White Christmas Challenge

Here is my entry for the White Christmas Challenge over on Glenda Waterworth's blog! Be in it to win it! A lovely Chocolate Baroque gift voucher - just click on the link in my side bar.

I wanted the centrepiece of my card to be a Christmas garland in shades of white and silver. I used stamps from four different Chocolate Baroque sets for this card. The corners are from the Steampunk Christmas set, the poinsettias are from Poinsettia Script, there are acanthas flourishes from Brocade Backgrounds and the sentiment from Christmas Reflections.

Here is a brighter picture I managed to get in daylight!

Firstly I stamped and embossed the ivy corners onto my card blank, embossing in silver detail powder. I used my square quilter's ruler as my acrylic block to help me line up my corners. I added pearls to the design. I then embossed the sentiment and cut it out in a circle and stuck that on as the guide shape for my garland.

The garland is made from die cut and punched leaves in white and white glitter card and pearlescent vellum, using a Crealie die, a Doo Hickey die and X-Cut Holly and tiny leaf punches. I also added acacthus leaves and poinsettias embossed in silver onto white pearlescent vellum. The flowers have a second layer decoupaged. I added tiny silver gems and gem flowers as highlights.

I really enjoyed making this card, it made me feel quite festive!

Do pop over and see the other projects - there are some great ideas there and lots of different interpretations of the theme!

Elaine

An Allsorts card

This is a card I made for the Chocolate Baroque Design Team using the new Texture Fragments stamp set .

Once more using my favourite square format, this time I used one of the essentials chipbaord frames with inchie inserts. I inked the framed with black soot Distress Ink. I then painted the tiles in three shades of acrylic paint - buttermilk, tangerine and fuschia. I stamped each tile in black Pefect Medium and embossed with black EP, then reinserted the tiles back into the frame. I then matted and layered with black, fuschia and orange corrugated card onto a black 6 x 6 card blank.
These stamps are great fun to play with. When I had finished this card I realised the colours made me think of licquorice allsorts!

Elaine

A purple birthday

It was my special crafty friend Judith's birthday recently. She has been having lots of celebrations lately and keeping us busy on the card making front. This is the card I made for her birthday and she loves purple!

I started on a black base and layered up a deckle edged Laurence Llewellyn Bowen paper, topped with an art nouveau themed Joanna Sheen paper that Judith actually gave to me so I knew she would like it, The stamps I used were the gorgeous Crafty Individuals tag, with the little girl image that in our little group of crafty friends we called the Shirley Temple stamp. I stamped in my favourite Versafine in Imperial Purple and shaded with Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord DIs.

The berries and leaf stamp is from Stamp Camp, embossed in a coppery Moonshadow powder. I used the same stamp as a watermark on the sentiment panel which uses a stamp I bought from Rubbernecker at Ally Pally on my last visit. This sentiment is especially appropriate for Judith as I always call her the Queen of Flowers because she often adds beautiful handmade flowers to her cards. I finished with some grosgrain ribbon, purple arum lilies (also a gift from Judith) and two little metal earrings, that I bought especially, to incorporate into a project for Judith some time.  

Thanks to Judith for taking the picture for me as I was so pushed to get this in the post I didn't have time to snap it myself.



Have a good weekend!

Elaine x

A silver wedding celebration & a White Christmas Challenge!

Well today is a special day for my lovely crafty friend Judith and her OH Terry - their 25th Wedding Anniversary. Here is the card I made for them.

I wanted to keep the colour scheme simple in white and silver, so used texture a fair bit. This is an 8 x 8 stepper card. I backed the card with some Swiss Dot embossed card and the front panel with a silver foiled DP. I added two hearts embossed in silver from the lovely Chocolate Baroque Damask Hearts sets, I think this is a favourite of Judith's. I added some pearly swirls. On the front panel I used a lovely white ribbon which has hearts woven into it, just visible in the picture. The sentiment is from a small clear stamp set from Studio G which I thought was perfect. I finished off with a little charm as I know how much Judith likes them on cards.

On another subject here is a lovely chance for you to win a delcious Christmas treat for yourself, just when many of us have to curb our crafty spending and turn our budgets to Christmas shopping!

How would you like the chance to win a £10 voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque rubber stamps? Or would you prefer a £20 voucher or how about £50? Glenda over at Chocolate Baroque is sponsoring a little challenge hosted on her blog and the more people that play, the bigger the prize.


Basically, Glenda will add £1.00 to the value of the gift voucher for each person who submits an entry to the challenge via the link form below. So if there are only five entries, the prize will be £5.00, but if there are 35 entries, the prize will be £35.00, with a maximum prize fund of £50.00, and the winner will be drawn at random. So do join in and encourage all your challenge-holic buddies to join in.

The theme is WHITE CHRISTMAS and how you interpret the theme and what kind of artwork you produce is entirely up to you – cards are obviously welcome but feel free to do anything from ATCs to jewellery, canvas to crochet. As a bonus, any pieces which showcase Chocolate Baroque stamps particularly well will be featured in full on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog over Christmas with a link back to your blog.

The closing date is DECEMBER 15TH 2011 and the winner will be chosen at random from the list of entries.

Click on the link in my side bar to find out more and to put the link on your own blog.

Feeling festive now?

Have a lovely day - especially Judith and Terry.

Elaine

Two Roads

Here is a card I was pleased to make as a sample for the Chcolate Baroque Design Team using their lovely new Woodland Dreams plate. It was bound to be a hit with me because of the nature theme.

I used a few of my favourite inking techniques on this card to build the image. First I stamped the trees in plum archival ink and then masked it. I cut a hill shaped mask out of scrap paper to match the curve on the trees and then cut two path masks from Eclipse tape. I then added shading with Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo Distress Ink in this bottom portion of the card. I then made the sky using my leafy background technique which I show here and here on my blog. I used a mix of Adirondack dye inks- Sunshine Yellow and Watermelon, plus Spiced Marmalade DI, I always use this in preference to the Adirondack orange which I find a little harsh. I finished the inking with edging in Eggplant ink. I love to add layers of ink to an depth to the image.It is so satisfying! The sentiment was stamped in Plum Archival to finish and matted onto black. 

Thanks for popping by - have a greet weekend. 

Elaine x  

Deco lady

I saw the stamped image on this card in the Aug/Sept 2010 issue of Stampers Sampler and felt one of the strongest yearnings I had ever had for a stamp. Recently my crafty friend Judith picked up this and some other Stamp Camp stamps for me at the Happy Stampers show in Port Sunlight. I was a very happy bunny.

I decided to let this striking image speak for itself and keep the overall card layout simple, so just stamped it in black archival, added some shading with Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. I mounted the panel onto a gorgeous dusky mauve My Mind's Eye paper. The final touch was some gems on the eyelid. I cannot take any credit for this idea for embellishing the image. This touch was added in the original project by Hedy Husarzewski in the magazine article I orginally saw. I have tried to see if Hedy has a blog, but haven't been able to find one so I haven't been able to thank her for her inspiration, but I want to acknowledge it here.

It's nice to have something else to blog again and my OH said he liked the card too, that's a once in a blue moon event! 

Elaine x

Back at last!

Well at last I have something to blog. Just a few Christmas cards assembled using ready made toppers would you believe! I made these cards when I was on holiday in Kent recently. I needed simple elements I could take away with me, without needing the entire contents of my shed and these were the results.

The background papers are from a Marianne A5 pad I bought on my recent visit to the craft show at Ally Pally. I love these papers as they are very Scandinavian feeling. I added various toppers, including from East of India, some buttons, hearts, bakers twine and pretty ribbons.

We had a great time in Kent. We visited some special places, including Great Dixter, a garden I have always wanted to visit.

It was a great time to visit Kent, the Garden of England, as the orchards are bearing their fruit right now and we indulged in plenty of local fruit and delicious local apple and pear juice. We had some juice made from a variety of apple called Red Pippin, it was truly wonderful. We fitted in a visit to the national fruit collection at Brogdale, which includes over 2,200 varieties of apple alone.

We paid a return visit to Canterbury Cathedral.



For me one of my special moments, was a visit to Camber Sands on the coast, the place where I went on my first every proper holiday with a school friend and her family. The day we visited it was quite blowy and the sand was blowing in patterns along the beach. I also collected some of the same sort of shells I had collected when I was about 8.

We went past Prospect Cottage at Dungeness where the late film-maker Derek Jarman made an amazing garden in the windswept shingle.



We had been to Sissighurst before, but very much enoyed our return visit on a perfect day and we managed a day in France stocking up on smoked garlic, Normandy cider and my favourite mint tea bags!



We also went to Whitstable, where I spotted these bikes, completely covered in knitting. I couldn't resist a picture!

It was a really great holiday, and an added bonus for me was managing to visit some great craft shops, The Craft Barn, Pickleberry Papercrafts and The Glitter Pot. Needless to say a little self induglence was in order.

Since being at home, we've had a busy time, getting the harvest in and preparing for what promises to be another cold winter, splitting logs and making jam and chutney and enjoying the last few warm days of autumn. I can already feel the chill in the air, winter draws on methinks!

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x