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.

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.

Wee little babies

This week is theme week at Less is More and the theme is cards for babies or children http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/week-68-theme.html

I decided to make a couple of cards to go into the St Luke's box - baby cards always sell well.  I used the onsie jumbo wheel from stampin up and coloured (copics) and cut out 2 of the images - one pink, one blue - very predictable ;-)   I mounted them onto a white panel embossed with baby feet and some colour co-ordinated mats behind.  I stamped the gorgeous sentiment from Waltzingmouse Compact Sentiments onto matching paper.  Cute and very easy to assemble.

One Layer Stripes

This week's challenge at Less is More is stripes, and as it's the second week of the month it's one layer week - so stripes but no layers - dang - I have lots of striped paper but no striped stamps! http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2012/02/week-54-one-layer.html

A lot of head scratching and sorting through all  my drawers and I managed to find a couple of stripey things and have actually made 3 cards in the end.  These challenges are good like that, otherwise I just use the same stuff or new stuff all the time - this made me dig deeper and older!!!

This one is a bit outside the box, but I think the train track counts as stripes!  Stampin up wheel and TPC trains, planes and automobiles stamps.  I think this was in part a reaction to my blogging buddy Deborah's news - wish you lots of luck for your move to the States.  Wish we were coming too to share in all that US crafting goodness :-)

For this one I was inspired by Mandi's stamping stripes into nesties but I twised it up an stamped my stripes as a border strip after inking and embossing my nestie shape.  The flower is Hero Arts, clear embossed and glittered.  DI's blended and pearled to make the frame.  The stripes is actually a layer from my papermania cake stand stamp - told you I had to look at things hard this morning!  The sentiment is from an Elzybells set which has just been re-released by Penny Black (yeah!!!)

I'm not so thrilled with this one - very simple embossing folder with a sentiment stamped in the gap that is on the folder.  Just don't think the sentiment works, and I can see this being recycled with the sentiment covered for an non one-layer card.

That's it for a while as I have a very bad headache today - a phonecall at 4.30 am about the alarm at work is probably to blame....   Time for lunch and a quick nap I think!

Catch you later

Girly Cheers!

We did the boys version yesterday, but today is one of my girl friend's birthdays, and she likes a good cocktail, so I thought the cheers to you set was the perfect choice for her card too.

I stamped the 3 cocktail glasses, coloured with copics and finished with a layer of glossy accents to make them shimmer.  I used some gorgeous DP from My Minds Eye Fine and Dandy stack and matted the glasses and sentiment onto a tonal card to match the papers.

Quick and simple  but festive and effective - I think this set would make great party invites too.

Catch you later
x

Masculine Cheers!

I've had a couple of card commissions this week, one for a granddaughter which I'll share later and one for a nephew and this is it.

I've used the cheers to you set from Stampin Up!  I stamped a row of beer glasses onto kraft and coloured with a couple of shades of yellow copics and paper-pieced the white foam with plain white card.  Matted onto black and then onto some DP from My Minds Eye I think.  I cut the cheers sentiment with a round nestie and drew around the outside of the die to get the slightly larger black circle (the next size nestie was too large).  The happy birthday nephew is from my very useful Elzybels words set.

I am entering it into Annabelle stamps "make it masculine" challenge and the Allsorts challenge this week which is Clean and Simple.  Plus as all the papers on here are from my snippets drawer - then I am playing along with Jules this week too sunday snippet challenge

Craftilicious x

Embossed movement

The challenge at CAS-ual Friday this week is to use embossing - either dry or wet, and the challenge this morning at Less is More is to have something on your card which moves - either physically (like a spinner, shaker etc) or an image of something which moves.

I've used a crafts too embossing folder with butterflies on buttercup yellow cardstock, and then I've used the Stampin! Up butterfly embosslit to cut and emboss some more butterflies on kraft paper.  I stuck those on top of some of the embossed buttterflies and added a sentiment from Amy R.  Mounted on black and onto kraft cardstock.

As this is a very "krafty" card, I'm also entering it into The Spotted Chick's "That's Krafty Thursday" challenge too.

I have another couple of idea for both challenges so will see you later.

Craftilicious x

Belated Happy Birthday

It was my fellow St Luke's DT member Deborah's birthday last week and I missed getting her card in the post in time for the big day, so I made a belated one and sent it a day late.  Hopefully it will have arrived by now so I should be safe to blog it.

The panel is an Elzybels stamp, coloured with distress ink in olive and edged with moss with some stickles on the flower centers.  The leaves in the background are another Elzybels set stamped directly onto the base card in moss.  The sentiment is from the snail set I used last week for my funny cards, and the gold butterflies are from my new stampin up emboslit folder.

Hope you had a good day Deborah.

Craftilicious x