Bodice And Bouquets (by Julie)

Good morning, I hope you have been enjoying this months sewing theme. Today I have two cards created from the two new sets that Chocolate Baroque have to offer which are The Floral Mannequins and The Sewing Room. I have used elements of both sets on both of my cards.

 I tried to keep this floral card as clean and simple as possible which I generally find quite hard to do. The floral ribbon has been stamped with Sepia Versafine and coloured with pencils. The three lace flowers have been decoupaged and stamped with blue Versafine onto light-blue card and the leaves were die cut from green card which I had previously stamped with the ruffled ribbon from the Floral Mannequins and one of the vintage mannequins from the Sewing room. I think the sentiment is very fitting for the card and comes from the Mackintosh Clear Sentiments set.

My second is a DL card and is created using basic masking techniques and again I have taken stamps from both sets. I started by stamping the button, thimble and cotton reel onto multiple layers of sticky notes so that when I cut them out I had more than one of each mask. I then applied a length of masking tape from top to bottom and approx. 3 cm in from the edge of the card before stamping the button, thimble and cotton reel, remembering to cover with  masks as I went along. After stamping I coloured the panel with Marigold and Mustard Seed Distress ink, then moved the masking tape so that it covered the coloured panel. You can then start stamping the Peacock Feather Distress ink panel. This panel is very much easier and doesn't require any masking. I stamped a selection of the haberdashery items along with the lacy ribbon using grey Versafine before sponging on the Peacock Feather Distress Ink.

On a separate piece of card I stamped some of the haberdashery items using the grey Versafine before over stamping the vintage mannequins with black Versafine. I then coloured them with pencils before cutting out and adding them to the card with silicone glue.

The finished panel was mounted onto the base card that I had edged with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Thank you for stopping by and we hope to see you tomorrow with some more Design Team inspiration.

Vintage Dressmaker (by Asha)

Hello again, friends. I'm back with 2 vintage inspired card projects featuring stamps from The Sewing Room, Floral Mannequins and Dressmaking Collage. The patterned papers used on both my cards are from an old magazine - a great way to recycle!

My first card features a dress form from The Sewing Room sheet which I heat embossed in black and fussy cut. I coloured the body with Polychromos. Same treatment for the pin cushion from the Floral Mannequins sheet.  There's also some second generation stamping of safety pins at the bottom ... if you look hard! :) The sentiment is form the Birthday Words A5 sheet. To finish, I added Liquid Pearls and cream cotton lace.

My second card is also a vintage affair. This time I did some stamping directly onto the design paper and distressed the edges. The lace is from The Sewing Room sheet and for the background stamping I used the Dressmaking Collage clear sheet. The dress form is from the Floral Mannequins sheet, heat embossed in black, fussy cut and adhered to the card. And to finish I stuck on a few buttons.

That's all from me today. I trust you'll be busy with these fabulous stamps this weekend!  I'll be posting  more photos and details of products used for these projects on my blog tomorrow.  The Design Team has lots of amazing ideas coming up to inspire you, so make sure you swing by often. :)

Beijinhos,
Asha

All Wrapped Up (by Lesley)

For today's card I wanted to show you how to create embellishments using stamps from The Sewing Room and Floral Mannequins. There is a full step by step for this, so please pull up a chair and take a break for a few minutes.

• Stamp the ruffled ribbon from Floral Mannequins three times on to some 160gsm smooth white cardstock using Vintage Photo distress ink.
• Use a water brush to 'pull' the colour from the ink over each image. Leave to dry thoroughly.
• Stamp the ribbon again with the same ink, turn the cardstock over and stamp on the reverse in the same position. You want to achieve a 'double sided' ribbon for the faux bow. Easiest way it to measure up from the bottom of the cardstock on both sides, mark a line and then position the stamp on this line.  Repeat the water brush technique and set aside to dry.
• Stamp the button from The Sewing Room three times using Vintage Photo and then water brush as detailed above.
• Add shade to the ruffled edge on the ribbons and around the buttons with a watercolour pencil and water brush this shading.
• When everything is dry cut out and then use a darker colouring pencil along the edges of the ruffles and round the buttons.
• To make the faux bow use the double sided ribbon you have stamped and bring both edges into the middle to form a bow shape. Glue together with wet adhesive. When dry cut a curved 'V' shape across the top and bottom edge to create a bow shape. Use a pencil, or similar, in the ends of the bow to help form the 'ears'.
• Glue two of the ribbon pieces together with wet adhesive. When dry attach the full strip horizontally on a folded 5" white square card, placing the join slight left of centre, with wet adhesive. Trim off the excess.
• To create the vertical ribbon cut the remaining ribbon in two so that when attached it looks like a full strip. Fix with wet adhesive, slipping the edges under the ruffled edge of the horizontal one and trim off any excess.
• Attach the faux bow over the join and the three buttons as shown.
• Finally add a wooden button, paper flower or similar in the centre of the bow and stamp the sentiment from the Amazing Birthday clear stamp set using a Versafine inkpad in Vintage Sepia.

I really enjoyed using these stamps to turn paper images into realistic looking embellishments. Hope that you will give this one a try and thank you for visiting. Don't forget there is still more fabulous artwork to come from the Design Team girls.

Vintage Floral Mannequin (by Miranda)

Hi there,

Today it's my turn to show you what I've created with the new beautiful stamp sheets from Chocolate Baroque.

I have been working with Floral Mannequin and the Sewing room. There is also another one in this serie called Dressmaking collage. Difficult to  choose, isn't it? 

The background is done with Distress inks, Victorian Velvet,Walnut stain and Vintage photo.  The borders are stamped with Memento Espresso Truffle and the one with the loops have been decoupaged. I have stamped the lace flower in the background several times and masked it.

I have embossed the torso's with Wow primary Burgundy and Wow Fool's gold. Also coloured them with water based markers in matching colors.

I've added some lovely rose embellishments from ScrapBerry's.

Hope I have inspired you with my card!

Thanks for your visit and hope to see you next time,

Have a nice day,

Floral Mannequins, The Sewing Room and Dressmaker's Window By Florence

Hi everyone

I hope you are enjoying the weekend and the weather is being kind to you.

Today I would like to share some projects made using some of the new stamps. They all work so well together.  To see the new stamps sets in full please click on the individual links:  Floral Mannequins, The Sewing Room and The Dress Maker's Window.   Do also check out the website for the multi-buy offer on these stamps.

Just a thought on the Dress Makers Window stamp.  This stamp can be used in so many different ways not just with the sewing stamps.  Personally, I have been after a window stamp for a many years and this one is perfect.  An absolute delight to craft with.  The design and size of it is fabulous.

My first project is a box style card.  

Box cards are really easy to make and a lot of fun.

The inside of the box is made in exactly the same way as you would make up a front of a card.  The only difference with box cards is that you score the card more times to give you the box shape.

Front view

The next project is a quick and simple card

For this card I have just stamped the frilly ribbon and the sentiment directly onto the card and added a hint of color on the ribbon using water color crayons.  The flowers have been stamped onto separate card stock and cut out.  The card has been made up as seen with foam pads behind the stamped flowers and the addition of a little die cut.

The next card is simple in style but it did take a little time to cut out the bottom of the dress form.  Having said that it was quite easy to cut out with a craft knife.  I found it easier to make all of the downward cuts and then make all of the across cuts.

I mixed and matched the dress forms and made a little modification to the body piece.

For this card I started by stamping the sentiment and the lace trim. I then stamped and cut out all of my pieces and decoupaged them onto the base card using foam tabs.


That's all from me today
Thank you for stopping by

Happy Stamping
Florence x

Ribbon & Lace (by Asha)

Good morning all! Are you enjoying the new stamps? Let me tell you -I am LOVE-LOVE-LOVING them. So, follow me into The Sewing Room and let's have fun with the Floral Mannequins.  It's been more than 4 decades since I had this much fun playing dress-up!

My first card highlights the lovely dress-form from The Sewing Room A5 sheet and was inspired by a wedding dress. I heat embossed the dress-form in black onto heavy weight kraft card. Then I ruffled up some sheer white ribbon and cream lace to "build" the under-skirt of a wedding dress in progress. I can only imagine the hustle and bustle in a real sewing room! For a touch of bridal glamour, I added tiny bling to form a necklace. The greeting is from Loving Sentiments A5 sheet.

More lace on my second card, only this time I'm using stamps from the Floral Mannequins A5 sheet.  The background was created by stamping the lace fragment directly onto a piece of patterned paper followed by a little colouring with Polychromos. The ruffled lace is also from the Floral Mannequins A5 sheet, but this time I heat embossed it in white onto vellum and fussy cut it. I coloured the mannequin with alcohol markers, fussy cut and mounted it with some foam tape. The greeting is from the Birthday Words A5 sheet.

Thanks for stopping by today. Details of products used for these projects are available on my blog. The Design Team has lots of fabulous ideas coming up to inspire you, so make sure you swing by often. :)

Beijinhos,
Asha

Mixing and matching (posted by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a project to show you today using the Sewing Room/Floral Mannequins multi-buy stamp set plus the Dressmaking Collage clear stamp. I have combined these stamps with an older stamp set: Haberdashery, to create a collaged card.

I started to make my background by stamping the buttons in two corners of a piece of watercolour paper using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I coloured the images with pencils, and then painted the images with Acrylic Wax. I spritzed two pieces of tissue paper with red and orange Dylusions spray, crumpled them up, and dabbed the background to create a mottled effect.

I stamped and embossed the silhouette mannequin onto the background, and then stamped and embossed the floral bodice onto a spare piece of card. I coloured the bodice using water based markers and a water brush. I coloured another piece of card firstly with orange and red inks and stamped and embossed the lace flower twice, which I cut out and layered together. I then coloured the card with Scattered Straw Distress Ink to create a little banner for the sentiment.

I added some background stamping using one of the border images, and finally added some hand drawn stitching, before placing the background onto a black card blank.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Stamps and paper (by Lesley)

I have always loved patterned papers and I still border on wanting to keep them to stroke because they are too nice to use! However today I want to show you how to get colour into your stamping with very little effort using some of those precious papers.

• Stamp the ruffled ribbon border from Floral Mannequins, twice, onto a piece of pale patterned paper with Versafine Onyx Black. When dry colour the ruffled edges with pencils that tone in with the paper.
• After fussy cutting the borders, use a darker co-ordinating pencil and run it along the edges of the ruffles. This gives the appearance of dimension to the ribbons.
• Stamp the larger of the wire dress forms from The Sewing Room, twice, onto patterned paper (I used the free download from week 4 of our Challenge Blog 8). Cut out the entire image and then cut the tops from the wire frames. Swop these over so that you have a different coloured top to the bottom and glue together. You will have a spare for another project.
• Stamp out two of the small dress form onto another piece of patterned paper, preferably one with a lighter background. Cut out.
• Fold a piece of A4 white cardstock at 12.5 cm to create an oversize DL card, trim as required, and attach the ribbon border across the card as shown. Use a wet adhesive and overlap the borders (you will cover the join with the dress forms). When dry trim off the excess from each edge of your card.
• Stamp the sentiment from the Card Sentiments clear set with Onyx Black then attach the two smaller dress forms flat to the card with double sided tape, positioning as shown.
• Finally curve the larger dress form with your fingers for added dimension and attach with gel adhesive.

I hope this will encourage you to start using some of your paper stash and if that's asking a bit too much why not check out our Challenge Blog where you will find a free printable download every month.

As always there are some fabulous ideas bursting out from the Design Team so why not pop back tomorrow for another dose of inspiration.

Sewing together (by Judith and Lesley)

Today's design is a combined project between Judith and myself using the new sewing stamps.  We decided to do a shared card when we were in Portpatrick last weekend having loads of inky fun at Glenda's first workshops.

Judith started off our 'round robin' by stamping the lace border from The Sewing Room stamp set across an 8" square card. After masking off the top and bottom edges of the lace she coloured the centre panel using shades of orange and yellow ink and then stamped a selection of the sewing images to create the background. At this point she posted it to me, complete with a piece of spare card coloured with the same shades of ink.

I stamped and embossed the embroidered flower, from the Floral Mannequins set, 5 times on the coloured card and then fussy cut. I used the sentiment from the Thinking of You Sentiments clear stamp set and finished the card by attaching the flowers with gel adhesive. 

I know that many of you craft alone and would love to be able to share your creativity with crafty friends, only distance is an issue. Well why not start your own round robin?  Come up with an idea between you and then share the making and finishing of the project. Not quite the same as being in the same craft room, but it can be a great experience to share your work as Judith and I did.

Oh and just in case you wondered, from the original idea to finished project this card completed a journey totalling approximately 633 miles. Proof that you can do things together even if you are miles apart.

Thanks for joining us today, please drop in again soon to see more gorgeous artwork featuring our sewing themed stamps.

Floral Mannequins and The Sewing Room By Florence

Hi everyone

I hope you are enjoying the weekend.

Today I would like to share a card made using stamps from Floral Mannequins and The Sewing Room sets.  The Multi-buy option can be seen HERE.

These are fantastic sets of stamps to use whether you are an experienced stamper or whether you are just starting out on your stamping journey.

The stamps are a really great size for Card Making, ATCs, Hand Made Gifts or for making Home Decor projects.  Can you tell I am really excited about them!  I know you will love them as much as I do.

This is a really easy card to make but there is a little bit of cutting out to do.  Nothing too difficult though as the stamp images are such great shapes.

To make this card

Trim a piece of backing paper to size.

Stamp the smaller bold dress makers dummy onto your backing paper. You will only see the stand on your finished card.

Stamp all of the images onto white card, color the images and cut them out.

Make up the card as seen, attaching all of the stamped embellishments using foam tabs to give it a  3D effect.

Thank you for looking.

Happy Stamping

Florence x

The Chocolate Baroque Sewing Bee

Today we are launching our May stamp designs and the clue really is in the title.  This month all our stamps are based a sewing theme.

First there is The Sewing Room

swiftly followed by Floral Mannequins

Available as individuals or as our usual multi-buy

As you can see both of these A5 sets are filled with images that would not be out of place in any sewing room and our the Design Team have had a ball putting together some stunning projects for you.

Here is a card designed by Judith which has a wonderful vintage appeal.

She has used an old paper pattern for the background and mixed and matched one mannequin with the stand from another.

We are also launching two new single clear stamps today.

Dressmaker's Window

and Dressmaking Collage

I can visualise the window being used with a variety of our stamp designs, creating both interior and exterior scenes. And although the collage is a single stamp you could cut out each image and have a collection of small individuals stamps; fabulous for creating embellishments.

Finally I have to make an announcement with regard to our wonderful Design Team.   Sadly today we are losing two of our members, Shirley and Maria, as both ladies wish to pursue other areas of their life. 

Glenda and I will miss their colourful and unique artwork and also their comradeship - they have been stalwarts of the team.  We hope you will join us in wishing them well and we look forward to spotting some of their creative talents popping up on their own blogs. Goodbye ladies and thank you so much for all your hard work and contributions to this blog.