LIM Autumn

I've not had much time for card making or blogging again recently - sorry - if you've not had a visit from me recently I apologise - my blog reader is up to over 1000 unread posts and I'm not sure I'll ever catch up!

I did manage an hour of playing on Saturday afternoon but tonight is the first chance I've had to blog the results.  If I only have the time to play in one challenge each week, then I generally pick LIM as my challenge of choice - the original and still the best CAS challenge on the block - this week the theme was Autumn http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/week-90-theme.html

I opted for a little mini card featuring a bunch of stitched flowers with button centres in autumnal colours.  Finished with a matching stitched sentiment both from the Crafts Meow.  Simply coloured with copics.  I like it and think it's pretty cute but I'm also thinking there's not enough "white" space for Chrissie ;-)

So I had another go - this time with lots of white space!  I created a little panel with 3 shades of distress inks and pearl spritz and then used a couple of silhouette stamps to create a little scene.  Again I went with the colours to represent the theme rather than the images as I was feeling a little over leaves for now.  I finished this one with some sheer ribbon, a large button and a ribbon tag sentiment.

Night all
x

CASually over the edge

Have you seen the news from CASual Friday's yet?  Michelle is launching her own range of CASual Friday stamps - if the few samples are anything to go by, then I can't wait to see the full sets!

The challenge this week is to have something hanging off the edge of your card http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cfc75.html

I used the adorable new Christmas Deer from stamping up along with a new stampin up wheel.  I ran the wheel with real red ink over a scrap of photo paper to get a really vibrant strip of paper to hang over the edge of the kraft card base.  I stamped the deer onto the card in black ink before securing the sentiment, and then stamped him again onto a scrap of card and cut him out (minus the fancy antlers!)  I then placed him over the strip, linking his ears up.  I finished with a few of his ornaments hanging from his antlers.

CASual Hearts

This week's CASual Friday challenge (well almost last weeks now as it closes in a few hours) is to feature hearts in your project.  http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cfc74.html   I'd had an idea earlier in the week but last night was the first chance I had to get my cameo out to do it.

I simply designed a heart with a central jigsaw piece on the cameo and cut it from red card.  I coloured the jigsaw piece with a copic marker to get a darker shade and covered it in glossy accents.  The background is a spellbinders embossabilities double folder.  The wonderful sentiment is by Elzybells who is sadly no longer trading, but happily is now designing for Penny Black :-)   A couple of her sets have already been re-released in their T for Transparent range so this one may appear in the future too.  Check out their site for examples - look for cute, bears, flowers and great sentiments in her classic font - this is one of hers from their newest release http://pennyblackinc.com/display_item.php?PID=7164&CAT=RStransparentsets as is this one of the sentiment sets which is one of my faves as its really useful http://pennyblackinc.com/display_item.php?PID=7097&CAT=RStransparentsets

See you all tomorrow for the new CASual challenge - and the reveal of the big surprise little sister!

Colourful Blog Party

It's blog party time again over at Waltzingmouse stamps and this month it's all about colour - and being close to Halloween, they've gone for a spooky palette of black, purple and orange.  Now as much as those colours would lead you down the Halloween path, I don't really "do" Halloween (it's not big in our area at all) so I've struggled to come up with an idea.

In the end, I went for a very simply tag card using the new Opera stamps and gorgeous matching dies, paired with a simple sentiment from compact sentiments using the suggested colours.  I would never have paired orange and purple but I kind of like it - even though none of my purples match!

I'm looking forward to seeing all the spooky offerings from the rest of the party goers :-)

Wonderful you!

It's been a while since I've had time to play in the weekly Waltzingmouse sketch challenge but as WM are my favourite stamp company and I just received my stash from their latest release this Friday I had a go with this week's sketch http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/challenge-119october-13-2012.html

I used the ADORABLE new floral stamp set Camellia which I just love for its versatility.  I stamped the small open flower onto white card and embossed it with white powder and did the same with 3 of the single leaves.  I then used some luminArte paints to create a quick water colour effect with lots of shimmer (which I can't get to show on the photo as much as it shows IRL) and then cut them out - this is a great technique if you need to colour quickly - just blob the paint on, swish it around and then dab it off the embossed with kitchen paper.

I used some hessian effect paper as a background mounted onto my favourite kraft card and little distressed green DP for depth and to draw the eye to the vibrant pink vintage seem ribbon bow.  I finished with a sentiment made up of words from the Camellia set in a pink ink to match the flowers and ribbon - et voila!

Hope you like it as much as I do.   I have plans for these flowers and this colouring technique for a big wedding cake card too so watch this space....

Edited - I finished the wedding card so thought I'd share it here....

I cut the cake shaped card on my cameo, embossed a pattern over the front using the Market Street Stamps punched tin background stamp with white EP.  Simply finished with the same seam binding ribbon and a host of the flowers - some of which I trimmed to get even more size variety.

Time Flies!

The challenge this week at Less is More is to create a one layer card featuring something with wings - I have got a cute new set of bird stamps but I decided to take a slightly different take on it.

 

I used the new vintage clocks from the crafts meow paired with wings from the hang on set from there she goes stamps.  I gave the clock wings to match the sentiment, using simple masking.  I felt the card needed a little more and I remembered the mask I bought after seeing Gay use it on one of her LIM cards a few weeks ago so I masked the clock and wings off again and added the cube background with distress inks and sponging.

Time for the winner of my World Card Making Day Blog Candy from last week's LIM post - there were 26 comments so I did the random org number generator thing and the winner was commenter number 25 - and that commenter was one of our fearless leaders!  Chrissie - you win the new die from Die Versions :-)

Thanks for all your comments folks - hope you all enjoyed WCMD too - I managed to make a dozen Christmas cards :-)

CASe this sketch

There is another new blog on the block today - CASe this sketch http://casethissketch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/case-this-sketch-challenge-1.html and this is the first sketch they would like us to case in a CAS way:

I used the delightful new butterfly stamp set from clearly besotted and the colours at this weeks color throwdown and in under 5 minutes this is what I came up with.  Has to be one of the quickest cards I've ever made.  3 tiny green gems and a simple thank you sentiment (pti) in black was all that was needed to finish it off.

Autumn Leaves

This week's CASology cue card is leaf http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/week-14-leaf.html and it seems that leaves are a popular theme in challenge land this week so I thought I'd combine a few into a card.

At stampatacular they have this inspiration photo and the leaf took me straight to my new stamp set from crafts meow as this is the largest leaf in the set. http://stamptacularsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/challenge-184-photo-inspiration.html

This is a simple one layer card - I masked off a strip and embossed some lines and then using a variety of momento inks in autumnal colours I stamped the large swirly leaves from the harvest set from crafts meow above and below the lines.  The sentiment is from the same set stamped in black.

I'm entering it into the following autumn themed challenges too:

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cupcake-213-autumn-winter.html

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/week-175-autumn-leaves-and-trees.html

Silver Christmas

Happy World Card Making Day everyone - hope you're all managing to find a little time to play.  I've been struggling for time at the weekends recently so was determined to make some "me time" today and to spend it in my craft room.  I put my blinkers on, ignored the mess and  so far I have 3 cards to share!

My cards were inspired by this week's Less is More challenge which is simply to use silver http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/week-88-colour.html

I got some AMAZING new stamps today from Stephanie who all you CAS fans will probably know from her blog Stamping and Sharing but yesterday she released her own range of stamps called Clearly Besotted - I ordered them yesterday lunchtime and they were on my doormat first thing this morning and they are FABULOUS!   If you don't believe me, take a look at the set of Christmas cards I made with one of the sets...

I simply stamped and embossed the stripey tree from the Signature Christmas set directly onto a small square card, stamped the spotted tree onto white card and cut it out so I could pop it up on foam in the foreground.  Finished with an embossed sentiment from the same set and a tiny pale blue star shaped gem.

Next I used the stripey wreath again embossed in silver, popped up on foam tape with a few green gem highlights and a matching green bow.  Another great sentiment from the same set.

Finally I used the bauble - this one has 3 different patterns to choose to fill in the middle - I went with spots and added some red metallic tape.  Simple but effective - I'll be making these into sets for Christmas.

Blog Candy

As it's World Card Making Day - I thought I'd give away a little candy to spread the joy - so if you're still with me and would like to add this lovely Fleur de lis Die from Die Versions to your stash, just leave a comment by midnight on Friday and I'll draw a random winner for it next Saturday.

Thanks for visiting - have a good day :-D

CASual Awareness

It's Friday so time for a new challenge over at CASual Friday's and this week I can join in - I skipped last weeks be inspired by your blog header as mine is just too complex to make a CAS card from.  This week it's simply to make a card for a girl but with the added theme of Breast Cancer Awareness as it's awareness in October http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cfc73.html
 
My card today is a CASE as I was completely inspired by Debbie's technique of white embossing onto white card and colouring today on this card http://limedoodle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/clearly-besotted-stamps-day-2.html from the new stamps from clearly besotted.  I decided to try the technique and this is my first attempt:

I used the colour combo from this weeks' ColourQ as it matches the awareness theme.  Simply stamped the skipping stones bra set directly onto cardstock and embossed in white then coloured in with pink pencils and gave a shadow with a grey pencil all blended with sansoder.  The sentiment is from the same set stamped in black.  Finished with a tiny pink button and white cotton thread bow.

Hope everyone is ready for World Card Making Day tomorrow - I plan to play as much as possible!  It would be rude not too frankly ;-)

Anniversery foil

I made this card at the weekend for the Less is More lucky dip challenge which this week is Weddings/Anniversaries http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/wee-87-lucky-dip.html

I wanted to play with some new foil tape I got (the kind plumbers use) but it wasn't entirely successful so I had planned on having another go this week and posting that instead.  However, life is still getting in the way of crafting time (and mojo effectiveness!) so it's not going to happen - so this, for what it's worth, is it this week folks........

I used an old create and craft card kit pre-embossed card base and added some embossed foil tape to the centre.  I die cut some hearts from the same tape and added them to a layered die cut which was stamped with a couple of Waltzingmouse sets.  Finished with a few tiny black pearls.

Hopefully I'll have something a bit more exciting to share this weekend for World Card Making Day!

Simple Christmas for St Luke's

It's the first of the month again (already - just what happened to September????) which means a new challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge and this month we are looking for CAS Christmas cards - well it is time to get cracking on those soon to be needed cards and simple is defo the way to go (for me anyhow) for Christmas cards so I can whack out a few in each design.

This is my case in point - it's been a hectic weekend so my card HAD to be CAS and very quick.  The bauble, complete with the word joy, was a design I found in the silhoutte online store and I simply cut it from white card stock and then coloured with a copic marker.  I added a simple circle of white glitter card behind the outline to give the bauble some weight and then added stickles to the word joy.  I cut a nestie shape to mount it on and drew around the outline of the die to cut a thin red border (the next size up die would have been too large for my 4 inch card base).  I finished by handing the bauble on some red and white twine with a matching bow.  I can definately knock out a few more of this design in different colours to make up a stack of cards ready for Christmas.......

I do hope you'll join in our challenge this month and get making your Christmas cards too - and if you're short on Christmas supplies you can even with a fabulous set of Waltzingmouse stamps as a prize if you're our winner so check out the challenge blog  http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/

Decapitated Elf....

Well I know Halloween is around the corner so I thought a gruesome title might grab your attention, but it's not quite as awful as it sounds!  It's my card for this week's CASology cue card inspired by the word "shoe".  I went for this cute pair of elf's legs complete with shoes but minus a body!  It's from the silhouette online store and cut simply from red and green card.

I turned the legs into a card with a punny sentiment printed on the computer in green, mounted with a slight overhang and finished with some red faux stitching.

http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/week-12-shoe.html

Hearts and Flowers

My friend wanted me to make a couple of cards, one for her new baby niece which I'll share later and another for a family wedding coming up next month.  She didn't have any idea what she wanted on the card other than their names but told me that the invite colours where white, red and silver.  Anyone who has the latest Stampin Up catalogue may recognise where I found the inspiration for this one.....

I used stampin up love and laughter and embossed both the greeting and the cake in silver and added 3 tiny punched flowers to the cake.  I printed the names and wedding date using MT Bold Script and rounded two of the corners.  I repeated the corners on some red and silver strips.  I punched and die cut a variety of hearts from red and silver card stock and scattered down the card like confetti and mixed in a few tiny gems.

I am entering this into My Mum's Craft Shop hearts and flowers challenge http://mymumscraftshopchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/challenge-75-hearts-and-flowers.html

Ombre painting

I was very inspired by the special edition of Paper Crafts which dealt with aspects of design and really wanted to play along with all the great challenges Cath set over in the Moxy Fab world but I didn't really find the time or mojo this month to really do them justice.

I did manage to have a go at the repetition challenge though for my Uncles Birthday last week and realised I haven't blogged it yet so am squeezing it in under the radar before the challenge ends tomorrow.

I simple stamped a row of paint tubes from There She Goes in a line on a one layer card and used the paint brush bucket from the same stamp set to break up the row.  My Uncle paints as a hobby so this seemed a perfect image for him.  I took further inspiration from the magazine for the colouring and went with an ombre scheme.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2012/08/card-design-handbook-week-repetition.html

Frosty Christmas

I'd already been thinking of using my new frostyville wreath for this week's CASology cue which is "white" but wasn't sure what to do with it then this morning's LIM challenge was to pick 3 past challenges and combine them so a little browsing the challenge list led me to this.

My card actually fits several of the past challenges - 14 White on White, 15 Embossing, 43 Bit of Bling, 45 Let it snow, 55 Die cuts but the one that inspired me was my nemesis week - 11 the dreaded acetate!   I wasn't quite brave enough to get the acetate out, but thought I could get an interesting look to turn the die cut into a card by embossing my sentiment onto vellum.  The sentiment is from There She Goes (Wishing You).  I also cut the wreath (memory box) from vellum and glued that down first on my square card with glossy accents to give the top image a shadow effect.  The top image is cut from white glitter cardstock and offset slightly from the vellum layer.  I simply finished with a little bling on the wreath and a couple of white pearls to hide the dot of glossy accents I used to hold down the sentiment strip.

http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/week-11-white.html

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/week-86-recipe.html

I'm also going to enter this into the simon says "emboss it" challenge  http://www.simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/simon-saysemboss-it.html

Fall Recipe

It's blog party day again over at Waltzingmouse stamps and this months theme is "fall" or "autumn" for folks over here in the UK.  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/waltzingmouse-stamps-september-blog.html

I decided not to make a card this month - a friend asked for a recipe for a cake I'd made which features apples and pears so I thought a jazzed up recipe card would fit the theme perfectly.  I printed the recipe onto kraft cardstock to give it a base colour with an autumnal theme and then decorated it with leaves from Big Bloom Chrysanthemums, an apple from Teeny Trees and a title from Back in the Saddle.  Much better than a scribbled on a post-it note which is how I usually hand over recipes!

Time to surf around the rest of the party participants - thanks for stopping by.

Doggy oval

I've should have had a nice long day of crafting, but as seems to be the way of late, things didn't go to plan and even when I did finally make it to my craft room late this afternoon, my mojo seems to have upped and left me high and dry (probably as I've got some card orders to fill - it always seems to run away when I need it most!)  Anyhow, I thought I'd try my favourite challenges to see if I could dig up some mojo and I've combined the colour theme (black and white plus one of your choice) over at CASual Fridays with the theme (ovals) at Less is More with a new challenge to me - 365 cards (they do a new challenge every day and I picked one from a couple of days ago which is CAS with one embellishment)

I opted for a very simply thin black mat, a strip of black with an embossed birthday sentiment in white and a little black scottie dog embellishment framed in a pink spotty oval with a line of white faux stitching.   Not the most original of entries but I am pleased with the very clean lines and hint of pink.  The scottie dog has been in my stash for ages and is fluffy with a velvet collar.

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/cfc70.html

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/week-85-theme.html

http://365cards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/day-196-keep-it-simple.html

Time to make dinner - will catch you all later

Happy 4th Birthday TSG!

There She Goes Stamps is 4 this month and is celebrating with 5 birthday challenges.  I've been working on them for a couple of days and now I have 5 cards to share so bare with me, this is going to be a bit of a long post!

TSGBC01-Jessica's Birthday Numbers Challenge

 

As the challenge here was all about numbers - I turned to the Numbered Days set and simply stamped a row of numbers onto DP option to highlight the age of the birthday by using one of solid stamps from the set instead of the outline versions.  The sentiment and balloons are from the same set.

TSGBC02-Stephanie's Masculine Birthday Card Challenge

For the masculine challenge I opted to use the super-cute Out of This World set, stamping a variety of elements from the set colouring with copics and cutting out.  I embossed some stars onto a black base card in green glitter EP and added the sentiment with white embossing.  I stuck on the coloured elements onto the base card to create an out-of-space scene.  

This is also going to be my entry to CASology this week where the cue word is "sky"  so I hope space counts as "sky"  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/week-10-sky.html

TSGBC03- Sandra's Inspirational Birthday Challenge

The third challenge was a photo inspiration based on the photo above - I went pretty literal with a cake and using the colours:

I used  the set "A little treat" and stamped a row of cakes onto a strip of white card in grey ink.  I stamped it once more on a scrap of card in black in and coloured with copics using the blues, teals, reds and whites from the inspiration photo.  I added a couple of stripes of washi tape to the base card and stamped some greetings from the set in red ink to finish.

TSGBC04-Danielle's Banner Birthday Challenge

For the 4th challenge we just had to incorporate a banner - for this I turned to the first ever TSG stamp set I bought "Sentimental" and simply stamped it onto DP and cut a banner shape by hand.  I used the faux letterpress technique by inking a starry embossing folder in rainbow colours using a brayer (thanks Vicky!) and a keleidacolor multi coloured inkpad.  Finished with a few random gems and some faux stitching.

TSGBC05-Jessie's All Dressed Up Birthday Challenge

For the final challenge I had to use my favourite little donkey (Ba Donkey Donk set) and thought I could create a sort of rosette for my required elements of 3 embellishments.  I used a die cut doily, some ribbon and a brad.  I stamped the sentiment from Birthday  Bot onto the base card to finish. 

If you're new to TSG then now is a good time to check them out as they have a 15% off birthday discount code on their blog so a great time to try their excellent quality stamps.

Loverley

I love My Fair Lady so when I saw this Kraftin Kimmie stamp I had to have it and I can't see it without getting the "oh wouldn't it be loverley" song in my head.

I love paper-piecing images - it's one of my favourite techniques so I decided to join in the challenge at Kraftin Kimmie this week http://kraftinkimmiestamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/challenge-145-piece-out.html   I used the colours from this weeks Paper Players challenge as my inspiration.  http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/paper-players-112-colours-from-lesley.html

I coloured the face and hands with copics and then using bits of paper from my scrap drawer (and hence entering Pixie's Snippet challenge this week too) in greys and blues I cut the head out of the hat and pieced it over the coloured image.  I added grey bits to the dress and blue bits to the hat to match it all in - some of the bits were sooooo tiny I had to cut them 2 or 3 times as I kept losing them!

I added a tesatina die cut strip and a couple of blue gems for a bit of birthday sparkle and embossed a sentiment from Papertrey Ink Movers and Shakers Stamp Set in white onto the black base card.