Humour!

The theme this week a Less is More is 'Humour'. This kind of card can be quite problematic, but there are several companies whose images are perfect for this subject.

This one is from Bugaboo and is such fun!

I coloured it with Copics and added a little paper from Pink Petticoat.

This card uses an image from Acid Drops and Whatnots and I love the stamps, reminiscent of the period of Jeeves and Wooster!

Those of you who know me of old know of my predilection for chickens and the Penny Black variety are just awesome. This card is made from a part image from Chicky Night, I masked out a couple of the girls for this one and made the sentiment on the computer arranging it so that it would fit into the Die cut from my new Clearly Besotted You Said It die collection.
Have a great weekend everyone!

New dies

My lovely friend Sherry kindly sent me some PTI dies and stamps and I had to have a play with some of them.

Here is a PTI die-cut mounted on a piece of music manuscript card which was cut into three sections.

The tag is from Lili of the Valley!
Simples!

It's for the Paper Players challenge this week.

Here is another PTI die-cut, mounted over a Stampin' Up image, with a Spellbinder scroll beneath it. I did wonder whether to use the technique where the word is stamped over too, but decided that I wanted it to show up a little more.

I find this one quite pleasing!

Cats and Dogs

The theme at Less is More this week is Cats and Dogs...what fun!

This little chap is from Penny Black, coloured with Copics, with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

Another simple card! The cats were a stamp which I bought many moons ago on eBay, it needs to be stuck onto an acrylic block with a Pritt Stick, but works well enough.

The mounting is from Stamping Up and the sentiment from There She Goes clear stamps.
I'm adding this to the ABC challenge of Wedding or Anniversaries

As you may tell from these cards, I'm more of a cat person than a doggy one, this one is mainly die cuts from Memory Box. Sentiment from Paper Smooches.

There's a version of this one without the watermark, (which obliterates the sentiment) on the Less is More blog. I doctored a Paper Smooches sentiment stamp to create this one... details are on the LIM blog.

Here he is again!

This is Magnum, I love this fun cat... not a lot of white space on this one, but a plainish backdrop!
The sentiment is computer generated in Fabulous 50's.
I've been having lots of my trouble with my laptop playing silly kids and going slowly or completely refusing to operate at all. Sadly sorting these kind of problems is not my forte, but I'm just grateful that it has decided to operate again... I don't know if it was because of anything that I did or didn't do, but long may it last!
Have a great weekend.

Bloom

CASology has the challenge with BLOOM on the cue card this week!

This is one of my favourite dies...Poppies from Memory Box, it's such an elegant shape!

Simple embossing (I think from Craft Concepts) and a touch of bling, a length of ribbon and it was done.

It's more by coincidence, but this seems to fit the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches
So I'll enter it for that too!

Thinking of you... with a difference

This morning I was asked to make a card for an elderly lady who has just been diagnosed with motor neurone disease . The person requesting the card didn't want a traditional get well card as it is a degenerative disease and she is not likely to get completely well again, but wanted to convey that she was thinking of her. This was the wording that we came up with between us... I suggested the 'keep your pecker up' bit and my friend suggested the rest. I think it should do the job!

It's a Paper Smooches image coloured with Copics and then glazed.

Mr Mojo has been hiding

Yesterday was a singularly unproductive day, today has gone a little better with a few cards being accomplished!

These fab flowers are for the Border One Layer Wednesday challenge hosted this time by the wonderful  Heather T. Both the flowers and the sentiment are from Stampendous ... maybe that's why they complement each other so well!

It's also for the Dynamic Duo celebratory challenge where any of the previous year's colour combos could be selected. I chose Primrose Petals plus my choice which is the greeny grey of the foliage. 

They have been coloured with Promarkers.

A package of goodies arrived from Paper Smooches this week and this lovely little flamingo was amongst the haul.

The border die which cut the choppy sea, was also part of my purchase.  I believe that the clouds are from a Dienamics die.

I'm submitting this to CAS on Sunday's Pastel Pretties challenge.

The final one for today uses this really cute ellie from SU's Patterned Occasions set. I masked the sentiment which is part of the stamp before inking as I didn't that three times over too. This card gains its inspiration from the Muse challenge where this card was the origin of my idea.

I used a few shades of SU purple ink and a scrap of Pink Petticoat DP from the drawer.

The sentiment is from SU Friendly Phrases.

As you can see I chose the theme of the three elephants in horizontal orientation from this sample card.

 

Colourful Card base.

Here is one of my sample cards for the challenge at "Less is More" this week, where the one layer card must be on a base of anything other than black, white, cream or kraft.

This one is simply stamped in deep blue ink on a pale blue base. Easy Peasy!

Here is the same stamp,  this time using the Black Magic technique, where the image is first stamped with white ink and then when dry, the print is coloured with watercolour pencils and the colour blended with a water brush. It's such a fun technique.

The last one employs an image from Acid Drops and Whatnots and is coloured with Promarkers . The collar was coloured once more using watercolour pencils.

They are such fun sentiments and nostalgic images.

I will be going home today after spending a couple of days at my daughter's... my grandchildren are such fun and babysitting is a pleasure!!

Hi Honey

A package of stamps and dies from Clearly Besotted arrived today and I couldn't wait to play with some of them.

Amongst my haul was this pack of hexagon stamps and the matching dies. I looked for a scrap of Designer paper to match with them and downloaded some from Pink Petticoat. I already had the PP bee image. River Rock ink from Stampin' Up matched the paper perfectly and so this card came into being.

As luck would have it the challenge at CASology this week is hexagons... so there you go, job done!

I'm off to my daughter's tomorrow to look after my grandson who has conjunctivitis and can't go to Nursery. I'll be staying over until Saturday, to babysit on Friday evening... good old Granny!

Sew Happy

I quite had fun making this card. I saw this inspiration card (below) at Muse and remembered that I had bought some Kanban tape measure stamps which to date had not seen ink, so out they came. I also found a piece of card from some packaging which I thought would make great chipboard shapes and so out also came my Movers and Shapers dies.

For the bottom panel, I used the technique from Technique Time Tuesday, (but missed the deadline) which is to colour a piece of card with Distress Inks using sponge daubers and then stamp onto it using a pad made from kitchen towel soaked in water instead of ink.

I used a zig zag stamp which I had removed and separated from a Stampin' Up wheel containing several stitch images. I think it makes quite a subtle effect.
The sentiment is partly from the Alley Way stamps and partly handwritten, you can probably guess which word is which!

Yet another lovely day today, aren't we lucky!

Bank Holiday Monday

Addicted to CAS has the code word rainbow this week.

I decided to go with inking a piece of card in rainbow colours with Copics, to use as the backdrop behind some die cut letters. I die-cut the word panel with a rectangular Nestie, which I elongated a little to accommodate the whole word.

I then added the little bee from A Day for Daisies, also coloured with Copics.

This one uses the sketch from Retro Sketches and a stamp from Blockheads. It is actually a huge stamp, so I stamped it and then scanned it so that I could use it in a reduced size. It's coloured with watercolour pencils and a water brush.

I added a scrap of Pink Petticoat DP and a length of green twine.

This final one uses elements from Casual Friday's Tic Tac Toe. 

I chose Punches or Dies, Text and Black and White.

I also based it on the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch

I really love the effect of this technique.

The sun is shining, I really should get out and do a little tidying in the garden today.

Sunny Sunday

I downloaded an album from iTunes of Gerald Finzi's music and I could listen to it all day. I discovered that my phone would charge when on the iPod dock and so it sits on my desk and accompanies me throughout the day.

It really is the most beautiful music!

Anyway onto a few cards... the first is for a couple of challenges.

The colours are from Crazy 4 Challenges

 I really love this combo! 

The sketch is from Seize the Birthday 

This one is for the A Day for Daisies Lace(y) challenge with the colour inspiration from the Fusion Challenge

This last one combined three challenges.

The colour turned out a rather startling blue when I tweaked it in Picasa, sorry about that, it's not actually so vivid!

I used the sketch from Clean and Simple, the colours from Dynamic Duos and the the theme of Mothers from  Paper Players.

We are going to watch Hampshire play cricket this afternoon, but we'll be having a carvery lunch first... wonderful!

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

Another Saturday

It must be a sign of old age, but Saturdays come around really quickly!

Here are a few more sample cards for the "Less is More" challenge this week, which is to use opposite colours from this colour wheel!

Some of them are quite tricky, but this first card was an attempt to use these colours NOT as a Christmas card!

The image and embossing are from Stampin' Up.

Another Stampin' Up stamp here, coloured with Marker Pens before stamping. I love the watercolour effect!

The new sponsor at Less is More this month is Acid Drops and Whatnots. 

I met Karen at the show at Ally Pally and thought that the images and sentiments were such fun. I am delighted that she has agreed to sponsor our challenge this month. DO check out the fun stuff on her site.

Here's another card using the same set of images, called One out of Three.

Here's another violet and green, but this time the colours were achieved with my squished leaves and flowers technique.

Same colours again here, but this time using ink!

Stampin' Up background and a Rubber Stampede flower.

Well it was fun... I hope you'll join in this week too!