Alphatags H and I

Here are my H and I tags for this months Chocolate Baroque Alphatag swap. I had a hard time deciding on what to do for I, not so much because I couldn't think of anything, as that I couldn't match my ideas with any of my    Chocolate Baroque stamps. I had forgotten this set until
 my friend asked if I had a music stamp that she could borrow to make a birthday card for her son, and between us we came up with Instrument.
 First I will tell you about H for Honeysuckle. For both
these tags I began with a Crafty Individuals Shabby Tag, they are pre-printed with a light brown edge and some feint script. I first coloured the tag with Distress Stains, Antique Linen and Bundled Sage and then stamped a Crafty  Individuals  crackle stamp all over it with Brilliance Galaxy Gold . I used the main image from the CB Fragrant Honeysuckle set stamped with Versafine Olympia Green and coloured it with Coloursoft pencils. I stamped a small butterfly on some spare card and coloured it again with the pencils, cut it out and and fixed it to the tag with the wings slightly raised with silicon glue. The H was cut with I think, an Ex-Cut die and embossed using the Brilliance gold ink and Papermania Holographic embossing powder.I sponged a little Forest Moss Distress ink around the edges of the tag to darken them slightly.                                    


For the second tag I again started by using Antique Linen Distress Stain  to colour the center and Tea Dye Distress Ink around the edges. I stamped the CI crackle background first with Antique Linen  and then again across opposite corners with Brilliance Lightening Black. I stamped the image from CB Music Fanfare set onto the tag with Memento Rich Cocoa and twice more onto spare card. The images were coloured with a mixture of distress inks and a waterbrush, and coloured pencils.I cut out the instument with some of the flowers attached from one image and just the front flower from the other one and attached them to the tag image with silicon glue to give it a little bit of dimension. I try not to make them too bulky as the idea is to bind them with a book ring to make an alpha book. The  word instrument was printed onto Safmat and applied to the tag. The edes were finished off with a little Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

So now I am eagerly waiting to see what everyone else in the swap has been doing and which ones I get back.

Hello and welcome to Leslie, my newest follower and thank you to everyone for your kind comments, they are much appreciated. Jean

Pressed flower Card

I have a card made with pressed flowers to show you today, but not the traditional dried kind of pressed flowers. I saw this method in the April edition of Craft Stamper magazine in a feature by Riet van Zundert. She had made some beautiful cards and gifts and I couldn't wait to have a go.The flowers are placed between two sheets of paper or card and and then passed through a Cuttlebug or similar machine using the appropriate plates. The papers are then separated and the squashed flower petals carefully removed with tweezers and a soft brush for any stubborn bits.You then have one piece of paper with the print of the flowers and a  paler one with some of the colour and a fainter print from the back of the flowers.It is great fun to do and you have to be prepared to be surprised at the results because some flowers print their true colours and some turn out quite different. I think the paper you use could make a difference too.I used some small pansies and polyanthus as that is all that was suitable in the garden at the moment.The flowers need to be soft petaled and reasonably flat and the same goes for leaves which can also work well. They can be sprayed with mica mists before or after pressing for some added shimmer.
To make the card  I cut a piece from one of the flower papers                
 with a Go Kreate die, and then punched out some daisies in two sizes. I layered a pale green piece of card onto a 5"x7" ivory folded card,and then another ivory panel over the green.I cut the loopy circle with a Memory Box die, the lacy edge with a Marianne die and the flourish with a Tim Holtz die, all in the matching green card. I layered everything together and tied a lilac ribbon across and then fixed the daisies in place adding a little yellow Stickles to the centres.

I am entering this for Make it Monday's Always Anything Goes.

Thank you to everyone who comes to take a look here and to those of you who leave comments, they are all appreciated.

Magnolia Birthday

While I was staying with my youngest sister last week I stamped this beautiful magnolia image with a stamp from her very large collection. I don't know the make of it but I was drawn to it because I don't recall ever seeing it anywhere before and I do love to see the Magnolia trees in flower at this time of year.I stamped the image with Memento Rich Cocoa ink and coloured it with
pencils.I tore round the edge and used Tea Dye and
Tattered Rose DI inks to add some shading. When I came home I used it to make this card for my eldest sister's birthday at the weekend.I used a Chocolate Baroque corner stamp from the Nature Swirls set and Brilliance Pearlescent Beige ink to create a border round the edge of a square card, and embossed a piece of mauve pearl card using a Cuttlebug folder to make a background mat. The stamped image was the mounted with thin foam tape and I added some ribbon and roses from my stash.  To finish I stamped a tiny Happy Birthday ticket and two little butterflies which I had stamped and coloured to match.

I am entering this for the following challenges.
Marks finest Papers and Stamps;Make a Square Card.
Sugar Creek Hollow; Birthday Card.
That Crafty Place Challenge; It's All About Spring.
Fashionable Stamping Challenges; Spring Is In The Air.

Thank you for stopping by,and for your comments, I appreciate them all.

Alphatags E,F,& G

Hi every one, it is ages since I have posted anything here, but to be honest I have been sadly lacking inspiration lately and haven't made anything much worth blogging about. Thank you to every one who has stopped by anyway, and for all your nice comments. I see I also have at least one new follower so welcome and I hope you will find something to inspire you.
 Anyway although inspiration was hard to come by I knew I needed to get on with my E F and G tags for the Chocolate Baroque  Alphatag swap this month.I had several ideas for F but I found the other two difficult to find subjects that went with my collection of CB stamps, and in the end resorted to looking through the dictionary for ideas and these are the tags I came up with.

E for Easter:
This tag was first coloured using Paper-Soft-Colour by Viva, I like this medium because it gives a nice soft colour finish and the colours blend together very easily.I then over stamped it using the same paint with a stamp from the CB Texture Fragments set.The dangley branch is from the Wisteria Lane set and was stamped with Versafine Olympia Green.I stamped the cross from the With Sympathy set onto the tag with Walnut Stain Distress ink and then again onto some spare card and embossed it with WOW gold EP and then cut it out.I lightly rubbed Walnut Stain ink all over it making it slightly darker round the edge and then mounted it over the first one with 1mm foam pads.The Easter Blessings stamp is by Oyster Stamps and again stamped with Olympia Green ink.I added a narrow German Scrap border at the bottom and a green gemstone to the centre of the cross to embellish.







   F is for Fun Fair:
All the stamps for this tag are from the CB Carousel Horses set.The tag was coloured with Distress Inks in bundled Sage, Peeled Paint, Broken China and Stormy Sky, and the fairground image and the horse stamped with Memento London Fog.The bunting was stamped with the same ink and the horse with Walnut Stain on a separate piece of card and then coloured with ColourSoft pencils and cut out.I used a gold gel pen to add highlights on the horse.Both were attached to the tag with silicon glue and the words were stamped with black ink straight onto the tag and again coloured with pencils.I added the German Scrap tassel border to the bottom.





G is for Gears:
Now this is the letter that caused me the most trouble, but during my search of the dictionary I  found  this definition of gear, ( a toothed wheel that is one of a set of interlocking wheels ) and I thought of this lovely stamp that I have had for a little while but not had occasion to use yet. It is from a CB set called Stampunk Romance, so out it came.The tag was first lightly sponged with Rusty Hinge and Pumice Stone DI and then the image stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa.I used a Tim Holtz Embossing folder to emboss the top right hand corner and inked lightly over the embossing with the Rusty Hinge ink.I slightly distressed a gold letter brad with Terra Cotta  alcohol ink and distress stickles and added it to the other corner. I added some colour to the main image with coloured pencils and added distress stickles to the butterflies and flower centres.
This has turned into a bit of a marathon so well done if you stuck it through to the finish. I did enjoy making these in the end and I hope the recipients will enjoy them too. I am now looking forward to getting my swaps.
It may be a while before I post again as I am off to sunny (hopefully) Spain later in the week to see my sister.

A Little Bird Told Me...

Tomorrow is my sisters birthday and this is the card I have made for her.The base card is 5x7 inch ivory thick card with a panel of dark green deckle edged green card mounted to leave a small border.The next layer is very pale pink card embossed with a Tim Holtz brick wall embossing folder, and torn around the edge. The main image is a Chocolate Baroque stamp from a set called Pretty Birdcage and is stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink and coloured with Coloursoft pencils.The branch, bird and two front flowers are lightly decopaged, (just two layers).The shading  is done with Tattered Rose DI and the ribbon coloured with the same ink.The little gold bird is cut with a Marrianne die and to finish I hung an Ideaology chain tassle onto a birdcage charm and fixed it to the die cut with a brad.

I am entering this for Allsorts Challenge - Anything Goes Stamptacular Sunday Challenge- Charm me ( use a charm)
Make it Monday # 77 - Always Anything Goes.

Alphatag Swap Cand D

I am taking part in the Chocolate Baroque Alphatag swap challenge,we are aiming to make 2 tags each month (3 some months) so that by the end of the year we have 26 tags depicting all the alphabet letters to bind together with a book ring.  We have to use Chocolate Baroque products or ones sold by them, so it is good that I have quite a lot of their lovely stamps already and some of their backing papers too. I think that there are almost 30 people taking part in the swap, and there was some amazing artwork in the first month.I chose to do A for arch and B for Butterfly, but as I didn't get round to putting them on here I will just show a photo of them at the bottom of this post without any other discription.

This month I have done C for Colour. The tag was first sponged with Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick with a little Aged Mahogany to darken and define the edge. I then stamped the flourish from the Nature Swirls set with Brilliance Snow Cap white ink and over stamped with another flowery flourish from the Butterfly Flourish Swirls set with Aged Mahogany. The quote is from the Artistic Affirmations set, and I stamped the words with Versamark and embossed with white EP onto three different coloured pieces of card, and mounted them on foam pads. I  punched holes down the left hand side of the tag and added coloured eyelets and then tied brightly coloured ribbons in each hole. To finish off I added some tiny gems in colours to match the word cards.

For my second Tag I did D for Daffodil.
Again the tag was first coloured with Distress Ink this time with Antique Linen, Bundled Sage and Forest Moss, and then over stamped in Bundled Sage with stamps from the Nature Fragments set.The Daffodil on script was stamped with Versafine Olympian Green ink onto the tag and three more times onto white card.I coloured the images with  ColourSoft pencils and used Sansodor to blend.I cut out one whole flower, one flower head with the front leaf attached and one trumpet, and layered them on top of the tag image with silicon glue. I tied to keep the layers from being too dimensional as the idea is to make the tags into a book. ( The flower I used last month was probably too chunky but as it will be for the first page I hoped to get away with it.) I added three yellow pearls to the lower right hand side, and the card D was coloured with yellow ink and embossed with clear EP.




Here are last months tags  A and B. I recieved two lovely swaps for these from Joyce and Jackie who both chose the same themes as me but interpreted them in quite a different way. I will try and get them posted in the right month in future. I was right off blogging last month as being not very clever with the computer I was more than a little frustrated at not being able to make my pictures go or stay where I wanted them. I have just changed to a different browser for blogging in the hope that I will be able to manage it better.
In the meantime big thanks to every one who has been to look on here and for your lovely comments.

Wedding Card

Just over a week ago my niece got married and this is the card that I made for her. She is somewhat unconventional in her ideas and chose white, black and red for her wedding colour scheme, so I decided to use those colours for my card. I began with a top folded landscape style white base card and stamped round the edges with the flower flourish from the Chocolate Baroque butterfly flourish swirl set, with Versamark  and embossed with WOW white pearl powder.I cut the leafy frond with a Marianne die from a piece of very dark green card and covered it with Versamark and embossed with Heat It Up  Enchanted Gold powder. I love this because you get all kinds of metallic effects depending on the colour of the card and ink you use. Next I bound some tiny red roses together with some gold thread and glued them to the card with the embossed leaves. I used an acrylic tag that was etched with On Your Wedding Day and darkened the wording with a black ink pad, and tied the ribbons through the slots in each end. The little heart was a silver one that I coloured red with a permanent marker pen, and attached with a jump ring. I then stamped the words With Love in black ink and finished it off with some self adhesive pearls in the centre.This
is a close up to show some of the background embossing.

I am entering this in The Stamp Man fortnightly challenge, Embellish It,
and Make It Monday,  Anything Goes.