LIM is 1

It seems forever ago that Mandi emailed  me to ask if I'd be willing to begin a new challenge blog with her for the kind of cards we both love... Clean and Simple! 

Having admired her work for quite some time I was eager to join in with the venture. I went to the Island to visit her and discuss how we'd go about creating our challenge and that day "Less is More" was conceived and merely weeks later it was born.

In the year which has passed since that time it has grown from strength to strength and we can only thank you all for your wonderful support and participation.

We began with a colour challenge and so here we are, a year on, with another one.

This time it's

AQUA

Here is a card using SU Simply Soft stamps, the colour stamp being positioned with my bits of lego and a sheet of acetate. (I never throw away packaging from things like dies, I chop them up into pieces suitable for using with alcohol inks, embossing folders, stamping or for making positioning sheets for my DIY stampamajig.

The border was cut with a Spellbinder Edgeability Border die... I love these dies and even though they are longer than my Cuttlebug plates I still use them in the machine, as long as the card I'm cutting is shorter than the plates.

I often add a piece of card, decorated in some way... often with dies, to attach a ribbon to. I prefer this to tying a ribbon around the whole card. This was done with my usual method of  attaching the flat piece of ribbon (at the back only) of the decorated strip and tying a short length of ribbon in a single knot onto it.

This one shows how different methods of applying the same inks can achieve different effects.  For this card I just used one ink pad. I think it was Tumbled Glass DI although it may have been Broken China... I'm not sure now... what it is to be getting old!

The background was applied with an Ink Duster brush and the images, from Personal Impressions and SU, were stamped with neat ink. I mounted the stamped panel on another piece of white card, the edges of which I embossed using a score board and an embossing stylus.

The computer generated sentiment was die cut with a Spellbinders die

Ours is such a covetous addiction!
Last week I saw a fab card from Zoe where she had used a crimper to suggest the panel in our LIM sketch... I thought it such a good idea that I had to get myself a crimper... never really seeing the need for one previously. Mine arrived yesterday; I bought it for a mere £6.99 on eBay  from a company in Bath, where everywhere else they are more than £20... I think I did well.
Here I tried to make the corrugated mount for this heart. I managed to allow enough extra card to make a square when crimped, but haven't quite got the knack of inserting a small piece of card exactly at right angles to the rollers. I can only get better. The heart die is from Marianne's.

This is for a friend who's having a difficult time at the moment.. just so that she knows that I'm thinking of her.
An Art Impressions background stamp which I just bought on sale and a Crafty Individuals floral stamp. DI inks in Tumbled Glass and Broken China with a secondary flower image stamped in Whisper White and embossed with WOW White Puff Twinkle Embossing Glitter.
The sentiment is from Hero Arts.
Having been away from home for longer than a week... looking after my grandchildren in Bath and then in Essex looking after my brother-in-law, I feel the need for a little crafting.
I'm off now to see what else I can crimp!