Noel

When I was making this card for Freshly made Sketches, I realised that I seem to have lost a tiny word die. I was going to use the Sizzix 'noel'. but it has disappeared. I guess it may have gone in the bin with scraps. but it does annoy me when I can't find things. A Wink of Stella oen went missing for quite a while, but gladly that turned up again so I can only hope that my noel die will too!

The one I used here is from Clearly Besotted. The stag is from Memory Box, the mountain from Simon Says Stamp and the trees from Marianne Craftables. I adapted the lower border (Marianne) to match the upper one, by over cutting with my Simon Says Stamp stitched edge. It originally had a pierced one!

200th Challenge for "Less is More"

Today sees the start of challenge number 200 for 

"Less is More"

Wow... has that time gone quickly!

I couldn't be more delighted that the challenge is still so popular, with submissions totalling around the 100 mark every week and contributors hailing from all parts of the globe.

A huge thank you to everyone who participates and of course to my fellow designers.

Let's hope everyone has fun with our Celebration theme this week.

This card is another masked, inked and stamped one, with a little embossing paste added for good measure.

The trees and sentiment were from a  Penny Black set, free with a magazine and the snowflakes were embossed from a Memory Box stencil.. I just used the smaller ones from it. I sprinkled some embossing powder over the paste and waited until it was dry before heat setting it.

For the sky I used a combination of Shaded Lilac, Soft Sky and Weathered Wood Distress Inks, applied with sponge daubers. The trees were stamped with Peeled Paint and Forest Moss DIs.

Here is a simple card, stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with White EP. The stamps are from Stampin' Up. The problem with light coloured embossing powder on dark cardstock is eradicating extraneous grains of powder from areas other than the images themselves. I think nothing looks worse than careless embossing. I always use an antistatic bag before stamping and spend quite some time huffing and puffing together with either a fine paintbrush or a pokey tool to make sure that all errant grains are removed. It's amazing how one speck can spoil the overall effect of embossing!

The champagne was coloured with watercolour pencils and then covered with Glossy Accents.

This has an image from Visible Image, inked with three shades of Distress ink and spritzed with water before stamping. When dry it was overstamped with tiny dots and stars from a mini Lavinia stamp and embossed in gold.

The butterfly embossing at the bottom is from a Sizzix border embossing folder and I'm sad to say that I cracked my Cuttlebug machine in the process of doing it!

Update... I called Hobbycraft (from where the Cuttlebug was purchased) and the manager put a new one on one side for me which I picked up this morning!

Wonderful!

The sentiment is from Penny Black.

Addicted to CAS - Dots

Time Out Challenge - Embossing with optional twist of sparkle

I tried to do one of those reverse die-cut thingies here, but there were too man

y fiddly bits to stick back in. The card behind the Memory Box wreath is holographic silver.

The sentiment is from Penny Black

I'll try to add some more cards here... but I don't know where the time has gone to this week!

First Birthday

Here is another card for a little one. I think that this is such a sweet little jumbo. It's a digi whose origin I'm afraid I don't know!

I coloured him with Mirage Pens and mounted him on an Embossalicious embossed sheet of card.

The name was cut with a Cuttlebug set of alpha dies and coloured with the same pens as the image and then twinkled with Glamour Dust!

I love this name but always had to smile when the kids at school used to pronounce it Jovis!

It's another for the challenge at  CAS on Sunday - Children's card

Thanks

Our concert of the Armed Man by Jenkins on Saturday evening was truly a memorable experience. The lighting, film footage and general atmosphere, plus the superb direction of our conductor all contributed to something very special. The choir sang beautifully and the whole occasion ended with a standing ovation which in itself spoke volumes.

Here is a simple die-cut card using Memory Box and Simon Says Stamp dies. Each little floret has a tiny, flat, black gem in the centre. As always I stick double sided tape onto the back of the cardstock before die-cutting so that all I need to do once cut, is to peel and press. This is particularly useful with fine fiddly dies like these!

AAA Cards - Thanks

First Christmas Cards

I was asked to make a couple of Christmas cards for some little people's first Christmas!

This one uses a Day for Daisies image which I think is an absolute cutie.  It's coloured with Mirage Pens and gently twinkled with Glamour Dust. The background is embossed with a Sheena Douglass folder and the mistletoe is from a Sizzlet die.

Time out Challenge - Embossing with the optional twist of sparkle

For this one I used a Lili  of the Valley image which I altered slightly to change the beanie hat into a Santa hat. I masked off part of the stamp before inking and after stamping drew the tail and bobble on the hat with a black fine pen. It's coloured  with Mirage pens. The embossing on this one is from a Sizzix folder.

CAS on Sunday - Children's card

I hope both little ones have a wonderful first Christmas!

Jingle all the way

I really hope that this year I will have made enough Christmas cards to send to our friends without a mad making session at the last moment. 

At Less is More we have had a few challenges which had a Christmas slant to them to allow everyone the chance to make Christmas versions should they wish to. This week however is a little more difficult to get away from Christmas as the challenge is entitled Jingle all the way. 

For the first two cards, I simply Googled 'Santa's sleigh' and found a downloadable, printable image. As this one was reasonably long I decided to make two cards from the one image.

The bells are from Memory Box and the sentiment cut with a Sizzix die, using white card which I coloured to match the image using a Spectrum Noir pen. 

The  frame was cut with a  Sizzix Framelit square.

Here are the other reindeer!This time the sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

A little Docrafts Rudolph, embossed in gold and coloured with Mirage PEns.The embossing is also from a little Docrafts border folder.

The sentiment is from Sizzix again.

This is the last example for this week, which I popped on the Less is More Blog. Details are there!

I shall be singing in a performance of The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins this evening in Portsmouth. It's to be synchronised with a film specially produced for the purpose, with footage from many conflicts over the years beginning with World War I. I think it should be very moving!

CASe this Sketch!

Here is this week's sketch from CASe this Sketch!

 I have a little card to add to my pile of Christmas cards. The image was stamped, masked and stamped twice more before being coloured with Mirage pens. I ran 'the sea' through a Cuttlebug folder to add a few waves.

The sentiment was computer generated.

Inspiration

There are a few crafters whose work never fails to inspire me. One such of these is Heather Telford. Not only is she inspirational but she is always more than willing to share her expertise with others.

The other day I saw one of her cards which just made me itch to have a try at something similar!

Here is her card!

Mine is not a direct copy but I tried a similar technique, using similar stamps and colours. Long may your inspiration continue Heather... and thank you!

Festive

What could be more festive than a pair of Christmas boxer shorts?

They are for the challenge at CASology

Here we have an image from Woodware coloured with Mirage pens then over stamped with a little holly sprig and adorned by a little Christmas bow stamp for good measure.

The Holly embossing folder is from Sizzix and the sentiment one was free with a magazine I believe.

I actually based it on the sketch from Fusion but the colours here are about as far removed as it could possibly be from the inspiration picture.

It was fun making this one!

Holly, holly

This was a bit of an experiment. I began with a Penny Black Holly stencil which I used to add embossing paste to some designer paper. When it was dry I added another sprig of holly, die-cut in vellum using my Penny Black Holly die. The embossing paste matches the vellum really well, so it's difficult to tell which is which in this picture.

It was finished with some pearls for the berries and a little tag for the sentiment.

Penny Black at Allsorts - Anything Goes

CAS Sketch

Addicted to CAS has a sketch this week and this is my offering for it. I chose the colours from the Fusion challenge although I may make another card using the Fusion sketch which I think is super.

The snowflake stamps are Inkadinkado, I think the snowflake die is WPlus9 and the background die is Memory Box.

Yesterday we had lunch in Studland Bay which was wonderful, I think that on a good day weather wise it would be a stunning place, it looked pretty good even in the rain! The food at The Pig on the Beach was delicious!

Leaping deer

This card follows the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

It's also for The Craft Concept Krafty Christmas

A couple of weeks ago I did some demoing in my local Hobbycraft store and the the manager gave me a stack of Docraft Christmas paper. I haven't used DP for a while but this is a great stack in shades of red, green and neutral tones and in fact this card matches the colour scheme I'm wearing today too!

The small snowflakes are the residue of a new Memory Box (I think) heart die, the tag is Avery Elle, the deer, Memory Box and the large snowflake Lawn Fawn. The sentiment is from Hero Arts. I thought that I was going to be a little more pleased with this card as I was making it, but it just misses a little something somehow!

Never mind better luck next time!

More than one tree LIM challenge

I love images of trees and have dies and stamps a-plenty so this challenge is a real gem for me!

The challenge at LESS IS MORE is More than one tree

Here are a few cards I made with this challenge in mind.

This card has a Dreamweaver panel embossed with black embossing paste and sprinkled with Glamour Dust. The paper (something which I rarely use) is green gingham from Docrafts. The edges are die-cut with a Lil Inkers die and there are a couple of Sizzix snowflakes for good measure. Computer generated sentiment.

This is a simple card of diecuts. Dark blue base, Clearly Besotted sentiment and trees from Marianne Craftables, all with a little twinkle of Glamour Dust.

This one is a little outside the box... there is more than one tree represented here... pine and holly! Again a whole bunch of die-cuts, from Impression Obsession (I think) and again a sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

This is also for the challenge at Festive Friday, where there is a beautiful wreath as inspiration!

I think it also fits quite well with the Time Out Challenge which has this lovely picture to inspire!

This little one is from Penny Black slapstick stamps, simply coloured and twinkled.

It's for the Penny Black Challenge All wrapped up!

Although the white space on this one is brown, it's still a simple style. Again lots of die cuts, the sentiment is from Memory Box and the trees from Marianne's again with a couple of Memory Box deer!

This is the one I popped on the Less is More Blog. It's one of my favourite techniques, inking and masking! The trees are from Poppy Stamps.

The die cutting here is from Lil Inkers.

I hope everyone can have a bit of fun with this one... I could be making tree cards all day!

Fa La La

Here I began with three challenges and tried to combine them all.

They are Freshly Made sketches and here is the sketch I followed

Muse and here is the inspiration.

I chose to use the triangular tree and embellished it in a similar way, but used pearls.

I also used the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches which are Real Red, Very Vanilla and Metallic gold.

The embossing folder is Adagio from Couture Creations and the die is from Penny Black. The tree is from Clearly Besotted.

You can never have enough Christmas cards can you!

Christmas goose

I bought this Little Claire stamp of a couple of geese at the NEC on Thursday; there's something really appealing about them. The stamp itself has a star as the focus of their attention but I thought I would add a star charm for them to gaze at instead.

It's simply coloured with Mirage Pens and accompanied by a little Pink Petticoat paper and a Hero Arts sentiment.

It's based on the sketch from CASe this sketch

This is also for the challenge at CAS on Sunday where using ribbon or  twine is required.

...and now to play with more of my goodies recently purchased!!

What is a leaf stamp when it's not a leaf?

The challenge this time at Craft Stamper Take it Make it Challenge, is to use a non-Christmas stamp to make a Christmas image!

The link to the challenge is on my sidebar.

I chose to use this Paper Artsy leaf stamp to make a little Christmas Penguin!

There is a line in the design on this stamp which just follows a natural line where the colouring of the penguin's plumage changes. I heat embossed each side of the stamp, one in white, one in black and added a little punched circle for his eye with an ink dot for the centre.

The embossing folder is from Cuttlebug and was free with my new machine. The snowflake is fro Simon Says Stamp, I think the holly is from an Impression Obsession die.

I have made this stamp into  a robin and a chicken in the past, it's really quite adaptable!

Do join in this challenge... it's fun!

One Layer Time again!

Anne and I had a wonderful time at the Craft Show at the NEC on Thursday. I haven't managed to unpack my goodies as yet as I've been in Bath looking after my grandchildren since then.

Anyway this card for the one layer challenge at Less is More entitled Starry starry night. It has stars from Artemio and splats from Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge set. The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

My second card has stars from Chloe and a sentiment from Hero Arts, both embossed in silver, with a few gems added for good measure.

Here are a couple made with the free stamp from Simply Cards and Papercraft, it's a great free gift this month!

This last one has a tiny star stamp from Lavinia, stamped many times through a circular mask and clear embossed. The circle cut-out itself was die-cut with the Impression Obsession house die which was then used to mask within the circle so that the sky could be daubed with Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink.  I cut another circle in card to use as a template to draw the bottom line under  the image!  The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Tonight I shall be going to a concert in Chichester Cathedral of Britten's War Requiem, I have sung it a couple of times but never been in an audience, I'm really looking forward to it!

Non traditional Christmas colours

Artemio manuscript, Memory Box jingle bells, Sizzix sentiment die.

At Less is More this week, we have a colour challenge to use non-traditional colours for a Christmas card. I did go a little mad so this post is going to be rather picture heavy!

SU tree, Clearly Besotted sentiment

Clearly Besotted stamps, Couture Creations embossing folder, Spellbinder slider.

Memory Box Trees, unknown DP, 'Christmas' - Simon Says Stamp, Wishes - Tattered Lace. Dienamics pierced circle.

Impression Obsession village die-cut, same make dies as above for the sentiment.

This is the one I popped on the Less is More Blog. A free Penny Black stamp clear embossed and inked with Weathered Wood  distress ink! Sentiment by Sizzix .

Finally a change of colour... a little stamp and die set from Poppy Stamps with a sentiment form Memory Box. Coloured with Mirage pens and a little Glamour dust added. 

I've had quite a bit of fun this week.

I shall be going to the NEC for the craft Show on Thursday this week, I'd love to say hi if any of you are intending to be there too!

Email me if you're going!

Have a great week!