Lucky Dip Week at Less is More

I made a few cards for this week's challenge at "Less is More". 

It's the first time that we've used a picture for inspiration and the colours are just lovely. Do take a look at the blog for the image. 

We also have a guest designer this week, Jenny from Crafting in the country. 

This card uses my new Memory box dies, it's the basic tulip die plus the build a blossom tulip die which I added over the top. This one is covered with Glossy Accents. The frame stamp was also from amongst my bargains at the NEC. I got 12 stamps for £10 mainly Rubber Stampede... I was really thrilled with them.

An inky one next... I just love playing about with ink dusting and over-stamping! 

More tulips!

...and a few more!

... and finally a lovely clover from Blockhead Stamps.

We really hope you'll join us for this different challenge for us... but remember... keep it Clean and Simple!

OLW 83

I haven't participated in the last few OLW challenges and I thought I should remedy that!
This one was set by Jennifer who gave a bunch of pictures from which to choose something as inspiration. This one was based on a blue block!
My 'blue block' is a stamp by Art Impressions and the flower  a stamp from Blockhead Paper Arts.
The ink used was Tumbled Glass DI with the trailing leaves of the floral image inked with a Whispers marker.
The sentiment is from Paper Make Up.
Two mega boxes of card in a hugely heavy parcel from Paper Mill Direct has just arrived... now, where to store it???

More bleaching

Since revisiting the bleaching technique as promoted in Blockheads Paper Arts latest challenge, I have been doing lots of experiments with various card and papers. Some don't have a pleasant effect with bleach... a  muddy, rusty shade emerges from several colours of deep pigmented card stock, but this deep green produced a pleasant gold colour.
I highlighted it with a Sakura Gelly Roll pen in Clear Star and coloured the leaves with a green version. The frame was stamped with a Blockheads background stamp and embossed with Distress Embossing Powder in Pumice Stone. I rubbed the embossing with a little pearl embossing wax. (I'm not sure if that's what the stuff I used is called, but it's a creamy, pearly stuff that I rubbed on with my finger).
The sentiment is from Unity stamps.

Here are another couple of my bleachy experiments.
This one was coloured with Inktense Pencils after bleaching and the embossing is from Cuttlebug.

I added Glossy Accents over the coloured parts in this one and stamped the background with a retired Stampin' Up background stamp.
It was fun!

In Neutral at "Less is More"

I'm staggered at how quickly the weeks seem to roll by. It's  March already and time for another colour challenge at "Less is More". This time around we chose NEUTRALS which range from off white to black with all the shades of beige, brown and grey in between.

We are sponsored this month by WOW Embossing Powders and the the lucky winner will receive a caddy containing 12 different powders. What a fab prize!

A few weeks ago I was inspired by one of our LIMettes Birgit, to buy this set of stamps Available at Blockheads which is from an A4 sheet of floral images. It has tulips, poppies and I think calendulas and is simply stunning.

This time I decided to use a darker background and to use bleach to colour or rather take colour from the images. To add a little depth, once the image was dry, I did use an Inktense pencil from Derwent, which I blended with a water brush. The frame, made from a piece of packaging was cut with a Nestie rectangle, extending the length of the aperture slightly, to accommodate the size of the image. The whole thing was mounted on a Sahara Sand card base.

Here are another couple of bleached images, this time using black embossing powder on black paper. I tried using black card but the bleach made little difference. I had such fun doing these. This stamp is really rather large and makes leaving any white space somewhat problematic, but by using only plain paper and cardstock, with no patterned paper the simple style is maintained.

Different effects can be achieved by the amount of bleach and the areas of the stamp which are concentrated upon. I really love the colour that this one turned out... a perfect match for the SU Sahara Sand card.
I inked the dry embossed panel with a little Sahara Sand and Black Soot inks to emulate the shading on the flowers.
The tag is from Cuttlebug and the sentiment from Wild Rose Studios.

This simple little number includes some home made washi tape. I stuck a sheet of double sided adhesive paper onto a sheet of tissue paper and then stamped the tissue using various wheels on my Rollagraph  handle. I then sliced it into strips and simply peeled back the backing paper to apply it to the card, tearing the end rather than cutting it. The birds on a wire punch is from Martha Stewart... isn't it cute! The sentiment is from Stampin' Up.






My husband got a new toy on Thursday... also a neutral colour, we took it for a drive to our daughter's yesterday, there are quite a few things to master on it as they have updated lots of features compared to our last car. It looks quite mean doesn't it!
Our daughter and her family have suddenly decided to come for the weekend, so I've a few beds to prepare this morning and the cot to get down from the loft... busy, busy!

Do join in with our challenge again this week, we love to see so many inspiring contributions.

Don't Scrap it!

The challenge this week at "Less is More" is to use up the scraps of any material left over during the course of one's crafting. Personally, I never buy ready made card blanks and so I have an almost inexhaustible supply of 'scraplings' which are the strips of card remaining, when a card has been made from a sheet of A4. (These are sitting in boxes in the knee well of my desk.)
I also have a file of coloured scraps of card and paper, a drawer full of partly used designer papers, a heap of acetate packaging and a rabble of bits of ribbon cut from the inside of garments, intended to keep them on the hanger, but which irritate me enormously and get unceremoniously cut out before the first wearing of the garment.
This card began life with a sentiment stamped directly onto the lower portion of the card, but which wasn't clear enough for my liking. So I decided  to cut it off, but not to waste the remainder of the card, I used a stray piece of acetate, plus a piece of scrap brown card... the image was stamped on  part of card which was cut off.

This simple wedding card was made using one of the 'scraplings' from under my desk for the embossed panel plus bits and bobs from my scrap card file. I often use part sheets of card to print sentiments from my computer, as here... the printer doesn't know that they're not full size... I always use full width pieces, but being really mean I have had some very small bits get stuck in the past!!!!

I was inspired to buy this stamp, which comes from a large 8x10 sheet from Blockhead stamps, by Birgit one of our wonderful LIMettes. She is Guest Designer for the company at present and does fabulous work. Part of my order was the bee stamp I used in the post below this one. I entered it into a challenge from Blockhead Paper Arts and WON! Whoo Hooo! More Blockhead stamps for me... I can't wait for them to arrive.

I saw this Penny Black image on a card from another submission to LIM some weeks ago! Isn't it the cutest! I got it from the USA and it arrived quite quickly. All of this card, apart from the card base and the ribbon was made from the contents of my scrap supplies.

I had a lovely day at the Make It craft show in Farnborough. I went with Sharon (Colour Create) and met up with Julia (WOYWW) Anne (Phindy's Place ...among others) and Val (One Stop Crafts). What fun!

Those Design Teams are really lucky to have such talented ladies in their midst, and I'm lucky to be able to count them as friends... thanks to blogging!

Blockheads Paper Arts Stamps

We are so fortunate that one of the inspirational card makers in this world, submits the most fabulous cards to our challenge at "Less is More" each week.

Her name is Birgit and she is Swedish!

You can find her blog here.

A couple of weeks ago she submitted a fabulous card which used a stamp from Blockhead Paper Arts for whom she is a Guest Designer at present.

I loved the image so much that I have bought some stamps for myself and they are simply FABULOUS!

The card she designed which caught my imagination is here

This is my case of it

The card at the top of this post was made with another Blockhead stamp using what they call the  "Chalk Attraction" technique. This is merely an image stamped with Versamark and coloured using chalks or pastels, applied with a Q Tip. I used Stampin' Pastels from Stampin' Up in Really Rust, More Mustard,  So Saffron and Basic Black. In fact I think that this is the perfect technique for using on this wonderful sketchy image of the bee and its honeycomb.

Thanks Birgit for all your inspiration!