Baby Blue

Here is a card using one of my favourite bear stamps from Penny Black. He looks so huggable!

It's a simple card with a little DP (Pink Petticoat) and a little embossing (I think it's Crafts Too, but I'm sure someone will put me right)) and a sentiment from  Cathie Shuttleworth at Personal Impressions.
He's coloured with Promarkers.

I thought that it would be perfect with this inspiration picture from Just Us Girls and also the Masculine card using Designer Paper from Casual Fridays

... and now I'm going back out to have a read in the lounger in the garden in the glorious weather we're having today.

Another recipe at LIM

The recipe at "Less is More" this week is to make a shaped card, ie not a square or rectangle!

Here I made a Onesie from an A5 card blank. I used a circle Nestie for the neck and an oval Nestie for the leg holes, decorated with the scalloped versions of each die. A few buttons and a simple bow and it was done.

Here is a card which could be used for a variety of purposes... I may add a sentiment later, but it's decidedly for something which involves a Church service!
The crosses are from some Spellbinder dies and the card shape was cut with a Sizzix die.

These next two are simple but have NO WHITE SPACE whatever, however this one is totally grey space and the last one is totally blue, but I'm not sure if they count  as CAS, but they are shaped and I thought you might like to see them anyway!!
A few snips to another A5 card blank and an elephant appeared. I stamped him with a crackle stamp which I clear embossed  before swiping the whole card with Memento London Fog ink. All he needed were toes, eyes and an ear and he was done.
This one is also for the One Layer challenge at Crazy4 Challenges

The last one is another incarnation of the whale I posted last week, this one has some emboss resist circles on it  and my grandson's name, applied at the end this time and not inked over as in the previous one! 

Yesterday I spent the day at the Ageas Bowl (formerly the Rose Bowl) watching Hampshire playing cricket. It was the perfect weather for cricket, clear skies and beautiful warm sunshine all day. The fact that we were sitting with friends made it even better.

Our son and his wife will be coming this weekend and we will be going for a Wine dinner at a superb hotel in the New Forest. They are both doctors and have just passed their final GP exams so it will be a superb way to celebrate.

Have a great weekend and do join us in our challenge!

Baby's boot

I really liked the little boot which Birgit, one of our LIMettes, used on her card this morning. I didn't have a similar image so I thought that I'd draw one. It's a bit rough and ready, but if anyone would like it, do please take it to use for baby cards or whatever!

Chrissie

Baby Cards for LIM

At 'Less is More' this week, the challenge is to make a card for a baby or child. I needed to make quite a few baby cards recently and so here are some of them.

I love these baby feet, it's an Anita's stamp which I've had for ages, but just love it. Lots of Cuttlebug embossing on both of these cards too!

These are all rather similar in style, but I like clean cut, simple designs for baby cards.

The lacy edge was achieved with a Martha Stewart border punch.

This one has a little Cuddly Buddly DP and a Penny Black image, once more with a horizontal band.

Here are a couple of cards for my friend's God daughters. Eleanor has got a new puppy so her card had to have a dog on it! 

The mermaid image is a digi from A Day for Daisies.

I really hope you'll join us for this challenge!

OLW 88

This week at One Layer Wednesday, it's Heather's first time as hostess and for her first challenge she has chosen 'Keep it Small', the focus of the card must be no larger than 2"x2"... a mini masterpiece!

Here's mine!

For this card I masked a small 2"x2" square with Post it  notes and began by stamping the teasels from the Rubber Stamp Gallery with Versamark and clear embossing them.

I then inked the square starting at the top right hand corner with SU Sahara Sand ink, applied with an ink dauber. I then moved in a south westerly direction adding some Crumb Cake ink and finally some Adirondak Cranberry.

I then positioned the SU Joie stamp with my lego positioner and stamped it in Soft Suede ink. Finally came the addition of some text from the SU French Foliage set and the stamping of some of the teasels in Cranberry.

After the embossed teasels were cleaned of any surface ink the masks were removed and hey presto... all done.

For this shape of image I wouldn't normally round the corners of the card...but one was slightly dinged.. so I kinda had to!

Off to lunch today with some old friends of my husband. The chap lived in the same road as he did when he was growing up... so they go back a long way. His wife sadly has Parkinson's Disease and is confined to a wheelchair, but normally manages to enjoy a lunch out!

It will be great to see them again. I don't think they'll recognise Phil as they haven't seen him since he lost 5 stones 12 pounds... I'm up to the 46 pound loss at the moment. 11 lbs to go!

Just three stamps... One Layer at LIM

It's that time again at "Less is More"... the second challenge of the month which means only one thing... a One Layer Card.

For this one, the criterion is to use Just 3 Stamps!

LIMettes have now become so comfortable with making this kind of card, that sometimes they appear in our challenges where they are not specifically requested! Wonderful!

This card uses a couple of stamps from a  retired SU set called Oh So Lovely... and that's just what I think they are. I stamped them using Basic Gray ink and coloured the poppy with Promarkers. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

 More poppies here, this time from the Wax Fruit Company. Arielle does such fabulous drawings. Here we have two digital stamps plus one real one from Imagine That. The images were coloured with Promarkers.

This last one is completely CAS. Three stamps from Hero Arts, plus an embossed Nestie oval. Being clear stamps positioning is no problem.

My daughter rang me to relate a conversation she and Daisy (my three year old granddaughter) had had over tea.

Daisy:       Guess who's the man of my dreams Mummy!

Mummy:   I can't imagine Daisy.

Daisy:       I'll give you some clues.

                He's got blonde hair...

Mummy:   Is it Jamie?

Daisy:       No... he's got brown shoes! (my daughter collapsed at this little gem)

Mummy:   Is it Thomas? 

Daisy:       No, his name begins with G and he loves dinosaurs.

Mummy:   It must be George!

Daisy:       You're right!

Priceless! Quite a description...Sounds like quite a man... for a three year old!

George has been her friend since she was born, his mum was in the same NCT group as my daughter, but they now live in Brussels... maybe she wishes she could see him more often!

Here they are enjoying a fruit bar during a visit to Brussels in October last year... this may have been the last time they were together!

Have a great week!

A whale of a birthday!

This is just a bit of fun!

Jennifer, posing the challenge for OLW this week has come up with the notion of a differently shaped, one layer  card.

I started by making an A6 card blank and then simply trimmed around a few edges!

The sentiment was made by adhering the letters from a Sizzix Typset die and inking over the top, then gently removing the letters.

The eye was punched out and the mouth drawn with a gel pen. A few bubbles were stamped over the surface of the whale using one of my fab purchases in my Rubbernecker £5 grab bag.

I thought it would be quite a cute card for a little one!
It's also for the One Layer Challenge this month at St Luke's Charity Blog.
I shall be sending another bunch of cards to them very soon to help raise funds ... it's such a worthwhile cause!

Retro Sketches

I recently came across the challenge called Retro Sketches. 

Here is this week's sketch, which has been used for several entries to "Less is More" for the yellow challenge this week.

Needless to say I haven't used the colour from LIM but I thought I would use the colours from The Sunday Stamper Week 204 which are Blue and Brown

I don't know the make of the Paisley stamp, but the Paisley embossing folder is from Cuttlebug, the butterfly is from Stampin' Up and the sentiment from Hero Arts... quite a mixed bunch!

I hope the weather warms up soon!

LIM's Springtime colour

The challenge at "Less is More " this week is back to a colour challenge and this week we have chosen a fabulous Springtime colour... yellow!
I succumbed and bought this fabulous Memory Box die called Chloe Stem, there's something about this style of organic image that I really love!
The background is made from a spot of emboss resist using some fabulous Paisley stamps which I believe I picked up at the NEC in a clearance box....Plus a variety of other small stamps which I used to overstamp in the darker shades of yellow Distress Ink. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

More emboss resist here and details of this one are on the LIM blog. I do so enjoy making this type of card.

This one is a bit of fun... a spinner card of a tumbling duck!

I did a tutorial of how to make a spinner card some time ago and you can see it here.

My grandchildren have been with us for a couple of days and my three year old granddaughter wanted to make some cards ... here she is busy at my desk... she made and COLOURED the card with the turtle... she stamped the sentiment herself and stuck the image on the card.

I coloured the turtle on the desk... hers is almost as good... I shall have to watch out!

She can write her name by herself and is learning the correct route around all the letters!

Well done Daisy!

DO have a great week everyone!

New Life in Spring

Here's another card using the sketch from this week's "Less is More" challenge but this is for the challenge at The Pink Elephant this week, which is Spring! To me it is a season of New Life and so this image from A Day for Daisies is perfect!
The image was coloured with Promarkers and then cut out using a Nestie allowing the mother goose's head to protrude outside the square.
The sentiment is an old cling stamp whose origin sadly has long been forgotten.
We have our grandchildren with us at the moment and it's wonderful... but we do get tired! Tomorrow we are going to look for new shoes!

WOYWW 152

Looking at this, no-one would believe that I had removed EVERYTHING from the surface of my desk and wiped it clean of all traces of snippings, dust, escaped embossing powder, attempted embellishments and other detritus, merely minutes previously.
It doesn't take me long to make a mess.
Despite my re-organisation of my cling stamps recently, I still can't find a couple of stamp sets... one cling, one clear. It's SO annoying, I really can't imagine where they can be... the sad thing is that I  may have put them some where 'safe' and haven't any recollection of it.
Please say I'm not the only one who does this!
My grandchildren will be coming to stay tomorrow, their parents have a wedding to attend on Friday, so not a lot of crafting will take place whilst they are around... but it will be fun!
DO pop over to Julia the Queen of all Workdesk hopping and take a look at what other people's desks look like this week!