For The Love Of Trees

 For The Love Of Trees

Hello everyone well December already and the days to Christmas are flying by. I am nowhere near ready and not quite sure I will be, but I dare say by hook or by crook I will get there somehow.

Today I would like to share some of my samples using the fabulous variety of Tree stamps featured in the November shows. I have to admit tree stamps are a huge weakness of mine, so versatile and useful in all sorts of different ways.

The first card shown below uses 

Frosty Trees

Versafine Clair Acorn and Pine Cone.

 A White Gel pen.

Masking Tissue.

Country Views

After stamping the Cottage and the Trees using Masking Tissue to give added depth the colour added was applies using soft brushes. The White Gel Pen was used to give the illusion of snow on the roof and in the air. The sentiment was stamped and applied to the card using double sided tape.

This is so simple, it uses stamps from the 

                                    Trees a Crowd Rubber Stamp sheet

MDF plaque and stand, Masking Tissue, White Gesso, Grey Inkpad, apart from the stamping all inks were applied with a soft brush gradually building up the colour.

This sample is rescued from the bin, simply stamped using Versafine Inkpads and a gold gel pen to add a little sparkle and mounted onto Kraft Card.

 

The next sample is fairly easy to achieve it just takes a little thought before stamping. I have used just an Archival Colbalt Blue plus a Promarker and Ruler.

This next sample uses a Plywood Postcard Stamped and enhanced with Pyrography and inks to colour.

This sample is not difficult and again uses the stamps from the Trees a Crowd stamps. I used a light pencil to help with the designing of this. Two different shades of green to stamp and a fine liner to draw the circles around the images. A green pencil has been used to ground the image in the centre of the card.

Thanks for looking in today 

Love Doreen 

Grungy Collage (by Gerrina)

Hello everyone, today sees the first of three posts from our regular Guest Team design member Gerrina. She has created a fabulous project for your inspiration.

Gerrina writes:

Feels so good...it is my turn again to show some things I made for the Guest Design Team here at Chocolate Baroque!
Three weeks in a row you will find not only here, but also at my blog, makes from me with the beautiful stamps from Chocolate Baroque...
This week the first. I made a grungy collage with stamps from two stamp sets on a card from one of my Art Journals.

Used materials:
Stamps: Country Views and Artistic Affirmations
Stencil: made by me
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Distress Ink: Gathered Twigs, Salty Ocean, Wild Honey, Mowed Lawn, Barn Door and Dusty Concord
Other: Aquarelpaper, Masking Tissue, blending tool, black fine pencil and waterbrush

Creatieve groetjes,

Gerrina

Lazy Days and Purple Haze by Penny

Goodly morning peeps, I hope you are all well and happy.   I am here with the first of this month's DT posts featuring the beautiful stamps from last months shows.  These two cards feature a couple of the lovely tree images, one of my favourite subjects to stamp!

Lazy Days

I have used images from the Trees A Crowd, Floral Edges and Country Views sets, Distress Inks, Black Versafine ink and clear embossing powder.

I stamped and embossed the tree with hills image onto white card, then did the same with a sunset image, placing it next to the tree.  I then joined the images up with a black fine liner pen, and extended the hills.  I painted the images with Distress Inks, and used a watercolour ink for the sky. I added clouds with a white charcoal stick.

I stamped the grassy edge image along the bottom of the panel then blended ink around the edges.  I matted the panel onto black card and attached it to a white base card.  I stamped and embossed a sentiment, die cut it, added some ink around the edges and attached it to the card.  I added a couple of die cuts and gems from my stash to complete the design. 

Purple Haze.


This project also uses stamps from the Trees A Crowd set, Distress Inks and white Gesso.  I wanted to create a misty morning effect for this one, I began with a piece of white card and placed a circular mask near the top.  This will create a sun.

 Using a scenic mask and Distress Inks I created a landscape in several hues of purple, with a pale lavender sky.  I used a dry paint brush to gently add white gesso to create a misty effect.  I then stamped a tree using black ink, and stamped another one next to it without re-inking, pushing it  behind the first tree.  I then stamped the smaller tree in second generation ink, making it appear in the distance.  I used DIs to ground the first two trees.

I matted the focal panel onto purple card, then stamped the small tree around the edges of a white base card.  I turned the image around at each stamping to create a lovely patterned border.  I attached the panel to the base card and added a small sentement panel.

Thank you for popping in and spending a few minutes with me, I hope you feel a little inspired.  I shall be back later in the month with more crafty fun to share, in the meantime my team mates will be here to feed your crafty appetite!

Take care,


                       xx  Penny  xx

Cards and ATCs (by Magda)

Hello girls,
as my third and last blog post for this month, I would like to inspire you with some cards and ATCs.


The background of this first card was created by blending Distress Ink Pad on which I stamped with Versafine Onyx Black, different stamps from Chocolate Baroque  and coloured them with watercolour pencils.
The collections are : Landscape Edges ( sun and wall), English Cottages (house and tree), Village life (tree)

Here is a very clean and simple card

I just stamped  with Versafine Onyx Black, two stamps from Village life  and the birds from Landscape Edges  on a blended  Distress Ink Pad background, using  the beautiful 250gr A4 white cardstock

On Your Birthday card

has as focus points the red label with the sentiment from the  Words to Dazzle and Sparkle  stamp plate and the glittered Stickles light coming behind the clouds. In Landscape Edges  you can find all the stamps for this card. The background is again blended with Distress Ink Pad  on A4 white cardstock

Three ATCs from the same  A4 white cardstock wiped with Distress Ink Pad and water. The stamps from Landscape Edges are stamped with Ranger Archival Inkpad Jet Black, as well as the sentiment from the Amazing Mackintosh Words collection. 

Thank you for passing by and I will see you next month with another Chocolate Baroque stamp series

Magda 

Village Street Scene (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing a village street scene created with various scene building stamps from Chocolate Baroque. I have included a step by step of how I stamped and masked to build up the scene from the various stamped elements.

Materials:

• Landscape Edges (silhouette background trees), Country Views (sun & hill), Village Life (houses & tree), Townhouses (house & tree), English Cottages (tree, bushes, sign post) stamp sets
• DL card blank (9.5 X 21cm), white stamping card, waste copy paper (or masking tissue)
• Versafine Inkpad (Onyx Black)
• Fine tipped pen (black)
• Temporary glue adhesive (Zig 2 way glue)
• Watercolour pens and brush
• Wax crayons (just cheapy crayons)

How to build the scene:

The first thing that I do with scene building stamps is to stamp them all out onto copy paper, trim around and lay them out to decide on placement of the elements.

Once I have chosen which elements I want to use I then carefully trim around the images to create masks. I add just a couple of dots of temporary adhesive onto the back and leave to dry to give a tacky surface to hold down the elements while masking and stamping. If you have masking tissue this is already self-cling/tacky so you don’t need glue.

Next the foreground images are stamped.

Next the foreground images are covered up with the masks and the images that you want to sit behind are stamped.

Further masks are added to cover the stamped images while working backwards through the scene.

Here I left the foreground tree and bush masks in place while stamping the houses. Then I covered the houses while stamping the background. It is not necessary to mask the background silhouette trees as they are solid stamps.

The masks were then removed and a fine tipped marker used to draw in extra elements such as texture on the street and to fill in and extend the solid background trees (i.e. coloured in between the houses).

Extra trees were stamped onto spare card to decoupage onto the foreground.

Wax crayons were used to add a little texture to the roof tops and brickwork. The wax will resist subsequent watercolour.

The scene was then coloured with watercolour pens and a damp brush used to drag out colour and add shading. Extra colour was also painted on by picking up pen colour scribbled onto a craft mat or palette.

The additional trees stamped onto spare card were trimmed and lightly shaped with a ball tool to create foreground bushes and more depth to the scene.

Scene (By Marga)

Hello everyone, here I am again with a card I made.

I made a scene with the stamp set Country Views.

I stamped the houses withVersafine Onyx Black and coloured the houses with Distress Ink. Also the grass and shadow around the houses are coloured with Distress Ink.

Stamp set I used is : Country Views.

Hugs Marga

country views

 Good morning evryone, it is my trun to show you some of the samples from last month's tv shows.
The countryside stamps were right up my street, I love creating scenes, and these stamps are perfect for that!
Both use stamps from sunburst scenes and country views.
The first one uses the pavilion from country views and the sun and bridge scene from sunburst scenes. After stamping both images, I drew in the lines to extend the landscape with a fine line pen.
The image was coloured with sponged distress inks, matted onto black card and mounted onto the white card blank stamped with the sentiment from artistic affirmations.                                                                                                                       
The tree and clouds on this card are from sunburst scenes, and the cottage from country views - the trees were coloured with brusho, ands the rest with distress inks. A black matt again, and the sentiment this time is from words of inspiration
Apologies for the wonky scan here, sometimes I just give up trying to get the scan straight!

Dutch Scene Card using Country Views and Sunburst Scenes (by Anne)

Here is another of my designs created for the recent TV shows on the Craft Channel using the lovely scene building stamp sets - Country Views and Sunburst Scenes.

I love scene building. I disappear into a fantasy world while creating these.

I hope that you like my Dutch inspired scenic project.

Anne x.

 

Materials:

• Country Views and Sunburst Scenes stamp sets
• White card blank 20.5cm square, white stamping card, blue and white pearlescent card
• Copy paper to create masks
• Distress Inkpad (Chipped Sapphire)
• Fine marker pen and alcohol ink marker (dark blue)
• Adhesive

How to make it:

1. Cut a decorative mat approx. 18cm diameter and back with blue card. Cut small corner elements in blue card. Cut circular topper approx. 13.5cm diameter from stamping card (to fit onto decorative mat).
2. Stamp the scene using Distress Ink. Use masks to cover the foreground images while stamping the ones behind in the background. Complete the scene using the fine blue pen.
3. Colour the image by putting Distress Ink onto a tile or palette and picking up ink with a wet brush.
4. Outline the edges of the topper with blue alcohol ink.
5. Glue decorative mat, corners and topper onto the card blank.

 

Make a Wish (posted by Judith)

Hi Folks, I hope that you are enjoying some Spring sunshine wherever you are. My card today uses some of the stamps from the Magical Landscapes/Fantasy Castles Multibuy stamp set. I stamped the castle and masked this off by stamping a second image onto masking paper and covering the image. I then added some trees from this set, Country Views and English Cottages before colouring the background with Pan Pastels. I added some rain clouds and extra colour with the Pan Pastels, and then completed the background with a rainbow, using the Pan Pastels, blending the colours into each other for a softened effect.

I coloured the stamped images with Distress Markers and a waterbrush, and added a sentiment from the Fairyland Words clear stamp set.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Videos now uploaded

Firstly I must apologise to anyone who viewed the blog yesterday - I'd put the wrong picture in for Country Views and it was also wrong on the website.  Both are correct now, but for the record, here is an image of both - Sunburst Scenes on the left, Country Views on the right.  Also available as a multi-buy special offer.

There are also three videos on YouTube and I am going to try to embed them here for you.

If you can't see the videos here for any reason, try visiting my YouTube channel.

Texture Fragments and other new stamps

Brace yourselves for a flurry of eye candy coming your way - we have new stamps!  Not only new stamps, but new web videos showing you some great ideas for them.


We have three new sets, starting with a full sheet A4 set called Texture Fragments.

As the name suggests, these are superb for creating texture, whether that is in polymer clay, air drying clay, embossing enamel, friendly plastic, shrink plastic, wax or any other medium you can think of.  Your textured pieces can be used to adorn bigger projects - a box maybe or a canvas, or you can use cookie cutters to make smaller items like jewellery.

Several of the images were designed with 1x3 inch microscope slides in mind - I was actually thinking about Suze Weinberg's technique of pouring molten UTEE onto a stamp with a Ranger memory frame on top to contain it.

Aside from all the wonderful possibilities with texture, they can also be used for other cool techniques including kiss stamping and one I think I just made up - "Faketangle".  You'll have to watch the video to see what I'm talking about.

The other two sets came about after the immense popularity of our Home Sweet Home stamp set that we launched earlier in the year.  You loved it so much, it's been one of our best sellers this year, so I hope you will like the follow ups.

Here is Sunburst Scenes

and here is Country Views

Not only will these coordinate with Home Sweet Home, but each set alone will give you a huge range of options for creating pretty landscapes.  Mix the two together and the number of permutations grows so you never need create the same landscape twice.

Here's a card featuring a UTEE piece made with Stained Glass Christmas, layered onto a stamp from Texture Fragments, embossed in clear on a coloured background, then rubbed with Distress Stains.




The DT admitted the Texture Fragments stamps pushed them out of their comfort zone at first, but I think you will find they rose to the challenge magnificently.  Watch out for their artwork coming along over the next couple of weeks.


Meanwhile, the White Christmas Challenge is still open until December 15th.  The prize fund is growing and you can now see my own response to the challenge on my blog. 

You can check out the videos on my YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/glendawww