Exciting news: I am joining Gina B Silkworks

I am still pinching myself. I will be working with the fabulous Gina Barrett and her Design Team and Gina-B Silkworks – helping out with samples for her shows on Create & Craft TV. I have admired her work for so many years. As an added Bonus I will also working with the talented Chris Offa and Gillian McMurray. So excited.

Gina will be on Create & Craft tomorrow at 10am launching a new kits and instructions for creating gorgeous Teneriffe Lace (UK Freeview Channel 23 or watch live or on catch up online from the website).

These are my first experiments with the technique – I am going to put mine into an oriental style mixed media canvas. I will share when I have finished.

Harlequin Rose card created for Chocolate Baroque

Good morning. Here is my contribution to the Chocolate Baroque Colour Challenge this month. I used the lovely Harlequin Rose stamp.

Materials:

• Harlequin Rose stamp set
• Kraft card blank, brown card and white stamping card
• Inkpads: Distress Ink (Mustard Seed, Barn Door, Gathered Twigs, Peacock Feathers), Versafine Inkpad (Vintage Sepia)
• WOW Embossing Powder (Clear Gloss)
• Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen (clear)
• Fine tipped pen (brown)
• PVA pearls and ribbon (turquoise)
• Decorative dies

How it was done:

1. The main image was stamped with Versafine and embossed with clear powder. I coloured it with Distress Inks and added some sparkle with clear sparkle pen.
2. The image was cut out using a die. Whilst the shape was still in the die I coloured it with gathered Twigs Distress Ink around the edges. I then removed the shape and added faux stitching around the edge.
3. I cut the background mat in brown card, layered everything up and glued to the card front, adding the ribbon strip.
4. Finally finished with PVA pearls.

Russian Spires card created for Chocolate Baroque

Good afternoon. Today I am sharing a set of cards created with the new stencils from Chocolate Baroque. These are fairly quick makes.

I decided to try running the Russian Spires stencil through my die cut machine on the embossing setting to get added texture. I also brayered over the stencil with glycerine before embossing. This transferred to the card providing a medium on which to sprinkle embossing powders. I experimented and played with different colours, adding additional colouring with pens or pencils. I quite liked the distressed effect.

Materials:

• Russian Spires, Silhouette Palaces 1 and 2 stencils, and Words to Dazzle & Sparkle stamp set
• Card blanks (20.5 X 15cm), smooth card (black and white), glitter card (lilac, cream, blue)
• Glycerine (available from the chemist)
• Heat embossing powders (gold, pink, amethyst)
• Versamark embossing pen
• Alcohol markers (black, grey)
• Acrylic pen (opaque white)
• Metallic coloured pencils (Faber Castell)
• Watercolour and Sparkle pens (Spectrum Noir)
• Pebeo Gilding Wax (gold, silver)
• Die to cut sentiment panel (Tattered Lace Pin Dot Rectangles)

Katya Missing Home Card created for Chocolate Baroque

Good morning. Here is the last of my TV show samples using the lovely Katya stamp (recently featured on Hochanda). The idea was to create a sort of dream scene depicting Katya missing her home.
 
Materials:

• Katya, Silhouette Palaces, Babushka and Words to Dazzle & Sparkle stamp sets
• 8 X 8 inch card blank (white stamping card), copy paper to make masks
• Distress Inkpad (Tumbled Glass), Multi coloured dye based inkpad (blues & purples)
• Glitter pens (Sakura Gel - blue, purple) and sparkle pens (Spectrum Noir - teal, clear)
• Clouds stencil (Sheena Douglass)

 
How it was done:

1. I first stamped Katya 4 times onto the corners of the card, leaving ink off the bottom portion of the stamp. I chose Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to get a pale effect.
2. I cut a circle mask from copier paper. Covering the central section I then applied Distress Ink through the cloud stencil, lightly using a sponge. I coloured Katya’s headdress with glitter and sparkle pens using a water brush to get some shading.
3. I edged the card with Distress Ink and stamped the sentiment around the border.
4. Using the other part of my paper mask I covered the background leaving just the central opening to work though. I stamped and cut out the buildings from copier paper to make more masks. I first stamped the foreground image (using multi coloured ink), then covered it with the mask before stamping the next building behind. Finally I covered both foreground images and stamped the silhouette palace at the back.
5. I used the cloud stencil again to add detail to the sky area. I then coloured the images picking up ink from my mat with a water brush.
6. Finally I added a little spatter by picking up watered down ink and sparkle pen from my mat onto an old toothbrush.

Quick and Easy Tree cards created for Chocolate Baroque

Good morning. Here are another couple of quick and easy cards using the Orchard Design a Tree stamp set from Chocolate Baroque. These are great for batch making. The sentiment space could be left blank and stamped as needed for those emergency last minute cards that we often need. Make them in lots of different colours or try stamping on ready patterned paper.

I used ink spritzers with mica to create the backgrounds (these were left over offcuts from another project), trimmed and used a corner rounder punch to finish. Edged quickly with marker pen to frame.

I stamped the trees with Versamark and used a sparkly embossing powder (difficult to see in the photos). I used a Versamark embossing pen to anchor the trees and extend the scene with just a couple of quick drawn lines.
The sentiment was stamped with Versafine.

Materials:

• Orchard Design a Tree and Words of Inspiration stamp sets
• A6 card blanks (cream), ink spritzed background papers
• WOW embossing powder (Halloween)
• Versamark Inkpad and embossing pen, Versafine (Vintage Sepia)
• Alcohol marker (dark brown)

Make a Wish card created for Chocolate Baroque

Good morning. Here is another of my TV show samples using the Katya stamp recently featured on Hochanda. I have used in in a different way to make a decorative mandala. I hope that you like it.

Materials:

• Katya and Words to Dazzle and Sparkle stamp sets
• 8 X 8 inch card blank, stamping card (white), coloured card (blue with lighter blue core)
• Multicoloured dye based inkpad (All Night Media - Berry Rainbow) and Distress Ink (Tumbled Glass)
• WOW Embossing powder (Clear Gloss)
• Spectrum Noir water based sparkle pens (blue, purple, yellow)
• Dies (circle and decorative lattice circle – Tonic)
• Decorative embossing folder (Embossalicious) and sanding block

How to make it:

1. Emboss the blue card and lightly sand to enhance the texture. Glue to the card blank.
2. Stamp Katya 4 times onto stamping card using rainbow ink. Heat emboss with the clear powder. Dye inks dry quickly so you need to add the powder immediately after stamping. Cut out the headdress to create a mandala. Colour with glitter pens adding some shading by dragging colour with a water brush. Glue to the card front.
3. Cut the decorative circle from blue card and add additional colour with sparkle pens. Cut the plain circle from white card and stamp the sentiment. Edge with Distress ink and glue to the card with 3D foam.

Birthday card created with the Russian Floral Egg stamp from Chocolate Baroque

Good morning. Today I am sharing another of my TV show samples (Hochanda) created using the Russian Floral Egg stamp from Chocolate Baroque.

It started off as a completely different project. I wanted to create an opulent golden Easter egg with an aged effect. I stamped the egg onto mirror card and covered it with Ranger Crackle Accents. I was hoping that it would give me a crackle background which I could paint over with brown acrylic, wipe off the surface, and leave an aged effect. However, the crackle didn’t develop as expected. All I got was a few deep crackles and not the crazed crackle effect that I was after. Obviously Crackle Accents doesn’t work too well on shiny mirror surfaces. So I learned something new.

I decided to cut out a tag shape from my ‘disaster’ and mount it onto a card front. I added a bit of colour using alcohol pens, and stamped the crackle effect on top using the background stamp and StazOn ink.

I partially stamped the egg onto the orange background mat, coloured with sparkle pens (spritzed & splattered background), and added more texture and crackle by stamping with gold paint.

Materials:

• Russian Floral Egg, Large Crackle Background and Mackintosh Sentiments stamps
• 12.5 X 17 cm card blank, card (black, orange, gold mirror)
• Inkpads: StazOn (Black), Versafine (Onyx Black)
• Ranger Crackle Accents
• Alcohol ink pen (coral)
• Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens (orange and black)
• Pebeo acrylic paint (metallic gold)
• Organza ribbon and PVA pearls (black)
• Tag die (Tattered Lace)