Sending Smiles

Here I coloured the dies by Alexandra Renke by smooshing them in some Peeled Paint Distress Oxide ink and water on my craft mat. I dabbed the strawberries with a little Festive Berries ink and then spritzed them with water. I cut out the circle in the panel and stamped that with some splatters, then spritzed and when dry, put back into the panel, which is raised on foam tape. The sentiment by SSS was stacked with extra layers under the part which fits into the recess in the panel.

CAS on Friday

CIRCLES

 

You make me happy

Here I used dies and stamps from Simply Graphic, stacking the leaves and smooshing with Distress Oxide inks and water to add the colour. I added just a little Gilding Wax to the butterfly's wings. The sentiment was heat embossed in white.

TIME OUT - coloured card base

I love the products from this French company, they seem to fit my style of cardmaking perfectly!

 

WOYWW #600

Today is a very special WOYWW as it's the 600th occasion on which such desks have been shared. 

Congratulations to Julia, for  her idea, time and care taken in spreading comradeship throughout the world... and thank you!

Head over to the Stamping Ground otherwise known as WOYWW HQ to join in the celebrations!

Well done Julia and I hope you enjoy your surprises co-ordinated by the fabulous LLJ!

 

I have actually had a bit of a tidy up, which is a rare occurrence for me. I can actually see a bit of my glass mat!

Today you can see the Christmas cards I made for my husband (who is the chairman of our choir) to send to the Vice-Presidents of the society. These include, the Bishop of Portsmouth, the previous conductor Jonathan Willcocks and and long serving previous Chairman, who happens to be a woman. Every year I have made white on white cards and this is no exception.

You can see that my supply of Distress Oxide inks is gradually increasing. I stamp a little of each colour that I have onto a chart to use as reference for whenever I need to choose a shade for whatever project. There is also a new pack of dies which I have just bought. They are empty leaves from Sizzix and I think they are really fab!

I somehow managed to miss last week's WOYWW, I didn't actually remember until Thursday, but in these strange times it's difficult to remember what day it is sometimes! Some people asked to see some more of my attempts at watercolours, well here is a salmon I did on my cruise From Japan to Canada.

At least it looks like a fish!

Well have a good day everyone and once more many thanks to Julia!

 

Hello

It's a beautiful sunny morning, and I feel pleased with the card I came up with today!

I took the sketch from

CAS Colours and Sketches

...and decided that I would like to use some crocus dies by Alexandra Renke as the the vertical elements. I used a piece of card that I had smooshed some purple inks onto for the die cuts and daubed a little distress ink onto the stems. I rather like the random dispersal of colour achieved with the smooshing technique. It took me a few die cuts to be happy with the colouring for the sentiment, some had too much white, some not enough, but I was quite pleased with the final piece. The ones I wasn't too keen on are stacked beneath the final layer. The die is by The Stamp Market.

Not having entered into my old creation "Less is More" for ages and not often using purple as a colour choice, I thought that I would add another card to their challenge this time.

The DT is SO talented and the standard of CAS cards submitted is incredibly high... due I am sure to the superb inspiration of the designers!

Have a great day everyone!

 

Wonderful Memories

A friend asked me to make a card for her with this specific wording. Needless to say I had to make the sentiment on the computer, which in a way is a good thing, because I could choose a font to suit the image I was using.

I began by cutting the aperture with a die which I bought from a French company called Simply Graphics. Isn't it delicate! The flowers were cut (using a die by Alexandra Renke) from a piece of card which I had coloured by smooshing with some purple inks with a little platinum Inka Gold. I popped a tiny, tiny  gem into the centre of each of them. 

To get the sentiment just where I wanted it, I  die-cut a piece of copy paper with the aperture die. With my Word programme set to 105%, the size of the page on my screen matches a piece of A4 paper. So by putting the lines of text into text boxes and making them transparent, I could jiggle them around so that when the die-cut piece of paper is put over my screen, I can see if the positioning is correct. It's a bit Heath Robinson, but it works for me.

I thought that this card would work well for the challenge at Less is More. 

This time it's Shades of Purple.

This is the challenge which I created with Mandi in 2011 and I am simply thrilled that since stepping back, the tradition of wonderful CAS designs has continued with the fabulous bunch of designers.

Thank you girls for all the wonderful inspiration! Long may you continue to inspire!

 

Leafy Birthday

I don't seem to have had lots of inspiration lately, but finally I've produced a card which I think is OK.  I used a die by Alexandra Renke cut from a piece of card which had a print of some smooshing, using Inka Gold and Aquatint inks. I couldn't find one tiny piece of leaf when doing the inlay and  so decided to leave another piece out to make it look intentional! Behind the aperture is a download of some newsprint. The sentiment is from Avery Elle.

It looks like we may be 'confined to barracks' for 4 months as we are both over 70. Fortunately I have crafting to fill my time and hopefully the weather will improve so that we can spend some time in the garden. I hope that the supermarkets will have sufficient grocery delivery slots for everyone!

Here are the challenges which I am linking this card to.

Seize the Birthday

The Card Concept

Color Throwdown

CAS Watercolour

Simon Says Stamp

Use Some Green

Stay Well Everyone!

Framed

Last month I came upon a Memory Box Challenge. I was delighted to find it as I have loads of Memory Box dies ...they are one of my very favourite manufacturers of dies. I was fortunate enough to have the card I entered chosen as the winner! and I was naturally simply thrilled. This month the challenge is to include a frame of some sort. 

For my card I used a piece of card which I had smooshed with Inka Gold and some distress inks and cut with the Memory Box base Layer of Christmas trees. I used gold card for the outline of the trees and the sentiment. I cut the front panel with SSS stitched rectangle dies to make the frame.

I'm not sure of the make of the sentiment die, (I keep my dies on magnetic sheets in box files and the packaging is stored away elsewhere.) I chose it because I fancied one which began with a capital letter and was not too overpowering for the delicacy of the trees.

I dry embossed a little piece of card with a snow folder from Sheena Douglass to pop behind the trees.

Outside the Box

My second card today is also framed but in a slightly different way... this one has a dry embossed frame around the 4 inchies.

The challenge at CAS Mix Up is to use inchies. 

I don't remember making any inchies before despite having owned this Inkadinkadoo stamp set for several years! I think I picked it up in a Michael's somewhere or other on one of our trips to the USA.

I dug out a piece of card with some failed acrylic pouring on it, which looked dreadful, but I saved it anyway!

I stamped the inchies onto selected bits of this card and clear embossed them, before cutting out with a Sizzix die, It is actually a 3 squares die, but I just used an end one each time to cut them out. Once cut, I triple clear embossed them to make them into tiny tiles, then mounted them onto a black square.

The sentiment, embossed in white, is from Sugar Peas Designs.

I don't feel that this card was my finest hour so I will be trying again very soon!

No Stamping

I just found yet another challenge which intrigued me! It's called Just Add Ink and this week the challenge is make a project with NO STAMPING

SO this is what I made. I cut the butterfly from a piece of  card coloured with watercolours. Actually it was cut from a previous failed card but I thought the colours too nice to simply chuck. I managed to get the black part to line up with the body and simply added a little more with a marker. The panel was cut with a Sizzix die and a bit of smooshed card from my 'too good to throw away drawer' which was in keeping with the colours of the butterfly was placed behind this die cut. All that was left to do was add a die cut sentiment which I layered for a little extra strength. Sometimes it pays to be a bit of a squirrel.

Circles... well just one!

For the Christmas Challenge at Happy Little Stampers this month, the optional twist is to have circles somewhere or other!

I cut a circle from my front panel and looked through my stash of left over  backgrounds for something to put behind it. I came across this scrap of smooshed background which was just about large enough to put behind the aperture and the die cut trees. I played around with the die cut hillside of trees to see which part would look best in the space!

I decided on Gold for the sentiment to reflect a little of the gold glimmer in the background smooshing.

As always, I manipulated the front panel die by extending the cut a little in order to fit British card dimensions!  It's from a Simon Says Stamp double stitched rectangle set!

I love making Christmas cards year round as it's always great by December to have plenty of cards at hand.  I'm always amazed by how many designs I've forgotten about and  that's always a nice surprise!

Simply smooshing!

The challenge at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge this time is to use one of my all time favourite techniques... smooshing!

Once you have created your smooshed  card it can be used for a variety of purposes. Here I chose to die cut the card for both the focal point (the butterfly, a die from Simon Says Stamp) and the hellosentiment (from MFT).

Here is the smooshed card from which I cut the elements for this card.

I began by putting a small amount of Platinum Inka Gold paste  onto a craft mat and then added various shades of blue Aqua Tints, before spritzing with water to combine the colours. I then took several prints from this using fairly absorbent card. You can see that this particular piece has been used for more than one project.

Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE.

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!, 

Not my usual colours!

Purple is not one of my 'go to' colours, although apparently it is a colour which can be worn by everyone.

Here I used a Memory Box bauble die, inlaid and filled with a snippet of card coloured by smooshing purple Inka Gold and Distress Inks  and then adding a little silver embossing in the form of stars.

I got the card the wrong way around in the Cuttlebug embossing folder and so ended up with a debossed pattern instead of being in relief.

The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp.

It's for the photo inspiration challenge at Just US Girls.

And Di's Snippets.

I love using the off cuts from making cards as smooshing pieces... it's seems such a waste to toss them.

AAA Cards - Circles

I may have another crack at this colour combo!

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!

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

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!

Beautiful die-cuts

Since I discovered the technique of smooshing, it has become a technique that I use again and again!

Here I incorporated a few Distress Inks with the Inka Gold paste for this background. I diecut the flowers from Concord and 9th from the background and from a piece of white card spritzed with Crafter's Companion Iridescent sparkle spray. I then inset one into the other ( and some of the bits were very fiddly I can tell you!)

The love sentiment is from Winnie and Walter. It's a sentiment that I use SO often on my cards!

                    

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