Chocolate Baroque: Buds & Bugs

Good morning, friends! There are a couple of new releases this month over at Chocolate Baroque - Sketchy Doodle Flowers and Sketchy Doodle Landscape.

I had fun over the weekend with the Sketchy Doodle Flowers A4 stamp sheet. Here are the two cards I made: Buds & Bugs.

Let's start with the Buds. This card features the big bold sketchy blooms coloured with Graph'It alcohol markers before fussy cutting them. To create background texture without bulk I used Strathmore thick water colour paper, Distress Inks (Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey and Scattered Straw) and lots of water. I spritzed like made and let the water do all the work. I'm a lazy crafter.

When dry, I stamped the bubbly image from Texture Fragments with Tea Dye Distress Ink. The stems for the flowers are from the Wild Meadow sheet, stamped with Peeled Paint Distress Ink. To finish the card: a greeting from Birthday Words stamped with VersaFine Olympia Green and a few tiny pale green gems.

Here's a close of the "Buds". I dropped a couple of blobs of Glossy Accent in the middle of each flower. I'm actually liking the combination of bold colours and subtle texture.

Challenges:
Crafting From The Heart #45: AG
Craft Your Passion #247: AG
My Craft Creation: AG

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Moving on to the Bugs. For this project, I'm showcasing the butterflies from Sketchy Doodle Flowers A4 stamp sheet. Or are they dragonflies? Still not sure what bugs I'm dealing with here.

To create the background, I did some emboss resist using the floral fragment from the Texture Fragments A4 stamp sheet and white embossing powder, followed by some good old fashioned blending with Distress Inks. I'm using Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves to highlight the flowers. And for the background, I've blended Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord and Shaded Lilac.

For texture and shine I dumped a load of Tim Holtz Distress Glitter in Clear Rock Candy along the edge and went 3D with some matching paper flowers from my stash, held in place by Doodlebug mini brads. The flowers came from a BUMPER blog candy I won over at Snoopy's Homemade Fun - a super talented crafter with a heart of gold. 

The scene is now set for the bugs. I coloured these sketchy butterflies / dragonflies with alcohol markers, fussy cut and adhered them to the floral background. To finish: a greeting from Butterfly Dreams. And voila!

Here's a close-up. You can't see it in the photo  (because I'm a terrible photographer), but the Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter is just gorgeous. It's shiny without being in your face. I also gave the bugs a once-over with the Wink of Stella Clear Glitter.

Challenges:
Come And Get It: Texture - Distress Glitter, paper flowers
Glitter & Sparkle Feb: AG with Glitter, Embossing, Flocking
Through The Purple Haze #76: AG

Products used to make these cards:

Sometimes, you don't need to go mad on technique to make your stamps shine. Keep it simple, play with colours, break a few rules and have fun! It also helps, if like me, you don't know many techniques. LOL.

Beijinhos!