Fan of peacocks

I love the extravagance an opulence of peacocks so I have tried to capture it in this card, which is a submission for the Chocolate Baroque Challenge 11.

Materials:

Card:

White Card stock A3
Watercolour paper
Scrap card
Vellum

Stamps:

Chocolate Baroque - Tangled Peacock
Chocolate Baroque - Peacock Parade
Chocolate Baroque - Peacock Fan 

Ink:

Versamark
Distress - Mowed Lawn
Memento - Grape Jelly
Memento - Angel Pink
Distress - Picked Raspberry

Embossing Powders:

Green Glitz 
Blue Glitz
Purple Glitz

Quilling
JJ Quilling Pink 3mm

Extras:
Quilling tool
Quilling board
Stencil brush
water pens
PVA Glue

Method:

1) Start by printing the Peacock parade peacock onto some scrap card to make a template for the centre piece. I made mine "egg" shaped

2) Turn the template over and draw round it in pencil cutting it out of watercolour paper. I flipped it over so that the pecil marks would be on the back

3) Stamp the peacock on your watercolour egg shaped paper using versamark and then sprinkle with the blue glitz embossing powder. Shake off excess blowing where necessary and then cure with a heat tool. When set place in a heavy book to flatten it.

4) Cut 65 strips of 3 inch quilling paper and quill into 8mm coiled circles, use a quilling board to help with the sizing and glue - leave these to dry.

5) Take the fan piece from peacock fans and load up with versamark stamp this onto the vellum and cover in blue glitz, using the heat tool to cure. Remember not to scorch the vellum, repeat until you have 5 blue pieces.

6) Load up the "feather" from tangled peacock and stamp this onto vellum using versamark. Sprinkle with purple glitz and cure with heat tool. Do this until you have 10 pieces of the purple feathers

7) Take the small leaf shaped feather from the peacock parade set and stamp this in vrsamark 6 times onto vellum, sprinkling green glitz embossing powder. Cure the powder with the heat tool.

8) Fussy cut out all the blue, purple and green pieces from the vellum paper and slightly curl the purple ones so that they have some dimension. I gentle squeezed them in half.

9) Retrieve the egg shaped watercolour stamped paper from the heavy book and then blot some of the mowed lawn ink onto the back of an acrylic block, pick up the ink from the acrylic block onto the nib of the water pen and colour and shade the peacock as per the image.

10) Add the grape jelly purple colour in the same way as the mowed lawn colouring the segments as in the image

11) Clean the acrylic block and blot some angel pink onto it, load your stencil brush with the pink, practice swirling on some scrap paper and then move the swirling so that there is a border of light pink around the peacock which is heavier towards to the edge.

12) Run the edge of the egg shape over the distress ink picked raspberry (think of the edge of the card as a knife so it is at right angles to the ink pads) and lightly coat the very edge

13) Let the peacock dry and then flatten again using heavy books

14) Take the quiled circles and using your fingers shape them into tear drops. If you use the "join" where you stuck the paper as the point of the teardrop then it gives the best results.

15) stick the blue fan pieces behind the egg shaped template as per image, next glue the image onto some A3 card, and then add the purple and green feather of the peacock tail.

16)Put the quilled teardrops as a border around the egg shape leaving space at the bottom

17) Cut the outline around the peacock tale leaving a flap at the top (this is to fold over to add the back of that card as it is a custom shape

18) Make the back of the card, using the front as a template - you can skip the blue pieces if you like - it is an "igloo" shape. Stick the back onto the folded flap you created in step 17.

Beach huts

The lovely weather has had me thinking of the British seaside and the sand and beach huts as well as fish and chips by the sea. The beach huts and bright colours make me think of summer, so I will also be submitting this to the WOW embossing challenge for June which has the brief of "Summer".

Materials:

Card:

White Cardstock

Sandpaper

Stamps:

Chocolate Baroque: Seaside Dreams

Ink:

Versamark

Embossing Powders:

Primary Lagoon regular

Primary Apple Red regular

Primary Lemon regular

Paper strps:

JJ Quilling kit pack

Method:

1. Stamp the beach huts on to the white cardstock, using the blue embossing powder shake this over the first hut and then using the yellow shake this over the last beach hut (use different scrap paper to capture the excess so you don't contaminate your colours) and use the heat tool to cure

2. Stamp the huts again, this time using the red powder to cover the middle hut, and heat emboss using the tool.

3. Cut three pieces of sandpaper that measure 5.5cm by 6.5cm, cut out the beach huts and then adhere them to the sandpaper

4. Cut 3 piece of card stock measure 7cm x 6cm, dab versamark around the edges directly from the ink pad, add blue powder to one, red to the next and yellow to the last one. This creates the backgrounds. Use the heat tool to cure the powder.

5. Matt the sandpaper huts onto the embossed backgrounds

6. Lay a strip of quilling paper horizontally behind where the matted huts will sit and adhere to the card, placing the hut over it.

Set sail

A notelet for a friend who has a surname of viking origin. I thought this was appropriate and fun to make.

Materials:

Card:

Black Card Stock

Paperado Chocolate Card Stock

Watercolour paper

Stamps:

Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Sketchy A6 Stamp Set - Be Strong Stamp

Ink:

Ranger Archival Jet Black

Memento Dandelion

Distress Aged Mahogany

Distress Gathered Twigs

Distress Faded Burlap

Distress Vintage Photo

Paints:

Aquatints Landscape

Method:

1) Cut a rectangle of watercolor paper that allows for a 1cm border on the card base.

2) Load the long ship stamp with the archival black ink and stamp it so that it is about 1/3rd of the way from the bottom of the paper, set aside and allow to dry.

3) Next load up the celtic circle with the black ink and stamp it once onto the watercolour paper.

4) Using the landscape aquatint inks apply the dark blue as the start of the sea, then layover it with the green, adding a further payer of the dark blue

5) Use the light blue to create the sky, use the faux bleaching technique to create the clouds. Allow to dry and then "squash" flat using heavy books.

6) Using water pens colours the celtic circles with the dandelion ink, and add a highlight in aged mahogany (water this down first)

7) Returning to the ship, use the frayed burlap to highlight the loops of the sails and then highlight with yellow.

8) Use the gather twig to cover the boat, darker at the front and paler towards the back

9) Use vintage photo and gathered twigs to create the shields on the boat.

10) Matt a black background onto a white card and then cut a piece of paperado chocolate that is 1cm less the width and the breadth and matt this on to the card.

11) Cut the celtic circle into quarters and then add to the corners of the ship scene

12) Matt the ship with corners on to the brown background leaving roughly 5mm at the top, bottom and both sides.

Ring of roses

This card was inspired by the Chocolate Baroque Challenge 11, I wanted to make something that was reminiscent of the stained glass windows in cathedrals but that also went beyond the card, so the leaves of the long roses and the ribbon roses are "off the edge". The bottoms ones are folded to make "feet".

Materials:

Card:

White Card Stock

Stamps:

Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Windows

Chocolate Baroque Mackintosh Beauty

Ink:

Versafine Black Onyx

Versamark

Pens:

Spectrum Noir alcohol markers

GT2

TB5

PL4

BP3

FS1

TN8

Embossing Powders:

WOW! Embossing powder Metallic Silver - regular

Extras:

Scissors

Craft Knife

Compass

Method:

1) Load up the ladies face from Mackintosh windows with Versafine Black Onyx and stamp onto white card, allow to dry.

2) Next load up the small roses from the windows set and stamp 21 onto white card using the black ink

3) Get the "long" rose from the beauty set and stamp 8 of these, again using the black onyx versafine

5) Finally get the rose and ribbons from the beauty set and stamp 4.

6) Colour the face using FS1 and the hair using TN8, then use the other 4 pens to colour in as per the picture above.

7) Using compasses draw a circle with a radius of 5.8 cms and cut this out

8) Stamp the versamark ink on the circle and then cover with the silver embossing powder, use the heat tool to cure the powder.

9) Next you want to create a ring start by drawing a circle that has a radius of 6.3 and then around that draw one that has a radius of 7.8cm cut this out so you have a ring and colour with GT2

10) Next to create the blue ring you need a circle with a radius of 8.3cm followed by 10.8cm

12) Finally draw a square that is 20cm x 20cm and the draw a circle (starting at the centre) with a radius of 11.3cm to create the purple corners

13) colour in the roses as per the image above (small ones in BP 3) long ones in a combination of BP3 in centre with PL4 and then use GT2 for the stems

14) Colour the rose and ribbon using BP3 and GT2

15) Cut out the face and all the roses using a sharp craft knife

16) Assemble the card as per the image (face on the silver circle, pink roses on green circle, long roses on blue, and the rose and ribbons on the purple)

17) Fold the ribbon roses on the bottom to make "feet" for the card