Christmas Trees

Well Hi there after not posting anything here for a month I am now back with a second blog in three days, Inconsistent or what?!!!  Some of you may remember that back at the start of the year I declared my intention to take part in the Christmas card group at Chocolate Baroque where one of our members had suggested some themes for us to use each month if we wanted to. The idea being that if we made a few cards each month it would save us from having a rush to get them all done in December. This is a new concept  for me as mine are usually made in a mad couple of weeks. Anyway after blogging my January cards I haven't got around to putting any more on here although I have made at least two cards each month and earlier this month I made three, the theme for this month being Trees. Finding myself with a little spare time this week (spare time?!!) I decided to make a couple more, and as today is still just about the 25th  I am going to show them for Rudolph's day on Sarn's blog Stamping For Pleasure.

 For this one I used Chocolate Baroque Stamps from the Frosty Trees and Christmas Cheer plates.First I stamped the tree with Versamark and embossed with WOW silver EP onto purple card and then used a gold gel pen to highlight the little stars adding a dot of yellow Stickles in the centre of each one.I the edged the piece with a silver Krylon pen. The holly flourishes were stamped onto the base card with Memento elderberry ink and the dots highlighted with silver Stickles. I wrapped the silver ribbon round the card and fixed the purple panel over it and then added the silver bow.


For the second card I used more traditional colours,staring by stamping the holly background from the CB Holly Flourish plate onto green card with Versamark and embossed with WOW Brass Sparkle EP. The tree is from the CB Stained Glass Christmas plate and I stamped it in Versafine olympia green ink. The star is stamped and embossed with the sparkle EP. I coloured around the star and the pot with  distress markers, and  trimmed the edges using shaped scissors to cut the corners, and then used Distress Inks scattered straw and fired brick to add some shading. I mounted this onto red card and cut a label for the greeting with a Memory Box die to match. I stuck the two panels together using double sided tape and fixed the greeting with gold brads and some thin foam pads, and then fixed the complete panel to the folded card and used coloured Stickles to decorate the tree.

Thank you for looking and for you kind comments I really appreciate them.

Jean

April Fool

I apologise for the long gap since my last blog. I have been doing some crafting but since a bout of flu at Easter I have been lacking in energy and enthusiasm. Anyway I needed to get these Quintiles done for the  Chocolate Baroque swap so have decided to show them to you today in an effort to get back to blogging.
The theme this month is April Fool which had me
thinking for a while, not really knowing where to start. However after checking in the dictionary to see if there was some definition I was anaware of,(there wasn't)  I turned to Google and searched for some quotes and came up with these two that I thought I could work with.

 The first quote made me think of this stamp from Crafty Individuals with the rabbits wearing crowns. I decided I would try and make a painty background for these tiles and used Lin Browns step by step tutorial on her blog here, for inspiration. I have a few of the Fresco Finish paints from Paper Artsy that she uses but they are mostly the opaque colours which are good for the base layers, but I found one that was more translucent and managed to mix some Old Gold to the Haystack to make it a bit less opaque. The other colours I used are Rusty Rose, Pansy and Guacamole. When I was happy with the painted background I stamped the diamond pattern across the top with a chocolate Baroque stamp from the decorative Edges set, with Versamark and embossed with WOW gold EP. I added some further interest by brushing Brilliance crimson copper ink through a Crafters Workshop stencil and adding some Frantage antique gold EP and fragments to the lower left hand corner. I also randomly stamped a few Crowns from a CB set with the Brilliance ink and some fragments of script with black Archival ink and a Paper Artsy stamp.The rabbits are stamped with the Crimson Copper ink and coloured lightly with pencils and cut out before sticking to the background.I stamped the crowns again onto gold miri card with Versa mark and embossed with WOW Gold glitter EP,cut them out and glued them in place. I printed the quote on the computer and cut it into strips and coloured the edges with the Brilliance ink pad.
The second one was made in a similar way but before painting I spread some Dreamweaver stencil paste in the top right hand corner and stamped into it with the diamond pattern stamp, spritzing it with water first. This was left to dry completely before adding the paint. I stamped the diamond pattern again with Crimson Copper ink across the bottom and added Brilliance Moonlight White ink through the stencil. I used a corner stamp from a Chocolate Baroque set  in opposite corners, stamped with Versamark and embossed with WOW gold EP, and I used some Gleam gold rubbing wax to highlight the texture paste. Again the quote was printed on the computer and cut out with a spellbinder die. I shaded the edge with Crimson Copper ink and mounted it onto some kraft card.

Thank you to everyone for looking and for the comments you leave, all really appreciated.
Hope to be back again soon. Jean