Guest post - Tonal Christmas by Pauline Orr

Here is the second in our series of guest posts from Pauline. This week she has used the Snowy Scenes stamp set to create her tone on tone Christmas card.

For my 2nd Guest Design Team spot  I thought I'd keep it simple. These stamps allow you to get great results without too much effort  (shhhh I didn't just say that!)

Materials

Snowy Scenes

Stamping card and Kraft card

Distress inks - Vintage Photo and Old Paper

Diamond Stickles

Seam Binding ribbon

Rectangle dies

1. I used a 6" x 6" card blank and cut a craft card layer slightly smaller, then a layer of stamping card cut slightly smaller
2. I used Old Paper Distress ink and coloured the Stamping card using cut and dry foam.  I then randomly stamped the snowflake with Old Paper Distress ink to create a background.
3. I did another layer using layering dies with Kraft card and Stamping card and coloured the Stamping card with Vintage Photo and Old Paper again using cut and dry foam. I then over stamped in the same colours using the same snowflake stamp
4. On to my topper. I used different layering dies to cut the card and the Kraft card topper layer and stamped the snowy scene stamp in Vintage Photo. I used a paint brush and water to pull out the colour of the  stamped image in places.
5. I highlighted with Diamond Stickles to make it twinkle (and it looks fab, Diamond Stickles is my fav and is available from Chocolate Baroque website)
6. Finally I stuck all the layers together and added a ribbon

Simple as that..

You can visit my blog at https://mrsocraftyblog.blogspot.co.uk/ for more pictures of this card

Crafty hugs

Paulline x

Another great card Pauline, thank you for this week's beautiful contribution. I know you will want to share your comments with Pauline and visit her blog to see more of her crafty creations.

 

Honeysuckle Bouquet (by Lesley)

Today's technique makes a great border or can be used as the main feature of your card and is ideal for batch card making. I have given full instructions on how to make this so be prepared for a slightly longer read.

1. Start with a piece of bright white stamping card and lay down on to your craft mat in the portrait position.  Tear a piece of 2" wide low tack masking tape longer than the width of the card and then tear a ragged edge lengthways down one side. Fix across bottom edge of the card. Repeat the process with another peiece of masking tape and position across the card approximately 2" above the first piece, with the torn edge facing the torn edge of the first piece.
2. Use either a soft brush or Cut 'n Dry foam and Adirondack Sunshine Yellow ink to colour between the two masking strips. Start from the left hand edge and work towards the middle. Repeat again, this time using Adirondack Sunset Orange and work from the right towards the middle. Keep adding either or both colours until you are happy with the result, but don't go too dark.
3. Ink up the main image from the Honeysuckle Butterfly stamp set with Archival Orange Blossom ink and stamp repeatedly across the middle panel, reinking each time, to create a pleasing pattern. Remember to stamp at different angles to make the pattern more random. Allow to dry.
4. Next use a piece of Cut 'n Dry foam and pick up a small amout of Distress Rusty Hinge ink. Work from the masking tape to where it meets the card and gently apply colour to give a shaded effect. Repeat on the other masked edge.
5. Carefully remove each strip of tape, remembering that any ink on the masking tape will remain wet so be careful not to transfer this to your card.
6. Take a fine paint brush, dip into water, tap off excess onto a piece of ktichen roll and start to 'paint' over several of the flower petals and leaves, blotting with the kitchen roll as you go. Introducing the water to the dye based ink will 'loosen' it and allow you to remove colour from various areas of the image to form highlights. You can do as much or as little of this process as you wish. Don't add too much water or you will spoil the top surface of the card. Working a little at a time is best.
7. When the card is completely dry add accents to the images use toning coloured pencils, again how much you do is down to personal preference.
8. Next use a darker pencil to shade along each edge of the panel until it starts to 'pop' off the card. This type of shading will give a dimensional effect to your panel. Stamp the sentiment from Mackintosh Sentiments with Orange Blossom ink.
9. Finally score across the card, fold and trim off excess - I scored this card at approx 4.5".

This kind of panel can be used down the side of your card, as well as across and it looks fabulous as a background strip on which you could add a topper. Alternatively you could create several panels out of one piece of A4 card, cut them out and keep them to use in future projects.

Thanks for dropping in and don't forget there is a different piece of artwork every day from our talented Design Team.  Why not make it a regular in your diary so that you don't miss out on their creative ideas.

Christmas and Daisies (posted by Claire)

Good morning, how are you getting on with those Christmas cards? This months new stamps are a real inspiration to get ahead and make a start on your Christmas cards. I've got a couple of samples to share today, the first features stamps from Snowy Scenes and the second uses the lovely daisy stamp from Honeysuckle Butterfly.

I created the base layer by stamping the cottage and adding some colour with Derwent pencils. The top layer was stamped with the robin and the stag and again coloured with pencils. I used a spellbinders die to cut the aperture, carefully cutting round the images to slot the die behind them so they weren't die cut. I used a zig glue pen around the edge of the aperture and on the cottage scene and sprinkled with glitter. I added one of my favourite Christmas sentiments and then mounted the top layer on 3d foam, adding a white bow to the top of the aperture.

My second card is much more summer, daisies are one of my favourite flowers so I couldn't resist using this pretty stamp.

I began by creating a distress ink background and overstamped with the daisy in versamark and embossed with a white embossing powder. I stamped the focal image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured with Graph'It markers. I die cut the image, layering it up over a scalloped oval die cut. I added a bow and a paper daisy and a die cut swirl.

Thanks so much for visiting today

Claire xx

Honeysuckle Butterfly and Snowy Scenes - By Florence

Hi everyone

I hope you are all have a wonderful weekend.

Today I would like to share two cards I made using the Honeysuckle Butterfly set and the Snowy Scene set. 

Honeysuckle Butterfly

I dabbed some dye based ink onto a large stamp block. I didn't dilute the ink, I just let the ink separate naturally on the block.  

I then placed a piece of white coated card stock, lightly, onto the inked block.  

I then stamped the Honeysuckle image onto the inked card, using black Archival Ink.  

I added a little bit of extra color, to certain areas, using a damp paint brush and some ink left on the block.  

I then mat and layered as seen.

Snowy Scenes

For my second card I took a piece of white card and laid it over the top of it a mask and dry embossed it using a light box and a embossing tool. 

I then removed the mask and attached it to the raised embossed side of the card, matching it up to the embossed pattern, and colored it using a sponge and some ink.

I cut the green ornate square of card using a die and punched out a square of plain white card, just trimming it slightly.  

I then stamped my pretty little house onto the smaller white square using green Distress Ink, colored it in using a damp paint brush and ink and then edged the square with more Distress Ink.  

I then assembled the card as seen adding a little gem.

Thank you for calling in.  Do check out the fantastic projects made by the Design Team.

Happy Stamping

Florence x

Daisy Mobile Phone Cover (by Debbie)

I've known for a few years that certain mobile phones you can get a picture put onto the cover.

It wasn't the case for my old phone so when I got my new one I got a clear cover.

 

 

 

 

I made a template from card and decorated it with the Daisy stamp from Honeysuckle Butterfly.

 

I also made a note card using the same method.

I started by colouring the centre of the card with Squeezed Lemonade and the edges with Mustard Seed. The diamonds are from the Harlequin Fragments and I used Mustard Seed Ink. The flower was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and I lifted the yellow from the petals with a water brush.

For the leaves I used Coloursoft pencils.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by

Debbie

Happy Birthday by Doreen

Hello to you all, I am back with another sample made from the new stamps that have been released for August  My card uses one of the stamps from  the "Thistle Butterfly"  stamp sheet which I have inked up and coloured Dusty Concord and Bundled Sage  Distress inks. I then inked around the edge  again with Dusty Concord and then matted this onto white card.......

My background was made by inking all over with Dusty Concord Distress ink and then over stamping with another one of the stamps from the sheet.  The butterfly has been inked up with the same colour too and cut out. All that was left to do was to assemble it all together and add the sentiment.xxx

Snowy Scenes in August (by Shirley)

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well.   

I'm back with a couple more Christmas designs featuring the beautiful new stamp set Snowy Scenes.    I love winter landscapes they can be so beautiful.

The background above was created with Dylusions inks - Turquoise and Midnight.  When dry I stamped and embossed Big Bold Background Snowflake Outline with silver.   I stamped the church scene from Snowy Scenes with Cobalt Archival ink and then added a wash of Midnight Dylusions to the sky to darken it and blend with the background.  The actual colours are more purple than the photo shows, it's so difficult to photograph the purple.    I painted the rest of the scene with Inktense pencils, added lots of glitter and the beautiful die cut snowflakes by Joy.

I combined a few stamps from Snowy Scenes for the card below:

I stamped the images - house in the snow, bird on the fence and the beautiful sentiment,  "All hearts" with black Archival ink.   I used Dylusions inks as a wash for the background and coloured the images with Prisma pencils.  I stamped a little snowflake from the set with Lilac Distress Ink.   Again I added some pretty snowflake dies cuts from Joy and lots of Stickles, glitter and bling.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day,
Shirley

Guest Post - Christmas Robin by Pauline Orr

This week sees the first of three contributions from Pauline Orr using our brand new Christmas stamps, Snowy Scenes and Turtle Doves. So sit back, relax and enjoy this tutorial. 

This is an 8"x 8" card

Materials

Turtle Doves and Snowy Scenes stamp sets

Chocolate Baroque Christmas sentiment

Black matt card, craft card and stamping card

Small tag

Distress paint

Distress ink

Archival Jet Black

Gold acrylic

Alcohol markers

Diamond Stickles

Distress Rock Candy glitter

Tim Holtz die

Raffia ribbon

1. First I matted and layered black card onto an 8"x 8" card blank.
2. Next I cut a smaller craft card layer and painted it with gold acrylic.
3. My next layer was a piece of black matt card on which I stamped the corner branch from the Turtle Doves in gold acrylic. When it was dry I added Diamond Stickles to the berries to give it a little more Christmas bling.
4. I then cut a stamping card layer roughly 6" x 6"
5. I splodged Distress paints onto my craft sheet and spritzed with water and dragged through the stamping card until I got a satisfactory covering (I did leave a little white card in places). I also dragged my tag through the paint so they matched.
6. When this was dry I over stamped with the snowflake stamps in contrasting Distress ink and gold acrylic paint and did the same on the tag.
7. Moving onto the tag, I stamped the sentiment in Archival Jet Black and heat set it.
8. Using the fab little robin stamp from the Snowy Scene stamp  plate I stamped onto stamping card using Archival. I then used a combination of Distress ink and a tiny bit of alcohol markers to colour. Shouldn't really use archival with alcohol pens but I was careful so as not to contaminate it. I then cut out the robin.
9. After gluing all the layers I positioned my tag and then glued the robin in place. I used a white pen to go around the robin and highlight the sentiment, just to make it pop a little more.
10. I added a poinsettia and a raffia bow and finished off with a little rock candy glitter. 

So there you have it. I thoroughly enjoyed using these stamps, always get a wonderful response from recipients and they are so easy to use. Being a huge Glenda Waterworth and Chocolate Baroque stamp fan I was honoured and excited to be asked to do this GDT.

  

You can see more pictures of this card on my blog

https://mrsocraftyblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Crafty Hugs

Pauline xxx

Thank you Pauline for this gorgeous Christmas card, and for the in depth tutorial.  I hope you can show your appreciation by leaving a comment and don't forget to pop over to Pauline's blog for more inspiration.

Thistle Calm (by Asha)

Good morning, fellow Chocoholics. It's my turn again to bring you a little craft inspiration. Once again I'm drawn to strong and opposing colours. Here you see me dabbling in green and purple and images from the Thistle Butterfly and Honeysuckle Butterfly sets.

I blended the background in various shades of green Distress Inks. For contrast (and texture), a few purple bling and fussy-cut butterflies were called in - allowing the thistle to soak up the attention. The greeting is from Birthday Words, heat embossed in white.

Here's a closer look at the beautiful bunch of thistle. I coloured them with Promarkers. (A full description of the inks and colours used in this project is available on my blog)

Thank you for stopping by today. Make sure you drop in regularly to see more inspirational work from the rest of the Design Team.

Beijinhos,
Asha

Christmas Magic (posted by Judith)

Hi Folks, I have some Christmas projects for you today, using the lovely selection of seasonal stamps currently on offer.

My first card uses stamps from the Snowy Scenes/Turtle Doves multibuy stamped onto green paper using white embossing powder. I added tiny red gems to the tree and snowflakes for a little bit of Christmas bling. To complete the background, I added a stamp from the Nature Fragments stamp set, stamped in dark green ink. I also stamped a sentiment from the Christmas Magic clear stamp set in the same colour onto a piece of scrap paper. I edged all of the pieces of paper with green ink and then matted them onto dark green card before assembling my project.

My second card was created by stamping a large ornate pear from the Pears and Baubles stamp set onto my background using brown ink. I coloured the pears using a mixture of green and yellow coloured water based marker pens and a waterbrush. I filled in the background between using a blue marker pen and a waterbrush. The main image was stamped onto a die cut piece of card using gold embossing powder, and coloured in with the marker pens in the same way. I edged the background with toning blue ink. I added a large flourish from the Butterfly Dreams stamp set, using gold embossing powder.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

I love the "Honeysuckle butterfly set"

Hey " stamping lovers" ,

Here I am again with some samples made with the beautiful big flower of the "Honeysuckle butterfly" stampset!! I really love these great flowersets of CB , you can really do so much with them and use them for many occasions!!

At my first card , I used some distress ink, (sky blue, light grey, yellow and orange, and green) and some masks (one with a spiderweb, one with sun beams and the thirth one with flowers) to create this background , isn't it beautiful?? I stamped the big flower of the flowerset in the middle of the card and coloured it with watercoloured paints!!!

For my second card I took the same flower, but I only stamped the flower, not the butterfly , I stamped it 5 times all around the card. I took some circle mask to colour the sun first then I went around the sun mask with yellow  and sky blue distress ink, then I took the mask away and coloured the sun with yellow and orange, the card looked very nice then , it was really oké, but then I thought, why don't I put the spiderweb over the sun? and although it was not necessary I have put the spiderweb as well!!Again I coloured the flowers with watercolourpaints, then I used the small grass stamps from the same stamp set to give some more nature look !! The butterflies I have stamped on  there place at the card but then I stamped them a second time on a white paper, painted them with the same watercolours and cut out the bodies of the butterflies , and raised them on the butterflies on the card with 3D tape!!

For my thirth card I used more dark colours because I wanted to create a night impression!!To start I took some white smooth paper, some gray, purple , pink , orange and green distress inks, I cut out a big circle as a mask for my moon, I put the moon on his place and I started working with big brushes like I show on the photo to colour the background, I just went from the left to the right about 100 times(??) , I let the colours go into each other , I  started from the top, so to start, dark grey and went lighter and lighter!! When my background was finished I stamped the flower 3 times and coloured them with the same colours of the background, I hope you  like my creations and please try them too!! Its such a fun!!!

Greetings
Maria

When is a Winter Church not a Winter Church? (by Lesley)

For my post today I want to show the versatility of one of our latest individual clear stamps, Winter Church. When this stamp was launched at the end of July, alongside Snowy Cottage, Glenda designed two beautiful samples which showcased both stamps all set for the festive season. As you can see here, a change of colours and 'Hey Presto' it's Summer!

 

Stamp the image using Versafine Vintage Sepia onto a piece of A6 watercolour paper. Sepia gives a less harsh outline, which especially useful for watercolours. Colour with Aquamarkers by scribbling on an acrylic block and picking up the ink with a water brush. This allows you to blend from strong to pale wash shades. Aternatively, use water colour pencils/paints or whatever medium you feel comfortable with..  As this is meant to be summer, paint over the bare tree branches to give the illusion of foliage.  Colour wash the sky and extend the areas either side of the image to make a complete picture. Tip: Allow each colour to dry before starting with the next to avoid 'bleed'

When all the watercolours have dried thoroughly use coloured pencils to add shading and definition, plus a white pencil to bring out subtle highlights. Take as much or little time on this process as you want; it can be very therapeutic.

Once finished you have a unique watercolour painting that you can either mat and layer onto cardstock or mount in a frame to display in your home. Better still give as a gift for something a little different.

(This is a cheap wooden frame that I have colour tinted)

 

I'm thinking that I may make three more of these, change the colours and have the four seasons.

Please keep checking in to see the girls' wonderful interpretations of the Thistle Butterfly and Honeysuckle Butterfly sets; as always they have managed to come up with some inspiring creations.

Thistle Butterfly (posted by Claire)

Good morning everyone, I hope you're loving these beautiful new stamps as much as I am. I really enjoyed making this card and had a lot of fun trying different techniques using Thistle Butterfly and Honeysuckle Butterfly

I wanted to create a watercolour effect so I decided to stamp the image with distress markers, I wasn't sure how this would work as its a very detailed image and also a big stamp so I got to work with my markers, gave it a spritz of water and stamped on to watercolour card. It was one of those crafting moments where you hold your breath but I was really pleased with the result. I used a waterbrush to shade the images here and there and then inked around the edges with distress ink. I  the stamped the small foliage stamp from Thistle Butterfly around the edges and layered the image on kraft card.

I made a distress ink background and overstamped with the larger foliage stamp from Honeysuckle Butterfly. The butterflies are also from the same stamp set, I stamped them on kraft card and embossed with clear embossing powder before adding some colour with distress markers. This is the first time I've tried the emboss resist technique on kraft card but I really like it.

I've added some burlap,, ribbon from my stash and a little wooden button to finish off.

Thanks for visiting today

Claire xx

Thistle Butterfly and Turtle Doves - By Florence

Morning everyone

I hope you are all enjoying the summer.

Thank you for all of your lovely comments and kind words left on the posts.  They are very much appreciated. 

Today I would like to share two cards.  The first card is made with the Thistle Butterfly Stamps and second is made using the Turtle Doves Stamp.

 Thistle Butterfly Stamp Set

I stamped my image onto some white mat card stock using Black Archival Ink and colored it using a damp paint brush and some ink.

I then edged the card with some Ever Green Bough Distress Ink and some Cut-n-Dry foam.

I stamped the "With Love" Sentiment using one of the Mackintosh Sentiments, punched out the small wholes and then sprayed the whole piece with fixative to fix the ink.

I made up the card as seen.

 Turtle Doves Rubber Stamp Set

I stamped my Pear Tree image onto some White Coated Card Stock using Black Archival Ink, colored it in with felt pens and then fussy cut around it.

I then mat and layered the card using my own papers and attached the Pear Tree using some foam pads to make it 3D.  

I finished off the card by attaching a little star embellishment at the top of the tree.

One thing that struck me about this set of stamps, which is gorgeous,  is that, although you immediately think of Christmas when you look at the images, the stamps can be used for all occasions.  There are some beautiful little birds on the sheet that would look right at home in a garden scene, journal page, a fancy borders... anything really.  The ornate Christmas Tree would make fabulous leaves or petals for a flower flourish or just as a background pattern.   This is where Chocolate Baroque Stamp Designs really come into there own.  They are so versatile.

Happy Stamping

Take care

Florence xx