Take a walk with Nature as we launch our latest stamps

It's definitely getting chillier in the mornings and the nights are drawing in, as my Nanna would say, so I guess it looks like Autumn is upon us. I love the colours that Autumn brings although I can do without the other stuff. I also like the fact that I can share our new stamp releases with you to help celebrate this glorious season.

First is our Stamp of the Month, which is a scrumptious A4 set called Autumn Poppy.

 

  This next set is one of two new additions to our A5 Edges series and is called Poppy Edges,

whilst the following three stamp sets are all A5 and are this year's Halloween releases. Halloween Edges is our second new Edges addition

then we have Book of Spells and Things that Go Bump

both of which are also available as our usual money saving multi-buy

All these gorgeous images are just crying out to be coloured with your favourite medium, and have sent the Design Team into a frenzy of Autumn and Halloween splendour.  Here are just a couple of samples to whet your appetite.

Here Maria has given the Poppy Edges a wonderful hedgerow feel, whilst Florence evokes all things spooky with her delicious Halloween card.

There are lots more inspirational designs to come over the next few weeks, so please keep tuning in to catch up with the latest creations from our talented girls. 

Finally, thank you for all the lovely comments that you continue to send to us, it does us all good to know that you are so appreciative of everyone's contributions to this blog. 

Guest Post - Santa by Venronica Pell

This is the last of Vernoica's mini series of guest posts and today she has designed a cheery Santa card using the Santa Baby stamp set.

I used a piece of card that had been sprinkled with grey and turquoise Brusho ink powders after being splodged with Perfect Pearls on crumpled cling film. By some minor miracle, it looked like mountains in snow, so perfect for Santa and his sleigh.

My usual technique of stamping with Versafine and clear embossing powder didn’t work very well over the pearly bits, so I ended up stamping the sleigh again onto white card, colouring with Promarkers and cutting out the main body and presents and glueing onto the original stamped image.

Santa was also done separately, cut out and glued in front of the sleigh after I had sponged some Stormy Sky Distress ink across the bottom of the card  to give him something to stand on.

Matted onto silver and blue (the blue was card coloured along the edge with a Promarker to give a better match to the background) then onto a 7” square base card.

Have to admit I stamped and embossed the greeting in silver before I added the image – I am very good at getting greetings crooked, but the clear greeting stamps make life a lot easier! I have this small one stuck onto the flat side of a small clear ruler, so it is straight in the first place, and I can use the ruler to make sure it is straight on the card as well.

That's a great tip about placing the greeting stamp onto a clear ruler Veronica. Thank you for the wonderful designs you have made for us over the past three weeks and for telling it like it is. We all have projects that don't go the way we planned but it's how you turn then around that's important and you have shared your skills beautifully. 

Don't forget to leave a comment to show your appreciation for all Veronica's hard work and remember to visit her blog, Vrons Cards.

Christmas Magic (by Debbie)

The weather is definitely changing and the leaves are rapidly turning from the

greens of Summer to the golden browns of Autumn.

I have a couple of cards to share using stamps from Holly Bells and Santa Baby.

I scored a square card, cut the squares with a craft knife to resemble windows and highlighted the scored lines with blue. 

I fixed acetate on to the back of the front that had Stickles dots .

  For the inside I stamped a selection of snowflakes for the background.

The mantle was stamped onto another piece of card and

coloured with Alcohol pens and the sentiment added to the corner.

Father Christmas was stamped onto a separate piece of card, coloured and

 I cut it out and fixed to the card.

This card also uses acetate in the aperture. I stamped the bells onto a scrap of acetate and when it was dry on the reverse used a quickie glue pen and each section added coloured glitters.

I attached with silicone glue as glitter is difficult to fix.

The holly was stamped, coloured and cut then added to the card. 

Thanks for visiting today

Debbie

Snow Friends By (Doreen)

Hello to you all, I am sharing a sample made from the new stamps that have just been released for September .My card uses a couple of the stamps from the Snowy Penguins stamp sheet.

I first stamped my images onto some white card and coloured in with Promarkers,inked around the edges with Faded Jeans Distress Ink,my background was made by stamping a snowflake repeatedly.The sentiment is from the Christmas Sentiments sheet.

Sleigh Bells and Snow Balls (by Asha)

Good morning, fellow Chocoholics. I have more Christmas projects to show you - all made with the new stamps.

First up is the gift laden sleigh from the Santa Baby A5 sheet, set against the magical Northern Lights. I used various shades of Distress Inks to create the sky and added little silver dots for the stars. I coloured the presents with alcohol markers and sprinkled some shimmery fibres for the snow on the ground . The greeting is from the Christmas Magic clear stamp set. Details on the products used to create this card is available on my blog. 

My second project is a set of tags. I have to admit to not being a great fan of tags. But there's something about the images from these new stamp sets than inspired me to make these. The trio of bells is from the Holly Bells A5 sheet and the tree is from the Santa Baby sheet. I heat embossed the bells in gold onto some red cardstock, fussy cut and adhered to the tag base with foam tape.  The tree is just stamped directly onto the tag and dotted some red Liquid Pearls for the baubles. I blended Distress Inks to create the background on both tags.

And finally, here's an icy number I recently posted on my blog. For this easel card I used the Snowy Penguins clear stamp set. Super simple to make and has all the glitter and shimmer of a perfect Christmas. Details on how I made this card can be seen here.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed looking at these projects as much as I enjoyed making them. There are so many ways to works these gorgeous new Christmas stamps. Please drop in regularly to see more inspirational work from the rest of the Design Team.

Beijinhos,
Asha

Angels and Penguins (posted by Judith)

Hello Folks, I have some more Christmas card ideas to share with you today. The festive season is coming around fast now, and like me, you are probably thinking about the number of Christmas cards you have still got to make!

Mt first card is using the lovely angel stamp from the A Child is Born stamp sheet. I do love this image. I stamped the angel onto a piece of smooth watercolour paper, but any smooth card will do, and then masked the image, by stamping the image again onto masking paper. I then stamped a window taken from the Gothic Fragments stamp set onto the background, and masked this as well. I coloured the background using a range of Distress Inks, and then added stamps from the Gothic Fragments, and the Harlequin Fragments stamp sets. The last two strips were embossed with silver embossing powder. I removed the masks, and coloured the window and the angel with water based markers and a water brush. Finally, I added a sentiment from the Christmas Sentiments Multi buy stamp set.

My second offering uses the Snowy Penguins clear stamp set. I have created a couple of gelli plate backgrounds, using dye based inks in shades of blue and teal, and then stamped the snowflakes directly onto the plate, before taking a print. I stamped the images onto a piece of smooth white card, and edged them with blue ink. The images were coloured with pencils.

These images are perfect for children's Christmas cards, and so the little matching tag will be great for a little someone's present on the big day. Keep checking back for more inspiration from my team mates over the coming days.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

 

Christmas in colour!!(by Maria)

Hi everyone,

Today I want to share some more samples with Chocolate Baroque stamps from the Holly Bells/Santa Baby stamp sets and I hope I can inspire you!

The first and second card I made with dylusions inks and a mask. I took red and green, just the usual Christmas card colours. I placed my mask on my paper and sprayed some inks on them and yes what results, I loved them! I used some of that beautiful paper for my background for the first card and for my second card I used the rest of the paper.

To make the ornament and leaves for the first card I took some paper that I had coloured already with dylusion inks, stamped the leaves and ornaments on the colours that I liked, cut them out and placed them again on the background with 3D tape. I took a black fine liner to draw the wires and I took a white gellypen to give some accents.Then I also took some glitter stones to give some more accents to my card.

 

For the second card, I made the small squares and I also stamped the ornaments on this painted paper. I cut them out, placed them with 3D tape on the squares and background that I made with Distress Ink and the same mask on white paper.

 

 The background of the third card  I made with dylusions inks again.  I cut out a circle and with the negative I painted the circles on my coloured background with Distress Inks.

 

I hope you enjoy your christmas card adventures this year!
Have a nice weekend, and don't forget to enjoy!
Greetings Maria xxx

A little Christmas Magic (by Lesley)

If you want to batch make a load of cards one of the best ways to start is to create a selection of backgrounds and the *acrylic block technique is ideal for this process. You can use a variety of dye based inkpads or makers and you will soon build yourself a nice little pile of colourful bases on which to stamp. You'll be surprised how many you can do in about an hour. Leave them overnight to dry thoroughly and you're good to go.

For this background I used Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters and Squeezed Lemonade Distress inks on an A6 piece of white cardstock. Once dry I used the Climbing Vine and Cell Theory Crafters Workshop templates and some white gesso to add interest over the inked background. I then stamped the holly spray from the Holly Bells stamp set with Tuxedo Black Memento across all four corners and painted the holly berries with Festive Berries Distress ink. The sentiment is from the Christmas Magic clear set and was stamped onto an oval die cut. Finally, both the card and the die cut were edged with Tuxedo Black.

I hope you'll have your own messy, inky session making backgrounds; it's great fun and you can get quite a little production line going once you start. 

* If you want to learn more about the acrylic block technique then you can find it here as part of Glenda's Monday Mojo series

Don't forget to keep checking back every day for more inspirational ideas from the rest of our talented design team.

Guest Post - Holly Spray (or how not to do it!) by Veronica Pell

This is the second week of Veronica's guest spot and this time she is featuring three cards using the Holly Bells stamp set. Enjoy this weeks musings.

This was the stamp I went for immediately as i thought it would go well with brusho inks – BIG mistake! Brushos need a really bold stamp, as I discovered...................

Many  sheets of card later, I finally got an idea I thought might work, stamp the image first, emboss, then thoroughly damp the card before adding the tiniest amount of powder using a very fine brush just where I wanted it............................I really thought I’d cracked it, until the colour started spreading ....and spreading.... spraying with more water and blotting with klitchen roll finally toned down the colours, but the rest of the piece of card was a very splodgy mess. In desperation I trimmed it down fairly close to the image, mounted it onto a red panel, then onto the white 7" x 7" base card, added the greeting.

Back to ‘normal’ it was!

Masked off the panel towards the top of the 7" x 7" card blank, stamped the holly spray with black Versafine and clear embossed. 

Brushed Scattered Straw and Wild Honey Distress inks round the image, then added a line of brown watercolour pencil  under the panel and brushed it with a water brush then replaced the bottom piece of masking paper and added more wild honey.

Coloured the image with water-based marker pens, stamped a greeting using the bold clear stamp and gold embossed along the base of the card.

This is a smaller version on a 6" x 6" card, using Fired Brick and Forest Moss Distress inks, and a smaller clear greeting.

Really appreciate you sharing all of this Veronica, let's face it we've all been there at some time or another. I know our fantastic blog readers will be leaving a comment in support of your wonderful ideas. Don't forget to catch up with Veronica on her blog, Vrons Cards

Sparkling snowflakes and a penguin party (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with some more Christmas projects made using this month's new releases. I love the snowflakes on 'A child is born', they are such beautiful stamps I wanted to put them centre stage rather than use them for a background so I've made a little bag charm and matching gift box.

To make the gift box I took a paper mache book box and applied texture paste around the side, while it was wet I ran a comb along the edge to create 'pages' and left it to dry. Once it was dry I gave the box a couple of coats of off white emulsion paint and again left it to dry.

While the paint was drying I stamped the snowflakes on to tissue with versamark and embossed with Wow Gold embossing powder, I cut them out and then peeled off the top layer of the tissue. I applied the tissue snowflakes to the box with matte medium and again left it to dry thoroughly. To finish off I've embossed all the edges with gold embossing powder.

Here's a view of the inside of the box

To make the bag charm I took a copper blank and painted with white acrylic paint. Once the paint was dry I stamped and embossed the snowflakes and then carefully applied a clear two part resin. I was planing on adding some beaded snowflakes but I'm so slow at beadwork these days they may not be ready until next Christmas.

My second project today is a fun card made with Snowy Penguins

I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and added some colour with Graph'It markers before cutting them out and popping them on to a side step card. I've added a computer generated sentiment, some die cut snowflakes and icicles and then added lots of glitter for some snowy sparkle.

Thanks for visiting today,

Claire xx

A Child Is Born - By Florence

Hi everyone

I hope you had a great weekend

Today I would like to share a card I made using the Child Is Born stamp set.  This is an exquisite A4 set of stamps.  

I have used the Madonna and Child stamp from the set as the main focal point of my card.  The stamp image is 12.8 cm x 8.8 cm approx in size.  A really good size especially if you want to make some quick cards. The image is beautiful used just on it's own and would also suit all occasions not just for Christmas.  The potential for mixed media projects, using this stamp, is phenomenal.

I stamped the main image onto some music paper and colored it in with water color crayons.  I then gave it a quick spray of fixative.

I made up the card as seen adding a strip of bling.

I made the backing paper (please note this is a copy of the original) using a large Acrylic Block and some watered down craft paint.  The beauty of using an acrylic block to make backgrounds is that the watery paint separates and puddles giving really interesting effects.

Thank you for looking.

Florence x

The odd one out (by Debbie)

This card was a fun card to make, I love these penguins they are so cute.

 I stamped the Penguins and the Snowman

onto paper to use as masks.

I used Stormy Sky Distress Ink and torn paper to make the water as a ledge

 for the Penguins and Snowman to stand on.

Next I stamped the Snowman with Memento Black Ink and covered him with a mask.

Then stamped the penguins large and small covering each one after stamped.

A little Broken China was applied with a soft brush to colour the sky.

The noses and scarf were coloured with Alcohol pens and Clear Wink of Stella

 for a little bit of sparkle.

The girls have lots of amazing cards to show

so please pop back to see them.

Debbie



A Christmas Plaque by (Doreen)

Hello to you all, I am sharing another couple of samples made from the new stamps that have just been released for September  I have made a plaque using one of the stamps from the "Santa Baby"stamp sheet

I first gave this a coat of gesso, when dry gave a thin coat of red and white acrylics leaving it white where I wanted to place my stamp... The image has then been coloured with Distress inks. I then stamped the sentiment from the Christmas Sentiments set and bauble and coloured this,Last of all I edged the plaque with white acrylic to frame it.xxx

I have also made a card using the Christmas tree from the Santa Baby stamp sheet 

I first of all stamped both the tree and sentiment with Versamark onto blue coredinations card and gold embossed them both. 

They were then matted onto gold card and mounted onto my backing card which was made using a Gelly Plate,I finished off with a bow made of twine.

Baby It's Cold Outside! (by Asha)

Good morning, fellow Chocaholics. I hope you're having fun with your new Christmas stamps. Aren't they fabulous? Today I want to show you a card I made using the Snowy Penguins clear stamp set. It's quite an easy card to make. You can prepare the various components in advance and put them all together. Perfect for mass production. It's not bulky which makes it great for mailing. Leave out the bling and it's flat as a pancake - ready to fly across oceans.

Start by heat embossing the snowflakes in white.
Ink the background in shades of blue and stamp the sentiment in the sky.
Next, stamp the penguins and Mr Snowman on white card stock, colour and fussy cut the images.
Take another piece of white card, run it through a polkadot embossing folder and cut humped pieces that look like snow mounds. Lightly ink the edges in pale blue.
To assemble the card: adhere the snow mounds on the inked background, followed by the penguins and snowman. I used foam tape for dimension. You can kick it up a notch by adding some sparkle and glitter.
Voila - you're done!
A full description of tools and inks used for these projects are available on my blog.


Speaking of snow, here's an icy number I made recently with images from the Santa Baby A5 sheet. The trees in the background are from the Turtle Doves A5 sheet. Details for this card can be found here.

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

Beijinhos,
Asha

Going around in Circles (posted by Judith)

Hello Folks, I have some samples on circular theme for you today, using the stamps of the month.

For my first sample, I created a watercolour background in shades of green and purple, and then added a circle mask in the centre. I stamped an image from the Harlequin Fragments stamp set around the edge of the mask, using green ink. I sponged a little bit of green ink around of the mask to add some shading, before removing the mask. I stamped and embossed the holly and bell images from the Holly Bells stamp plate using gold embossing powder. I also stamped another set of  images onto a spare piece of card. I coloured the spare images with water based markers and a water brush  and decoupaged them onto the background. I added some hand drawn 'string'. The sentiment is from the Christmas Magic stamp plate.

For a more detailed  explanation of how I made this card, you can hop over to My Blog

I have a couple of CAS cards that I would also like to show you. In these days of rising postage costs, flat cards are always useful to make, and these two cards would make good batch cards, that you could make in lots of different colour options as well. The first card was made using blue and lilac tones, and I simply created a reverse mask, sponging coloured ink through a circle aperture onto my card. I coloured the top and bottom circles first, and overlapped the middle one last. I then selected three baubles, taken from the Santa Baby/Holly Bells Multi-Buy stamp set, and stamped them in the same inks that I used to create the circles, giving a tone on tone effect. The sentiment was taken from the Christmas Sentiments Multibuy

The last card was made in much the same way, except that I created a single circle, blending yellow and green inks, and chose a stronger ink to stamp the bells. The sentiment comes from the Bold Christmas Words stamp set.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx