my Crafty Corner

Cards and other handicrafts made by Jean Straw

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Christmas Flowers

When I said in my post last night that I would be back with a card for Rudolph Day at Stamping For Pleasure hosted by Sarn, I had no idea what the date was, so when I realised that the 25th was today I had to get busy this afternoon and make this card. As I am also using it for the Chocolate Baroque Christmas card group where the theme this month is flowers I decided to try out this stamp.  It is a CB stamp but I don't know which set it is from because I got it in a mystery grab bag a while ago. I am not sure if they are meant to be flowers or snowflakes but I have stamped them in Christmas colours and they can be Christmas fantasy flowers for the purpose of this blog .I coloured the stamp with distress markers in Pine Needles and Barn Door and spritzed it with water and stamped onto watercolour paper.When it was dry I added some yellow stickles to the centres.I layered it onto red and green mounts and then onto a red base card, having already stamped the two right hand corners with a foliage corner stamp and Versamark ink. To finish it off I tied some green ribbon just in from the fold.I wanted to add a greeting but couldn't find a suitable place for it so it will have to make do with one inside.
Now I am going to link this up to Sarn's blog, so thank you for taking time to this and for you lovely comments, they are all much appreciated.

Monday 24 June 2013

Two For The Price Of One

I have got this month's quintiles for the Chocolate Baroque swap to show you today and also some Atcs also for a Chocolate Baroque swap.
The theme for the tiles this time is June Brides but
unfortunately I haven't got any bride stamps so I had
to improvise a bit. I began by printing some backing paper from an Artylicious CD.(Decadent Brocade). I trimmed it with a deckle edged cutter to fit the 5" tile of dark brown card. I over stamped it with the lovely background stamp from the CB Dusky Damask set with Versamark ink and embossed it with WOW vanilla white embossing powder.I used a rub down cream lace across the top and added a strip of tiny flowers on top of that. As I have no suitable stamps I decided to use this image from a Crafty Individuals mini book.I cut it out and mounted it onto cream card to make a frame. I used skeleton leaves, ribbon bows and some cream mini flowers made with a Britania die,cream coloured pearl paper and some mini stamen coloured yellow with a promarker, as embellishments.                                                        
                                                                                 The theme for the ATCs  is Steampunk, another style that I am not entirely comfortable with, but which I do have a few stamps for. These both started as ivory card and were shaded all over with distress inks in antique linen, tea dye and vintage photo. one was embossed with a TH  embossing folder and the raised area coloured with grey and brown inks.The grid  stamp is from Art Journey.The clock face is part of a CB set, Punky Romance and I stamped it with black ink and embossed it with clear EP onto ivory card and coloured it with the brown inks. I cut it out and fixed some chain with a brad in the centre and and used foam pads to stick it in place, and fixed a metal embellishment over the background embossing. The other one has some background stamping with the same grid stamp as the first one and also using a Crafty Individual crackle stamp. the main image is from CB Steampunk Travel set and I stamped it straight onto the card but decided it didn't show up very well so I stamped it again, coloured and cut it out and fixed it over the first image with silicon glue. The card was then decorated with a piece of mesh fixed with metal embellishments and a little Frantage embossing in the corner.

I am sorry I haven't been around much lately I have been a bit short of inspiration or/and motivation but have several projects in mind so hope to back again soon.Maybe later this week even, with a Christmas card for Rudolph Day,(not made yet!)over at Sarn's blog Stamping for Pleasure.
Anyway many thanks to every one who comes to look and for your lovely comments.