Chocolate Baroque Guest DT Post

A few weeks ago I was offered the opportunity of doing a Guest DT post for the Chocolate Baroque DT blog, which blew me away. Also made me panic somewhat I must admit. What to do? So many talented crafters  on their site quite makes you feel the pressure,lol.
This was my project, I decided to stick with what you know, a card, but I did add extra pressure on myself with colouring the image. All my regular visitors know how I feel about my colouring, but even I was quite pleased with the finished result.

This was actually the second image I coloured, as I tried first stamping onto a piece of mountboard, as I had an idea to add some magnetic photo paper to the back to turn it into a removable fridge magnet, but the Promarkers tended to bleed badly on the mountboard, so I reverted to normal card for the image.

One of the wonderful things about Glenda's stamps is how beautifully they mix and match, you are never limited to working just with the stamps in a particular set. For this project, I’ve used stamps from four different Chocolate Baroque sets: Serenity, Gothic Fragments, Floral Edges and Words of Wisdom. 

I began by taking a piece of white card roughly 6” x 6”.  I sprayed it with a mix of blue and purple; I mixed Distress Re-inkers (Salty Ocean and Seedless Preserves) with water in mini misters, but any spray inks will do the job. After spraying, I blotted the paper with kitchen towel, which left a lovely muted background.

Now I overstamped this piece with a couple of stamps from the Gothic Fragments, one of the Floral Edges and the Wisteria branch from Serenity. So the overstamping stayed soft to match the background, they were all stamped in Salty Ocean, and each time I stamped the image onto scrap before stamping on my background, giving me a paler second generation image.  I sprayed a second piece, roughly 3” x 6”, in the same way, then overstamped with another of the Gothic Fragments, finally inking up the Old English Prayer from the Words of Wisdom set in Versafine Majestic Blue and stamping that over the top.

Next I took another piece of white card, and stamped the Buddha image from Serenity in Memento Tuxedo Black, as I was going to colour it with Promarkers.  Using the ink left on the stamp, I also stamped a post-it note mask for the image. I trimmed the mask on the lines, so I would not get a ‘halo’ effect around my image. The post it mask was placed over the top, so that I could add colour to the ‘sky’ around the image, using Adirondack inks in Aqua, Stonewashed, Sailboat Blue, and just a touch of Denim at the edges, with a Colorbox Stylus tool. You can do this with sponges, an ink applicator or brushes, whatever your preferred method is. The sky took up roughly 2/3 of the image, so the bottom third was coloured for grass, again with Adirondacks in Willow, Citrus and a little Lettuce. Any of these inks can be swapped for whatever dye based inkpads you may have.

After this was totally dry, I added colour to the image using markers. The final touch was to add gilding flakes to the shrine the Buddha is sitting inside, and to the adornment on the Buddha's head. This I did by using a Versamark pen, Judikins Sticky Stuff embossing powder and gilding flakes.The background sheet, Buddha and the Prayer were each matted onto dark blue card.

For my base card, I cut two sheets of dark Grey Metallic card to 9”x 7 1/2”. Measuring in 1 1/2” from one short edge on each sheet, I scored a line down the card. At this point I also cut two sheets of white copy paper to make an insert for the greeting later, always wise when using a dark card base. Sandwiching the two white sheets between the two pieces of card, I punched two holes in the narrow section that had been scored. Now I threaded fibres through these holes, and tied together.  You could use twine/ribbon/string,  whatever you like. My ‘fibres’ are actually ‘eyelash wool’. I added a pale purple and pale blue brad top and bottom of the spine to secure it firmly.

Now the background sheet was stuck to the card front using double sided tape, and the Buddha image mounted on top of that, again with tape.  I added little foam pads to the back of the Prayer, to give a little dimension, and mounted it at an angle partly over the Buddha image.The final little embellishment I spotted lying on my desk- a little punched dragonfly. I had some scraps from a project a few weeks ago, using gilding flakes on black card, and had punched a few dragonflies and butterflies from the last bits. I added him with a little blob of

silicone glue.

 

 Supplies:

 Chocolate Baroque stamps:Serenity, Gothic Fragments, Words of Wisdom and Floral Edges.

 DI ink refills Seedless Preserves and Salty Ocean

DI Inkpads Salty Ocean and Seedless Preserves

Adirondacks Aqua, Stonewashed, Sailboat Blue and Denim, Willow, Citrus and Lettuce.

Memento Tuxedo Black 

Versafine Majestic Blue 

 Sticky Stuff embossing powder

 Versamark or embosssing pen

Gilding Flakes

 Markers of choice.

By the Sea…Craft A Scene

This was a bit of a panic moment, as I had the image in my head that I wanted to use- a lighthouse, from Stampscapes.
Trouble was, when I got my stamps out, I realised that this is not the lighthouse image I have, mine is the one from U/M set 4, and the one I thought I had is on U/M 12! As it is, I think the digi version probably worked better anyway.
 





So this is my first project using Digi-Stamps – the only ‘real’ stamp here is the Postcard word, from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous here (USA), and here (UK). The Beach Huts are from Stitchy Bear Digital Designs, and the Lighthouse, from Daisy’s Digi Doodles.
I merged the two with photo editing software, and tried a couple of combinations of lighthouse positions before I settled on this one. The scene immediately made me think of a postcard, so thats what it became.
I was nicely surprised to find that printer ink is quite compatible with Promarkers- I had visions of an icky mess! I had a watercolour type image in my head, but I don’t think that would have gone well with the printer ink, so I stuck to pale Promarkers, lots of blender, and only adding colour to small areas. I used Archival Black for the Postcard word, the shell is a found item from a beach, and the little starfish was in a basket of small shells bought on holiday once. Both added with silicone glue.
The image was printed onto Neenah Card, and when I printed out the image, I also printed another one onto cheap copy paper to give me a mask for the beach huts so I could stamp my lighthouse behind them! A project for another time when I have the right stamp, I think.

Craft A Scene, Spring Flowers Tags

I think this has been the hardest of the briefs for me- not really a flowery person, at least not in stamping! I love my garden, and having flowers in the house, just didn’t find it easy to create scenes with them. I think its hard to get the scale & perspective to look right-anyway, here’s my final effort.

   I ended up with a pair of tags from my original scene- the  second isn’t really a scenic image, it was actually what was left   over after I cut out the first tag, but I thought it was too pretty to discard. 
The grasses, Black Cat and birds are all from Inkylicious. The Hedgerows are by Hobby Art, a set called ‘In The Country’.







It has hedgerows, fences, a bridge, couple of buildings etc.







The tall red flower on the second tag is from set by Chocolate Baroque,( formerly Graphicus/Elusive Images).The DL sized sheet is called ‘Autumn Hedgerow’, and has both outline & silhouette versions of the stamps.


I brayered a piece of card with a variety of blue & green Adirondack inks, and stamped the grasses along the bottom in Adirondack Meadow. The taller flowers and grasses were stamped as a second impression, just to make them a little lighter. I added colour to them with Tims new Distress markers. I also stamped a little flowers stamp, from Lavinia Stamps, in Fired Brick & Festive Berries Distress Inks,randomly in the grass.
The cat was stamped in Black Archival ink, and then I cut out the tag shape. I think he looks as though he is watching something crawling on or in the grass! The Hobby Art set is a clear polymer stamp, so I could bend the hedgerow stamp on my block to get a more natural shape, and I stamped it twice, to edge the field, then added a third one coming off that to create a second field. Looking at it, as the hedgerow is just lines & squiggles, you could adapt that by colouring in browns/greys and turn it into drystone walls, I think. Final touch was a couple of bird flock stamps from an Inkylicious birds set, called Take Flight. I punched a hole in the tag and added some green fibres, and used blue & red fibres in the second one.

Spring Flowers - Craft A Scene for May

Mays challenge is Spring Flowers, not something I have an abundance of, I must be honest, so this is my take on the theme for my first project.
When building a scene, I like to lay out my scene first, using images I have stamped onto transparency film with Staz-on.

I bought my pack of film from Staples, as you can see, they also do one for inkjet printers, which is slightly ribbed on one side to hold the ink. Either works fine for this, and you can use it for so many other things too- making stencils & masks with die cuts for instance.
So to begin, I punched out the windows in a piece of white card(4 1/4x5 3/4”) using a 1 3/8 punch. I only cut the top two, and the right hand two, stamped my Bluebell image( Chocolate Baroque) in Black Versafine, then heat embossed with clear detail powder.  I used one of the punched out squares to draw around for the final two windows, and cut out around the bluebell with a scalpel.The image was coloured with Promarkers .
Next I started playing with a choice of images:



You can see how it gives you the opportunity to move things around, and I could also place my Window on top, and see what the finished picture would look like. I chose to go with the last image, with the Oak Branch, and no mountains.
Now I get all my stuff together:

Stamp Positioner……………. Stampscapes Stamps and ………Espresso inkpad, Pine Needles Distress inkpads & pen.
I didn’t want to use the Black inkpad in the end, and decided I would colour directly onto the stamps as much as possible, and add some more colour at the end.
I used the Espresso inkpad for the church, then used Pine Needles Distress pad for the trees. I went in with the pen to get the trees coloured right up to the chapel,and as you can see from the image above, I tried a few inkpad combos first. This was stamped in the middle of a piece of white card.

I used the stamp positioner to place the winding path, Oak Branch and Two trees images after, following my layout.
 
This is the finished picture cut down to size. I sponged in Green Adirondack inks to the grass,and  a mix of Cloudy Blue & Sailboat blue for the sky.I added a sprinkling of wild flowers to the grass, using a couple of stamps that come on  U/M Nature Sheet #4. They are the two little stamps you can see at the top of the Stamps picture.  For this I used Sunshine Yellow, Sunset Orange and Red Pepper. I used the same two stamps to add the pink blossom to the Oak Branch, but this time I used Pink Sugar Distress pad, then went in again with Worn Lipstick. I added a little Espresso to the Church with a waterbrush.
By stamping the Oak Branch at the top, it helps to create a feeling of perspective in the scene, and I matted the image behind the window using a double layer of foam pads, to add to the depth.
On my Stampscapes page I go into this method in a bit more depth, and show how to make scenes that look very different from each other, even using the same stamps.

Craft a Scene Silhouettes

The challenge at Craft A Scene this month was Silhouettes, with the images provided by Carolines,who designs her own range of  Rubber Stamps, as well as the digital images she kindly gave us to work with. She has some beautiful images and backgrounds, and speaking as someone who has not worked with digi stamps before, they are really easy to manipulate and combine in whatever Photo/Image editing software you use. I chose to use them to make coasters- after combining backgrounds, frames and images, I printed them out, then simply laminated them to make them a little more durable. You could  cover them in adhesive film if you do not have a laminator, or Xyron do a laminating cartridge if you have a Xyron machine.
 Each coaster is made by choosing a background, then a frame, then I picked an inner background, finally adding various elemnts to create the picture. All the component parts are fully adjustable for size and scale- the only limit is your imagination!

 These are the type of images I worked with, you can see how you can combine them to create whatever scene you like.

Winter Moon Post-it note Holder

 This months challenge was all about Silhouettes, and for my second piece, I used a stamp from Non Sequiteur, from the plate 71c, Winter Solstice.









First I stamped  in Distress Black Soot onto a piece of White Pearlescent card. I then stamped the image onto  a couple of joined together post-it notes, and cut out the moon to use as a mask while I sponged on the colour.I used Sailboat Blue, Stream & Denim, then added some Eggplant round the edges. I also masked off the lower half of the image while I did this, again using post-its.

Now I switched over the post-its, and sponged the bottom of the image with Sunshine Yellow, Sunset Orange, Butterscotch and Rust.

This is the finished image with all the post-its removed. Using a white pearl card as a base gives the Moon a nice sheen.

Trimmed down to size, and ready for mounting,which I did onto dark blue card.I cut a base card to the same size as the mounted image, and folded it Easel style.On the bottom I added a strip of the dark blue card that I ran through my 'bug in a Lattice folder, then mounted a pad of Post-it notes with DST.

A really useful and quick to make pressie for someones desk, and you could swap the stamped image for a photo- or a little frame so the photo could be changed.

Mystic Moon(light)

  Here is the second of my DT pieces for Craft a Scene's March challenge, Moonlight.
It uses a couple of Stampscapes stamps, and a couple from Non Sequiteur.
The background is also a little different this time, created using oil pastels. If you go to this page, you will find instructions on how I did this. Its a really simple technique, but can produce some interesting results. The important thing is that you will have to stamp in Staz-on, or it will wipe off, Versafine will work, but you need to spray with a sealant to make it permanent, I use cheap hairspray.
I created the background on white pearl card, an A5 piece,leaving a white area where I was going to place the moon. The oil pastels I used were a mix of blues with a little black for the night sky, browns in the centre for the mountains, another layer of blue where the lake would be, then greens for the foreground.
     Another bonus with the oil pastels is that when you have your images stamped, if areas are too dark, or just to make  areas of light & shade, you can remove some colour using tissue/kitchen paper/cotton buds.I did this in the water area to simulate the reflected moon.
The first image I stamped was the mountains, Rocky Peaks,188F, roughly in the middle of the background. Next I added the Cloud with Crescent Moon Lge, 202G, placing the moon in the white area. A Stamp Positioner helps here.

72C, Mystic Dreams

At the base of the Rocky Peaks I stamped Lakeside Cove Lge, 049G. To finish the scene, I used a stamp of Standing Stones, from Non Sequiteur plate 72C, Mystic Dreams. These stamps are now available from De Stempelwinkel. You can see the full range of images here, at Non Sequiteur,. They have some fabulous stamps, images you won't find anywhere else, all u/m.
 Finally, some white gel pen was added to give highlighted areas. I trimmed the image down, then matted onto black, then silver card. Before mounting onto the front of a Black base card, I stamped the words MYSTIC MOON, also from the Mystic Dreams plate, in Silver Encore pigment ink, added Silver Detail embossing powder, and Heat embossed. Then I mounted the image above it.
 So, to recap what you will need:

Stampscapes stamps

 188F, Rocky Peaks
202G Cloud with Crescent  Moon
049G Lakeside Cove

Non Sequiteur stamps
72C Mystic Dreams

Oil Pastels
White pearl card
Black card
Silver card
Black Staz-on
White gel pen
Silver pigment inkpad
Silver Detail embossing powder
Heat gun