For a friend

I used the corners from the Chocolate Baroque Poppy Meadow stamps to inspire this card.

I embossed the corners in silver on the black card and added the sentiment from Pretty Poppies. The heart is from the Rose and Thistle CB set, embossed in a dark red metallic EP on pink pearlescent card and then added colour with H2O paints. I gave the heart some dimension by mounting it on the left over grid from foam dots.

Whatever you are doing I hope you have a good weekend. We have a blessed breeze here on the south coast and what a delight it is! A beach picnic today might be lovely, but everyone else has the same idea on a day like today which may make it less of a tempting idea!

Elaine x

A butterfly card

This is a card I made for a friend recently to let her know I was thinking of her.

 

I actually started off with one of my leafy backgrounds. Then I overstamped with the script stamp from Chocolate Baroque Edwardian Gentleman and the stained glass fragment stamps from CB Steampunk Butterfly.

 

I added a foliage stamps from CB Wild Meadow, coloured with a Distress Marker and the Butterfly from CB Butterfly Dreams. I can't believe this is the first time this butterfly had been inked, it certainly won't be the last! I restamped the butterfly and cut out the wing section so I could colour separately which I did with more ink shading and some coloured pencil highlights with my Prismas. I stamped the semtinent on a die cut - this is from a second hand Stampin' Up set I bought at the recent craft show in Portsmouth. I matted onto black as I like the highlight it adds and finished with some toning gems.

 

I hope you are managing to keep cool. I am loving being outside more and enjoying the early mornings with the sun coming through the leaves is one of the things I like to do when I wander around the garden in my dressing gown - fortunately our postman does not arrive early here! This is one of our hop vines taken on one of my early morning meanders this week.

 

 

It is great to spot any new flowers as they come out, like these amazing lilies which are such a deep colour, even bleached out a little in this picture.

 

 

It is great working in my shed when I get the time with the top of the door open for coolness. The fact it is surrounded by trees for shade is a blessing in this weather. It looks like the wrens are back in residence in my craft shed bird house and I did smile the other day when one nearly took a detour into the shed itself while I was playing the Lark Ascending as I worked.

 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a great week!

 

Elaine x

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