Less is More - Green and Blue

When I read out what this week's Less is More challenge was to Roy last Saturday, he commented " I'll be interested to see what you do with that!" Well this is what I did.

I used a NBUS die from Simon Says Stamp and cut it out twice, once in blue and once in green then pieced the bits together. The blue paper was the backing paper from a Clarity stencil and the green was a snippet of holographic card. I'm off to make a second one with the remaining die pieces - obviously in reverse colours. Thee sentiment is a peel off coloured with a green copic pen. The snippets used mean that I get to have a go on the swings at the Playground!

Strawberries for LIM

Less is More is looking for fruit this week. Last week's card would have worked for this and I did think of using the same stamp, but then I remembered I had this strawberry stamp, which was a freebie from quite a few years ago.

I decided to have a change from my usual white card blanks and used Tip Top Taupe for my base with Watermelon Wonder and Cucumber Crush. These are three of the colours SU introduced this year and till now I hadn't even opened the packet of card or taken the cellophane of the ink pads. I coloured the strawberries with the matching markers then covered them in glossy accents. No sentiment yet as I'm not sure what I will use it for. I'm also going to the Playground as the strawberries were stamped on a small snippet of white. for the second time this week - it's beginning to get quite festive over there.
 

Minecraft Birthday

It was my eldest grandson's birthday at the end of November - where does the time go? I can't believe he's 8 already! Anyway he's very into Minecraft and I'd bought him a paper modelling kit and hoodie and wanted to make a card in the same theme. Off I went to Pinterest for inspiration but didn't really get any, then I remembered  that Liz had made a Minions box card here and thought I could do the same with Minecraft figures. A quick trawl of Amazon and I found some Minecraft stickers  and this was the result.

The brown mats and the happy birthday diecut were all made from snippets and the stickers were stuck onto snippets of card as well. Now I always find that anything other than a normal shaped card are sometimes difficult for non-crafters to know what to do with unless instructions are provided!  Apparently my son dropped this one so that it accidentally formed the box shape! His verdict was "cool!" I think the birthday boy liked it as well!!  So I'm off to the Playground with my card.
 

The Last Rudolph day of 2015 and Merry Monday

Amazing - can you believe that it is only one month till Christmas? Are you ready - I'm very definitely not! Anyway here is this month's Rudolph Card for the challenge at ScrappyMo's.

And by a sheer fluke it also fills the bill at Merry Monday where the theme is blue, white and texture. The snow is embossing paste and there is a lot of dimensional snow underneath the houses, although it doesn't show very well in the photo. I hope the pop of red is allowed! Im also popping over to the Snippets Playground to see how the rehearsals are going! I imagine chaos is reigning there as Miss Di is not mobile enough to keep everyone in check.
 

LIM 249 Colour Challenge

The colour challenge at Less is More this week is to use the colours of "Fire". I immediately thought of autumn leaves and started making a card on Sunday.

After stamping lots of leaves my mojo went for a walk so I didn't finish the card until yesterday  - then I saw that lots of others had used leaves as well. I thought of doing something else but as my crafting time is very limited these days and the creative juices seem to have gone into hiding, decided to stick with the original plan. I used SU's Vintage Leaves and I think the background is from the You've Got It set. I added some gold embossed splats to the background as well. The leaves are actually shiny as I covered them with Versamark and clear embossd them. I think my photography skills, which were never very good, have also gone for a walk.

Roy is making slow progress but every day he can do a little more. He does get very frustrated though and very irritable, which is so unlike him. Unfortunately encephalitis can cause changes in personality, so I'm hoping it is just the frustration which will get less as he improves.  I do find some time to craft but blogging has taken a bit of a back seat I'm afraid.  And some days I'm just too tired to do very much at all.

I'm also going to join in at the Playground as the leaves were snippets of white card.
 

Anniversary!

Tuesday was the 15th anniversary of being together with Roy. There were times earlier this year when I really didn't think we'd be celebrating.

As he has always been keen on owls and has quite a collection of them (nor real or stuffed ones!) I thought this stamp, which was free with Creative Stamping magazine, would make a perfect anniversary card for him. I inked it with walnut stain distress ink and pulled the colour out with a water brush, then fussy cut round it. The heart was cut out of some paper from a Simon Says Stamp monthly kit. The little red hearts were punched out of snippets of red glimmer paper using appropriately the SU owl punch! 

I am going to take it across to the Playground to see if I can get a go on the swings! 

2nd NBUS and Merry Monday

If you read my previous post you will know that I made a card for Less is More then decided that it wasn't suitable. However it did use a stamp that I hadn't used so I'm using it as my second entry to Darnell's NBUS challenge and also to Merry Monday where the theme is still holly.

The green card was out of the snippets box so I'm also heading over to the Playground where Sarn is on prefect duty this week!
 

Christmas Wreath

TIt's a long time since I entered the Merry Monday challenge. This week they are asking for"holly" and it just so happened that I had made this card last week for another challenge, but had missed the deadline.

 I used the new SU stamp Peaceful Wreath and coloured it with copics. The corner of the green mat was embossed with a Tattered Lace embossing folder. As snippets were used I'm going to visit the Playground for the second time this week! Just seen that Happy Little Stampers challenge is also asking for holly.

The Blues!

I managed to find a little time to craft over the weekend and made this card for Less is More who want us to use sprays and mists.By a happy chance it also fits the theme for Addicted to Cas who want "Blue"

 Stampin' Royalty who want "circles" and as it was also a snippet used for the butterfly I'm going to take it over to the Playground as well. WOW - four challenges with one card, not sure I've ever managed that before.

Roy and I are slowly getting into a sort of routine between various outpatients appointments, but most of my time seems to be taken up now with food shopping (ugh!) and cooking! need to get it more organised!
 

Casual Fridays - Patterns

I started making this card a while ago for a sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and the current challenge at Casual Fridays who are asking for patterns. Unfortunately by the time I had finishd it and photographed it the FMS challenge was long closed! However I'm just getting in at the last minute at Casual Fridays.

I used two NBUS stamps from Stampin' Up - Bohemian Borders and  You've Got This. I tried the no lines stamping and coloured the flower with Copics.  I'm also going to pop over to the Playground as the flower was stamped on a scrapof white card.

A Happy Post!

Last week the physios treating Roy came to do a home visit with him to see how he managed in the house and what aids he might need. It was a successful visit and he managed quite well. I just need to have a second handrail put in to help him with the stairs. So after a follow up meeting with the doctor and other medical staff he's coming home tomorrow!!!

I've been busy making a thank you card for the team which I'll show another day. But thought I'd post another card I made some time ago when I first got the Crazy Bird stamps.

 I coloured him with Spectrum Noir pencils then fussy cut him out( I didn't have the dies then) and mounted him onto some blue backing paper. It doesn't show up very well in the photo but the smile diecut and mat are yellow. As snippets were use I'm going to head over to the Playground to see what's going on there. I've been away too long.

Rudolph Day - June

I made this card some time ago but have never blogged it. So Rudolph Day is the perfect time to do it.

It was made with some very old decoupage and papers that have been in my stash for ages. The edge of the scallop circle is glittered although it is not showing up very well in the photo. I shall also pop across to the playground as the red was out of the snippets box.

Roy Update!

He was transferred on Tuesday to the neurorehab unit in Woking so everything was looking good. That is until he decided to be Mr Independenceand tried to stand on his own and fell cutting his head. It required stitching so they sent him to hospital in Chertsey!!!! and he's still there. I'm waiting for a call to find out whether he is going back to the rehab unit today or not. Fingers crossed he is otherwise I'm going to have to drive all the way to Chertsey to see him! Feeling VERY stressed!

Good job I had this card waiting in the wings!

Merry Monday - Red and White

It's a very long time since I joined in at Merry Monday, but this week an idea popped into my head while I was lying awake unable to sleep, and no I didn't leap out of bed to try it out, I waited till I had time to play during the day.

And this is what I made. Embossed snowflakes from a retired SU embossing folder and a die cut made from a Sue Wilson die that I bought last Christmas and never used , so Yay I've used some NBUS! The red holographic card was out of my ever increasing snippets box so a trip to the Playground is called for. And as luck would have it Crafty Hazelnut's challenge this week is "Snow" so I shall join in there and at her Extra Challenge which is always "Anything Goes"
 

May Rudolph Day

It' s the 25th of the month which means it's Rudolph Day again. Last month I didn't take part as events overtook me. This is the card I had made but not photographed so I'm using it for this month instead, and also taking it over to the Playground.

Whether I will get to play next month remains to be seen.

Roy's recovery seems to have slowed down. We are still waiting for him to be transferred for rehabilitation but it will not be to the local hospital unfortunately, but to a neurorehab unit which is even further away. I may be able to go by train though instead of always driving.  Yesterday was not a good day - he seemed to have taken a step backwards and was certainly not co-operating with the occupational therapist. He told me he'd switched off from her!  He seems to have a down on all the therapists, which is not helping! This morning I've just cancelled our next holiday as he is obviously not going to be fit to travel. I just hope that he will recover and that this is not going to be as good as it gets. I'm not having a good day either as I can't stop crying - think it has all just caught up with me and Fiona is not here either this weekend. She has got even more problems as her much loved elderly cat has kidney failure and I think she is going to have to have her put to sleep this weekend.

Must get my act together and think positively befoer visiting time this afternoon.
 

Trifold Shutter Card

Every year I make some cards for OH to give to various colleagues on their birthdays. I try to make them all the same in style but with differnet colours , stamps etc. This year I have gone for a trifold shutter card which I cut out on my Silhouette. I had downloaded the file some time ago but not sure where from now.

I went for pink and grey on this one (actually I made two exactly the same) and used a NBUS Spellbinders die for the flowers. They were cut from snippets of white card - of which I seem to have a lot!

Challenges entered:

Pixies Snippets Playground
 

Birthday Chef!

Happy Easter Monday to you. Hope you have all had a good weekend. My OH celebrated his birthday on Maundy Thursday so I can now show you the card I made him. He makes quite a lot of cakes at Christmas for people - mainly Dundee cakes - and for birthdays through the year. So when I saw this Art Impressions stamp in blogland I decided it was perfect for his card. Then of course, it was impossible to find it here in the UK. Eventually I managed to get one from the USA  off that well known auction site!

I was a little disappointed in the crispness of the stamping, it took a few attempts to get an image I was satisfied with.I stamped and clear embossed cakes on the background paper (I think it was a freebie stamp). The sentiment is Brittannia dies. The main thing is though that he liked it!  Im skipping over now to show to the playmates at Pixies Snippets Playground as the blue mat and sentiment used up some snippets - well one anyway!
 

Happy Easter!

Hello, today I have two Easter cards to show you - the same but different (or at least the background paper is!) I decided it was high time to get out of the rut of making all my cards with either a side fold or top fold, and cut these ones out on my Silhouette.

The papers are from the Simon Says Stamp March kit and the stams are from SU. The tulip one is retred and I masked of the sentiment that came with it and used one from another set, but can't remember which one! I am entering this into the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Holiday Challenge
Make My Monday - Flowers
Crafters Cafe - Easter ( this is a new to me challenge site)
Pixies Playground - where the challenge is always to use snippets - mine are the green mats and the gingham ribbon.
 

Casology - Mini and LIM 213

I'm just squeezing in at the last minute to Casology where the theme is Mini. On Friday I went to the Make-It Show at Farnborough and amongst the goodies I brought home were three dinkie stamps from Little Claire, even better they were free with some paper stacks I bought! So here is a mini card - it only measures 10.5cm x 10.5 cms with a mini stamp!

I am also entering this to Less Is More where the ladies want us to make a card depicting something that makes us happy. Well my two cats do! I am also going to pay another visit to the Playground as its such a nice spring day here!

Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Sant hapus...

...or Happy St David's Day, and no, I'm not Welsh but my OH is! So I made a couple of cards, both the same,  one for him and one for his brother who is in a nursing home severely disabled after a major stroke two years ago.

I used a beautiful daffodil stamp from Technique Tuesday Greenhouse Society. When I saw it I knew it was perfect for this. I coloured it with Spectrum Noir pencils,(the jury's still out on whether I like these or not) fussy cut it and mounted it on a deckled rectangle from my scraps box. The green dotty paper also came out of there so I am going to join in the fun over at the Playground. I did make another one as well for a colleague of OH but I'm afraid I forgot to take a photo before I gave it to him - it was a bit more feminine looking!
 

Less is More 4th Birthday!

Less is More was one of the first challenges I entered and they are now celebrating their 4th birthday. So I really wanted to produce a card for it this week - it has been a long time since I joined in. Unfortunately I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the last couple of weeks my mojo has gone for a walk! On top of that I've now got a cold! But I did have a go at a card - although a few went in the bin! This one was the best I could manage.

The theme for this birthday week is pink and grey. I have used Sarn's Sarntangle stamps again. I'm also going topop over to the Playground as the stamped piece and grey mat were both snippets.Hope my creativity comes back soon - it's a good job I've got a few projects not yet blogged to be going on with! Right of to flop on the sofa again!