Big Bold Sentiment

For the second challenge of LIM's birthday month it's time for a one layer card with the Focus on the Sentiment.

Rummaging through my Stampin' Up sets of stamps, (whilst searching for something else, which I still haven't located) I came across this stamp. It's from a set with the title as on this sentiment...' Love you much'. I wanted to have the flower part coloured and the rest of the sentiment in black, so rather than try to ink all of the stamp with markers, I popped it in the microwave for a few seconds to loosen it from the wood block so that I could use it in my MISTI, and thereby stamp it in 2 takes. I coloured the stem and the flower with SU markers and stamped it, then cleaned that off and inked the rest of the image with Versafine Onyx Black ink...  the stray bits of ink on the stem were wiped away with a Q tip and then it was stamped for a second time. 

All I did after that was to colour in the LOVE part with a Wisp of Stella pen in Silver.

It's simplicity itself, and as February is the month of love, what could be better!

It's been great fun being back at Less is More and thanks once more to the terrific bunch of girls continuing the tradition!

8 Years of Less is More

Would you believe that it's eight years since Mandi and I started the challenge blog "Less is More".

Both of us loved the Clean and Simple genre and there was practically nothing by way of challenges for this style of card to be found in Blogland. 

Lots of people were afraid of 'white space' and it was a journey of trepidation for many crafters, but today the genre is firmly established and for me it is still the most beautiful. 

We established many firsts with our challenge... as there were only 2 of us, submitters wouldn't receive many comments if left to us... so we asked that contributors to comment on each other's blogs... a trend that had been widely copied and enjoyed. We started giving tutorials for various techniques and this idea can now also be seen by others. 

Since I stepped back from running the Blog I have been delighted that others have come forward to continue the work which gives me enormous pleasure, it feels so good to see that the traditions are continuing.

The card I have made for this birthday celebration is an echo of that very first challenge. It was also a colour challenge and  I used wellies for that one too! Here is my card from 2011!

Such was the interest in CAS cards in those early days, with little choice of CAS challenges, that there were literally hundreds of submissions every week and Mandi and I used to comment on every one... quite a challenge in itself!

My card this time is a simply bunch of die-cuts with a computer generated sentiment.

The boots were cut from shiny blue card with the yellow die cut stars added afterwards. The sun is actually supposed to be a flower die but looked about right and was just the right size to peek out behind the cloud.

I have been searching to try to find out the make of the die-cuts but my filing system leaves much to be desired and at the moment the various makes of them escapes me!

I am delighted to have been invited to join in with LIM once more... long may it continue!

Back from Hols for LIM's 6th birthday!

Can you believe that Less is More has reached its 6th Birthday?

I am so proud of the way my challenge has developed over the years and am simply delighted that I have been able to hand it over to such an awesome team... which is taking it forward to its next fabulous phase. They are such a terrific, talented bunch of girls and I simply love the work of them all!

The challenge for this birthday week is a colour challenge and it's to use 3 adjacent colours on the colour wheel.

For this card I smooshed some Platinum Inka Gold together with some Aqua Tints in red and yellow and after spritzing with water, took prints to use for the sentiment and as backing for the die cut heart border. The word 'simply' was computer generated. 

It's basically what I think of this fabulous team!

We have just returned from a lovely winter break in Florida and the Caribbean. The weather in Florida this year was unseasonably warm, the temperature was in the 80's each day and we had a wonderful time. The cruise to the Caribbean was equally beautiful and the the seas allowed us to visit the island of Great Stirrup Cay which is a private island belonging to the Norwegian Cruise Line in the Bahamas. Last year the weather was too rough to allow the tenders to come alongside the ship in order to take us ashore. 

This is me at Mountain Top on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands last week. It was spectacular!

It's because we're taking lots of lovely vacations plus my Granny duties in Worthing and Bath that I have stepped back from Less is More on a weekly basis,  but I do hope to join in from time to time!,