The Joy of Creating (by Doreen)

Hello everyone, Doreen is back with her second post this month; a colourful card, combining stamps, background papers, and papers from her own crafty stash.

Doreen writes:

This card is a fairly quick make using the latest of Chocolate Baroque's fabulous background splash designer papers, stamped. I then used a background of my own making, stamped, cut out, coloured and using 3D glue gel, mounted onto the background and left the glue to dry. It only needs one hour before it can be safely popped into an envelope but I do err on the side of caution and leave for longer. Of course, if you are in a rush, then you can use foam pads instead.

Products used in the making of this card:

Big Bold Background Leafy Background stamp

Bird of Joy stamp

Designer Papers A5- Background Splash

Chalk Ink pads and clear sparkle pen to paint

Nocturne Versafine Clair inkpad

5" x 5" card blank

Base layer of variegated blue paper from stash 

Thanks for looking

love Doreen

Engineered Florals (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today using the fabulous stamps and stencils that we brought to you during last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I hope that you managed to catch the shows, they were a whirlwind of activity, as the stamps sold out very quickly, but Lesley and I enjoyed ourselves enormously trying to keep up with what was happening!

My first card was created using the beautiful Freesia Blueprint stamp set. I used the Dotty stencil from the Strip Stencil - Collection 1 set and added some texture paste to a piece of drawing cartridge. I coloured the background using Distress Ink once the texture paste was completely dry. I added some background stamping using one of the smaller images from the stamp plate.

I stamped the main freesia image onto another piece of drawing cartridge, and coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor watercolour pencils. I stamped a sentiment onto a small piece of card, coloured in the same colours as the main background, and edged all of the pieces with brown ink.

To create my second card, I took a piece of glossy card, and embossed a couple of images from the Wild Cornflower Blueprint stamp set using white embossing powder. I then covered the background with blue Distress Ink and polished the card. I stamped the main image from the stamp set onto a piece of smooth stamping paper using blue ink, and coloured the image using pencils as before. I added a sentiment, and some shading with blue ink, before edging the paper with dark blue ink.

Using a piece of drawing cartridge, I added some yellow Distress Ink to create a background, and then drew lots of postage stamp shapes using one of the inserts from Triple Postage, another one of the Strip Stencil - Collection 1 set. I stamped the smaller images from all of the stamp sets into the postage stamp shapes, and coloured them with pencils, adding a sentiment into one of the shapes. For extra definition, you could add shading around the shapes to give a 3D effect, making the postage stamps look as if they had been stuck onto the background.

My final card was created by adding one of the beautiful Designer Papers A5- Background Splash, designed by Lesley, onto a card blank. I stamped one of the engineer's drawings from the Sweetpeas Blueprint stamp set three times across a piece of drawing cartridge. I varied the height of each image. I added some foliage in between the images and coloured everything in with pencils. I stamped the small sweetpea flower head onto a scrap piece of the patterned paper three times, and cut them out. I stuck each flower head into the top of a 'bulb'. This piece of apparatus is actually a flagpole, but I thought that it resembled a quirky specimen jar and made a perfect home for the flower heads.

I edged the card with black ink before attaching it to the coloured bakground.

I hope that you have enjoyed my first batch of cards this month. I will be back later on with more inspiration to share with you. Thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx