12 Days of Christmas with Kylie

Hello Friends 
I'm delighted to be joining in on the last day of the lovely Kylie's 12 Days of Christmas with Kylie and Friends again this year. I'm a bit out of practice with crafting and blogging in recent months due to lack of time and mojo but Kylie's email definitely spurred me on into action (of sorts) and I hope you'll join in too.

I've created this card using the 'Merry Kissmas' set by Happy Little stampers 

I basically stamped the images then coloured the little details with Promarkers before adding a sentiment from the set on a die-cut circle before popping it up on fun foam. I've matted the panel with some coordinating Glitter Card and that's it. Quick and Simple!
I hope you'll play along with Kylie and friends! All the details you need are on her blog HERE as well as the linky and details of the prizes that are up for grabs. 

As always thanks for calling by and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas

Less is More #384

Hello my crafty friends, 
Firstly apologies for my absence at Less is More but sadly life has become extremely busy in the last 6 months and due to lack of time and mojo I've been struggling to take part in DT work and challenges of any sort, hence my recent break from the Design Team.
Unfortunately, despite the break I've still found it difficult to get back into crafting and I have made the tough decision to step down from the Less is More Design Team following this month's challenges.
I'm thrilled that fellow teamie Sharon has agreed to take on the task of running the challenge and I will be forever grateful to her and the rest of the team, of course, for continuing with Less is More. I'd also like to thank everyone who has supported and entered the challenge. I have enjoyed every week of the 4 years on the team and made lots of wonderful crafty friends in that time. 
So let's get down to the serious business of announcing this week's challenge which is a COLOUR one and here's the cue card to get you started

I've 2 cards to share with you and for this one I used a sentiment from Happy Little Stampers from a retired Christmas sentiments set and I found this die-cut nativity scene in my stash, conveniently die-cut using silver mirror card which I decided would work perfectly for this colour challenge. 

Secondly, a string of silver snowflakes using a die from the Works with a 'Merry Christmas' sentiment die from CAS-ual Fridays against an ink blended background.

All the details are on the main challenge blog HERE along with links to my fellow teamies and their fantastic designs to inspire you and as mentioned above, our sponsor for this month is Happy Little Stampers.

I hope you'll feel inspired to play along with and have some crafty fun along the way.
Thanks for calling by today and catch up soon.

Yet More Stencils

Hi Friends, I've a couple more stencil-themed cards to share today that I've completely forgotten about! Once again I'm showcasing some brand new ones by Funky Fossil Designs and you can find them in Sarah's Folksy Shop HERE

I tend to forget about stencils when crafting but they really are so versatile - just wish I could get a little more adventurous with them but perhaps when I've a spell off work I'll play with some new techniques.

Here goes

First up I'm thrilled with how this one turned out using the Beautiful Mandala Stencil and inked in Distress Oxides: Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmalade and Squeezed Lemonade. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted and die-cut with the coordinating die although it may be a retired one - I've lots of their older sets in my stash!

It's 'Anything Goes' at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday so I'd like to pop this one in there.

Next up a smeared inky background of Distress Oxide in Mermaid Lagoon, spritzed with a shimmery mix of water and perfect pearls. Once dry I inked through the Indian Flower stencil with Versafine Onyx Black ink (made quite a mess of the stencil) then quickly covered with Clear Embossing powder to add some shine and texture to the image. The sentiment is by Happy Little Stampers.

Last but not least an elegant Peacock, this time inked with Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers (of course) and Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxides. Once the ink was dry I used a Versafine pen to 'paint over' the gold sections then sprinkled gold embossing powder on the top. The same powder was used for the sentiment by Clearly Besotted. 

I'd like to add this card to the 'Clean and Simple' themed challenge at Addicted to Stamps & More.

That's all for me for today but hope you are enjoying some crafty fun today.

Less is More #370

Hello my crafty friends, it's Sketch Time over at Less is More for the next fortnight and we can't wait to see what you do with this one! All the details are on the main challenge blog HERE but here's the cue card followed by the Sketch and my examples. 



If you've followed my blog recently you'll notice I've become a little 'hooked' on stencils, especially in this colour combo of Distress Oxides: Blueprint Sketch, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers, Wilted Violet and Cracked Pistachio. I've used the Concentric Circles Stencil from MFT with a little masking around the circles and to finish a popped up sentiment from our sponsor; Happy Little Stampers. 

It's a clean and simple week over at Addicted to Stamps and More so I'd like to head across there with this one AND as I'm 'WILD' about stencils right now and that's the theme of the current challenge at Timeout Challenges I'd like to add this card there too. 





... and another MFT stencil below! This time the Rose Builder, again inked with Distress Oxides in Worn Lipstick and Candied Apple plus Cracked Pistachio and Lucky Clover. I must apologise I can't remember where the sentiment is from! It's from my bits box from one of those days when I'd heat embossed too many sentiments! 

Over at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge it's their Anything Goes week so I'll pop this card in there.

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


I hope you'll feel inspired to play along with us and have some crafty fun along the way.
Thanks for calling by today!

Less is More #369

Hello my crafty friends, it's time to announce our latest challenge at Less is More and we're stepping back in time with what's required for this one! All the details are on the main challenge blog HERE and here's our cue card.


You might decide to use a technique or stamp set that's not seen the light of day in a while or an additional element/embellishment that's perhaps no longer deemed 'fashionable' in crafting circles at the moment. 
Unbelievably I've 3 cards to share with you today ... having had a 2 week Easter break I had a little extra time to craft. These first 2 use handmade paper / mulberry paper I think it was called although this one is a thicker variety than others. 
For the first card I used a Columbus scalloped circle die from Mama Elephant to create a frame for the handmade paper. I stamped the sentiment from WPlus9 around the circle and mounted the 'wonderful' die-cut sentiment on foam to hide the balloon string. The balloon is from the Happy Little Stampers set 'Simply Said' and it's coloured using Promarkers.

This one uses a glittery embossed handmade / mulberry paper which I've adhered to some teal cardstock then used a die-cut 'Happy Birthday' sentiment from Impression Obsessions

Last but not least I have to admit that I own hundreds of these papery flowers in my stash; all different shapes, sizes and colours and I simply couldn't resist using them along with 2 mini sparkly brads in the centre (another of those no-longer-fashionable craft items).
I used some of the foliage stamps from Altenew Vintage Flowers to create a backdrop for the paper blooms but I'm not sure it's working for me! The sentiment is by Happy Little Stampers, our sponsor this month at Less is More.

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

I hope you'll feel inspired to play along with and have some crafty fun along the way.
Thanks for calling by today!

In Love with Stencils

Hi Friends, I can't remember the last time I got round to posting on my blog just for the fun of it BUT today I have some cards to share featuring STENCILS! 

These little beauties seem to have slipped into the back of my stash for far too long but with the stunning inspiration from my super duper blog buddy Sarah of Funky Fossils Designs and her new stencil creation venture (sold HERE) I just can't get enough of them! I just wish there were more hours in the day to play! 

So teamed with a bundle of Distress Oxide inks here's my creations and if you follow my blog regularly you'll notice I get fixated with colour combos and just can't stop myself when I find a combo I love! 

This one uses the Totally Triangular Stencil and I've been fascinated with the 'turn-around' stamps and stencils by other companies so decided to give it a go with this stencil although it's not necessarily designed to work that way. The die-cut sentiment is from Neat and Tangled with a 'birthday' greeting from Clearly Besotted

 

Using the same colour combo and Triangular stencil but this time with a cropped section of the stencilled panel a 'Smile' die-cut by Lil'inker Designs with a 'You Passed' sentiment by Clearly Besotted. 

The die-cut sentiments and strips of coloured card on all of these cards are coloured using coordinating promarkers. 

 

Ok a tad early for Father's Day but there's nothing like getting organised and I just love geometric designs for the guys so this one worked a treat. Remarkably the stencil is called 'geometric' too! The die-cut Happy is from CUT-plorations with the 'Father's Day' from Happy Little Stampers.

Next up a male / female 2-Fer of sorts! I masked off part of the stencil (called Triangle Grid) and inked through it with blues and teal colours and the other half adding some purple tones too. Can you tell I just love the 'Hooray' die-cut by Neat and Tangled? Coloured again with Promarkers to coordinate with the stencilling and a Clearly Besotted mini 'so to speak' sentiment on the first one and 'It's your day' on the second card is by Neat and Tangled.

I'm heading over to Addicted to Stamps and More for their Make your Mark week. I hope stencils are accepted along with Promarker painted sentiments!

As always thanks for calling by and if you feel inspired by these stencil designs and fancy purchasing a few, very reasonably priced ones then pop across to Sarah's Folksy shop HERE. Super efficient service and beautifully packaged too.

Less is More #368

Hello my crafty friends, wishing you all a very Happy Easter Weekend and hope the Easter bunny delivers!

I can't believe yet another fortnight has skipped by and I'm here with our latest challenge    over at Less is More. It's a Lucky Dip month as there are 5 Saturdays in the month so to spice things up a little we decided to ask Aileen of Colour & Sparkle, winner of the January challenges if she'd like to provide a CASE card for us! Thankfully she agreed!
Here's our Cue Card for this fortnight's challenge, followed by Aileen's elegant floral beauty then my interpretation!

Aileen's Card
For my card I used my favourite stamp set EVER from Happy Little Stampers 'Butterfly Birthday' along with a die-cut 'Happy' word die from STAMPlorations. I flipped the layout to portrait for this one, stamped and heat-embossed my Butterflies in Sterling Silver embossing powder before colouring with Promarkers.

I'd like to pop this card in a couple of challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers - Anything Goes with their products

I'm also sharing a little DT Inspiration over on the Uniko blog HERE so here's a sneaky peak of my card, again using Aileen's card as my CASE study with stamps from Uniko. 

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and we're delighted to welcome back Happy Little Stampers which has kindly agreed to sponsor our challenges through April.  Do play along for a chance of a prize, which we'll announce at the start of next month and have a fun and crafty time.




Thanks for calling by today!

Uniko Challenge #45 - Reminder

Hi there, I'm back with a little reminder about our current challenge over at Uniko and here's the Cue card to show you what we're looking for
If you saw my initial post announcing the challenge you'll know I was drawn to both the rose and the heart in the image above although I skipped the heart in the first card.
This time I've teamed the Pure Florals Rose with the older 'Always and Forever' set which I've used as a delicate background to the rose cluster.

The rose/leaves are watercoloured using Distress Inks before popping up on 3d foam. The sentiments

are from the Flower Power range and Simply Said, using inks by Altenew.

Here's a couple of challenges I'd like to link up to:

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers - Watercolour: Anything Goes (optional twist Heart)

Addicted to Stamps & More - Make Your Mark

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!

Our Guest Designer for this challenge is my fellow craft buddie and teamie at Less is More! Big shout out please for Anita of Neet and Crafty, winner of our last Uniko Challenge. I'm delighted to see that she won our challenge with the Christmas card she sent me! So honoured Neets. Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love, you won't be disappointed - I'm always envious of her stash and how she utilises it. 

You have until 23rd February to link up to the challenge and all the details you need about prizes and how to play can be found over at Uniko HERE

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

Less is More #362

Happy New Year Crafty Pals, I hope you are all well and enjoying 2018 so far.
I can't believe this is my first post since 23rd December ... here's me thinking I'd have been crafting and blogging non-stop over the festive period but other fun stuff got in the way!!!
Anyway I'm here to announce our latest challenge at Less is More and we are moving to a 2-weekly format from today, in the hope that it'll free up some extra time for the LIMettes and DT alike. All the details can be found on the main blog so I'll get straight down to sharing the Cue Card for our first challenge of the year! 

Surprisingly I've managed cards for you today, despite the festive fun!!! Each one featuring purples, of course and using the delicious Altenew range of inks.

This one uses the Painted Butterfly set from Altenew with a sentiment from Clearly Besotted; Brushed Greetings.

Next up another Altenew set, this time it's Beautiful Day combined with an inlaid die-cut 'happy' sentiment from STAMPlorations and the 'New Year' sentiment from Happy Little Stampers.

I'd like to link this one up at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where's it's 'Something New' so I'm going with the new Year!

... and last but not least here's the card featured over at Less is More and it uses the Bold Blooms set by My Favorite Things and a sentiment also by MFT. 

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and we've a brand new sponsor for 2018, it's Skull and Cross Buns for this month 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 have some fun - you might even like to join us more than once this fortnight! Thanks for calling by and catch up with you soon.