Celebrate the New Year with New Stamps (by Lesley)

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year and are feeling ready to face 2016.  I wouldn't blame you if you weren't. Rubbish weather, back to work, dark mornings and nights - not a lot to put a smile on your face there. So I hope that seeing these gorgeous new stamps will gladden your heart just a little and inspire to get back to stamping and crafting.

Last month we exclusively launched two new individual cling mounted stamps on the Craft Channel and today they are now on general release.  Walled Garden and Another Brick in the Walled Garden are cling mounted and cut out ready to use as soon as you receive them. And both stamps benefit from having a Free unmounted bonus stamp included in the pack.

Here is the Walled Garden, with the silhouette tree that stamps perfectly in the archway.

Another Brick in the Walled Garden (and yes the association with Pink Floyd's immortal song is intentional!) has a silhouette flower stem that can be used to add extra interest around the wall.

Sue has drawn two wonderful images that will be can be stamped and coloured with whatever medium you choose.  Whether you are a novice stamper or you have a wealth of experience these stamps will be so useful for a variety of projects and occasions.

You will have already seen some of the excellent samples from the Design Team girls and I have to say they really did the stamps justice with all their TV creations. They featured on the TV along with our Steampunk Butterfly and Steampunk Travel sets, so watch out for more inspiration using all these stamps during this month.

Steampunk travel (by Miranda)

Hi lovely people,

Hope you all did enjoy your Christmastime and holidays! The Old year is gone and a whole New year is ahead of us........

Maybe you have already heard the news on my blog but I will quit doing DT work. I am a bit sad about it because my time with this DT was precious to me. We have and had(all the other DT girls which have been on board during the years) a lovely time together. Always encouraging each other and also in the private sphere.
But sometimes life demands taking action and doing necessary things.
So I won't disappear completely but at this time I don't know exactly where life is taking me.......

Anyway, I want to thank you also for your lovely comments and encouragement along the way! Stay creative and keep on loving Chocolate Baroque!

I will be finishing my promised blogposts for Chocolate Baroque and this time I have worked with the great Steampunk Travel sheet. It's in a multi-buy with the Steampunkery sheet.

I had this background left over from one of the Colour challenges so these colors matches perfect with this theme I think.

I just stamped the center image in plain black and the other ones with gray ink. Coloured with color pencils and added some gears from the Steampunk butterfly sheet. Chocolate Baroque has some lovely Steampunk sheets with that elegant twist.

Hope to have inspired you to get your ' gears' going!

Have a lovely day,

A Treasure Map

Here's something a little different - a treasure map made with the Steampunk Travel stamps and featuring a Sea Monster from the Here be Dragons stamp set.  Find out how it was made over on my blog.

Mobile phone (posted by Claire)

Hi there, Claire here with another sample from 'Steampunkery and 'Steampunk Travel', I thought the mobile phone would be perfect for the man who has everything lol.

I've used Derwent pencils to colour the image and popped a die cut aperture over the top before matting on some kraft card. The lacey cogs border was also stamped on kraft. I used the digital backing paper 'Edwardian Gentlemen' and inked over with vintage photo distress ink using the Crafters Workshop 'Gears' template. In the opposite corners I used the same template with stencil paste, brushed over with mica powder for a metallic look. I added some brown velvet ribbon and a lovely little lock brad to finish off.

I hope you're enjoying the new stamps as much as I am. 

Thanks for visiting today

Claire xx

Steampunk beetle (posted by Claire)

Hi there, Claire here with my first project using the new Steampunkery and Steampunk Travel Stamps, I really enjoyed experimenting with different products to make this card.

The background was made using black and brown shades of PanPastels just blended together and then stamped with the text from Steampunk travels using versamark ink. I brushed over gold mica powder and not only did it pick the detail up beautifully it left a slight golden shimmer over the panpastel base. The next layer was  made using the same shades of panpastels this time using the 'Gears' template from Crafters Workshop. I added a top coat of Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Gloss , dabbed on with some kitchen roll, Next came a layer of torn card coloured with panpastels and stencil paste applied through a Tile Texture Crafters Workshop template

I stamped the beetle three times on some black Clearly for Art modelling film using versamark ink and embossed with gold. I painted the beetles with twinkling h20s and cut them out before giving them a coat of Matte Multi medium. I layered them up and finished off with a layer of glossy accents on the beetle and the clock face. You can see the detail a little better in the photo above

I hope you're enjoying all the inspiration from my team mates, these stamps are going to be perfect for those tricky male themed cards with the steampunk images and the fun sentiments

Claire xx

Hinged ATCs (posted by Judith)

When I received the new Steampunk stamps I decided that I would like to create a dimensional piece of artwork using two ATC sized pieces of wood. I had some chunky cogs that would make great little feet for these blocks. I painted the blocks using two different colours of acrylic paint, and then stamped a script stamp from the Mini Scripts stamp plate randomly over the background.

I stamped the small airship, and the small parachute with the key onto tissue paper, and applied these onto the blocks with Matte Medium so that the edges of the tissue paper disappeared into the background. I then decoupaged the larger details over the top. I added the Hat and the large sentiment to the other two panels, and some of the great words from the sets that are just so much fun. 'Toodle Pip' has to be my favourite! I used Polychromos pencils to colour all of my images. I added some small brass charms to accent the Steampunk feel, a cog, some binoculars, and a key. Finally, I added a couple more of the chunky cogs to the top of the blocks, and hinged the blocks together.

My Design Team mates have created some fabulous designs, keep checking back to see what they have made over the coming days. Thanks for stopping by, Judith x

Cabinet card concertina book (posted by Elaine)

As soon as I saw these new steampunk stamps, I felt they were crying out to be used on a kraft card based project. I wanted to do something like an advertising themed project and so the idea for this little book was born!

I cut 6 panels from kraft card using the Tim Holtz cabinet card die. On each panel I added one of the various contraption stamps in versafine onyx black ink. Making sure the ink was thoroughly dry, I added colouring with brown, white and cream colouring pencils. I added a little crackle stamping using the mini mail art set crackle stamp and shading in more Distress Photo DI. I added a computer generated title which I mounted in a chipboard bookplate with some die cut flourishes. I finished off with a couple of metal cogs.

The back cover uses  the top hat image, masked with an image from the Edwardian Gentleman plate added

I joined the panels together with cream vintage ribbon which means the book can be tied together to make it stand up more firmly.

I really enjoyed making this project, colouring onto kraft card with the pale pencils adds a really nice effect.

I have posted another project on my own blog, here is a sneeky peek -

Do pop over and take a peek here at this project where I went to town with embossing and metal!


Elaine x

Announcing Steampunkery (by Glenda)

Last week we released two new stamp sets, Steampunkery and Steampunk Travel.

Available individually or as a great value multi-buy, these mix so well with our other Steampunk stamps (Punky Romance and Steampunk Christmas).

The girls have been having great fun with these sets and they will soon be showing you their wonderful artwork, both here and on their own blogs.  You can find out more details of how the card above was made on my blog.

There is more Sunny Sunflower artwork to come too, so lots of reasons to stay tuned (or become a follower if you aren't already).  

And as if that weren't enough, I have one Steampunkery multi-buy to give away and I will be selecting ALL the comments from now through to the 16th June.

Best of luck!