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