Proud as a peacock

Good morning folks, weekend is here at last and before I go and get inky in my craft room here's a card featuring the gorgeous Indian Textiles stamps, one of this month's new releases from Chocolate Baroque.  

I began by making an inky background using distress inks (peacock feathers, picked raspberry and mowed lawn) and a spritz of water on my SplodgeAway mat and once the inks were dry I over stamped with the large ornate flower using gold stazon, it doesn't show up too well in the photo unfortunately. I then stamped the Taj Mahal silhouette with versamark and embossed with WOW gold EP. 

The peacock image was coloured with Graph'It markers and promarkers and die cut with spellbinders .I've added a gold die cut to frame the peacock and some ribbon and a peacock charm from my stash.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

ABC Challenge: pink, green and blue

Card Crafters Circle: die cuts and/or dry embossing

Creative moments: things with wings

Inky chicks: use a background image

Make My Monday: create your own background

Thanks for popping by,

have a good weekend

Claire xx

Spring Foliage from Chocolate Baroque

Good morning folks, I've got a Spring themed project to share with you today although it certainly doesn't feel like Spring in my neck of the woods yet. I've used the gorgeous new Spring Foliage stamps from Chocolate Baroque for this card

I've used memento inks to brayer the background, on coated cardstock  Memento inks are my favourite for brayer work as they come is such beautiful clear colours. I've also used my Splodge Away Mat, which I absolutely love!! It makes brayer work sooooo much easier and saves wasting so much ink. I didn't do any masking at all as I wanted the stamps to do all the work. I just brayered green shades at the bottom of the image (New Sprout and Bamboo leaves) and at the top I used Dandelion, Tangelo and Rosebud to create a pinky peachy sky. I used the same colours on the background but this time I used plain cardstock and a blending tool to give a slightly different effect.

Next I stamped the foliage stamps using Bamboo leaves, repeat stamping before reinking to give some depth to the foliage. The butterflies (from Rose Tree) were made by stamping on acetate and  embossing with Gold embossing powder, next I cut them out and applied stickles  (I used Tropical Tangerine, Paprika and Lime Green) to the reverse side, left them to dry and then folded the wings up a little. Here's a better pic of the butterflies

The sentiment is stamped in brown Memento ink, its from Loving Sentiments and is one of my favourites, such lovely words and the font is gorgeous. I've used dark brown card for matting and layering. I didn't want to add a lot of embellishments so I added some green ribbon and a rose.

I'm entering this one in these challenges:

Artistic Inspirations: Anything goes

Brown Sugar: anything goes

Crafty Ribbons: anything goes with ribbon

Delightful Challenges: think Spring

Stamp and Create: spring

There She Goes: flowers

Well I'd better get my skates on and go to work, have a good day folks and thanks for stopping by for a visit today.

Claire xx

Birds at Fashionable Stamping Challenges

Good morning blogland buddies, here's my first post of the day which is for our new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges where our theme, chosen my our lovely teamie MeggyMay,  is 'Birds'.  Our lucky winner will receive a prize from the lovely Marina at Cottage Crafts so you won't want to miss out. Don't forget we are a rubber stamping challenge so no digis are allowed. If you need some inspiration my teamies have come up with some stunning projects to get those creative juices flowing.

I've made a book card with a coordinating tag for my DT project, the stamp I've used are all from Chocolate Baroque: Curly Birds, Live out Loud  and Sing your Song. I won't go into all the details on how I made the project or you'd end up covered in dust and cobwebs but i've used lots of distress inks (tumbled glass, broken china, bundled sage - all blended on my SplodgeAway mat, spritzed with glimmer mist and covered with cling film), Teal zeal memento ink, Gilded Ivory Embossing powder. I've added some faux pearl string, cheesecloth, paper rose buds and some utee flowers. My lovely teamie Joanna has a fab video tutorial on her blog - check it out here and have a go, they are soooo much fun to make!! Here's a pic of the inside:

The tag has a quotation from Oprah Winfrey stamped on it, its one of my favourites it always motivates me and makes me feel positive

The front cover has a bird in a tree stamped with a Marianne birdcage die cut over the top, I've added more flowers (rosebuds from Wild Orchid Crafts) and lace (also from WOC), seam binding ribbon coloured with distress inks, some little heart pearl pins and a metal butterfly coloured with a little gesso. I was lucky enough to win some goodies from the Ribbon Girl a couple of weeks ago, wow what a fabby selection of goodies and these little butterflies are a real bargain, love em!

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Anything goes: Monochrome

Artistic Inspirations: Embossing

Crafty Boots: Blue and white

Delicious Doodles: No designer papers

Divas by Design: things with wings

Its all about the vintage: lace and pearls

Paper Minutes: quotes

Stampin for the weekend: something metal

Unique Crafters: lace and fabric

thanks for popping by, I do hope you're going to join our birds challenge

Have a lovely Sunday whatever you are doing. 

Claire cc