Stencilling!

Rather than using this Stamplorations hexagon stencil to ink through the holes, I inked the stencil itself with Distress Inks and then after spritzing with water, took a print from it. I quite like the watercolour effect. I simply accompanied it with a Sizzix  die cut flower and a Penny Black die cut sentiment.

AAA Cards

Clean & Simple on Sunday

Stencil It

Just us Girls has this picture Inspiration!

One of the sentiments produced by one of the DT appealed to me and so I decided to use it too!

I made it on the computer using a Drift Wood font for the capital letters and My Own Topher for the rest, and paired it with a little image from the Rubber Stamp Gallery!

Oldie but goodie

Polka Dots are called for at 'Less it More' this week and here are a few from me!

The Random Dots DP is from Pink Petticoat.

I have used this layout time and time again in slightly varied incarnations, but I never tire of the sweet simplicity of the sketch.

Here I cut a pierced square from MFT and mounted a piece of card embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots on top of it.

The onesie and sentiment are stamps from Simon Says Stamp's Baby Love set and the paper pieced onesie was then cut with the matching die.

To mount the sentiment I didn't have a die of the appropriate dimensions, so I used an MFT fish tail, pierced, pennant die, cutting from one and then turning it and cutting from the other end to make a skinny rectangle.

This rather superior looking dotty feline is from Unity and I think the sentiment is so true...I am a cat person rather than a dog person, so maybe I'm a little biased!

I love this simple bold image!

The heart is an afterthought placed strategically to cover a tiny ink smudge... isn't it irritating when that happens at the last moment! 

We have our family with us this weekend and so feel really blessed to have them all around us.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter!

What's outside your window?

We have an interesting theme at "Less is More" this week... What's outside your window? It leaves the challenge open to lots of possibilities, so I have a few varied examples here!

This is a stamp from a set of a dozen little squares of springtime images. It doesn't have a maker's name on but it may be Hero Arts, but I'm not entirely sure.

There are a few of these flowers in my garden at the moment

We have an arched window on our stairs and the view through it from the landing is similar to this.

Here it is!

We do have a few bird visitors in our garden, the robin being one of the most regular!

This die set is from WPLus9

Sentiment from Clearly Besotted. 

Snowdrops are one of my very favourite flowers as they are SO delicate. We have a clump in view when I stand at my kitchen window!

This is a digi image from Fred She Said coloured with watercolour pencils and a water brush with a computer generated sentiment.

Whether real or imagined we'd like to see what's outside your window!
Addicted to CAS Delicate

Sentiment takes centre stage!

At Less is More it's One Layer time and the emphasis is that the sentiment should be predominant!

I saw this done somewhere or other and thought that I would try it. I think it's quite clever! (I probably wouldn't have thought of it myself)

It's computer generated and as the font has little white spots in the letters, I embellished these on the MOTHER word with tiny gems.The flourish stamps are from Artemio.

Here I used a Lili of the Valley sentiment stamp paired with a flower silhouette stamp from Unity! They were stamped with Versamark and embossed with Bright White EP from WOW. I did try it with clear embossing powder on the flowers but I prefer this version, what do you think?

Finally a card which is just sentiment and nothing else!

It will be good to be back home this week after running my grandchildren to swimming and choir and brownies and goodness knows what else after school for the past week!

I must say my daughter does a marvellous job looking after them and doing a full on job as well! 

The builders doing her loft conversion really cleared up after themselves well, but the dust does get everywhere! 

Now I'm looking forward to a quiet week!

A favourite Sketch

A friend of mine received a shawl which was termed a 'prayer shawl' as the  person who had made it for her had spent time praying for the recovery of my friend as she was knitting it!

It was loved so much that she in turn wanted to make a similar garment for another person in need of a little TLC.

She asked me to make a card to accompany it with a reference to the colours she had used, hence the purple shades.

The inside is printed with special wording explaining the ethos behind the gift of the shawl. 

It uses a very favourite sketch of mine which this week is featured at CAS Colours and Sketches 

My week with my grandchildren is nearly completed, today Daisy hasn't been feeling on top of the world, so I hope she will be feeling better tomorrow otherwise it will be a duvet day for her!

Gifts

This is probably the only card that I'll be making this week as I will shortly be on my way to Bath to look after my two grandchildren whilst my daughter is skiing in Chamonix with her company! I think many team building activities are planned, but I'm sure there'll be lots of fun as well. Meanwhile her loft conversion will continue and this is the week when the ceiling is due to come down and the new stairs installed. She can certainly pick her time away!

Anyway this card is for a few challenges!

Colour Q

and 

CASe this Sketch

Addicted to CAS 

The tab is cut with a Spellbinders die and the image is a downloadable colouring page from the internet, coloured with Spectrum Noir pens.

The colours on this card have turned out rather deeper than they really appear, the sentiment from All Occasion Dies, is really a lovely shade of teal.

Citrus

It's colour week again at Less is More and this time we are joined by our new Designers with the emphasis  on Citrus... not necessarily the fruit, just the colours.

I have had fun with my husband's shaving foam this week... I  have seen the technique used SO many times but never actually tried it for myself.  I intended using Alcohol Inks, but absent mindedly used Distress Inks instead, but it seemed to work well... so the alcohol inks will have to wait for another day. I merely squirted a bunch of foam onto my craft mat, dropped a few drops of Twisted Citron and Squeezed Lemonade inks onto it, swirled it around a bit and took prints from it, scraping the excess foam off after a few moments.

One thing I discovered was that my ATG gun didn't want to release the adhesive onto the treated card and so I had to use Glossy Accents to adhere the coloured card to the cardbase. I over stamped with a silhouette flower from Unity and clear embossed it as it didn't seem to be drying readily. I added a sentiment using a freebie stamp from a magazine.
This is for Just us Girls - Flowers

Here is a little more of the background paper used for a Shaker card. The sentiment and the dies are from Wplus9.

I love this delicate butterfly from Concord & 9th,  it's cut from some faux mother of pearl card and accompanied by a sentiment from Avery Elle.

This is a simple card with images from Clearly Besotted and a punched border from Martha Stewart.

Another piece of smooshed card here which I used for the die cuts from Cuttlebug (thanks) and All Occasion Dies (the butterflies) The embossing is from a Sizzix folder.

Next week I shall be in Bath looking after my grandchildren for the week whilst my daughter is off "team building" with her company. I'm not sure of the resort this time but there's likely to be lots of skiing and related activities!
She is having a loft conversion at the moment and I think she has chosen the right week to be away... when the ceiling comes down and the stairs are installed!
What fun!

Faux mother of pearl

It's time for Happy Little Stampers March CAS Challenge

When I looked at the tutorials for this technique, I realised that I didn't have any pearl acrylic paint so I tried using plain white acrylic paint with some Perfect Pearls added and it worked really well!

The paint was daubled with a scrunched up piece of cling film and when dry inked with Distress ink applied with a sponge dauber. The card was cut using a Wplus9 Quilt cut die and mounted into the frame cut from plain card using the same die.The sentiment is a combination of Tattered Lace and Memory Box! Butterfly from All Occasion dies.

This challenge is sponsored by

$15 Gift certificate

Another simple background with a silhouette cut with my Silhouette!

Sentiment Stamp from HLS
Tutorials:
Faux Mother of Pearl by Loll Thompson (6:10)
Faux Mother of Pearl using Liquid Pearls by Sue Ralph (4:54)
Mother of Pearl Technique by Dawn