A leafy background

Posts are rather few and far between for me at present. I am in the midst of a major crafty reorganisation in my shed (it is just about warm enough to work in if I keep the heater on) and after well over a week of sorting out, I am getting rather fed up of all work and no pleasure from my enormous crafty stash. If this doesn't teach me a lesson to slow down my craft purchasing, nothing will.

Today I have a card from the last release of background stamps from Chocolate Baroque, this uses the Leafy Trails stamp.

I wanted a simple, but sophisticated colour scheme and went for one of my favourite colours brown with gold. I embossed the design in gold on a medium brown card and matted onto gold mirri and dark brown. I painted the leaves with a couple of layers of brown H2O paint and then added a brown ribbon and die cut bow using the smaller die from the Die-Namics Beautiful Bows set which makes such lovely neat bows in two different sizes. I finished with a Craftwork Cards sentiment mounted onto a small scalloped circle.

I hope you have enjoyed a slightly warmer weekend wherever you are. It has been dry with us and mostly sunny and we even managed lunch sitting in the garden yesterday for the first time this year, although we did have light snow flurries only on Friday. I think I need to give my shed tidying a miss tomorrow and get out into the greenhouse for some tidying in there. The masses of primroses in the garden tell me spring may finally actually be springing and I may finally be able to get going with the vegetable seedlings.

Elaine

Indian delights from Chocolate Baroque

There are two new gorgeous sets of stamps just launched from Chocolate Baroque for April, both with Indian themes.

 

The sets are Indian Textiles, that I used for my canvas above:

 

 

and Indian Elephant which is equally inspiring.

 

 

Both are on special offer here and work brilliantly with one of my all time favourite Chocolate Baroque sets Paisley Elephant.

 

For my canvas which is 8 x 20 inches, I was inspired when I saw the Indian Textiles plate to think of Tibetan Prayer flags - a prayer flag is a colourful panel of rectangular material often found strung along mountain ridges and peaks high in the Himalayas, they are believed to bless the surrounding countryside. Traditionally they are printed with texts and images. You can read about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_flag I love the way the weather makes them faded and tattered, I once saw some hanging outside a tiny wooden chalet in the Alps in Switzerland, sadly I didn't take a picture. I have some to hang outside my shed sometime. I also saw a similarly art inspired set of flags last year on Terri's Artful Affirmations blog (see my side bar) which was part of a swap she was doing with other artists. I loved the idea and as always Terri's work was full of lovely vintage elements. I can't seem to find the link, but if I track it down I will add it! EDIT - I e mailed Terri to ask for the link and here it is! It is lovely to see her flags again.

 

I painted my canvas in different blues acrylics and then made my flags from rainbow dyed mulberry tissue in different colours. I started by stamping the text stamp from the Paisley Elephant plate in paler colours, which doesn't show at all in this pic which was so hard to take due to the size of the canvas! I stamped the textile stamps in black Stazon before adding words from the Artistic Expressions plate. I tore out the flags to get the tattered effect the prayer flags often have in the open air. I added some touches of white tissue to give a cloudy affect between the flags, sticking everything down with matt Mod Podge. I finished off with loads of butterflies which are mostly DoCrafts Flutterdies and some others and the little birds which are cut from serviettes. I wanted the feeling of flight and open air. This is not really my usual style of work, but I did enjoy myself!

 

Hope your Easter is going well. I am in the throes of a massive spring clean in the shed, brought on by the purchase of a brilliant new drawer unit with 33 drawers, as you might imagine I am in heaven filling those up. It should reduce me need to hunt for stuff significantly!

 

Have a great day, the sun is peeping through here and it promises to be another good day!

 

Elaine x

A Happy Place

This is another card I made with the new clear stamps launched this month at Chocolate Baroque. This one uses the Periwinkle Corners.

I started off using the little Crafty Individuals fern masks in different greens to make my background. I overstamped in green Versafine with the periwinkle stamp and then added some highlighting with white Prisma pencil. I embossed the fairy from Gossamer Wings which is currently on offer as a Last Chance stamp because it is being retired and the words from the Artistic Affirmations set.  These are embossed in green metallic EP onto green pearlescent paper and cut out. The final additions was some velvet Petaloo flowers and leaves that have a touch of glitter (or fairy dust!).

Hope you have nice plans for a cosy Easter weekend. Whatever you plan to do, keep warm!

Elaine

Big bold backgrounds

The new launch over at Chocolate Baroque this month are some gorgeous big, bold and beautiful backgrounds.

You can see the stamps here

I made this little easel card with the floral damask stamp. I embossed the pattern with a malachite green embossing powder and then inked with Mown Grass, Peacock Feathers Distress Inks and Meadow Adirondack dye ink. I cut out the heart using the inner line of my heart die as a template and then cut out the easel with the same die.

I used the ornate scrollwork corner clear stamp as the stop for the easel. I finished off with the sentiment from the Pretty Poppies plate embossed in gold on green and carefully cut out and a little bird charm.

There are some gorgeous samples coming up from the Design Team over this month and do pop over and see the gorgeous coloured tag Glenda has posted on her blog here. Her lovely shading shows how you can add amazing dimension to these backgrounds.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x

Valentine's Bunnies

This was the Valentine's card I made for my OH.

Rabbits feature a great deal in our lives, we love them and have wild rabbits in the garden who we feed and interact with. Our cards for each other often feature rabbits and they both did yesterday!

I resorted to the silhouette and ink shaded approach I love so much, working on a dye cut heart. I used Lavinia and Inkylicious stamps with Versafine ink and the sentiment is from a Studio G clear set that cost £1! I love this sentiment and use it so much. I used a mix of Paris Trunk, Adirondack dye and Distress Inks for the ink shading.

This was a little challenging to make as I had to make it while my OH was in the same room. Fortunately he rarely takes much notice of my crafty faffing, so I got away with it!, by doing a little more masking of the image while I was working that would normally be necessary!

Elaine x

I've got the blues!

It's a friend's birthday this week and she likes blue, so that was my lead for this card.

I ordered a pack of 12 x 12 Firefly papers from Prima, and used a bluey green background. I die cut a circle and used Distress Ink in Bundled Sage, Tumbled Glass and Evergreen Bough to sponge, including over a Crafty Individuals fern mask. I then overstamped with a branch stamp from the new Chocolate Baroque Spring Foliage set using Veridian Archival ink. I added some shading around the edge with Denim Adrirondack dye ink. The sentiment is from the CB Pretty Poppies set.

Hope you are all warm and cosy after the snow that has affected some parts of the country today.

Elaine

Spring is in the air!

Spring is in the air over at Chocolate Baroque where new stamps have been launched this week. I have been playing with a new set Spring Foliage.

This is a simple ink shaded white die cut circle, I masked off the sun and hills, shaded with DIs and Adirondack dye inks and overstamped with the silhouette pussy willow stamp in different colours of versafine and archival ink. The circle was mounted onto the kraft base card which I had embossed with the sentiment in copper EP. I finished off  with a K & Co butterfly embellishment.

There are signs of spring in the garden with snowdrops, primroses and daffs out already and I am busy looking at seed websites to order my veg seeds to plan for the new season in the veg patch. Always a great way to pass a chilly winter evening

Elaine