Less is More #359

Morning friends!
We're fast approaching the Christmas finish line but we've 2 more challenges to share over at Less is More and here's the first one. It's THEME week and the cue card should be quite self-explanatory.


As well as my usual design teamies we're delighted to have Michelle of Seashell Creations, guest designing with us for this week. Michelle recently won our October sponsor prize and has some stunning cards on her blog. Why not stop by and leave her some love!

I made this card with my crafty friends Anita and Kylie when they spent a little time at my house following the HLS Retreat in Manchester last month. We visited my local craft store where everything was at knock down prices so this set from Stampendous, was a perfect treat and had some great festive and feathery images. I've also used a Christmas sentiment from Happy Little Stampers.
As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Happy Little Stampers so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.

Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by 

Uniko - Introducing New Uniko Stencils

Hello again, I'm back with Day 2 of our introductions over at Uniko as we get ready for this month's release of new stamps!
Today we are sharing examples of 3 new stencils which will be released alongside the new stamp sets on Saturday. 

As you can see from the background above the stencil features lots of lines, narrow, wide and dashed. I think it'll be one of my go-to stencils for an easy backdrop and it's so versatile it would work with many occasions. Here I've teamed it with Balloon Bash and the Simply Said Birthday sentiments from Uniko to create a fun birthday card. 
... and I did say at the start of the week that the sets didn't include any Christmas images BUT I couldn't help myself! I'm so behind on Christmas card makes that I used the same stencil as a backdrop to the pretty Christmas Sparkle bauble also from Uniko. 

I hope you like how I've played with the stencils and if you'd like the release schedule please head over to the Uniko blog HERE, where you'll find all you need to know as well as links and peeks at how my fellow teamies have worked their magic!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll be back tomorrow for the final day of introductions.

Less is More #358

Morning friends!
Oh my goodness we really are getting extremely close to Christmas and I feel so disorganised and lacking in handmade Christmas cards that I feel a shop bought pack may be required this year to bolster my stock! 
It's time to announce the latest challenge from Less is More and in true festive style we've a challenge that could be 'twisted' towards that Christmas theme if, like me, you're struggling with cards.
Sadly I've only the one today as there's one more stamp release from Uniko to sneak in before Christmas so that has also kept me out of mischief and away from my Christmas card production line! I feel my hand delivered ones will be still wet with glue when I deliver them on Christmas Eve!!!
Anyway here's this week's CUE CARD and it's that dreaded ONE layer week too!

... and here's my card using a cheap and cheerful stamp I picked up from The Works (UK book / stationary / craft shop). It's a little living room scene in itself featuring a roaring toasty fire and lights on a Christmas Tree so as soon as I saw it I knew which challenge it would be heading towards!

I stamped the image in black then heat embossed with clear embossing powder over the top before colouring the images with Promarkers. There's a little wink of stella and glossy accents on those stockings and a sentiment from Uniko to finish. Oh and I hand drew the border to frame the image. 

It's an Anything Goes week over at Addicted to Stamps and More so I'd like to pop this one in there, plus over at Timeout Challenges there's a photo inspiration and I couldn't resist not joining in when I saw the cute little stockings against the wood background. 

As always there'll be loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and no doubt a few extras on their own blogs so do pay them a visit this week.
Our fantastic sponsor for this month is Happy Little Stampers and if you want to be in with a chance of a prize, then do play along each week, We'll announce our monthly winner at the start of next month.


Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by. 

Uniko Challenge #44 - Reminder

Hi there, I'm back with a little reminder about our current challenge over at Uniko and in true Festive Fashion the theme for this one is Christmas and if you visited my blog when we announced the challenge on 24th November then you'll know that my reminder card is the other 'half' of a 2-FER! 
Both cards are very similar and use the Winter Foliage set by Uniko with a die-cut Christmas sentiment from MFT die-namics teamed with a Uniko one too! The images are stamped using Altenew Inks and I've also used the Basic Stitched Border edge dies from MFT too. 

I also have a non-traditional extra card to share which I created for the recent Happy Little Stampers Retreat in Manchester for the 'Christmas Challenge' It uses the recently released Wonky Stripe Stencils, inked through with Distress Inks and the Designer Dies: Snowflakes which were also inked with the same coloured inks, dowsed in Versamark ink before heat embossing with some Hero Arts Clear Sparkle embossing powder. The sentiments are from the recently released Festive Sentiments set from Uniko. 

As always there's plenty of fantastic creations by my fellow teamies, so why not head over to the Uniko blog HERE to check out the links and pay them a visit! I'm sure they'd appreciate it!

Here's the cue card which we'd love to see you use in your own blog posts and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

You have until Friday, 29th December to link up to the challenge so no excuses for not taking part!

The details you need about prizes and how to play can be found over at Uniko HERE and as always thanks for calling by my blog today.

Less is More #357

Morning friends!
It's time to announce our latest challenge from Less is More and being the first week of the month it's our COLOUR challenge. We're also welcoming back Kylie of Happy Little Stampers as our Guest Designer and sponsor for the month so do pop along to her blog and leave some love!

I'm needing to maximise my Christmas card stock, urgently, so this colour scheme seemed appropriate although I do also love non-traditional coloured Christmas cards too. I've 2 cards to share and they both use the Winter Flowers set by Simon Says Stamp, coloured with Promarkers and the sentiments are by Happy Little Stampers

I'd like to head across to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes with this one. 

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Happy Little Stampers so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.



Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by. 

Less is More #356

Morning friends! It's time to announce our latest challenge at Less is More and it's our Recipe week with the requirement to 'Let it Shine'

Now you may have heard that Kylie of Happy Little Stampers & Kylie's Addicted to Stamps held a little Craft Retreat in Manchester earlier this month and I was delighted to attend and meet up with fellow LIM teamies, Anita and Sharon along with a bunch of other crafty buddies.
Kylie decided it was time to introduce 'light up' cards and basically I'm hooked! To begin with all that circuit building with batteries and positives/negatives was a little mind-blowing but now back at home I just can't get enough of them. 

This Eiffel Tower card is one of my Retreat cards, although I rehashed it a little when I got home as I could see a channel of light behind the tower. The image is from Happy Little Stampers and initially it was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black then heat embossed using Clear Sparkle embossing powder on a 'Distressed' Background. The mini picture shows the 'light-up' effect when the sentiment is pressed. 

 

This one was very simple to make and positively oozes CAS! Firstly I debossed a stitched circle die by Simon Says Stamp, then added the reindeer thumb print image from the Clearly Besotted 'In Print' set. The sentiment is from the MFT set 'Jingle All the Way' - I have to say the light-up effect on this one is the best (so far!) and my reindeer (Rudolph) has a shiny red nose from Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents too. 

While I had the MFT 'Jingle All The Way' set on my desk I couldn't resist inking up these mini Reindeer and adding another 'Rudolph' into the mix. The images are coloured using Promarkers andn you can see the 'light-up' effect in the mini picture at the top.

If you get the chance to have a go with light-up cards you'll have a whole load of fun and why not try it this week and link up to our challenge!

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Dies to Die For so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.



I hope you'll play along and thanks for calling by!

Uniko Challenge #44

Hello crafty friends it's that time again when we are announcing our latest monthly challenge over at Uniko and the theme for this one is Christmas! Totally appropriate and brilliant timing for dashing off some of those much needed holiday cards.
Here's mine and it's a little tease because it's a 2-FER and you'll need to check back at 'reminder' time for the other 'half'! Both cards use the Winter Foliage set by Uniko with a die-cut Christmas sentiment from MFT die-namics teamed with a Uniko one too! The images are stamped using Altenew Inks and I've also used the Basic Stitched Border edge dies from MFT too. 

Here's the cue card which we'd love to see you use in your own blog posts and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

                                             

You have until Friday, 29th December to link up to the challenge, so no excuses for not joining in! 

The details you need about prizes and how to play can be found over at Uniko HERE and as always thanks for calling by my blog today.

Less is More #355

Morning friends!
After my little break at the Happy Little Stampers Retreat in Manchester, last weekend and several days entertaining fellow craft buddies, Anita and Kylie, I'm back, with this week's challenge for Less is More 
Hopefully you managed to check out some of the retreat photos on Facebook - we had a brilliant time and Kylie is the most fantastic teacher with loads of tips for card making and getting messy in particular. If you get the opportunity to attend one of these events in future then you certainly won't regret it!
This weekend it's fellow Less is More teamie, Susan's birthday and she kindly agreed to let us CASE one of her cards for the challenge so I'm sending HUGE birthday greetings and sharing my 'Susan Inspired Card' below

It's just the one from me this week as my mojo has run off and left the building!!! I've gone festive as Susan did with a stitched front panel and a main focal point of 2 little robins. I couldn't resist adding a delicate blended sky and touches of glittery snow to the background. 

Supplies: Clearly Besotted - Rockin' Robin stamps and dies - layered up for added dimension, Distress inks in Tumbled Glass with wonky stitched border dies from MFT Die-Namics (thanks Neets!), inks are Altenew and I die-cut some glitter paper with the Neat and Tangled Punchinello die for snow.

Here's Susan's stunning CASE card

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Dies to Die For so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.


Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by 

Uniko Revisit - November 2017

Hello there fellow crafters it's a REVIST month over at Uniko where Bev askes us to 'dig out', dust down and bring a previously released set back into the spotlight! Well it's not just one set this time but a whole array of exciting products ... some new and some older so let's get this party started!
First of all I'm delighted to announce that the long awaited coordinating dies for the ever-popular Flower Power Series have arrived! I, for one, have been waiting for these for years - mainly because I'm lazy and hate fuzzy cutting! So here's a couple of little cards using those along with a recently released Stencil to coordinate with the Background Block - Wonky Stripes Stamp.

If you follow my blog regularly you'll know I love to go a little wild with colour and inking up this stencil with the Distress inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed (with mixed shades in between) seemed the way to go. With all that colour I decided to leave the flowers to outlines only and just added a little promarker colour to the centre followed with glossy accents. I only used half of my stencilled piece so scroll on down to see how I used the rest! 

These 2 are very similar and use another of the Flower Power images with matching dies. Believe it or not the Stencilled backgrounds on both examples come from another half of a 'stencilled' panel,  each card using a quarter so plenty more scraps to create something else! Here I die-cut the stem and leaves also but coloured them with a black Promarker and added some white gel dotty detail

Next up it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!! Which is as well seen as we are dusting down or should I say glittering up those Designer Snowflake Dies and this is my first ever spinny card. The background uses another newly released stencil to coordinate with the Background Block Scattered Dots but I thought it would work as snow! Yeah??? 

Having die-cut a circle from my card front and a separate panel, I blended Distress inks through a stencil of the same size on to the inside of the card. Once the ink had dried I placed the stencil over the top and used texture paste followed by glamour dust to create some festive snow. The Snowflakes were die-cut using glitter paper and adhered to card with a piece of sparkly twine sandwiched between the two to create the 'spinny' effect.  

... and last but not least here's how I used up that extra half of stencilled wonky stripes from earlier?

The stencilled panel was sliced down the middle and adhered to the card base with one strip down each side. The front panel is mounted on 3d foam and features a festive tree from the Previously released Christmas Pop set, stamped in closely coordinating colours using Altenew inks.

As is the tradition there's a blog hop giveaway and you'll find all the details including the links to my fellow teamies blogs and a sneaky peek at what they've created for the REVISIT post over at Uniko HERE

Before I leave you to hop here's the image of the sets and as always thanks for visiting my blog today and I wish you lots of luck on the hop!

   

Less is More #352

Morning friends!
I'm leaving this post in the 'trusty' hands of Mr Blogger as I'm away for a couple of days so hopefully his scheduling skills are working to the max today as I'd like to introduce our latest challenge from Less is More 
It's the turn of our RECIPE challenge and here's the cue card

I've gone with a really simple and straight forward technique using purpose made layering clear stamps which are so popular on the market these days for adding extra detail with the hard work taken out of it by the stamp designers and manufacturers.
I've 2 cards for you and first up using one of my favourite sets from Altenew along with their inks too which work beautifully with all the different tones in the sets.

In fact it ended up being a two-fer as I used different tones of the same colour families to ink up  my butterflies...deep and subtle. I think I prefer the deep version but personal taste I suppose. The sentiment is from a couple of Uniko sets ... Festive Sentiments (Happy) and Simply Said (Birthday)

Next up a little Christmas variety using some other stamps from our super sponsor Uniko, these are Winter Foliage, Jingle Bells and Festive Sentiments. The pine-cone and poinsettia are both layered stamps and again I've used Altenew inks for stamping. 

It's an Anything Goes week at Simon Says Stamp so I'd like to head across there with this one.

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Uniko so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.



Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by today.