Sunday 30 July 2017

Uniko - Farewell Fellow Teamie!


Hello crafty friends it's a sad day over at Uniko today as we are saying 'Farewell' to one of our fellow teamies. Sarah G has decided to step down from the team due to work pressures and life just getting in the way. She'll be missed loads as her inspiring makes really set the bar here at Uniko and her designs leave me speechless every time. We've become great friends as we started here at Uniko at the same time, I think, so I hope she'll continue to visit and we'll meet up IRL now and again. 

All the best Sarah and here's a little cheery card for you using the popular Paradise set by Uniko ....



My fellow teamies have been up to their usual tricks and created some classy designs for Sarah too plus we're hosting a little blog hop so do hop along and leave a comment at each of the design team blogs to be in with a shout of a prize. I hope you'll pay Sarah a visit too and wish her well.

To join the 'hop' and find the links please head over to the Uniko blog HERE where you'll find all the prize details too. 

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and good luck with the HOP!

Sarah

Sunday 23 July 2017

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #95

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and this post is tinged with a little sadness as I'm stepping down from the Design Team at AAA Cards following this challenge. It's been a brilliant opportunity, creating alongside such fantastic talent and I've loved every minute. I've also made some wonderful friends who I hope to meet up with in the near future and definitely keep in touch with them via social media. 

The demands of being on a Design Team are challenging and unfortunately being on several design teams, alongside work certainly eats into precious family time, which has led me to this decision. I do hope to play along in the challenges now and again and I'd like to thank everyone at AAA CAS cards for being such perfect teamies!

The theme for this one is Rainbow and it's one of my favourite themes so  here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too


This was a very quick and easy card to make using rainbow coloured strips adhered at an angle to a panel of white card-stock. This was die-cut using a stitched rectangle die before adding a die-cut 'happy' sentiment and stamped 'birthday' greeting. To finish I couldn't resist a few enamel dots in rainbow colours.



As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

Our Guest Designer for this challenge is a formidable Queen of CAS and creator of the ever-popular Less is More Challenge. It's Chrissie of Simply One of a Kind! She is a whizz at Clean and Simple designs and I hope you'll pop along and visit her blog this week.

Our sponsor for this challenge is STAMPlorations and I hope you'll feel inspired to join us and play along.


Sarah

Friday 21 July 2017

Uniko Challenge #42


Hello crafty friends it's that time again when we are announcing our latest challenge over at Uniko and the theme for this one is Flowers! What a super pretty challenge and I'm sure you'll have no problems with this one at all, especially if you are lucky enough to own many of the floral stamp sets by Uniko.

This month we have also been revisiting the Marvellous Mehndi set which isn't a floral set as such but when is a Mandala not a Mandala hey? Well when it's shaped like a flower as I've done here and added some leafy images to the background.



The leaves are from the Pure Florals: Gerbera set and left monochromatic. I thought this style worked well with the subtle colours of distress inks used to colour the mandala having first heat embossed it with a white pearl embossing powder. The sentiment is from the Simply Said range and I've added a little extra details with some sparkly gems.




Our Guest Designer for this challenge is fab-u-lous Cornelia who is one of our previous Uniko Challenge winners. I'm sure you'll all have visited Cornelia's blog in the past as she's on several design teams and creates the most eye-poppingly delightful cards always! Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love.

You have until Friday, 25th August 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

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

Sarah

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Uniko Revisit - July 2017: Marvellous Mehndi

Hi friends, I'm here with a REVIST post for Uniko and this month Bev asked us to 'dig out', dust down and bring the previously released, Marvellous Mehndi set back into the spotlight.

I've a few examples to share with you and sometimes when I'm crafting I get fixated on a particular colour combo, which happened with this little lot. I start colouring some images but then I wasn't sure if I liked the result so I did some more. Eventually I decided they actually looked okay and they'd even be a great gift idea to give as a set with some everyday style sentiments as I've done here.

I hope you like my Marvellous Mehndi revisit. All images are coloured with Promarkers and I've added some little gems to most of the cards. The sentiments are all Uniko and from a mixture of the All Occasion Sentiments range and Simply Said.  







As is the tradition there's a blog hop giveaway; the prize being the featured set or a gift card to the same value if you already own the set.

You'll find all the details including the links to my teamies blogs and a sneaky peek at what they've created with this set over at Uniko HERE

Thanks for visiting my blog today and I wish you lots of luck on the hop!


Sarah

Saturday 8 July 2017

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #94

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and it's one with a difference! Firstly it's Saturday and our challenges usually appear on a Sunday! The reason being we are joining forces with the Less is More Challenge which went live just a moment ago.

We'll be having ONE joint winner receiving a prize from our sponsor, Happy Little Stampers and the lucky winner will also be invited to appear as a Guest Designer for both challenges in one of their future challenges. You'll need to enter at both challenges to be in with a chance of winning but do check both of the 'how to play' guidelines first.

The theme for this one is to use a Coloured Card-base BUT the catch is it's got to be a ONE layer card. Here's my card followed by the photo inspiration and I couldn't resist using some of our sponsor stamps. 


I've used a kraft card base and stamped the floral and leaf images from Happy Little Stampers Doodled Flowers set along a sentiment from a discontinued Birthday sentiments set. I've hand-drawn the lines around the sentiment to give it extra definition, coloured the images with Promarkers and added some additional white detail with a gel pen. 


There's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Milka, a previous winner of our challenges, who is Guest Designing for this one and do pop along and visit her blog. You won't be disappointed as her creations are totally inspiring and why not leave a friendly word and some love - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

As mentioned above our sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers and one lucky joint winner will receive a $20 gift certificate for their online store. 

Picture

Thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with  both challenges this time! Each challenge blog will reveal their individual favourites on Friday 28th July and the joint winner will also be announced in the same post on each of the challenge blogs. 

Sarah

Less is More #336 & 337

Morning friends, I hope you're ready for this week's challenge at Less is More as we're playing it a little different this week! In fact it's not a ONE week challenge but a TWO week one. The reason being we are joining up with the Design Team over at AAA CAS Cards challenge, who are running an identical challenge. 

Both challenges will have ONE joint winner, to be announced on Friday, 28th July, however the runners up will be chosen separately by each challenge team, and all will be revealed in the same blog post on 28th.

You'll need to enter both challenges to be in with a winning chance of a prize sponsored by Happy Little Stampers and do check the 'How To Play' guidelines for both challenges before you link up.

On to the challenge and the second week of the month signals our 'dreaded' ONE layer card week. The twist this week is not only is it a ONE layer but we'd like you to use a coloured card-base. Yikes! Anything other than white is fine and and here's the Cue Card



This week we are also joined by Kylie of Addicted to Stamps and owner of our sponsor Happy Little Stampers so I do hope you'll hop along and visit her this week.

Picture



I've 2 cards to share with you and the first one uses entirely Happy Little Stampers images from the Butterfly Birthday set with a sentiment from a discontinued Birthday sentiments set. The butterflies were stamped with Versamark Ink and heat-embossed with clear embossing powder before adding some detail with a white pencil and a white gelly roll pen.




This one uses some floral images from the Altenew Beautiful Day set and a sentiment from the same Happy Little Stampers Birthday Greetings set. The flower is a layered stamp; the base layer is stamped with Altenew Midnight ink; the next layer with black ink, followed by the third in Hero Arts white pigment ink. Finally the outline is heat-embossed in white.


Don't forget to check out the fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE as they have worked their magic with this tricky theme and it's well worth checking our their creations for incredible inspiration.

I hope you'll play along and have some fun with this collaboration between Less is More and AAA CAS Cards.

Thanks for calling by and I'll be back soon! Within a minute in fact with my AAA Cards post!


Sarah

Sunday 2 July 2017

Happy Little Stampers July 2017 - CAS Challenge

Hi there, it's time for this month's challenge over at Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge and it's a really easy one for this month so no excuses for not joining us! Here's the cue card followed by my 'masculine' style card.





I've used several HLS stamp sets to create this card; Big Bold Numbers, which I've heat embossed in clear having used the darkest of the 'blue' set of Altenew Inks for the Number 3, with the other images in the toning colours. The other sets are Mix Mash and Mixed Media Fun for the splatters. 

Our challenge is sponsored by HLS and one lucky person will win a prize so why not join in - there's a whole month to do so!


You might even like to link up to some of the other Happy Little Stampers challenges and all the details are on the blog HERE

Ok I hope you feel inspired to play along with us and don't forget to pop along to the CAS Challenge blog HERE where you'll find all the links and designs by fellow teamies ... you're in for a treat!



Thanks as always for visiting my blog today and catch up soon!

Sarah

Saturday 1 July 2017

Less is More #335

Morning friends, are you ready for this week's challenge at Less is MoreIt's the start of a new month which means it's colour week and also time to introduce our sponsor for the month. We are delighted to welcome back Happy Little Stampers, who will be providing the prize for this month. 

Here's our cue card and I've 2 cards to share with your this week using our Union Jack colour combo 




This one uses bold blocks of coloured card stock with the bottom half dry-embossed using one of the We R Memory Keepers Next Level embossing folders. The sentiment is from My Favourite things and I've added a couple of enamel dots to add a little extra interest. 

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


Here's one using images by our sponsor Happy Little Stampers from the Wish You Were Here and Mix Mash sets for the sentiment. 

I hope you'll play along with us this week and don't forget to check out the fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE where you'll find some fantastic inspiration.

Thanks for calling by my blog and I'll be back soon. 


Sarah

Honey I Shrunk The Kit #12 - Going Up

Hey there friends, it's time for another day out with my fellow Honey Babes for another HISTK post! I can't believe how quickly the weeks passed as it doesn't seem long since we were showcasing Shona's super cute set. This time our host is the lovely Hazel, who named this kit 'Going Up' - read on for more details ...

Honey I Shrunk the Kit logo

There was so much to work with that I ran out of time before using everything but it does mean I can play some more with what's left and here's the cards I've made so far ...


For this first one I die-cut a window in a panel of black cardstock using the MFT Rectangel Peek-a-boo die and popped that up on fun foam for dimension. A piece of design paper behind with my little koala scene. The sentiment is die-cut with a snow-drift die, also MFT Die-namics and the images and sentiment are all coloured with Promarkers.

It's an Anything Goes Challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge so I'd like to link my card up there. 


Here's I've coloured the die-cut butterflies with distress inks, before placing them in an embossing folder from WeR Memory Keepers Next Level folders. Another MFT die used here to separate the black and white card stock - basic stitched border dies. The sentiment is die-cut using a Sizzix oval stax and I've added some colour-coordinated enamel dots - just because I love them and it needed a little extra 'lift' I thought!


First of all I created a frame for these lovely die-cuts using the WPlus9 Sunshine Layers dies. The images were coloured with promarkers and fuzzy cut (where necessary) before mounting my little scene on foam or directly on the cardbase for differing dimension. I couldn't resist adding those gorgeous diamond gems for extra detail and the sentiment seemed perfect for the scene.


As luck would have it when I made this card I had been using the 'Time To Party' set by Clearly Besotted and I realised the balloon die-cuts (which I don't own) were the perfect fit! Hey what a stroke of luck. Using a little more of the design paper I picked 3 colours to tone with it and stamped the balloons in Altenew Inks, adding a little water to spread the pigment on the water-colour cardstock. I coloured the 'make a wish' die-cut sentiment with the same inks and adhered everything to the card also making use of the twine as the strings for my balloons. 

Over at Time Out their having a 'celebrations' themed challenge and I'd like to play along there although sadly I've certainly not twisted with the one layer option!

It was such a joy to work with this kit Hazel and thanks so much for sending it and inspiring us with such gorgeous bits and pieces from your stash ...

Kit contents include:


Stamps: Gerda Steiner Designs - You're Koalafied/ STAMPlorations - Noteworthy 2/ Bella Stamps - Tomorrow's Dream & A Beautiful Day/ 
Dies: MFT - Brushstroke Birthday Greeting/ Clearly Besotted - Let's Party Die Collection / Spellbinders - Day Dreams (sun and clouds) / Butterflies (not sure) 
Other: Patterned paper: Stampin' Up! - Birthday Basics (retired) / Yellow twine


As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I'm off to check out what the rest of my teamies, below, have made with this fantastic bundle. 

Hazel Hodgkins: Hazel's Paper Designs
Sarah Gray: Funky Fossil Designs
Shona Chambers: Twine Around
Anita Bowden: Neet & Crafty
Sarah Platt: Sazzle Dazzle Crafts ... that's ME!


Sarah