A Pear of Cards!

Morning Everyone,

Saturday morning saw the half birthday of Less is More , Hip Hip Hooray. 
I joined the fun on week two ( the first week of my blogs existence too ) and have never missed a challenge since ... it will always be my favourite challenge no matter what Mandi and Chrissie request of us, as it's made me rediscover my stamps and realise there is a place and a group of crafters out there that appreciate cards with white space :)

It just so happens that this week is not only a milestone but a Lucky Dip week and the challenge is

FEELING FRUITY

..... now, my new 'Fruitastic' paper Smooches stamps are still somewhere between here and Arizona so I had to think again and then I remembered my Home Accents Cricut cartridge ......

I took the colour inspiration from a re-usable shopping bag from Tescos and made a CAS design card by interchanging the sections of 4 different coloured pears and using enamel accents for the pips ... the enamel is a lot more runny than I imagined and I didn't make a very neat job of it !

The sentiment is stamped onto a Tim Holtz sizzix file tab that has then been cut down to a narrow strip to make a faux embossed border and a simple strip added below the pears too.
Sorry the card looks a little tipsy in the photo :)

When I had finished I saw the negative pear image on my desk .......
 the stencilling bug bit again and card number 2 was born ...

I love the challenge of making a stencilled image look 3D and I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out using Chalk ink and then adding a touch of Brushed Corduroy on a sponge for the dark flecks :)

I cut my own stencil for the hearts and stalks before printing the punny sentiment with the computer using a font called Windsong ... I think.

Finally, I thought I'd share a few pictures of our darling dawg having discovered a new mole hill in the garden this morning

..... yep he really stands waiting and listening like that for ages! I'm not sure if he's waiting to see Mr Mole pop his head out and surprise him but he really becomes obsessed with the thing until his nose looks like this .....

...... then you know he's made a complete mess of the mole hill and the lawn.... OH DEAR!

Needless to say we try and get to them before he does!!

Enough rambling from me now time to link my card up to LIM, there's loads of fantastic cards already to look at so hop over and see for yourself.

Thanks for visiting , I really appreciate your comments X

Flower Jars @ OLW

Hi Everyone ,

Ok I'm on a roll now with my cards again but this weeks OLW gave me trouble at first and a heap of rejects too until I decided to go literal with the photo inspiration .

I basically went back to stencilling again using a quickutz jar die and punched flower with a hand cut stem and leaf stencil too . I made the flower into a daffodil by stencilling through a star to make the trumpet face on .
A little bit of mending wool for twine and a hero arts sentiment .
I tend to use these 3.5 inch square cards for one layer cards as they seem less daunting and the texture works well with the ink and coloursoft pencils that I use to add extra definition to the images .

I'm off out shopping today as it's a certain young ladies birthday at the end of the week and we have another university to visit this week too ...... roll on the end of term :)

Thanks for looking and mind that hot sun today .... the Wimbledon effect has worn off all ready X 

Less is More #10

Morning Everyone ,

It's that time of the week again to make and post my Less is More card for this week. Week 10 is a one layer week with focus on the sentiment .

This is my card , which uses the stamps I was waiting for yesterday and the sentiment is one I found on the computer .  I made the sentiment in Word with this fabulous font called Jellyka Castle's Queen (dafont.com) which looks like it could have been written with a quill .

I wasn't sure whether to add anything else ,  i.e pearls/gems of a touch of glitter on the feathers .... what do you think ?
It's not the most bright , jolly card so I'll probably be back with another submission to cover that angle .

I'm actually enjoying the one layer weeks as it really tests the old creative matter and I'm building a collection of cards that are easy to fit in their envelopes :)
Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment X



Non-floral sympathy card

Hello again , second post today ,

Time is running out for the OLW challenge here so I managed to make my entry this morning .

The requirement is a One Layer Sympathy card without using flowers or tree images so after searching through my stamps I came up with nothing suitable , I've ordered a set of stamps that would be suitable but they have not arrived in time so I decided to use stencils and chalks . I used a nestie to make a stencil and then chalked a dusk skyline , silhouetted hills and then added a few birds , the sentiment is from Stampin Up .
I'm quite pleased how it turned out as the sky colours give the card a tranquil feel and the embossed border frames it nicely ... its surprising what you can produce when the supplies are limited :)

That really is all for today , thanks for looking X

A Non-Easter, Egg card!

Hi Everyone ,
This weeks One Layer Wednesday is to use eggs on your card in any guise and not necessarily Easter themed either .

Hmmm .... as usual I do not have a stamp of any description that contains an egg image so I've had to resort to homemade stencils again , yey.
I have gone with a non -religious Easter theme but a decorated egg does feature .

The inspiration for this was a card on Mandi's blog here .
The sentiment was made on the computer and printed directly onto the card blank and that well known broken line features again .
I found an egg image on clip art and printed a few on an A4 piece of paper . I cut the image out with my knife to give me a stencil to ink through . I have used Brilliance ink so the eggs have a wonderful pearlescent shimmer .... not easy to photograph , and managed to shade them to give a bit of dimension . The decoration on the yellow egg is also stencilled from the clip art images .
Here's a photo showing most of the things I used to make the card .

Not a great photo but if you click on it you can see better ( the stencils are crumpled because they had been screwed up and binned so as not to transfer ink anywhere it shouldn't be) .
It was great fun to make as I love having to find different ways to achieve images that I haven't got in stamp form .
I think that covers everything and I hope you like it too :)

On a different note , I hope everyone is enjoying this lovely weather while it's here , lets keep our fingers crossed it lasts for the weekend .

Thanks for looking and leaving lovely comments on my blog they are much appreciated X

OLW 45 - Hex signs

Hi everyone ,
Just thought I'd post this card I made for the One Layer Wednesday challenge this week here .
This week we are to take our inspiration from Hex symbols which are colourful geometric patterns found on farm buildings in Pennsylvania, read about them here .

Now my stamp collection doesn't really stretch to small solid images to make a geometric patterns so I've resorted to using punches to make stencils again and inking through them with distress inks . 

I drew two faint pencil lines across the card to find the central point and then worked from the middle outwards . It was really fun to do actually, here's a close up.

To finish off I felt it needed a border so I masked off the card centre and inked a red border .
I think it would make an eye-catching note card .
Thanks for looking X

Less is More #4

So the kids are back at school and the weather is dreary so some card-making was the order of the morning.

Week 4 at the Less is More challenge blog and this week we have to use three squares on our card. I decided to stipple three squares through a homemade acetate stencil with Tim Holtz distress ink. Then stamp, and colour with promarkers, two images from a set of clear Woodware stamps and use a sentiment from the same set on the middle square. Glossy accents highlights the cherry and chocolate sauce and a piece of ribbon with bow to finish.

I was so pleased with how this style of card came out that I made another, this time as a birthday card for my Brother-in-Law whose birthday is coming up. He's a travel fanatic so thought I could make a variation on the theme using a  Judikins cube stamp and using Kraft card.

This time I stippled arond the acetate square and mounted the images on top.

If you fancy taking up the challenge visit the blog, make a card and upload it..we're a friendly group over there and you'll find some inspiring designs and blogs too :)