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.

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.

Old as the hills

This is a 50th Birthday card for a male friend, people think that it is hard to do cards for men, but I think this is a nice unisex card applicable for either.

Materials:

Card:

Black Card Stock

Watercolour Paper

Paperado Chocolate Card

Inks:

Spectrum Noir Aquatints: Landscape

Stamps:

Cherry Pie Art Stamps - P430 Two Celtic triple knots

Cherry Pie Art Stamps - R515 MONOLITH (Stonehenge)

Ink:

Distress Aged Mahogany

Memento Bamboo Leaves

Memento Gray Flannel

Versafine Black Onyx

Embellishment:

Rope on a Bobbin (woodware) from Chocolate Baroque

Method:

1) Load up the stonehenge stamp with versafine Black Onyx and stamp onto the watercolour card, allow to dry

2) Take the celtic knot and load the stamp with the aged mahogany - stamp 3 times (you might want to do a few spares)

3) Next matt some balck card onto the white card base covering it, then matt the chocolate coloured card on top of this - I left 5mm either side. 

4) Allowing for a 5mm indent from the mated chocolate card stock, cut a rectangular piece of watercolour card

5) Using the landscape aquatint inks create a back ground. At the bottom I used the dar brown and the honey brown and then overlaid the green on to this.

6) The sky was done using a combination of the two blues and the grey, the clouds use a "faux bleach" technique. Set aside and allow to dry

7) Returning to the stonehenge print, load up a water pen brush with gray flannel and then use this to colour in the henge, set aside and wait for it to dry.

8) Clean the nib of the water pen brush and load it with bamboo shoots (stamp the ink pad onto an acrylic stamp board and pick the ink up from there). Colour in the white parts of the celtic knot with the bamboo laves green.

9) Carefully cut out the henge and the celtic knots.

10) Using PVA glue seal the rope on a bobbin at both ends and apply to the card (mine is roughly 4cm in from the left) and then attach the knots

11) Matt the henge onto the card.

Dancing Dragonflies

This is a submission for the Chocolate Baroque Challenge 11. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it!

Materials:

Card:

White Card Stock

Scrap Paper

Watercolour Paper

Inks:

Spectrum Noir Aquatints: Perfect primary

Stamps:

Chocolate Baroque - May AYOS

Ink:

Versamark
Memento Grape Jelly

Distress Picked Raspberry

Versafine Black Onyx

Pens:

Sakura stardust silver

Quilling Paper:

JJ Quilling Opal Green 3mm

Embossing Powder:

WOW Silver super fine

Method:

1) Load up the stamp with versafine black and stamp onto scrap paper, this is to be used as a template for husking the dragonfly wings.

2) Place pins around the "clear" dragon flies wings and husk using a triple wrap, do each wing individually using the opal green paper. Repeat this until you have done all the wings on all the dragonflies. (husking involves wrapping quilling paper around the pins to create a shape).

3) Once you have constructed all the wings, cut 1 and 3/4 inch strips of the opal green quilling paper and create S scrolls to fill the wings. 

4) Put all the quilled piece in a box, arranging the wings in the order on the stamp (so you don't get confused later)

5) Using versafine black load the AYOS May stamp and print onto white cardstock, once dry cut out the dotted background.

6) Get some watercolour paper and using the two blues from the perfrect primary aquatint range, apaint a background to look like water (I alternated and used water to blend), allow this to dry.

7) Once the watercoloured background is dry matt the cut out stamp on to it, colour in the background of the plain dragonflies using the silver sakura pen and start to mount the quilled dragonfly wings, I did all the wings and then added the scrolls. Make pegs (tight circles) for the bodies using the opal green.

8) Using versamark, load up the stamp and imprint onto the watercolour card and emboss using the silver powder.

9) Using water pens colour the embossed wings using the grape jelly and picked raspberry inks to colour the wings, cut them out.

10) Mount the embossed dragonflies at different heights using the decoupage foam and the quilling to create depth.

11) Use the grape jelly ink to create a border with the water pens.

Head in the clouds

I am calling this called "Head in the Clouds" it is for the WOW embossing May contest.

May WOW embossing winner

Materials:

Card:

Black Card stock
White Card stock
Paperado Amerena
Paperado Orange
Paperado Lilac

Stamps:

Chocolate Baroque - Tranquility 

Ink:

Versamark
Memento Summer skies

Embossing Powders:

WOW Primary Ebony superfine
WOW Metallic lilac ultra high
WOW Metalline violet regular
WOW Primary Indigo Super fine
WOW Earthtone grape regular
WOW Primary Bark regular
WOW metallic pink ultra high
WOW Fluorescent pink regular
WOW Fuchsia Regular 

Pens:

Spectrum Noir Alcohol Pens
OR2
OR3
TN4
TN5
TN7
LG5
FS9
BG2
BT1
BT2
BT4

Dies:
Xcut Extra Large Dies 13.5cm diameter circle

Stencil:
Clarity stamp clouds

Extras:
Compass
Ruler
Scissors
stencil paintbrush

Method:

1) Using the 13.5 cm diameter circle die cut a white circle

2) Load up the tranquility Buddha with versamark and stamp onto the circle, sprink the ebony black wow embossing powder and cure with a heat tool.

3) Using the FS9 pen add the skin tone to Buddha

4) Use OR2 and OR3 to colour in the robes 

5) BT1, BT2 and BT4 are used to create the pool of water

6) TN7 is used for the bullrush heads and also for the hair

7) LG5 is used for the leaves

8) Apply the cloud stencil over the top of the image and load a stencil brush with Memento blue skies and apply clouds to the image

8) From white card stock cut 4  rectangles that each measure 5.5 by 12.5 cm, two of these will be used for the cherry blossom and 2 for the wisteria.

9) Load up the wind chime stamp with versamark, and orient one of the rectangle so it is in portrait (up right) and stamp at the bottom. Apply the Bark coloured embossing powder, remove excess and cure with a heat tool. Repeat this on another rectangle. Colour in with TN4 and TN5, set aside and let the alcohol blend.

10) Take the remaining two rectangles in landscape view and, load the cherry blossom stamp with versamark and add WOW metallic pink ultra high, repeat this again so you have two metallic print stamps. Cure between each re-inking.

11) Next add at least part of the cherry blossom stamp and this time using WOW Fluorescent pink regular, cure the powder between each re-inking

12) Next add the WOW Fuchsia Regular cherry blossom to the rectangles.

13) Using the cloud stencil and the memento blue skies ink add the clouds to the two cherry blossom rectangles.

14) Taking the portrait rectangles with windchimes start to layer the wisteria starting with WOW Metallic lilac ultra high, emboss and cure between each stamp, the next layer is WOW Metalline violet regular, followed by WOW Primary Indigo Super fine and finally WOW Earthtone grape regular.

15) Using the cloud stencil and the memento blue skies ink add the clouds to the two wisteria/wind chimes rectangles.

16) Using a pair of compasses create a 14cm diameter circle on the Paperado Amerena card and cut out using scissors

17) Next cu 2 rectangles measuring 6cm by 13 cms from the Paperado Orange card, and another two of the same dimensions Paperado Lilac card.

18) Mount the cherry blossom onto the purple card pieces and the wisteria on to the orange, and mount buddha on to the circle,

19) Cut a piece of square card that is 20cm by 20cm

20) Assemble the pieces of card as per the image above

Madam Pompadour and Paris

Inspired by a stay in Paris in a hotel that was the former residence of Madam Pompadour, this is a notelet card for a friend

Materials:

Card:
Do-Crafts Sweet Paris 6x6 Paper
Hobbycraft pastel Card pack (cream/Ivory)
Plain Vellum

Stamps:
Do-Crafts - Sweet Paris
Chocolate Baroque - Paris in Spring Set

Embossing powders:
WOW Ebony Superfine

Inks:
Memento Tuxedo Black
Versamark

Instructions:

1) Get the Sweet Paris 6x6 paper and cut a strip that is 5cm x 13cm from the rose and Eiffel tower paper, then cut a strip that is 9cm by 13cm from the green fleur de lys paper. Finally from the rose and swirl striped paper cut one strip that has two swirls either side of the roses. Place the green paper so that it overlaps 1cm of the paper with the Eiffel tower and roses (the width should be 13cm - 4cms of roses and 9cms of green fleur de lys) put the strip over the join.

2) Cut a piece of ivory card that measures 2 inches x 4 inches and load up the Eiffel tower stamp from the do craft sweet Paris cling stamp set with Memento tuxedo black and stamp onto the card.

3) Get your plain vellum and using the Eiffel tower stamp load it up with versamark and stamp it on to the vellum, repeat this again so that you have two Eiffel towers.

4) Sprinkle Ebony wow embossing powder over the versamark ink and then remove the excess and put back in the jar. Using the heat tool emboss the powder, remember vellum can catch with the heat so hold the tool further away and move it faster over your work

5) Once the embossing powder has cured use a good pair of craft scissors to cut them out, fold them both in two with the embossing on the inside - take time as the fold needs to be accurate.

6) stick the two halves together using adhesive and then line them up on the ink stamped copy of the tower. Voila a 3D eiffel tower. Using the pink and ivory striped paper create a border around the tower on the ivory paper.

7) Cut a further piece of cream card that is 2 inches by 2.5 inches, using the chocolate baroque stamp with the sentiment "Paris in Spring" load it with versamark and stamp onto the card. 

8) Using the WOW Ebony embossing powder apply to the ink, shake off the excess and using the heat tool emboss it. Take the sentiment and mount it onto the pink paper that has a white pattern of flower swags.

9) Build up the card using a 14cm x14cm background from the sweet Paris paper pack, I choose the pale pink with the white swirly writing, then add the background you made in step 1, and then place to the two pieces of ivory card so that the sentiment slightly overlaps onto the card that has the Eiffel tower.

A Rainbow of Butterflies

This card was made for the WOW Rainbow Challenge.

Materials and Method:

Inks:
Memento Tuxedo Black
Versamark

Embossing Powders:
WOW Bright White ultra fine
WOW Ebony ultra fine

Stamp:
Chocolate Baroque AYOS April
Kaisercraft Script

Pens:
Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers
DR1
OR2
CT4
LG5
BT5
IB3
PL4

Card:
White Card
Plain Vellum

Instructions:

1. Using the memento Tuxedo black ink, ink up the chocolate Baroque AYOS April stamp (large) and print onto white card.

2. Using Spectrum Noir Marker (BT5, IB3, PL4) colour in the blank butterflies on the paper you have just stamped and allow to dry

3. Using the  AYOS April Butterfly stamp (cleaned) load it with versamark ink and stamp onto another sheet of white card. Cover in Wow ebony embossing powder, shake off excess and then heat with a tool to a glossy finish.

4. Reload the AYOS April stamp with versamark ink and stamp onto the vellum, apply the WOW Ebony super fine embossing powder and heat carefully to set. (vellum can burn easily so hold the heating tool further away and move it quickly over the work)

5. Take the first stamped piece of paper with the Blue, Indigo and Violet butterflies, load up the Kaisercraft Script stamp with versamark and stamp over the coloured butterflies (if necessary use pieces of scrap paper as masks). Apply WOW bright white embossing powder, remove excess and apply heat to fix the powder.

6. Take the ebony embossed white card and cut out the spaces of the blank butterflies, this will allow the blue, indigo and violet butterflies to show through on the final card and creates dimension. Use a craft knife to do this.

7. Having cut out the plain butterflies colour in the background using LG5 and the patterened butterflies blending DR1, OR2 and CT4 (spectrum noir alcohol markers)

8. Repeat the blending of DR1, OR2 and CT4 on the WOW ebony embossed vellum and cut the butterflies out using scissors or craft knife.

9. Starting with the Blue indigo and violet butterflies as the lowest layer build the card up, with the vellum butterflies going on last. Bend the wings to create a 3D effect.

Optional:

10. As an option you can use the spectrum noir alcohol markers to custom colour clear rhinestones and add them to the butterfly body, the effect is shown in the photograph above. I used the DR1, OR2 and CT4 pens to colour the rhinestones. I used PVA glue to attach the rhinestones to the card.