Less is More is 6!

Less is More was the first challenge blog I ever played in - I played along in Week 2, One Layer Botanicals, for the first time which is 6 years ago this week!   I am back to join in their month long birthday celebration and its fitting that I am playing along and sponsoring week 2 which is the dreaded one layer week (although actually I love making one layer cards - who doesn't love a bit of masking!)

My store, Seven Hills Crafts, is sponsoring this week with a £20 voucher to spend in store, so do make sure you play along - there will be 4 prizes in total this month so make sure you visit every week.

The challenge was to create a one layer card featuring opposites - now the one layer thing didn't phase me but I spent a long time head scratching about what opposites to use, but finally settled on rain and shine.

I used Chance of Rain by Mama Elephant and used masking to create a little scene with the girl and her teddy in matching macs and wellies - simply stamped and coloured with polychromos pencils (no colour shows on the inside this way which is handy for one layer cards).  The sun, clouds and rain came from Sending Sunshine from Wplus9. 

Do check out the rest of the lovely examples over on the Less is More Blog and link up your entries before Friday evening.

One Layer Eyes

That's this week's LIM challenge http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/week-236-one-layer.html

I made this one first using and old TSG (no longer trading) set which is a set I love.

But then I had a better idea so knocked it up quick!

It's an awful photo - black cards can be a bit tricky!  I just embossed it all in white  - sentiment is spelt out using Violet's ABCs from Lawn Fawn, the eyes are from a couple of Papersmooches sets - Spookalicious and Squeaky Clean.

Catch you later

Simple Sketch

The LIM ladies have a really simple sketch for us to play with this week so I used it to make a card for my dog mad friend's birthday coming up this weekend.

I took a very simple approach - stamped the image (Stampin Up Hostess Set) and then watercoloured it with distress markers and a thin paintbrush.   I love this method of colouring at the moment - just scribble on an acrylic block, spritz and paint.  I added a thin green line to frame it before mounting it on a kraft base card.  The sentiment is stamped on a die cut (sorry no idea of the brand) but it has curly ends and was too long so I cropped it to fit the Wplus9 sentiment.

Autumn Leaves

The challenge at Less is More this week is a one-layer card with foliage http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/one-layer-time-again.html

I went for Leafy Greens but chose to just use the large maple leaf and went autumnal with  pumpkin pie and raspberry jam inks from Hero Arts.   I just stamped each leaf on top of each other in the brown shade and then over-stamped with the red trying to get the ink to be a bit blotchy so the leaves look like they do in autumn when they fall off the trees.  I added a big bold sentiment from Mama Elephant's Splendid set once dry and dotted around some glitter and pearl dots to finish.


 

Happy Birthday Less is More!

Today is the second birthday of my favourite challenge - Less is More  - can't quite believe that I've been playing along pretty much every Saturday for 2 years now - but I have and I love it - so here's to many more birthdays ladies :-)  I have to say thanks so much for your great challenges and your unfailing commitment to commenting on every entry - not every challenge blog does that and I so appreciate the time you take to do it.

For my first card, I used my new Stampin Up set - just loved the humour in this one and I thought the dog was perfect for this weeks colour challenge of Kraft and Kreme.  Simply stamped on cream card with crumb cake ink and a tiny bit of water to blend the colour on the dog.  Finished with some natural ribbon with paw prints and fixed to a kraft base card.

 

For my second card I used my favourite flower stamp - the gorgeous water lily from Clearly Besotted and this time I decided to do a little more water colouring so I stamped it onto a cream water colour paper using the crumb cake ink again.  I then stamped the inkpad onto my acrylic block and used my water brush to pick up the colour - it gives the image a sepia photo effect.  I die cut it with an oval nestie and added a matt from lined kraft DP, mounted onto a kraft base card and finished with a sentiment from the same Clearly Besotted stamp set using crumb cake ink.

The final card is another entry for the Kraft and Kreme challenge at Less is More, but also for the Love Letters challenge at CASual Fridays and also another challenge off my list of the 75 I'm trying to complete from the Paper Crafts Magazine - this time Challenge No 39 - Spell a Word with Twine.

For this one I just gently pencilled the word hello onto a strip of kraft card and drew over the pencil with glossy accents.  I then pressed kraft bakers twine onto the glue using tweezers - the twine was more white than kreme though so once dry, I went over it with a beige copic marker to dull the white.  I edged the kraft strip with two thin strips of watercolour paper once mounted onto the kraft base.

LIM Cocktails

Good morning LIMettes - time for our favourite weekly challenge again - and I'm loving the cocktail theme this week!   It's an appropriate theme as Less is More applies to the art of cocktail making as well as card making - all the great cocktails are the simple ones.

The ladies shared a little game to find out what your cocktail personality is - this is mine:

You Are Made Of Silliness, Pizzazz, and Giddiness

3 parts Silliness 2 parts Pizzazz 1 part Giddiness And a Splash of Happiness Finish off with an olive

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

For my card, I have used my brand new stamps from Stamping Bella - her new range of  "Uptown Girls" which are just perfect images for me to make cards for all my girlfriends as we do love a cocktail!  Stamping Bella is a Canadian Company if you've not come across them before with a fabulous range of stamps (not just images for colouring) but I get mine in the UK from Quixotic Paperie and these stamps landed here just this week and I got mine yesterday so the timing of today's challenge is perfect!   

This one is called "Madison has a Margarita" but I decided she'd be having a cosmo so changed the colour of the cocktail appropriately.  She is coloured mostly with copics - I have a new range of colours as there was a really good offer on so I had a little splurge!  I did do a little shading on top with pencils and sansoder.  I added a pink spotted matt which is from a Bo Bunny scrap from my snippets drawer and I used the same to matt the sentiment which comes with the stamp (I know Chrissie already used the same sentiment, but this is destined to be a retirement card for a friend next week so it had to have this sentiment on it!)  The little pink flat back gems were a little freebie with my stamps - Elaine the owner always includes a little something as a thank you which I think is a lovely touch.

Right, time to see what cocktails everyone else has come up with.

Catch you later