Lack of inspiration!

I have had plenty of days when things didn't work out as I had hoped but, this time it was the pits. I have got more rejects than I have had in many a year! I hope that I may be able to resurrect some bits from some of the cards, but the recycle bin is feeling quite pleased with itself!

This is the best of a bad job!

It's so simple it's almost not there, but I like the layout and the composition and I love this stamp!

It's from Deep Red, a company I can't exactly say I've heard of and I don't remember where I bought it... probably at a show somewhere or other. It does have a little twinkle added, but I didn't manage to capture it in the photo.The one consolation is that it will be a really quick to make if I'm a few cards short at the last minute!

The computer generated sentiment uses the fonts  VNI-HL Thuphap and Lydian BT.

I don't really care much for this one, but I thought I should I'd add it anyway.  Again it's a computer generated sentiment,  using the same two fonts as the previous card. A Hero Arts stamp coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a water brush. The background has been twinkled with Clear Wink of Stella and the stork and the blanket with Glamour Dust.

Both of these cards are for the ONE LAYER challenge at Less is More this week!

I hope you'll join in and have some fun!

There were a couple of queries about how I do my sentiments. This is a tutorial I wrote some time ago on the Less is More blog, but is still applicable even with slightly later versions of Word.

1. Click Insert and then click Shapes, then choose Text box and insert the appropriate number of boxes. I use one text box for each part of the sentiment 
2. Divide your sentiment into components and write the parts in separate boxes
3. Change the fonts to the size and style you prefer.
4. Highlight the boxes and click on Format and then the arrow in the lower right corner on Text Box or Shape Styles
5. When the box pops up (Fill) drag the Transparency toggle to 100% and click OK

Leave the box outlines in place at this time to allow them to be moved into position more easily.

• When highlighted, the boxes can be moved around and overlapped and because of the transparency setting, the text will not be obliterated by another box.
• When happy with the positioning, (boxes can be fine tuned by highlighting and using the arrow keys to manipulate them) select all the text boxes together by holding shift and highlighting them, and when in the Format tab, click Shape Outline and select No Outline. If you right click at this stage and group the boxes, the sentiment will stay as a unit and can then be moved around the page.

If using a digital image I also pop that into a text box, so that I can place that exactly where I want it.

I have found that on my laptop, if I have the view set to 105% the screen image is just the same size as an A4 sheet, so that if I hold a piece of paper cut to the size of my card against the screen, I can see exactly where the words will appear.

I hope this helps, any queries.... just email me!