Gerbera DT Inspiration for Uniko

Hi friends I'm over on the Uniko blog this morning sharing a little Gerbara inspired combo. You'll find all my cards HERE but I wanted to feature 2 of them on my own blog to link up at a couple of challenges today so here goes:

First up to enter over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where it's Layer it Up! Although I love some layering to cards I'm rather a 'clean and simple' girl so too many layers freak me out!!! I hope this one includes enough die-cut layers/panels/sentiment for the girls at SSS.

Using: Uniko - Pure Florals Gerbera, Festive Sentiments and Simply Said, Altenew Inks, WOW Silver Sparkle EP

Next up I'm heading over to the 'Ombre' challenge at Addicted to CAS and Anything Goes and Addicted to Stamps & More. Same colour combo and products but here's my 'clean and simple' version! 

Using: Uniko - Pure Florals Gerbera, All Occasion Sentiments, Altenew Inks, WOW Silver Sparkle EP

Thanks for calling by my blog today and for more details on my cards please head over to the Uniko blog where there's another 2 varieties! Catch up Soon! 

Less is More #363

Hello my crafty friends, 
Another fortnight has zipped by and I'm here to announce our latest challenge over at Less is More - and it's that dreaded one! Although we've moved to fortnightly challenges we are still using the same rotation of 'themes' so it's our ONE layer week!
Here's the cue card, which is self-explanatory, I hope, followed by my cards and I've 2 to share today.

First up, using a James Bear image from LOTV is the card I made for Kylie of Happy Little Stampers when she became a Nana for the first time at the end of last year. Having seen the photos of her adorable grandson I couldn't resist stamping this little cutie on the card. The 'Hey' sentiment is from Uniko with the 'Nanny' from Clearly Besotted Stamps.

Loads of masking and stamping on this second one using a mixture of pandas, as they're super cute ... yes? The sets are by Mama Elephant and it's Incoming Mail and Pandamonium. I've added a couple of score lines at the bottom for some extra interest and a little bit of shading and colour with Promarkers

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and if you missed the first challenge this month, we introduced a brand new sponsor for January; Skull and Cross Buns! Why not head on over and check out their gorgeous range of stamps and do make sure you play along for a chance of a prize, which we'll announce at the start of next month.



I hope you'll join us and have some fun and thanks for calling by today!

Altenew Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop

Hello there friends, today I'm here with a different kind of post for  Less is More

as we are taking part in a HUGE challenge blog hop in association with Altenew  and 17 other challenge blogs. The idea (thought up by May Park of Altenew)  is a celebration of crafting challenge blogs which bring together a whole community  of crafty folk, sharing our hobby, techniques, talents and above all enjoyment of all things crafty. What's more the timing is just perfect as a pre-celebration for  the World Cardmaking Day in October.
Here's my card using the gorgeous painted butterflies set by Altenew,  inks by Altenew and sentiment from Magnolias for her ... also by Altenew!


To find out more details, how to play, what you can win etc. please  head over to our Less is More blog HERE or the Altenew blog HERE

I hope you'll feel inspired to dust off those Altenew sets, get stamping and join in the fun! As always thanks so much for visiting my blog today!

Inkspirational #115

Hello friends, I've a card to share today using some designer paper by Echo Park! I have lots and lots of fancy papers that are just too gorgeous to use so they sit in a drawer! Anyone else do that?
So when I saw the challenge at Inkspirational I decided I could spare a teeny bit although I've not twisted with stamping on it!

This uses:

WOW: Metallic Brass Sparkle EP

Altenew: Inks and Painted Butterfly Stamp set

Avery Elle: Sentimental

Mama Elephant: Landscape Trio dies

Hope you are having a fun and crafty weekend and thanks for stopping by my blog today!

AAA Cards Challenge #71

Hi there crafters it's time to introduce the latest challenge from AAA Cards
This time we'd like to see some BLENDING on your cards but please keep the design CLEAN and SIMPLE.
In the end I've made 3 for this challenge and having made my second one first ... if  that makes sense, I decided I'd rather go bold, fun and funky and slightly WILD!
... and as that's the theme at this week's Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge I'd like to slot it in there too!

This one uses that funny silly stamp set from The Alley Way Stamps called

Face-It! I started out by inking my panel with various 'rainbow-type' coloured

Distress Inks before heat embossing my images. For added detail I dry-embossed

the card base using a 'next level' embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers.

The inky panel is die-cut using a frame die from WPlus9 Sunshine layers then

to finish a sentiment from Mama Elephant, Up, Up and Away.

Here's the first card I made!

A couple of challenges ago we had our 'Stash Favourites' and I used this same die by Neat and Tangled. Here I've created a mask with it,  adhered it to my card then blended distress inks in Spun Sugar and  Worn lipstick to create an ombre look to my card. I couldn't resist a quick spritz of Perfect Pearls and water although it's not obvious in the photo. 
The sentiments are from Avery Elle: Sentimental with the elephant from Clearly Besotted Baby Shower stamp and die set.
My cousin and his wife are about to welcome a little girl to  their home ... in fact at the time of 'typing' she could well be putting in an appearance so this card will be heading over to them ASAP!

 Last but not least and because I love getting inky ...

First of all I masked off a strip approx 3cm wide on my card base then

inked the 'un-masked' area with Distress Inks in: Cracked Pistachio, 

Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers and Blueprint Sketch.

My favourite little addition with inky blending, spritzing, flicking and 

drizzling water and perfect pearls onto the area, although this isn't watercolour

card therefore not too much of a dowsing! I mounted 2 pieces of white card stock

on Fun Foam before adding my die-cut elements which are both by Clearly Besotted. 

There's loads more inspiration from my fellow teamies so I do hope

you'll want to play along with this one and have some fun.
We're also joined by a super talented Guest Designer for this challenge and I do  hope you'll call in at Michelle's blog, Passionate Crafter and leave some love!

Our sponsor is Happy Little Stampers
with our lucky winner receiving a $20 gift certificate to spend in store.

Thanks as always for stopping by and catch up with you soon.

AAA Cards Challenge #69

Hi friends it's time for a new challenge over at  AAA Cards and we'd like you to use one Stash Favourite on your card and explain  what it is in your description. Tough I know to stick with one! I love dies and try to use them where I can. Here I've used 2 but my favourite stash item is the Neat & Tangled Heart of Gold die Other items are Distress inks to add a few splatters for interest, WPlus9 stacking hearts dies, Lawn Fawn: Happy Wedding stamp set; coloured with Promarkers and some Pretty Pink Posh sequins to finish. I hope you feel inspired to play along and our sponsor for this challenge  is Stampendous. There's plenty more inspiration by my fellow teamies  over on the main blog PLUS our guest designer for this challenge is the incredible  Ksenija from Sweet Kobylkin Please pop along to her blog and check out her fantastic designs. Thanks as always for calling by and I do hope you have some fun.

Less is More #283

Hey Happy Saturday friends! It's time for a new challenge at Less is More and we are back round to our colour week. We've chosen a fun little colour idea for you ...
Colours of your kitchen don't we all just love being a little nosey eh!
Here's mine and don't forget to head over and visit my teamies blogs as they've got some stunning ideas too.

This one uses a woodgrain background stamp from Winnie and Walter

which echos the style and colour (almost) of my units, there's a very 

dark grey floor (I simply have to with a dog trailing mud inside).

Curtains, blinds and accessories are in shades of teal, mint and lime

 green as shown in the strange-coloured apples from Clearly Besotted:

 Apple of My Eye and the Doodlebug Sprinkles

It's an Anything Goes week at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge

so I'd like to pop this one in there.

This one uses the same woodgrain background stamp from Winnie

& Walter with a sentiment from Altenew Brushstroke Sentiments

(thanks again Anita!) ;) plus the blooms are from the recently released 

stamp set Paradise by Uniko. The woodgrain embossed panel is

mounted on fun foam for added dimension and a couple of sparkly 

sequins from Pretty Pink Post to add a bit of bling.

Last but not least I couldn't resist using the Doodled Flowers stamp set 

from Happy Little Stampers; our generous sponsor for July.

I stamped the images from the set and coloured some of them with promarkers

leaving the others as outlines. The sentiment is by Winnie & Walter (thanks to 

a little de-stash purchase from Michelle Short) and I've added some coordinating

sequins from my stash around the edges.

I'd like to pop this card in at the Anything Goes with HLS Stamps

I hope you enjoy this one and thanks as always for calling by.

See you soon

Less is More #237

Yeah! Saturday morning ... 8am which means only one thing - well on the craft blog-vine! A new challenge over at 
Less is More
and we are talking 'Congratulations' this week so a whole array of occasions for celebrations!
There's cause for celebrations in our house this week as not only is our kitchen almost complete after 4 weeks but our daughter collected her AS results on Thursday and we are so proud of her - 4 A-grades! So one more year of school before she hopes to study medicine at university! She's so bright ... just like me LOL!
Anyway her boyfriend also did superb in his exams and here's the card I made for him! It's a shaker one but still maintaining lots of white space!

I started out by inking the whale and sentiment from Paper Smooches

Briny Blue and 'You Did It' from Clearly Besotted - Let's Roll using

Versafine Black ink before heat embossing with clear embossing powder.

Using Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire, Mermaid Lagoon and Tumbled Glass

I've watercoloured the background allowing the colours to merge slightly before

spritzing water splashes on it. The shaker frame is made with an MFT Die-namics

Stitched Square Die and filled with beads and sequins from my stash.

The theme over at CASology this week is Aquatic so I'm heading

over there with this card too.

I was quite late pulling these cards together this week due to 

being unwell with a stinking cold and loads of cleaning and clearing from

the numerous workmen around the house who have been finishing up this week

so I'm not too sure about the next two which I made for our daughter.

One's a bit conservative and the other a bit of a joke!

For this one I started out by heat embossing the 'Congratulations' sentiment 

from Uniko: All Occasion Sentiments and 'You're a Super' from Clearly Besotted

Superstar stamp sets in Hero Arts white embossing powder before masking off the 

area beneath the sentiments. Using 'hot' coloured distress inks in Mustard Seed, Wild Honey

and Barn Door I've inked over the sentiment then used some glitter card stock to cut

several stars using a Memory Box die set and some mini pearls to accent.

... and last but not least this one uses another Uniko set - Explosion

and I used some fun and jokey sentiments from the same set plus the

'You Did It' from Clearly Besotted Let's Roll.

The images and sentiments are all heat embossed using either Hero Arts Clear,

WOW Metallic Silver Sparkle or WOW Metallic Brass Sparkle.

To add some extra details I've gone a bit mad with a white gelly roll pen!

The black panel is die-cut using MFT Die-Namics Inside-Out Diagonal

Stitched Rectangle STAX

Ok I'm sure you super talented bunch will come up with some 

AMAZING celebratory cards and I hope you have something good

to celebrate too this week! Don't forget to check out the Less is More blog

HERE for more incredible inspiration from my teamies!

Thanks for stopping by, have a good week and I'll be back in an hour 

with the latest challenge details for Addicted to CAS.

Monday Muse and Love in Purple

Happy Bank Holiday Monday ... well if you live in the UK! Here's a couple of cards I finished off yesterday.
First up it's a sea of purple paradise for Inkspirational. Huge Congrats to Pia (DT member) on your upcoming nuptials  and here's my take on a wedding card for the Happy couple.

Pia is super talented and I love it when she is a GD for Clearly Besotted  (which happens to be one of my favourite stamp companies)  so I simply had to use some of their sets to create this card.
Clearly Besotted: Mr & Mrs Set: Flourish image and Bridal Bouquet Sentiment Uniko Studio: Congratulations sentiment  The images & sentiments are heat-embossed using clear EP from Hero Arts Before inking and blending distress ink in Dusty Concord. To add a touch of glam I've used some silver and purple gems from my stash.

Next up is my entry to this week's Muse Christmas Visions It's not obvious in the photo but I used distress ink in Barn Door  over my 'red' cardstock panel to add a velvety sheen. 

Card Recipe:

I love Betty's card but in the absence of a pierced oval die in my stash  I've used a Nestabilities label set and trimmed the edges. Clearly Besotted: Autumn Blooms Flowers with a sentiment from Pretty Poinsettia To give the impression of snow on my foliage I've added fluffy stuff and heat-embossed with a touch of glamour dust then gems and pearls to finish

I hope you all enjoy your day and get chance to do some crafting.

Thanks for calling in and see you soon.

A Muse or Two and More

Morning Friends I'm trying my bestest to keep to my  New Years Resolution of entering the Merry Monday challenge every week to stock up my Christmas box ... THEN another Christmas challenge enters blogland and I'm literally FORCED to make 2 this week! Happy Days!
I'll have my feet up sipping mulled wine come 30th November!!!! Ha Ha ... we'll see about that eh!

So here goes with my Muse Christmas Visions entry

Card Recipe: Uniko Studio: Decorative Doilies & 'Christmas' sentiment from Peace on Earth both heat embossed in WOW metallic silver sparkle Clearly Besotted: 'Merry' word die ... looks like I'll have look out for a JOY die cut! So hope this will count. A strip of vellum plus some gems and pearls from my stash to accent
Here's Chriss's card and just as I'm adding this gorgeous Muse card I think I may have dropped a 'clanger' - classic mistake on a one layer card - adding a layer! Grrr!  The thought was there ladies just got carried away with the excitement!


Next up is my entry to Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge where we've been asked to use a stencil.

So a while ago I was lucky to win a blog hop stash giveaway

by Lisa 'I'm in Haven' and this gorgeous Christmas scene stencil

with pull-outs for trees and landscape, from Simon Says Stamp, was included.

It's a first outing for it, for me, so I've sponged the trees using the stencil 

with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn.

I've 'very' loosely followed the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches 

using a snow drift die from MFT Die-Namics to create the 

'ski slope' effect with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted curved

to match (as best I could). To finish I've added some shading in 

Tumbled Glass DI and some glamour dust.

 

Last one is the 'other' Muse challenge and I have to say that 

once again Michele freaked me out with her classy style using muted colours

Here's my take ....

Card Recipe:

Dovecrafts Textured card panel die-cut using Mama Elephant stitched index card

Clearly Besotted: Flower Blocks - heat embossed in WOW brass metallic EP

and 'Congrats' word die which looking at my photo is rather too camouflaged!

Uniko Studio: Flower Power #3 sentiment

A few sparkly gems to finish. 

When I made this card I had in mind 2 superb guys who are getting 

married in a couple of weeks time - my sister is 'chief bridesmaid' 

if that's a role at a gay wedding and my brother-in-law is 'best man'

If any of you watched the Graham Norton show on Friday night 

they were in the audience and featured - having seen the show I'm not 

sure whether the card is 'camp' enough so your feedback would be most welcome!

Here's Michele's amazing card that I've tried to Muse!

Thanks as always for stopping by and catch you again soon.

Less is More #216

Morning All Yippee it's the weekend!
Time for another challenge over at Less is More
This week is theme week AND ... scary stuff We'd like you to CASE one of the Design Team cards!
It's taken a while to come up with something for you as I've swapped and changed ideas so many times but I'm sticking with this one!

Ok so it's a shaker card which can still be CAS - yeah!

If you decide to CASE my card I'd like to see:

Lots of 'white space' obviously but then you might like to use

embossing, shakers, colours, dies or go with a wedding card. 

I can't wait to see how you interpret my card. 

The main thing ... have FUN!

Card Recipe:

Clearly besotted: Paired Up sentiment & dies set plus word die

WPlus9: Heart dies

Impression Obsession: Heart of Heart die

WOW: Metallic silver embossing powder

We are only offering one (CASE) card per DT member this week 

so I'm handing over to you now.

Chrissie, Anne and I are heading to the Hobbycraft event at

the NEC Birmingham today so if any of you are attending

we'd love to say hello and have a chat if you spot us.

Have a good weekend and see you soon