Less Is More _ Photo Inspiration

It's a long, long time since I last entered the Less Is More challenge. The photo board inspiration caught my eye this week, so decided to have a play.

Somewhere in blogland I had seen this technique of swiping mini ink pads across the card, but I have no idea where it was, but thought I'd try it out. I usd Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold and Squeezed Lemonade ( I was going to call it Lemon Drizzle- you can tell what I'm thinking about!) distress inks. The stamp is from Visible Image and I added some coloured pencil to the petals to enhance them a bit.

 

Challenges:

Less is More 

Time Out

Happy Little Stampers

Birthday Bouquet

My stash of birthday cards has got a bit depleted so thought it was time to do something about it. This stamp from Penny Black has been sitting on my desk for months now, so I finally inked it up.

 

I coloured it with Zig watercolor pens and a water brush. The white background looked a bit stark and unfinished so I brushed on some distress inks - Old Paper and Spun Sugar, mounted it onto Mint Macaron card and added a sentiment strip.

 

Challenges:

Colour Throwdown - mustard, pink and green

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour - AG

Happy Little Stampers Birthday

NBUS

Cardz4Galz

Sympathy for Less is More

That is of course a sympathy card for the latest challenge at Less is More. I didn't set out to make a sympathy card, it just sort of evolved.  I decided to use a NBUS stamp from Visible Image and stamped in black and clear embossed it. I had intended adding some colour to the flower and making a birthday card.

However after I had done that I rather liked the look of it as it was and thought it would make a good sympathy card, and as I have sadly had to use a few just recently my supply did need topping up.

Challenges:

Less is More

NBUS

Perfectly CAS June

The middle of the month means its time for a new challenge over at Perfectly Cas.This is my last card for it as a design team member, as explained in my HLS posts.

This month we want you to use just one corner and remember that you must only use one third of the card as well to keep it Perfectly Cas.

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I used a Simon Says Stamp die and coloured it with Copics. I also used one of my last hemp card blanks which are no longer available from Craft Creations. Such a pity as I really did like them.

Do go and have a look at all the fabulous makes from the rest of the DT.

Twofer Flower Challenge

As usual with the Twofer challenge I've left it to the last minute to enter. I always think of it as a monthly challenge, which of course it is, but is only a fortnight long!

I used a new stamp set from Visible Image that I have reccently bought ready for a workshop next month. For my first card I stamped the flower,vase and stalk in black then coloured it with polychromos coloured pencils.

I trimmed and matted it with some orange card, added a sentiment and doodled round the edge.

For my second card I used just the flower head and embossed it in silver. Then sponged Speckled Egg, Milled Lavender and Spun Sugar DI over it giving it a very subtle look.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment onto a piece of torn vellum and wrapped it round the panel. And here are the two together.

I'm also sharing at the NBUS challenge.

Flowers for Twofer!

Every month I plan on entering Darnell's Twofer challenge, and every month I manage to miss it, but not this month, I've made it!  Here are my two cards.

I have used a stamp from Simon Says Stamp which has never seen ink before! On the first one I have used the whole of the stamp, coloured it with Zig watercolors and added a simple sentiment to the centre of the wreath. Just to be a bit different I stamped it onto a cream diecut rectangle from my bits box and aded it to a white card.

For the second one I used a diecut circle from my bits box , it's still overflowing though! I stamped part of the image twice, coloured it with Copics to match the background paper and fussy cut it out.

The flowers were then heavily winked to add some sheen, as was the sentiment.

I am going to enter the first card at Stamping Sensations, Cardz for Galz and also the NBUS challenge.
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Add a Bow!

This week's challenge at Allsorts is to use a bow. I have taken a leaf out of Darnell's book and been trying to use up some of the things in my bits /UFO box.where I foud this previously stamped aperture. I trimmed it down and added a stitched border die round the edge, then cut a smaller circle for the sentiment.

I then looked in my very messy ribbon box as I was fairly sure I had a pre-tied green bow in there. It turned out to be just knotted so didn't think that would qualify as a bow. Instead I found this snippet of green checked ribbon which was just big enough to get a bow out of. I made a card blank out of Watermelon Wonder cardstock as it looked a bit insipid on a white one.I'm also going to share this at the Playground as apart from the base the whole thing consists of snippets.

My Favourite Colour Combo

This is the new challenge at Cardz for Galz.I actually don't have a favourite colour combo as it all depends on my mood, time of year, what I'm making etc. Eventually I decided to go with a piece of paper that was on my desk and use that as my colour combo, navy and lilac.

The paper was from a kit from Simon says Stamp a couple of years ago, so I went rummaging and found the stamp set that went with it, unused of course! I stamped the flower and leaves and fussy cut them. The flower gem is from my stash and the sentiment is from the same stamp set.

Hope to see you join in with your colour combo.

Something New for Spring

The challenge this week at Make My Monday is "Something New" I have used a brand new set of stamps from Concord and 9th . I really, really like these turnabout stamps. This one is called Eveyday Bouquet.

I have gone with some spring colours and mounted ir onto a lovely bright yellow. Make sure to visit my teamies to see what they have made, and hope tou will join in too.

Less is More - OLC Floral

It has been absolutely ages since I played at Less is More but as soon as I saw what the current challenge was I knew exactly what to do. I have taken inspiration from my duvet cover!

Unfortunately the card blank I used was very porous so the inky square is not as even as I would have liked.

Happy Little Stampers - Watercolour

Another month has flown by and it's time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers. The first one of course is the Watercolour Challenge. An easy optional twist as well!

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

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE OUR RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED!

I decided to use NBUS stamp from Simon Says Stamp, which I had been wanting to use. I stamped 

and coloured it with SU markers and a water brush. So far so good but thought a few splatters would add some interest, so added some gold ones which I promptly smudged. Rather than completely start again I fussy cut the flowers - it would probably have been quicker to stamp and paint again! Then stuck it to a white card blank and added the sentiment. I still think it needs some splatters, but have decided not to tempt fate again!

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Make My Monday - Coloured Image

Welcome to the new Make My Monday Challenge and we want to see a coloured image on your creation. It can be either a stamped or digi stamp, which you have coloured in. Now I have to confess I have missed a few of my DT posts as have been a bit under the weather, but this card was sitting in my drafts. It was made last year for a friend but I never got round to posting it on the blog.

The SU stamp was coloured with Chameleon pens, the first and only time I've actually used them! The paper is from a very old K&Co pad.

Hopefully I'm now back on track and crafting again, but it's always useful to have a backup!

May Flowers - Twisted Pop Up.

Happy May Day to you all! It's time for a new challenge at Make My Monday and it's my turn to choose the theme -and I've gone with a nice easy one - May flowers. So let's see some pretty flowers on your makes! 

I recently had a go at a Twisted Pop up card for my SIL's birthday , which I haven't blogged yet, and decided to make another one for the challenge.

They are surprisingly easy. I have used some old K & Co papers from my stash , and a diecut sentiment for the inside. The flower on the front is a stamped and fussy cut one from an Altenew set, Peony, I think. 

Please do check out the wonderful inspiration from my teamies and I like forward to seeing all your makes.

Make My Monday - In the Garden

I made this card for a blog friend who has been a bit under the weather recently. Now that she has received it I can post it on here, and it fits in nicely with the theme at Make My Monday, which is In the Garden. There are quite a lot of wild flowers in mine ( otherwise known as weeds!)

I used one of the new Groovi plates from Clarity stamps to emboss the wild flowers on parchment and coloured them on the back with Spectrum Noir pencils. The Groovi plates certainly make parchment craft a lot easier.
 

Flowery Birthday

The Simon Says Stamp April kit has some very pretty images in it. I made these cards to add to my stash  as I am running very short of birthday cards.

In real life they are much brighter but my camera has made them look a bit wishy washy!
 

Digitally Sweet Challenge #108 Lots of Flowers

Welcome to a newchallenge at Digitally Sweet and this week the sponsor is Lacy Sunshine.
The challenge is "Lots of Flowers"

 

 I used Flower Pot Pretties Sunny as I always associate sunflowers with late summer/early autumn. Rather than add lots of flower embellishments I decided to be a bit more subtle and used a digital embossing folder of sunflowers on my background. As usual it was created in Craft Artist 2. I did colour the image with Copics then scanned it back into the computer to add it it to my digital card.

Pretty in Pink!

I've used the lovely stamp from this month's Little Claire kit and I'm entering it into this week's Little Claire Challenge - the theme is flowers.

How to use up scraps!

I made this after seeing a similar card in a magazine. It is made from circles of scrap paper fastened together with a brad, strips of card for the stalks and finished with a ribbon and bow.

New Cards

I've spent the afternoon making two cards to catch up with the Monday challenges on Docrafts forum. Well, not strictly true I made one yesterday but was not happy with it so pulled it to pieces and started again. Having a long break hasn't done much for my creativity but it's slowly coming back. I'm going over to Hobbicrafts in Reading tomorrow so maybe that will inspire me and not just my purse! I have just seen that the challenge on Ooh-la-la-Creations is to create a blue card so this one fits the theme for that as well.