Summer Song Thrush (by Carole)

Hello everyone, today we have another fabulous project from our Guest Design Team member Carole Cann. 

Carole writes:

Hello again, here is my card for this week as a Guest Designer.

I have used stamps from the Harlequin Rose and Pretty Poppies stamp sets, plus the Garden Lace Scene and Song Thrush individual stamps.
I stamped and silver embossed the panel onto black card and coloured it with mica powders. The whole scene was then glazed, this is a technique I really like on black, as it gives a very dramatic effect.
The border was stamped and silver embossed onto white card and then coloured with Distress Ink. I then discovered, by accident, that the panel sat nicely into the border of the Garden Lace Scene, so I decided to use that as part of the background too. The words are from the Summer Poppies stamp set.

A full description of the project can be found on my blog.

Thank you for looking,

Carole 😃

Carole will be back with her final post for this month next week,

Turquoise Summer (by Carole)

Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that we are introducing a new member of our Guest Design team today. Carole Cann has agreed to join the Team, and we hope that you will make her very welcome. You may have seen some of Carole's previous artwork on the Challenge Blog, where she entered regularly, and wowed us with her beautiful designs.

As always with new members to our Team, we wanted to get to know Carole a little bit, and we asked her a few questions.

What was the first set of stamps that you bought from Chocolate Baroque?

My first set of Chocolate Baroque stamps was definitely Patchwork Butterfly. I liked everything about it and there is not one stamp that I haven't used.

What would you say is your crafting style?

My crafting style is quite varied and it depends what mood I'm in at the time of making. I am quite meticulous and spend far too long deciding on a layout or where embellishments are going to be placed. I will often stamp things several times if there is a slight flaw, usually due to my cat's fur as he likes to help!

What is your favourite crafting technique?

My favourite crafting technique is definitely stamping, as I can use it on a variety of surfaces with a range of products. I particulaly like working on metal, which seems to have gone out of fashion unfortunately. A lot of Chocolate Baroque stamps are ideal for this technique as they are lovely open designs. I also enjoy doing spritzed Distress Ink backgrounds and then looking at them to see which stamps would go best on them.

I have always been into crafting of some sort as I had very creative parents, and have tried many things over the years including lino and screen printing. I discovered stamping way back in the late 90's and was hooked. I found it very engaging as it gave me the flexibility to use different techniques and products, with other peoples' lovely images.

Carole's first project this month is a pretty card, evocative of Summer days. 

Carole writes:

Hello everyone, here is one of my samples that I would like to share with you all.

I stamped the Garden Lace Scene first, onto white card.  The border from the Harlequin Rose stamp set was stamped alongside with an embossing pad, and clear embossed. It has been coloured with Distress Inks.

The saying, from the Summer Poppies stamp set, was stamped and embossed onto parchment, to give a softer look. I made the roses from circles and attached them, with die cut swirls, for added embellishments.

Changes to the colour scheme could make this suitable for many occasions.

Thank you for looking. I look forward to showing you another idea next time.

Carole 😊

Carole will be back next week with another project to share. You can catch up with her on her blog here. In the meantime, do keep visiting the Design Team blog for a daily dose of inspiration from the regular Design Team girls.

Garden Lace Scene By Florence

Hi everyone

I hope you are all enjoying the weekend.

Today I would like to share with you some cards made using the new Garden Lace Scene Stamp.  This is such a gorgeous image.  As you would expect from Chocolate Baroque stamps, the image stamps perfectly every time.  Lovely crisp lines and detail.

As this is such a beautiful image I decide to keep the first three cards simple in design with only the addition of sentiments from the Mackintosh Sentiments Rubber Stamp Set which go perfectly with this image.

I have just changed the colors of the ink I have used to stamp the image and the colors used to color the image in.

When I first looked at this stamp The Great Gatsby Sprang to mind.  The thought of elegant parties with guests dressed in their finery and sipping cocktails on the terrace resulted in the idea of combining the Garden Lace Scene image with one of the Fabulous Flapper Ladies.

These cards were easy to make.
I stamped my images with Archival Ink and colored them.
Card 1 and 2 I used ink and a damp paint brush to color the image.
Cards 3 and 4 I used water color crayons and a damp paint brush.
On card 4 I stamped the Flapper Lady onto a separate piece of white card, colored the image and attached it to the card using foam tabs.

Thank you for looking
Florence x