My apologies for the lack of posts this week but my Dad is still in hospital and we are trying to get things sorted and, on top of that, on Tuesday I developed a streaming cold making me feel very sorry for myself!! Back at school for one week and I'm already picking up the kids germs - it doesn't bode well does it?
Anyway this week at Less is More the ladies are asking for Ovals so I have used the oval Designer Embossing Frame to make a card for my eldest grandson who, at the grand old age of 4, is starting 'proper' school on Monday. I seem to have used a lot of retired or retiring stamps for this card so I won't bore you with the details. I have used Pacific Point, as the colour of the uniform is Royal Blue, and Basic Gray for the trousers. The small picture on the right shows the inside of the card and I have done this because just lately whenever I see him he has drawn a 'special picture for Granny' and it always comes in a massive envelope covered in kisses so I thought I would send him a big one back!
Have a great weekend and I'll be back as soon as I can. Thanks to all who leave such lovely comments and I'm sorry that, just lately, I haven't got round to leaving many.

One Layer Foliage

This week's challenge at Less is More is a One Layer card with Foliage and the card I have made is SO simple! There is a brand new die in the Autumn/Winter catalogue called Autumn Accents, which is a variety of leaves and an acorn, and after cutting some leaves for another project, rather than throwing the waste away, I kept it to use as a stencil. I placed this onto a card blank secured with some post-its and simply sponged on Old Olive, Riding Hood Red and Summer Starfruit, one of the new In Colours. I lightly drew on some veins with my Old Olive marker, added a bow of Linen Thread and stamped a sentiment from Sincere Salutations overlapping the leaf. This set is unfortunately retiring but it definitely won't be retiring from my collection!

It was 'party time' at my house yesterday as my youngest grandson was 1 on Wednesday and his sister is 4 on Monday needless to say the theme was pink as Conor is not old enough to know what's going on and anyway, as is always the case, he was far more interested in the wrapping paper than anything else!! His time will come :0)

Six of Six and 3-2-1

What a lot of numbers - well this is the sixth card for the set I am making and I am cheekily entering it for the Less is More 3-2-1 challenge. I say cheekily because I think I may be stretching the boundaries a bit in that I am saying I have 3 squares, 2 words and 1 piece of Linen Thread, but I'm sure Chrissie & Mandi will put me right!!
To make the squares I stamped leaves from French Foliage in Basic Black onto Crumb Cake DSP, punched them out with the small square punch then matted them onto slightly larger Basic Black Squares punched with the large square punch. I cut a strip of Crumb Cake cardstock and randomly stamped the leaves in Crumb Cake and punched one end with a border punch that is now retired. Before fixing to my card blank I positioned the squares and tied a piece of Linen Thread around one end. The sentiment, from Curly Cute, was stamped in Basic Black at the bottom right.

3-2-1

3-2-1 yes that's the challenge at Less is More this week and this is my card - 3 Flowers, 2 Stripes and 1 Sentiment. It could also be my '6 of 6' for the card set I am making but I've already done that! The truth is that I haven't tidied up from making the set of cards I have been showing you this week and the flowers and the black border were left over so I thought I would put them to good use. All I had to do was cut a couple of extra daisies (from the Blossom Party die) and a strip of Crumb Cake. It's all very self-explanatory I think, as well as very simple) - cut and put together 3 daisies, cut two borders (one of mine is from the Adorning Accents Edgelits dies), assemble the card and stamp a sentiment!! My card base is Naturals Ivory and the sentiment is from Petite Pairs.

Tearing around again!

After spending a very long, very hot day gardening I needed a bit of relaxation (my idea of relaxation is doing something I enjoy not sitting around doing nothing!) so I had another go at the LIM challenge of 'Tearing'. This one was a very quick and easy card to make using Vellum Cardstock, Chocolate Chip cardstock, Early Espresso Taffeta Ribbon, 3 Metallic Brads, French Foliage and Sincere Salutations stamp sets.

The vellum and ribbon were attached to the cardstock using brads as I did not want glue showing through.
The panel is matted onto a Naturals Ivory card base.

Tearing

I hope you are enjoying what they are promising to be the hottest day of the year so far. I was up with the lark and out tackling my garden which, at the moment, is masquerading as a jungle but by lunchtime it was far too hot for me so I came into the cool and made a card for the LIM challenge. This week the theme is 'Tearing' and this is what I've come up with - using THAT stamp set again (Reason to Smile). I inked the stamp using Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeade markers and stamped the image three times, I then lined up the edge that I wanted torn with a piece of Lucky Limeade cardstock and randomly tore both pieces of card at the same time. I then trimmed the Whisper White cardstock just enough to leave a green border when I layered the two together and, before positioning onto a card blank, I wrapped some Lucky Limeade ribbon (no longer available) round, tied in a bow and added a sentiment tag. Two butterflies, cut with the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, finished the card off.
Have a great weekend and hopefully I'll be back soon x

One Layer - Feathers

Well another busy week with not much time to craft, so when I saw the LIM challenge this week was a one layer card using Fur or Feathers, I thought I'd grab a few minutes to make one - I'm not so sure I should have bothered because I'm not very happy with the result but thought I'd show you anyway!

I used a stamp from a Hostess set which was available in the Spring Mini and using my markers I coloured the stamp with three colours, I then used the smallest die from the Framelits set to emboss a frame (turn the die so the cutting side is up) around the image. Although I love very simple cards I felt this was a bit too sparse so I cut down one side with an Adorning Accents Edgelits die and embossed the opposite side with an Adorning Accents Embossing Folder. After inking around all the edges on the front of the card I masked a strip on the inside of the card and inked this as well - the small picture above shows the card when shut. Not a brilliant effort but I tried :0)

A Reason to Smile - Two posts in one day!

   Well I certainly have a 'Reason to Smile' not only have I managed TWO posts in one day I've also made a card to enter into the LIM challenge - Blue & Green. Regular visitors to my blog will know that, for the past 7 weeks, my Dad has been in hospital so I have had practically no time to craft and no time to even look at my favourite challenge sites. However today I have managed to find a couple of hours to play with my new stamp set Reason to Smile (see posts below for more details) and I also dared to have a quick look at the LIM challenge. I understand that some people do not like these two colours together but I think, providing you use the right shades, it can be a lovely colour combo. Anyway onto the card - I chose Old Olive and Pacific Point using three of the stamps from the set and, as this is a 2-step set, I used a couple of the 'fill in' stamps and one outline stamp randomly stamped onto Whisper White. The 'fill in' stamps are not completely smooth but have a sort of linen effect finish so I did not need to stamp off to achieve the nice subtle colour. This panel was then matted and layered onto Pacific Point and Certainly Celery cardstock leaving just a tiny border around so as not to overpower the stamped panel. After positioning onto a square white card blank I added a banner with a sentiment from Curly Cute. 

I have another busy week ahead of me so who knows when I'll be back but I will do my best to visit a few entries - however please accept my apologies if I don't get time to comment.

LIM - Something Shiny!

Well it's been a while since I entered the Less is More challenge, for no other reason than lack of time or circumstances! So this week I was determined to join in again and discovered that this week's challenge is 'Something Shiny' and here is my effort.

I used the Love & Laughter set from the Summer Mini and embossed the dress, sentiment and heart in silver then, just to add a bit of interest, I shaped two sides using the Adorning Accents Edgelits die (also in the Summer Mini). I used the die again to shape a piece of Brushed Silver cardstock and cut this slightly larger to enable me to layer the image on top and leave a border. After matting this onto a card blank I punched three flowers from Itty Bitty Shapes pack from some card stock which I had previously spritzed with Platinum Shimmer paint and leaves from the Bird Builder punch in Brushed Silver and added these to the top corner. Basic Rhinestones were placed in the centre of the flowers and the heart to finish the card.

Well the weather here is really miserable again - very windy and dark so I guess we're in for yet more rain very soon! Whatever you are doing this weekend have a good one x

One Layer - 3 Stamps

Making cards was not on my agenda for this morning as I have so many other jobs to do this weekend but when I saw the Less is More challenge - One Layer, 3 Stamps - an idea immediately sprang to mind (believe me that doesn't happen often!) so I had to go and get it out of my system.

I know a lot of people struggle with One Layer, CAS cards but I think they are my all time favourite - Less is More as they say!!!!

I have used two stamps from the brand new Bordering on Romance set, which is available in the Summer Mini, and a sentiment from Curvy Verses which were all coloured with Tangerine Tango and Old Olive markers. It was then a simple job to colour in the leaves and the flowers with a blender pen and, just to add a bit of interest, I scored two lines in the corner where the image is. Job done!

Come back tomorrow to see a card I have made for a charity appeal but in the meantime have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine - while it lasts x

Yellow Sketch

The first thing I do at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning is look at the challenge for the week over at Less is More and I have to say I didn't like what I saw this morning - a colour challenge using Yellow - because I'm not a great fan of this particular colour. So onto my next stop which  is always the Simply Stampin' challenge where I find a sketch for this week (top right).

So my very own challenge this week is to use yellow with the sketch :0)

I used So Saffron for my base card and used a piece of Whisper White as a mat. Before fixing this to the card blank I partially embossed two horizontal lines, using the Stripes Embossing folder, down the RH side of the card and then attached a knot of So Saffron Taffeta ribbon across the card. I then cut a piece of Whisper White using the smallest of the Framelits dies and a So Saffron frame using the smallest die and the next size up. An image from Bright Blossoms was coloured with  Daffodil Delight and Old Olive markers and stamped onto the white die cut (I have this set in clear mount so I didn't even need to use my stamp-a-ma-jig!) This was positioned onto the card before adding a tiny flower, punched with the Itty BittyShapes Punch , with a Basic Pearl in the centre and some more pearls underlining the sentiment. The bottom picture shows the inside of the card (which for some reason, despite taking 10 photos, I couldn't seem to get in focus!) and this is a diecut using the largest of the Framelits dies with the flower from Create a Cupcake stamped in one corner.

I hope you all have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend and now I must go and get ready for my grandchildren who are coming to visit this afternoon - although I think the housework would be best left until they are gone :0)

Sneak Peak Sketches

For the Less is More challenge this week Chrissie & Mandi have given two sketches with the instruction there must be lots of white space. This is something I definitely don't have a problem with, the more CAS the better for me, so I launched into making 4 cards for the challenge. It also gave me an opportunity to give you a sneak peak of a lovely new SU stamp set coming very soon!

I won't bore you with all the details other than to say the colours I used were Rose Red, Perfect Plum, More Mustard and Basic Black with a mixture of sentiments.

Back soon x

How Charming!

How Charming! is the title of the Less is More challenge this week and the ladies have asked that we use a charm on our cards. I have to admit that this is not something I use and the only time I can remember using them are for some christening cards I made some time ago. It just so happens I had one of the crosses left so I thought it was about time I revisited the christening gown cards that I have made in the past. This one is different in so much as it is a lot smaller and is not personalised (I have put the baby's name along the bottom using die cut letters before). Not really much to tell you about this other than I cut the dress from some fairly sturdy white card, making it up as I went along because the template I had made before was too big, ran the bottom bit of the dress through the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing folder and added a narrow strip of embossed card down the sleeves, really to take the plainness off. The flowers were punched with the Itty Bitty Shapes Pack flower punch and positioned around the neckline, with a small Basic Pearl in the centre. The ribbon tied around the top of the skirt is Whisper White Organza and the cross was stitched onto the knot in the ribbon with white cotton.
I've just looked at this post and it looks like the dress is stuck onto some sort of cream card blank so just to clarify - it is a free standing 'dress' card and the cream colour is just the paint on my shelf and walls!!!
Well I did manage to get a card done for one of the challenges today meaning 2 posts in one morning - oh dear I really must get on with some other jobs now. See you soon x

Challenging Doodles!

Oh dear Chrissie & Mandi at LIM really are challenging us this week with their One Layer Card with Doodles!!!!
Now, whilst I love cardmaking and papercrafts, drawing is definitely NOT one of my talents - even my doodling consists of squares and triangles. Anyway here are two cards I have come up with and I'm not proud of either of them but thought I would share them with you anyway!
I decided to use my 'doodles' in place of words so a heart on the first one and a smiley face on the second. I inked the part of the sentiment stamps that I wanted with a marker pen and also drew the heart and face with markers. Once this was done I doodled a 'dots and kisses' border with a Basic Gray marker. The heart started out as an outline with a tiny heart drawn in the top right but then I decided it would look better coloured in however, as you can see, it didn't quite cover the original heart - it actually looks like it should be there though so I'm not going to worry about it! Can't really say much more other than plenty of white space and yes, this very definitely was a challenge :0)

Shades of Green

The Less is More challenge for this week is '3 Shades of Green' and this is my entry. Now, if you can't say anything else about it, you can say it is very definitely clean & simple and it took less than 10 minutes to make!!

I started by stamping the flower stem from the Simply Soft Hostess set in what I thought was Old Olive but I'll come back to that later, then matted this onto Certainly Celery and then on to a piece of textured Garden Green cardstock. A knot of Old Olive Narrow Taffeta was tied around and then the panel was fixed on to a DL card blank. The sentiment was punched with the Word Window punch and matted onto an Old Olive tag cut with the Lots of Tags die.

Right, back to the stamped image - I thought I had an Old Olive stamp pad and merrily made my card, however when I came to stick the sentiment onto the tag I noticed it was a different colour to the cardstock. On further investigation I realised that, in my hurry to make my card, I had got the Wild Wasabi ink pad instead of the Old Olive. The colours all looked ok together and as the card was practically finished it seemed a waste to start again. So my apologies for the '3 Shades of Green' actually being '4 Shades of Green' but maybe you wouldn't have noticed anyway :0)

Picture Inspiration

I have made two cards for today's challenge at Less is More which is 'Picture Inspiration' and the inspiring picture is shown top left - a beautiful colour combination of soft grey, green and pink.

For the grey I took some Basic Gray DSP from the Neutrals Paper Stack and punched out a Decorative Label for one card and a large Scallop Circle (available in the Spring Mini) for the second, using the dotty patterned side on one and the script side for the other. These were glued into place on a white square card blank and I drew some faux stitching around the shapes with the fine end of a Basic Gray marker. The flowers were punched in Pink Pirouette using the Boho Blossoms punch and the leaves are in Certainly Celery and punched with the Bird Builder punch. A small sentiment was stamped with Certainly Celery and punched out with the Jewelry Tag punch, and a non-SU pearl was added to the centres of the flowers to finish the cards.

I am very late (for me!) posting my cards for the LIM challenge this week because, for once, instead of crafting as soon as I got up I went out for a mooch round the shops with my sister. We went and had a look in some out-of-town shops for a change and, although we didn't buy anything much, it was nice to do a bit of window shopping and drink coffee of course! 

       I hope you all have a lovely weekend and don't feel too cold after all that glorious weather we've had :0)

It's challenge day again!

 

Well it's Saturday morning and it's challenge day again - don't the weeks just fly by? I have 2 cards to show you this morning, both of which fit the Less is More challenge - Take 3 Challenges, and the second which was made for the sketch challenge over at Simply Stampin'. I'll start with this one though because I know that Chrissie & Mandi won't be too happy with the lack of white space on the second card :0)

As I wanted to make a get well card I used the owl punch to make a nurse and decided to use the Bashful Blue striped DSP and Pacific Point cardstock for her dress and 'cape' as this is the colour I always think of when picturing nurses! The wings were actually punched from the 2-step Bird Punch and the red cross from one of the punches in the Itty Bitty Punch Shapes pack. Her hat, which doesn't show up too well in the picture is the same shape that was used for the dress but turned upside down. I cut 2 circles with the Circles Die to mount the owl on and embossed the white one with the Square Lattice Embsossing folder, glued this to the card blank and added a sentiment from Curvy Verses in Pacific Point.

The challenges I used were Wk 9 - A Touch of Red, Wk 12 - Off Centre, Wk 22 - Shades of Blue and Wk 29 - Things that Move.

Now onto my second card (made predominantly for the Simply Stampin' Sketch)

For this card I used a piece of Whisper White card on which I had used the Mother of  Pearl technique with Perfect Plum ink (left over from a card I made last week!) The bottom edge of the cardstock was punched with the Scallop Edge Border punch, matted onto a piece of Perfect Plum cardstock and a bow of Perfect Plum Taffeta ribbon tied around before layering onto a white card blank. The branch from Hopeful Thoughts was stamped in Elegant Eggplant and some flowers were punched from a scrap piece of the Mother of Pearl cardstock, with an Itty Bitty Shapes punch, and positioned onto the branch with one of the tiniest Basic Pearls for the centres. The stamp is also from Hopeful Thoughts but, as I didn't want all of the sentiment, I used a Perfect Plum marker to ink the bit I wanted, stamped onto Whisper White and then punched out with the Modern Label punch. The label was inked around the edges with a sponge dauber before positioning onto the card.
The challenges I used for this card were Wk 49 - Predominantly Purple, Wk 55 Punches or Diecuts and Wk 56 - Don't Scrap It (the Mother of Pearl cardstock!).
A rather long post today so I'll just say have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine x

Happy Toadstools!

When I said at the end of my last post I'd be back soon I didn't expect it to be quite so soon! However, with the weather being so miserable and me as well, what better to do than craft. When I get up on a Saturday morning the first thing I do is look to see what the challenge is on Less is More and this morning it is Masking - now I use this technique quite a lot normally but I just couldn't think of anything I could do and then I had a sudden flash of inspiration to use the lovely toadstool stamp from Everybunny which is just perfect for masking. (I have shown a picture, above right, of the stamp to give you an idea of how I did the masking). I began by stamping the image onto a post-it note and then very carefully cut it out to make my mask, then I stamped onto Whisper White, using Early Espresso, stamping the central image first. Using the mask I stamped the image another 4 times, twice either side of the original and then coloured in using a blender pen and a mixture of colours. I managed to get a spot of ink at the top of the Whisper White so I decided to stamp the butterfly to cover it up, unfortunately I didn't quite get it in the right place so the spot is still visible but thankfully not enough to ruin the card. I wanted a generic sentiment so just used the hello which was inked using an Old Olive marker. I matted the finished panel onto a piece of Lucky Limeade cardstock, leaving the tiniest of borders around, and then fixed in the the centre of a plain white card blank.

Oh well the rain has stopped now so I'd better get my skates on and get to the supermarket before it starts again!

Script Challenge

 

I have two cards today for the Less is More challenge, which this week is 'Script'. The card on the left is using French Foliage and En Francais with a sentiment from Petite Pairs and is all stamped in Old Olive. I began by stamping off the En Francais stamp before stamping the image down the left hand side of the card then I took the three leaves and stamped randomly over the script and, without re-inking, I stamped them again. A lot of the white card base is covered but I think that, because none of the images are solid, the white shows through and gives the impression of still having quite a lot of white space - well I hope so anyway!

The second card is made with a sentiment stamp from Happiest Birthday Wishes (a hostess set) and, because Chrissie & Mandi have said the script must not just be a sentiment stamp, I have adapted it a little. The original stamp starts with the 'B' and ends with a '!' and just above the 'T' it says happy, so I masked off the 'happy' and inked the rest of the stamp with Soft Suede and placed in the centre at the bottom of the card. Using my stamp-a-ma-jig I stamped again at either side to make a script border. I then took another stamp from the same set and inked just the 'Wishing you a happy' part with a Soft Suede marker and positioned this above. The mushrooms are from the Everybunny set and were stamped in Soft Suede and Old Olive then coloured in using a blender pen.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I look forward to coming round and visiting you all - when I've got the housework and the shopping done that is!!

Sprinkled Expressions goes Neutral

I have three cards to share with you today which I am entering for the Less is More challenge, which this week is neutrals. Just recently I have been making cards which are more 'fussy' than my usual style so today I decided head back towards the style that I love - which is very definitely clean and simple.

I have used the SAB set called Sprinkled Expressions for all three cards using different colour combos but sticking to the neutrals. 

The first one is using the flower stamp which I stamped in Soft Suede onto Very Vanilla and, without re-inking, stamped twice more with the images overlapping. The sentiment stamp was inked using a marker as I wanted the flowers underneath the sentiment, not on top as they are on the stamp. I punched three tiny flowers in Soft Suede with a punch from the Itty Bitty Punch Pack and placed these onto the stamped images and added a tiny Basic Pearl to the centres. The whole thing was matted onto Soft Suede cardstock and then onto a cream card blank.

For my second card I used Basic Black and Whisper White and again stamped three images without re-inking onto a Top Note die cut. This was matted onto a piece of Basic Black cardstock and a knot of Basic Black narrow taffeta ribbon tied around before layering it onto a card blank.

The sentiment was inked using a marker as, this time, I did not want the stars which are on the stamp at all and punched out with the Word Window punch.

On this card I added a small Basic Rhinestone to each star and two on the sentiment

The last card is using River Rock which I am not too sure counts as 'neutral' in Chrissie & Mandi's eyes but is in the SU Neutrals collection so who knows? (In the photo it looks like Crumb Cake anyway!!)

This time the image was only stamped twice (somehow didn't seem right having THREE hearts on a card) this time with the sentiment stamped as it comes. The tiny hearts were punched from River Rock with the Owl Builder punch and two were added to the stamped hearts and one next to the sentiment. At this point the card was a little to CAS, even for me, so I added a knot of Soft Suede Taffeta ribbon down the side with three more punched hearts.

Rather a long post today so I'll just finish by saying I hope you all have a great weekend (despite the weather!) x