Designer Paper

I guess many of us who have gravitated to the CAS style of card making have stacks of Designer Paper sitting languishing in drawers and boxes. It is possible to use it in a clean and simple style and that's what we're looking for at "Less is More" this week.

Here I used some paper from Pink Petticoat together with dies from Poppy stamps to make this inlaid die cut card. I must confess that some of the pieces were really fiddly to insert, but luckily none pinged into oblivion before being inserted. The Hobby Art sentiment was stamped in SU Smoky Slate ink to match the paper and die cut with a stitched rectangle from Simon Says Stamp, elongated slightly to fit the sentiment.

Sorry for the dreadful picture, I'm having technology problems at the moment!

Of course when you do an inlaid die-cut, you get a positive and a negative, so here is another card using the negative from the previous one!

The sentiment is from Wplus9.

I have a few other cards part-made but time ran away from me... I may add some more later in the week.

I'm off to my nephew's wedding today. The evening part has a Cluedo theme, so my husband is going as Rev. Green with a borrowed shirt from a priest friend of ours and I shall be a geriatric Miss Scarlett!

There may be pictures later!!!

Sprinkles

I've had this die for a while but this is its first outing! I think it's from Frantic Stamper. In fact I think that there are supposed to be two different tops but here I've used both and I think it looks OK!

I've simply coloured it with alcohol pens, raised it on dimensional pads and matched it with a simple sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

The challenge from CASology is Sprinkles, so thanks CASology for making me dig out this die!

I started off by making a more fancy backdrop but I think the cupcake is enough on its own.

Welcome baby

I love this new baby stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. Here it's in neutral-ish tones of duck egg, vanilla and brown, with a backdrop embossed with a folder from SU which reminds me of a baby blanket.

It's for the colour challenge at As You see it!

I am to be a granny again for the third time in August and we are all keeping everything crossed that all goes well this time, as the path to parenthood for my son and his wife has been strewn with pain and heartache. 

I'm sure you'll wish them well!

Shakers

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I made a couple of shaker cards today. This one uses a floral die  which came in the pack from Sizzix with my Big Shot Plus. I made the frame with a couple of stitched dies from Simon Says Stamp and accompanied it with a couple of butterflies from Poppy Stamps. The coloured card was made with the squished flower technique and has been sitting in the drawer since last season.

The Congratulations is from Tattered Lace.

It's for the Shaker challenge at AAA Cards

I'm not so fond of how this one turned out, but it's a flower from the same Sizzix bundle, together with leaves from Marianne, 'Happy'is  from Creative Dies and 'Birthday' from Papertrey Ink. The card was coloured with a smooshy inky technique, not sure exactly how I did it but it's another from the supply of background card I made some time ago!

This is another for the Black and White challenge at Dies R Us..

The trees are another new acquisition from Poppy Stamps, which I inlaid. The sentiment from Hobby Art was stamped and then die cut using a stitched die from SSS, lengthening it slightly so as to accommodate the length of the words.

The lady who commissioned this card seems to have an abundance of friends who produce babies on a regular basis, as I have made many many birth congratulations cards for her. This is the latest, for which I used the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch. 

The images are from Simon Says Stamp on a background embossed with a Stampin' Up folder. The name was computer generated and the 'Welcome' is from Paper Smooches.The pink parts have been twinkled with Glamour Dust!

Anything but a card!

The challenge at A Day for Daisies is Anything but a Card... if it must be something different, I can't think of anything better than a good bottle of wine...hence the tag!

It's necessary to use an image from ADFD for their challenges but as they are so generous in donating images, there's really no excuse for not participating!

Here I used a flower head and superimposed the png images over each other. Coloured with watercolour pencils, blended with a water brush and glazed with Glossy Accents, the tag was cut with an Avery Elle bottle hanger die and then some Liquid Pearls added to the blossom stamens.

The sentiment was computer generated in Sunshine Poppy font, made bold to match the weight of the lines on the flower images.

Saints and Dragons

Today is St George's day!

Saint George is the patron saint of England and the colours of the flag are red and white!

For a little fun today at 'Less is More' we have chosen the theme Saints and dragons...or heroes, but the saints don't have to be St George. 

Of course St George needs a dragon and here he is!

This one was a freely downloadable, kid's colouring page image, which I coloured with watercolour pencils, blended with a water brush and then covered with Glossy Accents.

The sentiment was computer generated in  Sunshine Poppy font.

Black and White

The challenge at Dies R Us this time is black and white... a great combo in my opinion and here it's 

combined with a new acquisition of mine... the Poppy Stamps butterfly triptych die. I decided to inlay the dies and it worked really well!

I just love these butterflies!

I've been helping look after my son's dog for a few days and had a great time... but no time for crafting there! 

Take three stamps!

I found a piece of card which I had coloured with the shaving foam technique and thought that the colours were great for trees in new leaf. Spring is just beginning in the UK and the colours on the trees look so fresh and new!

...Like my stamp set here from Simon Says Stamp., I used two of the tree stamps, but I can't remember the make of the sentiment. If I don't write the name of the make on the carrying sheet I often find it difficult to identify some sets. Sorry!

A simple one layer... tulips from an old Hobbycraft stamp and sentiments from Stamplorations. Coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a water brush, then gently twinkled with Glamour Dust!

"Less is More" has a challenge to use just  three stamps, so these are my renditions this week.

I am helping dog-sit my granddog Minnie for a couple of weeks, whilst my son and daughter-in-law are on holiday in Italy.

Here she is! She has boundless energy and loves lots of chasing around after tennis balls!

Pink

I love these flowers from Simon Says Stamp. I stamped these on vellum and embossed with white EP then coloured from the back with alcohol ink pens.The front was then twinkled with a little Wink of Stella and the pearls added. The embossed band is from a Sizzix border EF.

I printed the sentiment from the computer.

It's for CASology's pink challenge!

Fun!

At Ally Pally on Saturday I picked up a set of fun Christmas sentiments for half price. The really made me smile! 

Here is one of them!

I stamped three thumb prints in Peeled Paint Distress Ink and added googly eyes and little arms and legs then added the fun sentiment from Woodware!

I tried another card using the same sentiment, this time using a set of Alte New flower stamps.

I actually think that this looks more like a lettuce than a sprout, however I was actually pleased with the stamping, as I find getting these several step stamps to match up in both position and shading is quite tricky!

 I spotted that CASology has the challenge 'Sprout' so I couldn't resist!

The next couple contain some smooshing and I used some of my new stuff from the craft show.

The sentiment dies are from Craft Stash and I've been looking for the packets to find the make of the bird and the grasses, but sadly they haven't surfaced yet!

More smooshing for the butterfly backgrounds here with my new Poppy  butterfly dies. I love them. The frame and the ginkgo embossing are from Craft Stash and the 'Thanks' from Penny Black. One of my Spellbinders squares works perfectly size-wise with the frame!

I used Old Gold, Inka Gold with Festive Berries and Scattered Straw

 re-inkers.

Just US Girls would like to see smooshing so there are two to choose from here!

Meeting friends

Here are three friends (L to R  -Val, 'Canonbury Creations', Gay, 'Crafty Musings' and me) with one common passion... card making!

Gay and I met up with Val at the craft show at Ally Pally on Saturday and had a wonderful day! It was so lovely to see them again...friends through blogging!

Here are some of the things which found their way home with me. There were a few other bits and bobs... a few dies, but they got stashed away before I thought about taking a pic.

I went with the intention of just looking, but you can't go all that way without just a little spend can you? I drove nearly 250 miles during the day and my trusty phone navigated the way beautifully for me. It was such fun!

Geometric Shapes

The challenge at Less is More is to use Geometric shapes and at first I had a little head scratching to see what I could come up with. On looking though a drawer of stamps I saw this set from Simon Says Stamp and realised that the envelopes were merely triangles and rectangles, so my choice was made. 

I added a little Wink of Stella to them... but otherwise it's just a simply stamped one layered card!

Here I began by embossing the stitched line diagonally across the card and then masking off the upper section. I used a selection of Simon Says Stamp circles and stamped in 3 shades of blue... Ranger Dye inks in Blue Ribbon and Caribbean Coast (just booked another cruise for next January to the Caribbean!!!!) and Stampin' Up Coastal Cabana.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted!

Inlaid dies

I have been fascinated by die-cutting from the first time I saw it demonstrated in a Paper Mill shop many years ago. I love the finish the cut gives and love to discover new ways of using dies. Inlaying them was a technique I found quite some time ago and is great for keeping cards fairly flat for posting!

This fab Memory Box tree was cut from smooshed card and then the trunk was inked with some Distress ink after  cutting. The  base panel was cut with an MFT square stitched die and extended by part-cutting from each end to make a rectangle,

The sentiment is from Hero Arts cut with a Framelit extended rectangle.

It's for Addicted to CAS

HLS Stencil Monoprint

Over at Happy Little Stampers there is a new CAS challenge entitled

Stencil Monoprint!

This was a new technique to me and I looked at a couple of video tutorials to see what to do. It was great fun and vastly different effects can be achieved by using different mediums with basically the same process.

For this one I used a stencil from Stamplorations and inked it randomly with Wild Honey, Vintage Photo and Fossilised Amber Distress inks, spritzed it liberally with water, then took a print from it with absorbent card. dabbing away any excess water with a paper towel. I was really pleased with the result.

The little bird is from Technique Tuesday and the sentiment from Apple Blossom Craft Collection.
This is also for Stamplorations and CAS Mixup
                  

Here I used the same stencil with Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar inks. Rather than inking through the stencil, you are actually using the stencil to stamp with!

The sentiment is from Crafter's Companion and the flower from Sizzix.

Here is another stencil from Stamplorations, I used Acrylic paints for this one together with a Gelli Plate. I used red, orange and yellow and then brayered them over the surface of the plate, placed down the stencil and took a print from it.  The sentiment is again from Crafter's Companion. I took several other prints too and particularly like this next one.

I love the effect of this one, although it's not terribly CAS, but I think that the print from the Gelli plate once the stencil had been removed is super. The colour where the flowers were, was removed taking other prints with the stencil still in place.

Butterflies from All Occasion Dies, sentiment from Tattered Lace and Winnie And Walter.

Needless to say, I have a few other incarnations which will be used at some point in the future.

This challenge is sponsored by

Tutorials:
Stencil Monoprint by Lee-Anne Cross (6:50)

Stencil Monoprint using a Gelli Plate by Shery Russ (1:26)

Happy Little Stampers Birthday month long celebration

Prize for each challenge this month is 

$30 gift certificate to the winner
$10 gift certificate to each of our Favourites

I hope you'll have a go at this technique, you'll certainly get more mileage from your stencils!

White Space but not white!

As most visitors to "Less is More" know, we are always banging on about 'White Space'! I guess it's the essence of the the Clean and Simple genre and it's the one most difficult thing for many crafters to get their heads around. White space doesn't have to be white... it just need to be a clear area, which is why patterned paper can't be used for this. Dry or clear heat embossing can sometimes be used in these areas as long as the focal image is predominant. We have been asked questions as to why some things are acceptable and others not, but it's the overall feel of the composition which is vital. It MUST appear clean and simple... unadulterated... without additional layers and too many embellishments.

Here is a really simple example. Two stamps and a card!

The Uniko gerbera was stamped onto vellum and embossed with white EP. It was then coloured with alcohol pens in several shades on the back side of the image, which was then cut out. The sentiment from Clearly Besotted was stamped in Versamark and embossed, again using white EP.

I added a little clear Wink of Stella to the front of the vellum.

Here is a card I made for a friend of my son (who is also rapidly approaching this age!).

It's simply die-cuts from Memory Box and MFT. Simples!

I always add double sided adhesive to the back side of card before die-cutting...especially fiddly things, as once cut, all that's needed to be done is peel, position and press!

This last one was made for a friend of mine to send to her God-daughter.  I have made her cards for the past few years and not long ago the mum of the girl, whom I have got to know indirectly, messaged me to say that last year's card was still on display...in a frame. I just had a message to say that they will be off to Ikea this weekend to buy a frame for this one as she loved it so much!
I feel flattered!
The die cuts are in holographic golden card, The 14 is from Sizzix, the ampersand from MFT and the letters from a special Quickcutz set.
The embossed black backdrop is from a Cuttlebug folder.

Love these colours!

The colour choice at Color Throwdown this time is a super one, teal and green with white.

To make my card I used a stencil from Stamplorations and inked it with Distress inks before spritzing with water and then taking a print from it.

The butterfly was cut from smooshed card using a pair of stamps from Simon Says Stamp and accompanied by a sentiment from Penny Black.