Challenge 20, Week Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We hope that you are enjoying our current challenge and the inspiration provided by the Design Team. For those of you visiting our blog for the first time, here is the inspirational photo and colour swatch that we are using for the current challenge:

You can find a link to the current challenge here.

This week, we have more inspiration from the Design Team. Claire has created a magical card using some of our fairy silhouette stamps:

Dominike has created a fabric purse, to hang from an apron, using one of the new Floral Background stamps:

Anne has made a super book stand:

She has very kindly written a tutorial, so that you can have a go at making this fabulous project yourself.

Materials:

Rubber stamp sets: Words of Inspiration, Indian Elephant, Punky Flowers, Gothic Fragments, Exquisite Edges
MDF Book Stand
White gesso
Acrylic paints: pink, pearl pink, dark red, orange, yellow
StazOn inkpad Jet Black
Zig 2 Way glue pen
Fine-tipped alcohol markers: black, pink, dark red, orange
Polychromos pencils: pink, dark red, orange and yellow
Cut-N-Dry Foam
Gold gilding wax
Iridescent spray varnish
Scrap paper for planning and masking
Dye based black inkpad

Step by Step Instructions:

The MDF stand was first sealed and primed with white gesso. TIP: When painting MDF items, it is often best to paint them after constructing, as the MDF can expand slightly, making it difficult to fit the joints together afterwards.

The sides were painted with pink acrylic. The back and front panels were painted using orange and yellow acrylics. I painted from the outside edges working inwards and blending the orange into the yellow in the centre.
The sides were randomly stamped with the paisley motif from the Indian Elephant stamp set, using StazOn. A bit of colouring was added using pencils.
I cut a piece of scrap paper the same size as the front panel in order to plan out the stamping. I then worked out the order of stamping and which images needed masking. You will need to protect the foreground images while building up the scene. I stamped the lettering, elephants and border from the Exquisite Edges stamp set with dye ink onto copy paper, and cut around them to create masks. I added a few dots of Zig 2 Way Glue to the back, and left to fully dry. This then acts as a temporary tacky adhesive to hold the masks in place while stamping.
It is tricky to stamp some areas on a ready-made item. The stamps need to be positioned on the stamping block to enable stamping into corners, etc. It is also easy to slip when you are stamping at an angle on a 3D item. TIP: You could paint a piece of card to fit the area, stamp onto that instead, and then glue this onto your project afterwards.
I first stamped the sentiment, elephants and lower border with StazOn Ink. I then covered with masks as shown in the picture:

Next I stamped the background arches from the Gothic Fragments stamp set, with a mixture of pearl pink and red acrylic paints, using Cut-N-Dry foam to apply the paint to the stamps. TIP: squeeze some acrylic paint directly onto the sponge and work it onto the surface using a palette knife. This saves washing up of palettes and it wastes less paint.
Place the coloured sponges face down on a craft mat and the paint stays workable without drying out for ages. Apply to your stamp with a dabbing motion. Clean your stamps quickly after use with warm water. A soft toothbrush can be useful to remove paint from the stamp crevices.
Next, the tall stylised flower from the Punky Flowers stamp set was stamped with dark red acrylic paint. The top of the stamp was then stamped with StazOn along the base. The masks were then removed.
A bit of colouring was added using marker pens and pencils. The pencils gave a nice textured effect to the elephants. I then outlined the elements of the tall floral stamp using a fine-tipped black marker. This brought the images further forward and created a nice frame up the sides of the scene.
I sprayed the book stand with pearlescent varnish to protect, and finished by adding gilding wax to the edges.

Anne writes, "I had so much fun using this month's hot colours to decorate this book stand for my desk. The colours just said Indian Theme' to me. I used acrylic paints, and mixed and matched stamps from several different stamp sets. The design could easily be adapted to create a wall hanging or small canvas.
Good Luck everyone with the Challenge- some wonderful projects on here already this month. Anne xxx."

Thank you so much Anne for a brilliant tutorial,  and to the rest of the girls for your inspiration too. We hope that you will be inspired by these projects, and join in the challenge yourselves. We will be back next week with another post, and some more projects for you. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.