and embossed with gold powder. A little gold stickles was added to each pine cone but unfortunately it was difficult to see on the photograph. 

 

 

I have a large amount of small cards in my stash that will be used for neighbour cards this year and the pine cones make perfect corners for the stamped sentiment.

 

Many thanks for visiting

Debbie

Christmas At Home (by Julie)

Hello, today I have two more Christmas designs from this month's fabulous, festive stamp sets. My first is created with one of the new single cling mounted stamps called Welcome Home, the snowflakes in the background are from the new Sparkling Trees and the sentiment is from Christmas Magic

The main image has been stamped with Sepia Versafine and then coloured with pencils. I stamped the image again onto spare card so that the trees could be cut out and decoupaged. The snow has been added with a white marker pen with extra Crystal Stickles for good measure. The image has then been edged with Mermaid Lagoon Distress ink, before being mounted onto silver mirri card. I masked off the section behind the main image on the base card with masking tape and stamped the snowflakes with Versamark and heat embossed with Sparkling Snow Embossing powder, before adding Faded Jeans Distress ink with some cut n dry foam. The sentiment was stamped with Onyx Black Versafine.

My second card is in a very traditional style and has been stamped with the brand new Christmas Candlelight set.

The base card has been coloured with Tea Dye Distress ink, stamped with the small holly stamp using Watering Can Archival ink and then coloured with colouring pencils.

The candle image was stamped onto glossy stamping card with Watering Can Archival ink before being coloured with alcohol pens. The image was cut out with a die and the larger size die was used to cut the green card-stock matt. Both die cuts have been edged with a gold marker pen and Tea Dye distress ink.

To finish off the sentiment was stamped with Black Onyx Versafine and is from the Christmas Magic set.

Many thanks for stopping by and please pop back soon to see some more design team inspiration.

Vintage Lamplight (by Lesley)

If making Christmas cards is a chore because you have so many to do then I want to show you a quick card that just lends itself to batch production.

• Stamp the lantern from Christmas Candlelight onto cream cardstock (160gsm) using Versafine Vintage Sepia.
• Smudge some Vintage Photo Distress ink on to an acrylic block, water down with a water brush and then lightly add some colour to the ribbon and the candle flame.
• Stamp the sentiment onto the same cream cardstock and die cut into an oval.
• Attach the lantern and the sentiment to a folded kraft card.

This card took less than 15 minutes to make and could be easily varied by changing the colour of the inks used. And a quick tip for multiple card making is to do a batch of stamping and colouring at one sitting and then make them into finished cards at another. 

Thank you for popping by today, please call in again tomorrow to see more Christmas inspiration from the Design Team.

It's good to be back for a visit and to share a Christmas project! (by Lesley Ebdon)

As I announced last week we are starting a new Guest Design Team who will feature here three times a month and today I want to reveal their identities.   

The following talented ladies are all going to contribute to the GT so, in no particular order, here are the names of the six team members:

Corine Van Kulenberg

Veronica Pell

Gerrina Poncin

Brenda Weatherill

Shilpa Nagaonkar

Lesley Ebdon

I know that you will be inspired by their diverse creations. So without further ado, here is the very first project which is designed by Lesley.

Hi everyone, my name is Lesley and having been a Chocolate Baroque addict since seeing Glenda on TV a good few years ago now, I've previously been privileged to be a member of the Design Team in the past. Unfortunately real life got in the way for a while (as it does sometimes) and I had to 'drop out' but my love of Chocolate Baroque has never wavered so I am thrilled to be rejoining the team briefly and doing a guest spot or three this month with some pretty awesome new Christmas stamps. 

Nobody does Christmas better than Chocolate Baroque in my opinion so I was more than happy that I got to play with these pretty sets, Christmas Candlelight and Sparkling Trees.  Thanks Lesley W, they're fab! They are really finely detailed and stamp beautifully (as always) and have got me off to an early start with my Christmas cards. I hope you like the first piece I'm sharing today which is a gift as well a card.

Christmas Luminary Card

 

My current favourite style is quite a clean look.  I won't say simple because this style does call for very careful stamping but it does allow the gorgeous stamp designs to take centre stage.

Most of the products I've used are available from Chocolate Baroque and include a mix of metallic Pan Pastels, gilding flakes and embossing powder.  If you would like to see how I created my luminary I'd love to see you over on my blog  http://craftymammalovenhugs.blogspot.co.uk/.

You can also find me on good old Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/lesley.ebdon  

and on Pinterest here https://www.pinterest.com/craftymamma2/

I'd love if you have time to leave a comment and I'll be back next Wednesday to share another project with you. Have a lovely week in the meantime. 

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

Thanks for kicking off our new feature with such a fab project Lesley, can't to see what you have in store for us next week. I will be back again tomorrow to reveal the next stamp in our Year of Stamping series. Bye for now