Quick Cards for Chocolate Baroque.

Morning Everyone,

Over on the Chocolate Baroque DT Blog they share twice monthly posts of inspiration for cards that can be made in about 15 minutes using their beautiful stamps.  Today a selection of cards I made are included in the post together with contributions from some of the other DT members.  Here's a bit more detail of how I created my cards.

I began by creating a quick A4 sized masterboard using a selection of Fresco Finish acrylic chalk paints which I scraped on with an old credit card.  I followed up with some stencilling using white acrylic paint.  I then used offcuts from creating my favourite 20 cm square card bases to make bases for notelets and cut some pieces from my masterboard to fit.  I chose a selection of Chocolate Baroque silhouette stamps and sentiments which I stamped with black Archival Ink, edged with a black permanent marker and mounted onto the base cards.

I was really pleased with how these turned out and I had enough masterboard left to create two decent sized square cards too.

Thanks for dropping by today and I hope you have time to visit the Chocolate Baroque blog which is always filled with gorgeous inspiration from the DT.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Playtime with DecoArt Antiquing Cream

Morning All and thanks for dropping by.

A couple of months ago my buddy Sam gave me a lovely birthday gift of some DecoArt Antiquing Creams which I'd been wanting to try ever since she started using them on her projects.  I've been itching to have a play with them and made time this week.  I need more practice to get used to them but had fun and I'm quite happy with my first attempt.

It was quite early and dull when I took my photos so I couldn't find a suitable place to show this piece hanging with decent light on it.  It's too breezy outside so that was out as it wouldn't keep still, lol!

I covered an MDF heart with black gesso (which I've had that long it's almost solid) and then made a mix of about 50/50 black gesso with Grunge Paste and applied it through a harlequin stencil.

 When it was dry I applied some of the white Antiquing Cream and left that to dry.  I think, true to form for me, I am being too sparing with the cream and need to be a bit more generous but once dry I gently rubbed it back with a damp (not wet) wipe.  I then did some stamping with a PaperArtsy script stamp and black Stazon and stencilled the hearts and two words with Little Black Dress Fresco Finish.

I made sure it was dry by giving it a gentle waft with a heat tool before applying a coat of DecoArt soft touch varnish.  I do love how matt this stuff dries and the velvety feel to it but again I need to be quicker and more a little more generous because the Antiquing Cream continues to move if you work it too much.

 

Next I added touches of Patina Green Antiquing Cream (still being too mean with it, old habits die hard, lol) let it dry, rubbed it back and applied another coat of varnish before adding some finishing highlights of Treasure Gold.

After choosing the embellishments I gave the metal parts the Treasure Gold treatment to tie them all together and added some crumpled sari silk ribbon.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with my birthday gift (thanks again Sam) and can't wait to practice more but for now I'd best go get my shower & hair washed in case I get The Call from Harrogate.......yes, our new grandbaby is still keeping us waiting, lol!

See you again soon, hopefully with a pic of our new family member ;-)!  In the meantime

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

 

Cute and Quirky for PaperArtsy!

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Tonight I am really chuffed to be sharing a project over on the PaperArtsy Blog using some fun stamps from their Squiggly Ink sets.  In fact it was watching Leandra demo with a bird on a branch stamp from the Squiggly Ink Flora and Fauna set 4 and metal many years ago at Birmingham NEC that first got me hooked on all things PaperArtsy.  I was only just dicovering all the wonderful things you can do with rubber stamps and using them to work on metal had me enthralled.  I think I must have stood there for at least 2 hours, lol!  Not much has changed ;-)!

Anyway, here's a little piece of the project I made for the PaperArtsy Blog where the current topic is Paper Piecing and I hope you have time to pop over and see the whole project if you haven't already been.

As I had quite a few bits and pieces left over from the main project I created a greeting card and a gift tag as well.

 For my main project I had created masterboards onto which I stamped the main images (details on the PA Blog).  I cut them out into little bits dictated by the stamps lines and then juggled them about to create my multi coloured owls and houses.

The leaves on the 'bushes' and the tiny birds were all coloured with pencils and the lettering is a cheap alphabet set I picked up in a supermarket years ago.

This very simple tag is using up the last of the bits of owls and I simply covered the tag with repeat random stamping of a section of the leaf branch which I again coloured with pencils.

I added the mismatched googly eyes to the owl on the card and one owl on the tag.

Apart from the lettering all the stamps are from Squiggly Ink Flora and Fauna A6 sets 3, 4, 5 & 6 plus Squiggly Mini 26 which you can find HERE.  It was the little bird & branch on set 4 Leandra was demoing with and which started my collection of Flora and Fauna, lol!

I hope you enjoyed my fun projects which aren't my norm these days but I really enjoyed playing with these.

After a rather worrying time over the past three months over my Son in Law following his cycling accident and subsequent pneumonia and other infections, he is now recovering steadily thank goodness and hopefully by the time you read this post their new baby (our fourth grandchild) will have arrived. It will be good if normal service can be resumed with crafty playtime now, lol, so fingers crossed I'll have more to share very soon.

Thanks again for stopping by
Hugs
Lesley  Xx