Steampunk diary

This time of year our minds turn to the coming new year and diaries and calenders. I was inspired to make this project with the Steampunk Butterfly stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

I embossed the butterfy and coloured it mostly with white Prismacolour pencil. I mounted the butterfly onto a Weathered Clock die cut which I had painted with texture paint and mica to give a rusty verdigirs effect. I backed that with some card embossed with a Tim Holtz embossing folder, highlighting the raised image with gold rubbing paste.

I back the whole thing onto a cover I made from kraft card to fit a cleap diary, covering it with pieces of Script paper from Prima, coating the whole lot with loads of matt medium to make it durable. I finished off with brass charms, scrabble tiles and a sentiment "Time Flies" from another of the Steampunk sets, fixed into place with a piece of chain.

I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas festivities. Life is beginning to get back to normal in our house, so my crafty mess may reappear very soon!

Elaine x

Christmas Blessings

Well we are almost at the big day, it's been a busy time but I do like things to be just right for Christmas even though we only have a quiet day at home to ourselves.

The pressies are wrapped, I made some simple tags using the lovely Chocolate Baroque freebie stamp from Craft Stamper mag.

The cake is decorated and so is our little tree.

 I made a large batch of Christmas Pudding cupcakes.....

....they all went into individual boxes.

Today my Mum and I have been making gingerbread cookies, including some bunny shaped biscuits. They made the house smell of Christmas when they were baking.

 

Bunnies feature significantly in our lives and even pop up on our tiny tree as you may have noticed in an earlier picture.

 



I made these cards for my special crafty friends, Jo, Judith and Lesley. The sentiment is a Chocolate Baroque clear stamp embossed in red tinsel EP.

Crafting has bought me in touch with some very special people and I feel blessed to have found them and be inspired by so many people around the world who share their talent and ideas.

Hoping you enjoy a special festive season with your loved ones

Elaine

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Well, I am nearly there with my Christmas card posts, just one more before the big day!

This is another dreadful pic which I apologise for. It is only after downloading it (once the card has been posted) I realise what a glare there is from the flash combined with my attempt at an inked glow.

This is a Katzelcraft stamp that was on my wish list for ages, but I finally treated myself when it popped up in the Craft Barn sale. I embossed in white and then kept adding ink to get a central glow.

This one has gone to one of my very favourite stampers, a very clever lady who I had the pleasure of getting to meet and work alongside this year. I can only hope a little of her magic rubbed off!

My Christmas prep is going apace now. My food shopping is complete, my cake is iced and my fresh evergreen decorations went up yesterday. Sometimes I don't manage that until Christmas Eve, so I am hoping I am on top of things now. I have 30 Christmas Pudding cupcakes to ice and box up in individual boxes this morning for a party I am off to tonight. I have transferred my crafting efforts to moulding fondant icing and pastry and my inks have been put away for the festivities.

Take time to stop and take a few moments for yourself today in between the madness!

Elaine x

Another Christmas card

While looking for ideas for quickish Christmas cards I found these very fine laser cut cards in my stash. I have always loved very finely cut paper designs. I bought the cards some time ago and felt inspired to use one.

I started by stamping a snowflake with Versamark a couple of times, using the freebie Chocolate baroque snowflake from a recent copy of Craft Stamper, embossing it with an interference blue EP. I then used a couple of different blue shades of Paris Trunk dye inks for shading the background, then added overstamping with other CB snowflake stamps from different sets using the same coloured inks.

I added the sentiment from one of the new CB clear Christmas sentiment stamps embossed in a blue metallic EP and finished off with a flourish cut from deep blue mirri card and some blue gems dotted around.

The Christmas preparations are coming on apace now. I have Christmas cup cakes to make today for a party tomorrow evening, my little tree is finally decorated and I am beginning for feel more festive and almost relaxed!!! I hope your preparations are going smoothly.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x

Quickie Christmas cards 3

Here is another of my quick card designs using more die cutting. I cut out a bauble and then added stamping using the Terrific Treescapes clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

I added some ink shading with some Distress Inks and mounted the bauble with another pine sprig die and the same sentiment as I used on my last blog post from DoCrafts.

I have finished work today until 7th January, I feel this is where my Christmas prep can properly start - I have loads to do before the big day! 

Elaine

Quickie Christmas Cards 2

Well more cards today from my speedy Christmas card making efforts. More die cutting has helped me speed along and today's offerings feature poinsettias for a more traditional type of card.

For this one I used mirri card for the flower which is a Marianne die, as you can see from the flash glare! The flourish is a Memory Box die and the pine sprig is a Dee's Distinctively die. The sentiment is added in Olympia Green Versafine and is from DoCrafts.

This is a larger 8 x 8 version with the flowers made in matt card.

 Once again apologies for the poor quality of the pictures.

The upside of all my card making is for once I have plenty of cards to share here, so I will be back with more designs later this week.

Elaine x

Quickie Christmas cards

I am getting to the point where I need to make more and more Christmas cards each year as people get to know I am a card maker and get offended when they get a shop bought offering! I have been like a little card making sausage machine this week and have had to find some quick solutions. Die cutting has featured quite heavily!

I made a few of these cards last night. I wanted a Scandinavian theme but fairly clean and simple. I used the Spellbinder Fleur de Lis squares and a Memory Box Bianca snowflake die, backed onto a gingham paper which is less washed out IRL! I had to take pics under artficial light before packing them up for posting today. You should see the pile of parcels and oversized cards my poor OH has to take to the Post Office today. I dread to think what the postage will be!!!

Hope all your Christmas prep is going well. I have ticked quite a few things off my To Do list over the weekend!

Elaine x

Home for Christmas

I am up to my eyes in Christmas prep  and for some reason I agreed to take part in a Christmas card competition to make a card I wouldn't be able to send to anyone! All entrants were given an 8 x 8 card blank and the large white cottage die cut.I didn't realise the cottage was part of the competition and must confess I was a bit stumped at first.

I had a moment of inspiration though when a couple of new clear sentiment stamps arrived for me that I had ordered from Chocolate Baroque, including this one. I coloured a very pale blue sky with pan pastels which you can't really see in this picture, taking a pic of a nearly all white card in the light conditions at this time of year is not easy! I added silver embossed trees and snowflakes using more CB stamps, the little die cut fence using a Memory Box die and some gem flowers and pearls. I finished off with some glass glitter and added the sentiment on a die cut heart.

So my competition entry is complete and delivered and I can tick one more job off the never eneding list. I also made four more cards last night too, so I am more optimistic those special cards will all get made now and one of my next priorities is to get my Christmas cake marzipanned and my tiny tree decorated at the weekend.

Hope your Christmas preparations are going well.

Elaine

Steampunk Butterfly

Here is another sample from me using the lovely Steampunk Butterfly stamps from Chocolate Baroque, stamp of the month on special offer during December.

I started by inking the background with Stormy Sky and Bundled Sage Distress Inks. This was one of those backgrounds I fiddled with for ages. I started with some waste from die cut grass that I used as a mask, then I overstamped, didn't like what I had done, splodged water about and in the end I was happier with it. Then I overstamped with the lovely stained glass fragment from the plate that all the girls in the DT have fallen in love with. I used a turquoise archival ink and added some white highlights with a Prismacolor pencil. The touches of white are inspired by my team mate Miranda, who often uses white highlights to great effect. I embossed the butterfly in teal metallic powder and added colour with Distress Markers and more Prismacolours. The sentiment is from the Butterfly Dreams set.

I have been busy with more Christmas cards. I feel like I have been on the case for ages, but still seem to have about 15 more to make. Tonight I finished a card for a competition in a local craft shop, that might make an appearance in due course. I hope you are getting on better than me with your last minute cards. Some of those I still need to do are for VIP card makers - no pressure there then - eeeek!

Elaine

A Family Christmas

The offer of the week promotions continue over at Chocolate Baroque this week with the Family Christmas stamp set.

 

This is a monochrome card I really enjoyed making with this set back when it was first launched. I went on to make a version with red details, using some gorgeous red satin mirri card for poinsettias made with Marianne dies.
 

If you haven't yet finished your Christmas card making, I certainly haven't, you might be tempted to these versatile stamps while they are at a special price.

Elaine

A Steampunk Valentine

This week has seen the release of another great set of Chocolate Baroque steampunk stamps Steampunk Butterfly.

As soon as I saw the image of these stamps and I knew they would be winging their way for me to test, I knew what I wanted to do with these flowers which was to make a masculine bouquet card! The idea came to mind inspired by the words of a song I really like by Emilie Simon - I want to buy you flowers, it's such a shame you are a boy!

Using some self adhesive silver foil, I stamped the roses several times in archival ink and heat set them. I cut them out and decoupaged. I embossed the stems onto black card with silver EP and arranged the flowers and stems into a"bouquet".

I mounted the bouquet onto a panel of Prima script paper, matted that onto silver mirri card and then a panel of the silver paper backed onto kraft card, embossed in a folder and highlighted by rubbing in black acrylic paint. I edged my card with some washi tape, added a heart cut from red satin mirri card and black die cut letters for the sentiment and finished off with a bow tied from frayed red sari ribbon which I felt worked well with the idea of a man's bouquet.

Make sure you leave a comments over at the CB Design team blog linked to my side bar to have a chance of winning these stamps.

Have a good week

Elaine

Elaine

Christmas Script

Hi all

I am sure many of us card makers are now in panic mode about those special cards we need to make. The Stamp of the Week stamp over at Chocolate Baroque this week is a set of four gorgeous festive script stamps, you can see them here as a special multi-buy special offer. These stamps have a beautiful timeless quality.

This is a card I made last year with the Poinsettia Script stamp for the Chocolate Baroque Christmas card swap some of us take part in each year. I started off with embossing the image in a coppery EP, then added shading with Vintage Photo DI and painted with Mica Magic ink refills. I decoupaged some extra layers on the flower. I finished off with a sentiment, some artificial holly leaves and mounted the whole lot onto a green gingham DP with a little bit of ribbon - I love gingham on Christmas cards.

I hope I can carve out some time for this year's cards very soon!

Elaine

Gothic Normandy

Here is a scrapbook page I put together using some photos from our recent holiday in France.

I printed the pictures in sepia tones and matted them onto brown script paper. The background is a script paper from the Prima and I added a strip of torn paper on the right hand side.I added a stamped panel and some embossed images from the Chocolate Baroque Gothic Fragments set. I used a metallic copper EP and then carefully cut the images out. These stamps are perfect for the job, with such lovely architectural elements. I finished off with a title made from a Spellbinders fancy label and peel off letters which are from the new Papermania Art Deco range. It is very rare for me to use peel offs these days, but I rather like these.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and dry in this yukky weather we are having.

Have a good weekend.

Elaine x

New England Winter

There is a special offer on over at Chocolate Baroque with a stamp of the week - New England Winter

This set includes some lovely images including one of a pine cone that I am especially fond of. Here is a card I made way back with this stamp that has always been one of the favourites I have made over the years.

All the images were embossed in emerald green metallic EP. The shading is in Pine Needles Distress Ink. The mistletoe corner with added pearl berries is from another set that I fear has been discontinued. Matting is done with some dark green midnight glitter card and the cones have highlights of glitter snow using Glamour Dust glitter which is one of the few types I ever use. The sprigs of pine are from a punch that has since gone to the big crafting dustbin. (Note to self - never stand on a punch to get it through a reluctant piece of card - does this conjure pictures of a baby elephant doing a party trick?!)

Elaine x

Terrific Treescapes

I have been having fun playing with one of the new sets of clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque, Terrific Treescapes. I made this set of very quick thank you cards.

I embossed different tree images onto some script papers from this gorgeous pad. This is a lovely pad with a great range of colours and really nice quality and thick papers. I did two darker backgrounds with gold embossing and two lighter with a metallic copper EP. I added a little shading at the edges with Vintage Photo DI before mounting onto chocolate brown die cut nestie circles.  I mounted the circles onto 4 x 4 kraft card blanks I made and added the "merci" sentiment from the Pretty Poppies plate stamped in Coffee archival ink.

If you haven't investigated these new clear stamps from CB, do have a look. I found these trees brilliant to use, not least because the index sheet allowed me to play about thinking out layouts before stamping landscapes. The storage folders which have little tabs which can be kept in ring binders are also proving very popular, so much so they can be bought separately too.

Elaine

Tangled Garden

Chocolate Baroque have released all sorts of great new stamps this month - a real variety of stamps in both clear and rubber. One of the new sets is Tangled Garden.  This is a lovely mix of leaf, flower and butterfly designs inspired with patterns that will appeal to all fans of zentangle.

I love leaves and was tempted to get the masking tape out to make background patterns with the leaves. For this 8 x 4 gatefold card, I stamped the leaves using Memento Danube Blue onto blue card and just kept repeat stamping and masking until I had covered the panels. I added a little shading around the edges with Denim Adirondack ink before mounting the panels onto the card and adding a sentiment from the Pretty Poppies stamp set.

I have more samples to share later in the week and remember to pop over to the DT blog by clicking the link in my side bar and the Chocolate baroque on line store to see what special offers you can grab.

Elaine x

Dreaming spires - Mark 2!

The new Gothic Fragments stamps from Chocolate Baroque are scrummy. I love architectural stamps, so I found them rather inspiring! Sorry it had to be done!

This is a sunset version. I masked a large sun, then inked with Adirondack dye inks in Sunshine Yellow, Watermelon and Cranberry and Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade. I know I am boring in that I often use this ink combo for skies with impact, but it works for me! I embossed the spire,  dome and word in copper metallic EP and added highlights with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.

I have another project to show you soon, using this lovely stamps with some of my holiday pics from France.

Elaine

S, T, U and V alpha tags

I am rather behind with posting my latest tags for the Chocolate Baroque alpha tag swap, what with our holiday and one thing and another.

My first is S for seahorse, using the Underwater stamp set. The seahorse is embossed in Moonglow Teal Obsidian embossing powder, with highlights added with a contrasting royal blue EP and bindi type gems. The background weed is stamped in green archival ink, with shading added in Distress and Adirondack inks.

Apologies for the appalling pic of this one, T is for tree! The light for photos has been so bad for weeks when I have been at home it seems! I was not entirely happy with this tag, but the deadline was upon me and I had to get it posted! I used the arboretum set of stamps for this one. I used a mixture of inks, including some Brilliance and embossing in pearl powder to add highlights.

The next is U for Unicorn. He was stamped and embossed in silver onto pearl card as I wanted him to be a little luminous as you might expect a unicorn to be if you happened upon one! The arch is from the Christmas creatures plate and the foliage from the Mini meadow set.

My last one for now is V for Velocipede!

The image is from the Edwardian Gentlemen set, embossed in Copper Obsidian powder and coloured with Vintage Photo Distress ink. I backed the tag with a piece of a facsimile antique OS map of Hampshire, again edged with Vintage Photo DI. I added some tissue tape, a piece of copper coloured German Scrap and a little clock charm.

Only four more tags to go now, but the letters are getting much more challenging to think of themes for!

Hope you are keeping warm in this chilly weather!

Elaine

Away on my hols!

Things crafty are a little thin on the ground around here at the moment because I am away on my hols. We are having a week in France in a rather nice holiday house in Normandy that my OH found trawling the old internet! Despite a pleasantly peaceful location well off the beaten track, we are enjoying the benefits of speedy wi fi!

So far, we have sampled the delights of Rouen...

Honfleur....

and today we went to Monet's garden at Giverny.

 

 

On the way back I had to stop to take a picture of the local abbey as the evening light was perfect.

This is the view of the river Siene just literally at the end of the garden.

The best thing is, we still have three more days to enjoy!

Elaine x

Christmas in the air?

I had the pleasure of working with the Pears and Baubles A4 stamp plate from Chocolate Baroque as part of the Design Team. This is stamp of the month for September over on the website, so grab a bargain asap! These stamps have such a gorgeous luxurious feel and are fantastic teamed with some decadent designer papers, if you can bear to cut into your stash! I made a couple of cards that were quite quick to make, but still feel special enough for those people you want to spoil!

I used an 8 x 8 kraft card as my base, added a foiled K and Co paper and embossed three baubles in gold on burgundy pearl card. Added some ribbons, a blousy bow and an embossed sentiment. Simple!

The next card took a supreme act of self sacrifice to cut into the gorgeous paper.

Once again I added baubles embossed in teal metallic EP on teal pearl card. I added organza ribbons for a softer look on this card and an embossed sentiment.

Lastly, I embossed lots of the mistletoe leaves and decoupaged them to make a bunch of mistletoe.

I coloured the leaves with Distress Markers and added pearls for berries. I mounted the mistletoe on an oval panel, backed it all onto a dry embossed snowflake panel and added a sentiment, and gingham ribbon to finish.

That's three cards into the Christmas pile!

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x

Q and R tags

The letters in our alphabet tags are getting so much harder! Here is my latest batch. I was going to do Queen for a A Day for Q, but didn't have a suitable person stamp from Chocolate Baroque to use, so my OH and I sat pondering other themes. We came up with Quattro Stagioni as the Four Seasons by Vivaldi is one of my favourite pieces of classical music, especially if played by Nigel Kennedy! I think my resulting tag is a little weird!

I used some Tim Holtz music paper as my background and added a an embossed violin image. I then stamped a tree image across four tiles of stampbord. I added a little vintage photo ink to make them match the background a little better and then added flowers and leaves from the Arboretum tree stamp set. I used Brilliance and Versamagic chalk inks to make the images quite dense Lastly I added some matching stickles which virtually obliterated the tree, so it may not be obvious what I was trying to do. They may have become abstract pictures! The final touch was some music ribbon.

My R tag has a Rabbit theme. Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love bunnies. This is from the spring themed stamps. I added grasses from the Eastern Grasses set and then embossed the images in a black gold metallic EP. I added ink shading in die inks and some red mica powder around the edges. I embossed the moth in a rusty EP with more ink shading and added that on foam tape. This tag was finished with some black lace.

Only 8 tags to go now, this has been a real marathon, but no one in the group of 28 in the swap has given up, although many people have had all sorts of pressures and distractions Well done ladies!

Elaine x

Exciting news from Chocolate Baroque

There is some very exciting news over at Chocolate Baroque. Glenda and Adrian have just launched a totally new range of their lovely stamps, this time for people who enjoy using clear stamps. There are 10 new sets of stamps to tempt you - you can see them all here. There are a range of oriental, Christmas and sentiment options.

Along with the other girls in the Design Team, I have been lucky enough to play with these stamps while they were under wraps. Using some of the oriental lantern and branch images I came up with this card.

When I saw these lanterns, I wanted to play to get a real glow in the lanterns against a dark moonlit sky. After masking the moon and inking the sky with Distress Inks in Stormy Sky, Squeezed Lemonade and Chipped Sapphire, using a scallop mask for the effect, I stamped the branches, highlighting with coloured pencils. I embossed the lanterns in a dark coppery metallic EP. Then I shaded the lanterns with DIs again, this time using Cut 'n' Dry foam and used more Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade. I added the tiniest touch of Raspberry Adirondack dye ink at the outer edges. I added colour with Inktense pencils into the patterns on the different lanterns and then cut them out.  I stamped the smaller lanterns onto the base card and then decoupaged the different lanterns on the background, positioning the lanterns so they looked like they are hanging in the tree. I finished off with a sentiment from an old favourite set Paisley Elephant.

Talking about keeping the stamps under wraps, the packaging on the new stamps is brilliant. They come in a neat little A5 wallet that keeps the stamps safe and sound and can be clipped into a ring binder with integral tabs, very ingenious.

There are loads of ideas for using the new clear stamps over on the Design Team blog. Just click on the link in my side bar and be sure to pop over to the CB on line shop to see all the lovely new designs.

Elaine

A journal page

A couple of weeks ago, I had a tough day at work and came home in a rather grumpy mood! I decided to retire to my craft shed for a little therapeutic play time while my lovely OH cooked the evening meal. This was the result.

I was very inspired by this layout by Anneke because of the vibrant colours. She used acrylic artists ink, so I toddled off to the art shop and bought precisely one bottle to have a try with in this amazing sunny colour.

I must confess I started with the plan to use the words "what a day" (made from Tim Holtz Chit Chat stickers) as it could be positive or negative. Then I remembered a Paper Artsy stamp I like and added the word "marvellous" - at that point, I still felt there could be a touch of irony involved in my message!!!

I added the flowers which are clear stamps off a magazine and coloured them with Inktense pencils. I added the various words which are Hero Arts stamps - I love this sort of script - and joined them together with freehand lines.I think I also added some additional colour on the page with a brush. I also added some stencilled butterflies and dragonflies and my finishing touch was to stick on lots of Papermania butterflies die cuts.

Needless to say by the time I had finished this page, I felt so much better and it didn't feel like such a bad day after all. This is only the second journal page I have ever finished!!!

I am entering this into the Craft Barn's art journal challenge.

Elaine

Beetle Box Workshop

I have recently started teaching a few workshops at a local craft shop. I made this beetle box a while back from a recycled wooden chocolate box and decided it would make a good project for a workshop. This was my original as posted a while back made with the amazing beetle stamp from the Chocolate Baroque Steampunkery stamp plate.

The boxes we bought for the workshop were deeper and this was my prototype for the workshop.

This is a darker version using some different techniques including a rust paint technique on the clock face, the main ingredients being a rusty texture paint from Decoart, some walnut ink with emerald mica and some Frayed Burlap stickles.

Finished off with some card candy rivets.

The group of 6 included some quite experienced crafters, some complete beginners and a couple in between. These boxes are the results of the three hour workshop. Top row Jack and Amanda's, middle row Brenda and Julie's and bottom row Neil and Victoria's.

I was so pleased with their results and so were they. Everyone made their own mark and each one had it's own character! They wanted more workshops on similar themes, so I have my work cut out now to come up with some interesting project ideas!

Elaine