Winter Dawn (by Carole)

Hello everyone

My last project for this GDT slot is a Winter theme using the beautiful Winter Dawn stamp (UA6SP0525). I have used the other three quite a lot as they are very pretty images, but Winter Dawn has been neglected for some reason. 😃

So here she is. 

The frame is 25cm.one I had in my stash. Just right for the 15cm. heart to fit in the centre.

The heart is a good quality birch wood which has been sanded to a lovely smooth finish. This is suitable for stamping directly onto the wood without prepping it first, using a suitable inkpad.

Some inkpads will bleed, which you don't want. I have used Versafine Blue on mine and it is useful to use a drier pad rather than a squidgy new one 😃. Stazon works well too.

The image has been coloured with watercolour pencils and white gel pen, for the flakes.

It is edged with tiny beads to finish it.

The background sheet has the was resist technique again, (see last week's post), and then overstamped with snowflakes which have been white embossed.

The edging is finished with little pearls.

I hope you have enjoyed this project and revisit this lovely series of stamps.Happy crafting to you all and thank you fr visiting Chocolate Baroque's blog.

Carole 😀

From Summer To Winter (by Julie)

Hello, lovely to see you. I can't believe that we are nearly at the end of July so I thought I had better get my Summer Solstice card in quick as before we know it the Winter Dawn Lady in my second card will be the order of the day...

For my first card I stamped and then masked the Summer Fayre lady. Next I took the Seasonal Journey stencil and applied teal and orange dye ink through the Summer Solstice words and added white, paint pen, highlights. 

The shimmering sun has been stencilled with the Seasonal Elements using a sponge and yellow acrylic paint. Once dry I went over the entire background with Old Paper Distress ink and added more white, paint pen, highlights.

Once I removed the mask from the lady I coloured with pencils and then edged the card with Evergreen Bough Distress paint.

This beautiful Winter Dawn lady was stamped onto Kraft card with a blue Versafine ink and then coloured with Polychromos pencils. I cut the card to size and edged with Picket Fence Distress paint and Crystal Stickles. The base card was stamped with the snow flake stamp from Sparkling Trees, before applying the blue card-stock and the stamped Winter lady. The card was finished off with dabs of Crystal Stickles and die cut snowflakes.

Many thanks for taking a peek. Please call back very soon for more Design Team inspiration.

Julie xx

Winter Shaker Card (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing another of my recent show samples using one of the lovely seasonal ladies – Winter Dawn. I just had to go over the top with sparkle and bling for this one – tee hee.

This one does make a nice Christmas card (sorry to use the ‘C’ word) - but it could just as equally make a nice winter birthday card too.

Materials:

• Winter Dawn stamp
• Seasonal Elements and Seasonal Journey stencils
• 16 X 13cm card blank, smooth blue card, holographic mirror card, blue glitter card, heavy acetate (recycled packaging)
• Versamark Inkpad
• WOW embossing Powder (Metallic Silver Superfine)
• Colouring pencils (white, blue and grey)
• Fine tipped markers (black and opaque white)
• Glitter glue (pale aqua) and loose glitter (extra fine pale blue)
• Crystal glitter (for inside shaker)
• Acrylic texture paste
• Viva Décor Kristall Gell (Hologram)
• Snowflake dies
• Foam tape and strong double sided tape (red liner)

How to make it:

1. Stamp the image with Versamark and emboss with the silver powder. Colour with pencils and use fine tipped black pen to darken eyes. Use the white pen to enhance highlights. Add glitter glue to snowflakes. You could stop at this stage and simply mat and layer onto the card front.
2. Cut a frame from holographic card. Using texture paste add the lettering through the stencil. Quickly coat with loose glitter. When dry enhance the lettering by drawing on a drop shadow with black pen.
3. Trim the acetate to fit behind the frame. Add snowflakes using Kristall and applying through the stencil. When dry glue to the back of the frame with strong tape. Apply the framed window to the card with 3D foam tape ensuring that there are no gaps. Before sticking down add a pile of crystal glitter to the middle of the card.
4. Finish with die cut snowflakes.

Summer Day and Winter Solstice (posted by Claire)

Good morning, I hope you're all having a lovely weekend. I love all of the gorgeous seasonal ladies and it was a real treat to find that Lesley had produced some lovely stencils to go with them. I've used both the stamps and stencils for my projects today.

To make Summer Day I began by stamping Summer Fayre on to kraft card and colouring her with Lyra pencils. I dry brushed around the image with white gesso and also applied gesso to a piece of corrugated card. Once the gesso was dry I applied different shades of green acrylic paint through the Useful Leaves stencil to create the background, this is definitely a useful stencil but so pretty too. I added the lettering using the Seasonal Journey stencil and a little red acrylic paint. To finish the wall hanging I added some ribbon, gingham trim and little paper poppy.

I've used a much darker more dramatic colour palette to create Winter Solstice. I began by stamping 

Winter Dawn onto white car and coloured her with Graph'It Markers. I outlined the image with a black marker annd then applied black gesso all round and then added some colour using Twinkling H2O paint in blued and purples. I stamped the image again on acetate using versmark in and embossed with a sparkly white powder. I cut the snowflakes out and layered them up over the image. I added a little glue and glitter too give some more dimension. I added some stencilling around the image using the Seasonal Elements stencil and glassy gel medium, sprinkling with more glitter while the medium was still wet. The colours of the paint have bled through this while it was drying, a happy accident as I love the effect!  I applied clear versamark ink through the stencil to create the wording and embossed with white sparkly powder. I added a little scrap of ribbon and a snowflake embellishment to finish off.

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Poppies in her hair (by Brenda)

Good morning Peeps, I am back with some more shares using the Mackintosh and Seasonal Lady stamps that featured on Lesley's June shows on Hochanda.

Kraft card is something I am always buying but rarely use so I though I would try and remedy that and quite like how well it works with white and red, a combo that I will be trying again. Using the new masks which match the Seasonal Ladies I used the leaves from one of them and white Dylusions, masking section of the cardstock as I went along so the spray could be directed through the mask. Then using red Distress Ink I sponged the word repeatedly at different angles.

The lovely Summer Fayre image was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with detail white powder and coloured in the flowers and Butterfly with the same red Distress Ink. I stamped the Butterfly again and cut out and also one of the flowers, coloured both with the same ink, cut out and decoupaged.

Taking the stem Rose from Machintosh Beauty stamp set I repeat stamped with Black Archival to create a circle and coloured in with sparkle pens. The sentiment is from Amazing Mackintosh Words, stamped with the same black ink and cut out using dies and matted into the centre of the Roses.

The background of this card is Distress Inks and repeat stamped with flowers from Mackintosh Windows and Mackintosh Beauty. A strip of vellum placed across the middle and an image from Mackintosh Windows stamped with Versafine Black and heat embossed with detail clear powder, cut out, coloured with Distress Inks and placed over the vellum.

My final card has the lovely Winter Dawn which I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with detail silver, cut out with an oval die and went round the edges with a thick silver pen before mounting onto a base stamped with the same ink and powder and Large Crackle Background stamp. A silver bow to finish.

Stamps and Texture Paste (posted by Claire)

Good morning everyone, I hope you're enjoying this months inspiration, I just love all four of the beautiful ladies in the Four Seasons collection and this project features the lovely Autumn Medley. I began by spreading a thick layer of texture paste over the stamp and leaving her for a couple of days to dry.

.

Once the texture paste was dry I carefully peeled it away from the stamp and triimmed the edges to neaten it up. Then I painted it with acrylic paints, I was really pleased with the effect they gave

I took an oval mdf shape and applied texture paste through a woodgrain stencil, adding a thick layer around the edge of the piece. Once that was dry I painted with acrylic paints in shades of brown and then attached the lady so that her hair wood blend into the wood. I added some flowers, leaves and raffia from my stash and used a little mdf sentiment from my stash to finish off.

I used the same technique for this project but used Winter Dawn

This time rather than paint her with acrylic paint I stuck her to the stencilled background and painted over with black gesso. I highlighted everything with silver gilding wax and then added some iridescent highlights with Twinkling H2O paints. I think her eyes look a bit scary lol

Thanks for visiting today don't forget to keep checking in as my teamies have got some wonderful projects to share !

Claire xx

Stained glass window (by Brenda)

Good morning, I hope you are all enjoying the Summer weather and as it's 4th July a Happy Independence Day to all our American friends.

This month myself and the Design Team are sharing some of our creations made for the June shows on Hochanda when Lesley shared the most beautiful Machintosh inspired stamp sets during the first batch of shows and on the second the lovely Seasonal Ladies, all of which were a joy to work with.

My card at the top uses two of the images from Mackintosh Window stamp set, stamped with Versafine Black and heat embossed with Detail Clear powder, coloured in using Distress Inks, added some Liquid Pearls to the flower centres and matted and layered onto a landscape card.

For this card I stamped three of the words from Amazing Mackintosh Words onto a square of white card and then flicked some watered down Distress Ink and then stamped the large swirl from Patchwork Butterfly set using Blue Versafine ink.

Next I stamped Large Crackle Background around the edges of a small chipboard frame using the same blue ink and lightly inked the edges. I made a template of the inside of the frame and drew around the shape on a craft mat, heated some clear and blue UTEE and poured onto the shape on my craft mat and quickly stamped the image from Mackintosh Windows using white ink. I cut away the excess from the edges whist still warm, fixed inside the frame and then onto my card and added some twine and flowers.

Here I used Brushos, stamped abound the edges using Distress Ink and two of the individual roses from Mackintosh Windows, a sentiment from Amazing Mackintosh Words and then the beautiful Spring Awakening image. I coloured the flowers in her hair with pencils and added some pearls to the centres.

The background for this card was made with watered down blue Distress Ink and mopped with a piece of kitchen towel to keep it as pastel as possible. Next Winter Dawn was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with white detail clear powder and the colour bleached out before colouring with Distress Inks........a good tip when bleaching away colour is to allow the bleach to dry properly and leave for half an hour or so, otherwise added colour can fade.

Using the new stencils that match the Seasonal Ladies I added some snowflakes and the words using Distress inks.

Many thanks for popping in to have a peek today.

Winter Solstice (by Rachel)

Well we have reached the third and final week of Rachel's guest posts and today she has the most beautiful project for you using the individual stamp, Winter Dawn. 

• For my last project I have taken a paper mache frame which I painted with black acrylic paint. When dry I added a cover of crackle medium and then the cobalt blue paint as the final coat. TIP - when using crackle medium by varying the thickness as you apply it you will get a variety of small and large cracks.
• I stamped the image on white stamping card using blue archival ink and then coloured her in with pencils. 
• Next I created the background with distress inks, sprinkling with water in some areas to create the droplet effect, and then attached the picture to the back of the frame.

I have really enjoyed my guest month, I hope you have too and I look forward to joining you again next year.  Have a fabulous New Year.

Rachel

We have certainly enjoyed the last three weeks Rachel and thank you for giving us such varied projects. 

Don't forget to pop back in tomorrow for another inspirational post from one of our regular Design Team girls.

Winter Dawn ( by Magda)

Today I want to show how to make a simple card with the Winter Dawn stamp, one of the four beautiful seasonal ladies set.

1. Stamp Winter Dawn with Versafine Onyx Black on a watercoulor cardstock
2. Colour the face and the neck with watercolor marker and cover those with Drawing Gum
3. Blend with a blending sponge, all the cardstock with Distress Inkpad Stormy Sky to create the
    background
4. Rub away the Drawing Gum when it is dry
5. Fill the circles and the centre of the snowflakes with Stickles Star Dust
6. Roll on Gelli Plate with the brayer different shades of  Distress Paint blue
7. Crease a piece of backing paper, create your monoprint, and let it dry
8. Cut the backing paper in strips, you have created your washi tape !
9. Glue with Ranger Triangular Collage Glue, the strips as a frame around your Winter Dawn image.

I hope you have had some new ideas from my project and enjoy these last days of July

Magda

Four Seasons for Four Ladies (by Anne)

Good morning. I am so loving the new Four Seasons Collection of stamps. I love the new Tangled Birch too – will have to make something with that very soon.
Running behind with time to get my post done for you today I thought that I had better make something quick and easy with a clean and simple style (CAS). The stamps are so gorgeous in themselves that they really do not need much adding to them. I started with the gorgeous Summer Fair, simply stamped with Versafine (Onyx Black). I then quickly coloured the flowers and foliage by scribbling with watercolour pencils and brushing over with a water brush. Voila! A lovely CAS quick card – all I had to do was mount her on a card blank.

However …… those of you that know me, know that I struggle a little with this style. I am definitely a ‘more is more’ girl – tee hee. I thought … ‘well I have to do a set of 4 to include all 4 seasons’. Off I went to make the others with Autumn Medley, Spring Awakening and Winter Dawn.
But then I thought … ‘wouldn’t they look good with my Art Nouveaux style die cut frame’. This then involved die cutting, matting and layering. Cutting the oval from the stamped images also required a little bit of care as parts of the image overhung the frame. I have included a pic for those that are new to this technique. You need to snip into the image so that you can leave the overhang free from the die.

But I didn’t stop there! I then thought ….. ‘oooh, wouldn’t they look good with some of my die cut flowers and leaves’. So my quick to make single CAS card turned into a mammoth make. I did have fun though.

I hope that you like them …. And you could always stop at the CAS stage. Anne xxx.

Icy Colours (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a project to share today using another of this month's individual lady stamps, Winter Dawn.

I am not a Winter person, I do not like the cold, preferring to stay indoors wrapped up warm, but I love this Wintery image, and had a lot of fun creating a card to go with Sue's super design.

I stamped the image onto smooth watercolour card, and masked it before colouring the background using the acrylic block technique. I then stamped over the top of the background using a stamp from the Abstract Fragment stamp set. I added some partial stamping using a stamp from the Decorative Edges stamp set by stamping with Versamark and white embossing powder.

I removed the mask and coloured the image using Polychromos pencils. I added some flat-backed gems and some ribbon, before attaching the background to a white card blank.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Four seasons by Veronica

 Four cards using the lovely new seasonal ladies stamps - big stamps that are an absolute delight to colour in.
The first uses spring awakening, stamped with black versafine, clear embossed, and coloured with pencils.
Die cut, then mounted on a 7" square white card blank randomly stamped with an old flower stamp from my stash using old paper distress ink.(Briar rose butterfly,  can't find it on the website at the moment, but it is avaiable from the Craft Channel website)

 Summer fair is the next stamp, again stamped in bl;ack versafine and clear embossed before colouring with pencils. I stamped a mask using masking tissue and masked the image before adding a gelli plate background uisng distress inks.
Again an oval die cut, and a 7" square white card blank stamped with a stamp from poppy meadow across the bottom using peeled paint distress inks.

 Autumn medley also has a gelli plate background added after colouring and masking the image, this time using acrylic paints and leaves from the garden.
This time the mount is an 8" square white card.
The wood -effect background is thanks to a link from Eileen Godwin.

Last lady is winter dawn, stamped with versamark onto light blue card and embossed with silver. Coloured with pencils again, white chalk marker, rhinestones added to the snowflakes.
Base card was 8" square in silver pearl, randomly stamped with a snowflake stamp from a child is born using silver pigment ink.
The mats are dark and light silvers.

My teamies have made some wonderful creations, so keep checking to se them all!

Winter Dawn (posted by Claire)

Good morning folks, Claire here with a card featuring one of the beautiful four seasons stamps from Chocolate Baroque. This one is called Winter Dawn and the other 3 ladies are equally stunning. 

I've coloured the image with Graph'It Markers and added a little glitter and some gems here an there. I've distressed the edges with Tumbled Glass distress ink and layered her up on some silver card. The background was made using distress inks and i've just added more gems and some wintery die cuts to finish off .

Thanks for visiting today, have a lovely weekend 

Claire xx

Kraft Card Ladies (by Julie)

Hello and thanks for stopping by. Wow, aren't the new stamps wonderful this month? I have to say that when they landed on my craft table I was so excited to get started with them as the designs are all so fantastic.

My first card is the Autumn Medley design, which I stamped onto Kraft card and then coloured with Polychromos pencils. I stamped the image 3 more times onto spare Kraft card so that I could cut out the leaves to add as decoupage. The little mesh fragment from the Rustic Fragment set was added around the edge.

The Autumn Medley is very versatile as the design around the edges of the base card has been stamped with it as well. I was just careful about the parts I added ink to and used a wet wipe to remove any excess from areas not intended to be stamped. To finish off I added dabs of Crystal Stickles.

My second card sees the Winter Dawn image stamped onto Kraft card and coloured with Polychromos pencils as before. I sponged Picket Fence stain around the edges to create an icy look and also added die cut snow flakes with flat back crystals. The base card was stamped with the snow flakes from Sparkling Trees and finished off with dabs of Crystal Stickles.

My third and final card uses the rather fabulous Tangled Birch image. I started by stamping the trees onto white stamping card and then adding Dusty Concord and Hickory Smoke Distress inks to the sky. Squeezed Lemonade and Mustard Seed Distress ink were added to the sun/moon and then I coloured the rest with brush markers. Picket Fence stain was wiped over the image to create the misty effect and blended all of the colours together.

As the trees have been tangled I decided to add some faux tangling to the base card. I did this by sectioning of areas with masking tape and stamping the Rustic Fragments around the edges before colouring with various Distress inks. To finish off, white pen highlights were added to the trees and border.

Well if you are reading this part, thank you for sticking with me on this bumper post and please remember to call in again very soon for some more Design Team inspiration.

Julie xx

Magical Winter Dawn (by Anne)

Good morning. Here is my first project with the lovely new Winter Dawn stamp. It is also my first go at parchment craft. It took a bit of getting used to using an embossing tool to add white highlights rather than adding shading for the colouring, like working in negative. Her eyes turned out to be a little scary but I was fairly pleased with the results. It gave my lady a very magical ethereal look. I hope that you like her.
Anne x.
Materials:

• Winter Dawn stamp
• Pearlescent white card, blue card and parchment
• Pergamano Tinta Ink (white)
• Alcohol ink pen (mid grey)
• Fine tipped white acrylic pen
• Stickles glitter glue (Diamond)
• Embossing mat and fine tipped embossing ball tools
• Needle tool and brass stencil for piercing
• Small poinsettia and snowflake dies, decorative layering dies

How it was made:

1. I created the card blank from an A4 sheet of pearl card folded in half. The largest die was placed on top such that it overhung the top edge to leave an opening hinge, then cut through both layers. The same die was used to cut a mat to glue onto the front and hide the flat top. The bottom was trimmed slightly so the card would stand without rocking.
2. A blue mat and white frame were then cut. I cut the parchment to fit inside the frame with a small border for gluing. I used the Tinta ink to stamp the image onto the parchment. Being new to parchment I really wasn’t sure what ink would work and I knew that this is designed for parchment. However, it is really designed to work with a dip pen. It did sort of work but the results weren’t the best and it was difficult to see the stamped image, especially from the back. I will have to research this. Maybe StazOn ink would work better?
3. I then used embossing tools to gently stroke the parchment on the reverse side to create the white ‘colouring’. Intermittently I let the parchment rest before further enhancing and whitening with the tools.
4. My poor lady ended up with very weird white eyes and eyebrows! I used the grey alcohol marker on the back to try and rescue her and add some shading. I also used alcohol blender to eliminate harsh lines drawn with the pen. I used the white pen to add the dots onto her pupils. I quite liked the shading and added some to her hair too.
5. The delicate snowflakes were a bit impossible to see from the back. So I simple used them as a guide for embossing the lines. I used a needle tool to punch through a brass stencil and add a little texture onto the background.
6. I glued the parchment to the inside edge of the white frame and mounted it onto the blue mat. Note: I don’t have the proper glue or snipping tools for parchment so it was a little tricky to work out how to attach it without the glue showing through. I used normal acrylic glue, hiding it under the edge of the frame and placed tiny dots behind the snowflakes where they would not be obvious. There are specialist parchment glues that are designed to dry clear and be hardly visible.
7. Finally I added the small die cut embellishments and added some glitter glue for sparkle.

I think I quite like this parchment stuff …. Oh dear …. Another addiction?

Absolutely Fabulous new stamps launch today (by Lesley)

I am almost bursting with excitement as I am so proud to be bringing you five new designs from Sue that will blow your socks off!  

Today we are launching our Four Seasons Collection, plus a new tangled style stamp, and boy are these something.  They are all A6 size individual unmounted stamps, although they are available as part of our cling and cut service for a small additional charge. Anyway enough of the boring stuff here are the images you are waiting for.

The Four Seasons starts with Spring Awakening

followed by Summer Fair

then Autumn Medley

and finally Winter Dawn

I am sure you will agree that Sue has created something really unique with these stunning images and for all colourists, in any medium, they will be an absolute dream to play with. You can purchase these individually or we also have our usual money saving multi-buy available.

The fifth new release is entitled Tangled Birch and is another outstanding design.

All five of these stamps are so new we don't even have any finished artwork yet, but I really didn't want to keep these hidden any longer so I have released them ahead of time. Please watch out for loads of inspirational artwork to come from the Design Team who, I might add, have all nearly fainted with excitement at being able to work with these glorious images. 

Looking at these I am not sure which I would purchase first, but suffice to say that I remain in envy of Sue. Being able to draw this kind of beauty and quality of image is a wondeful talent to have and we are lucky enough to be able to share that in these exquisite new stamps. I am sure you will all agree.

In the meantime please don't forget to keep dropping by to see tons of inspirational and colourful artwork from our equally talented Design Team.  Now which one should I play with first!