A family card or two

I am busy trying to get ahead on the family card front this month, as there are six birthdays to deal with, including two of my brothers. Here are a couple of cards I tinkered with.

As is sadly so often the case lately, this is not a great pic. I had an unused new Andy Skinner mask that I spotted as I was pondering ideas for this card and that was what got me started. The brother concerned will probably think I have gone all soppy sending him a card like this one! As usual I used Adirondack die inks to shade and Ranger Archival and Versafine for stamping. The stamps are a mix of Chocolate Baroque, Lavinia and Inkadinkado.

The second card is more simple. This one used ink swiping to back the stamped panel.

I rarely use this technique, but I was pleased the way my beach and sea and sky worked out. I stamped in Lagoon Versafine, the stamp is from Inkylicious. The sentiments on both cards are from a Just Rite clear set of very useful sentiments in such a nice font. The paper is from the Bo Bunny Serenity collection.

I had a great visit to the new craft show in Portsmouth on Sunday. It's always nice to do a bit of crafty shopping and I got some brilliant bargain dies which will gradually get outings before too long!

Elaine x

Flowers for midsummer

There are some gorgeous new flower stamps just released at Chocolate Baroque, Fancy Flowers and Poppy Meadow.

 

 

I have been playing with the Poppy Meadow set, this wedding card uses the lovely art nouveau corners and I have used some stamps from the Words of Wisdom and Fragrant Honeysuckle and Rose Tree sets.  

 

 

All the images are stamped in Versamark and embossed in Brass WOW powder onto a cream card base.  I mounted both my corners onto a large acrylic block and stamped them at the same time to make lining up a little less stressful. I cut out the bees and mounted those on foam pads to add a little dimension.

 

If you want to be in with a chance of winning the new stamps, pop over to the DT blog and leave a comment here.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Elaine x



Peacock Love

It has been two weeks since I blogged (is this sounding like a confession?! Life is so busy at the moment, especially with the garden, more of that in due course.

Here is another card I made using the lovely Chocolate Baroque Peacock Parade stamps.  

I wanted to use the trio of feathers design to make a simple, but elegant card. The card blank is a gold/beige colour and I embossed directly onto that using Ranger Queen's Gold EP, which is one of my all time favourities. I used the word love from the Artistic Expressions set, currently on sale and so worth getting I use this set so often! I added coloured and heart shaped pearls for highlights and some cream guipre butterflies for a little embellishments. These are cut from some ribbon I bought in the haberdashery department of Liberty in London. Unusually I had my OH and a friend with me, while we were waiting to be served we were observing the wrapping process for the person on front which was getting very elaborate. My OH then proceeded to do a good (quiet, thankfully) impersonation of the scene from Love Actually where Rowan Atkinson is wrapping a gift. Needless to say my friend and I were virtually helpless with laughter by the time we were served. Just looking at that ribbon brings that moment back to mind!

I have been busy in the garden, especially the veg patch where everything is growing fast at last including the weeds. 

 

This is some chard and pak choi for salads and cooking. As you can see there are weeds too, including the one in the middle that is an edible orach which has magenta splashed leaves. I planted it once deliberately and now can't get rid of it, but it is so pretty I hate pulling it up, so it often gets a reprieve!

 



My beloved plume poppies are back in leaf which means I am working on my leafy backgrounds again.

The foxgloves are giving a very welcome splash of brightness and already beginning to drop their fairy bonnets and in the evening the honeysuckle is giving the most heady scent that makes an evening visit to the garden quite intoxicating.

Midsummer is a great time to be enjoying our little patch  of heaven and the sun is out again today, so the weeding in the veg patch is calling me once more.

Elaine x

Peacock Lady

A while back I bought one of the new Andy Skinner Tando masks Baroque. I love the gorgeous faces! I decided to use the peacock feather from the new Chocolate Baroque Peacock Parade stamp set to make her hair.
 

After sponging the face through the mask in Cobalt Blue archival ink, I worked in several shades of  Adirondack and Distress Ink blues and turquoises, to build up colour and depth. I stamped the feather repeatedly to create the impression of hair.

I added some more faint masked patterns on the bottom of the panel, before adding a stamped trio of peacock feathers from the same stamp set and the word Beauty from Artistic Expressions set, I added some shading to the feathers with Prismacolour pencils. Before matting and layering on two colours of blending card, I added a skeleton leaf around two corners of the panel and a little die cut butterfly image.

I hope you are enjoying the warmer weather and sunshine. It has certainly made me feel more energetic which is a good job as the weeds in our garden have gone mad! The little vegetable plants are growing too though, which is always lovely to see.  

Have a great weekend.

Elaine

An Indian Pavillion

There are two new wonderful sets of peacock themed stamps from Chocolate Baroque, Peacock Parade and Tangled Peacock.

 

 

I have been working with Peacock Parade and it's been very enjoyable. Here is one of the designs I came up with.

I started with making my fiery sunset background, using my leafy background technique in a range of yellow, orange, pink and red Adirondack and Distress inks. I added hills (or maybe sand dunes) in Seedless Preserves Distress Ink using torn paper as a mask. I die cut my pavillion using a DoCrafts X cut die, adding the trellis with a Memory Box die mounted behind. I added some gold pearlescent paper in the dome, with detailing using the peacock border stamp from the Peacock Parade set embossed in gold detail powder on black. I embossed the peacock in the same way and added red gems onto the pavillion and peacock. I added the palm tree stamp from a Christmas set Peace on Earth, the birds are from the Landscape Edges set and the sentiment from the Butterfly Dreams set.

Do pop over to the DT blog, linked in my side bar, to see the great work of my DT team mates. There are some great creative ideas coming up.

Elaine

Nature's cathedral

I have had a lovely week. It included a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show on Thursday when the weather mostly behaved itself thankfully. My favourite garden was the Massacheusetts Garden inspired by the work of Emily Dickinson. Those applique panels at the back were gorgeous, as was the planting.

Irises had to be my flower of the show, I love them, here is the real thing, alongside the applique panel.

The great pavillion also offers some real gems, like beautiful auriculas.

As well as delicious roses, this one has got to find a home in my garden very soon. The deepest red fades to purple, it is truly delicious! I took the label so I could hunt it out!

Back at home the weather has been so much better than first anticipated over the weekend. Inspired by Chelsea, I have been busy in the greenhouse with my seedlings and in the veg patch clearing the huge number of weeds! Yesterday afternoon though, I made time for a little crafty session and first of all was testing colours of my different paints and inks ready for a mini on line art journalling course I have signed up for.

When I finished these, I realised I had quite a bit of paint and ink on my palettes and not wanting to waste them, I had a play with a page in my art journal. Now I do wonder if my art journal is quite the right place for this kind of work. I don't like my writing so rarely do freestyle writing on my pages anyway. This is what I ended up with.

I treated myself to some new masks this week, including the fern and the stained glass window. I was musing as to how I could incorporate both in the same design after laying down the background colours in my Moleskin watercolour book, when I came up with the thought of nature's cathedral. I used another birch tree mask for the trunks and another with different sized leaves for the canopy. The nice thing was while I was working on this, the sun was coming through the leaves outside the shed, making watery patterns on my page.

All the inks are Distress or Adirondack, added with sponge or brushes. The words are a little hard to see, but are added with a set of stamps that I bought second hand on E Bay from a very talented stamper (I was hoping some magic might rub off I think). They look like they are carved from stone so seemed appropriate.

I am off to pack for a few days away for work, and to see one of my special crafty friends, so I am pretty excited about that (well not the work bit obviously!).

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the lovely long weekend.

Elaine x

A sympathy card

I have been working with the new Chocolate Baroque Artist's Bauble set of stamps. As well as the baubles, this set also includes a cross, some corners and a classic motif. The cross is useful for sympathy cards and for Easter too. Here is a sumpathy card I made, with the addition of a little splash of yellow. I think I was feeling inspired by spring finally blossoming when I was making this card.

I stamped the cross in black Versafine. I recently treated myself to the Spellbinders Radiant Rectangles set when I went to Ally Pally. I stamped the sentiment from the CB With Sympathy set and then used one of the dies to frame it, inking with Memento London Fog before taking it out of the die. I cut one of the other dies out of black card to mount the sentiment. I finished off with a selection of flowers in shades of white, lemon and yellow, including the daisies, one of which was added to the centre of the cross.

Thanks for popping by! Hope you have had a good week.

Elaine