To Bee or Not to Bee Blog Hop

Hi Friends 

Welcome to the 2019 BEE or not to BEE Blog Hop!

Along with some of my fellow teamies at Uniko I'm joining in a very special Blog Hop today, to celebrate World Bee Day, to support bees and to raise public awareness of the importance of bees. The HOP is being hosted by Milka of Crafty Milka and you are invited to Hop Along and hopefully win some BEE-utiful prizes! Why not head over to Milka's blog HERE to see what it's all about.

Here's my card using some Uniko products; the BIG & BOLD 'Happy' and Bee Happy stamp sets along with a Sizzix Honeycomb die with lots of honey-coloured inky blending behind.

Before I leave you to HOP here's some useful facts about bees and how important they are to the human race. 

Happy Hopping and Good Luck!

Thanks for calling by today!

Less is More #365

Hi there friends, it's time to announce our second BIRTHDAY challenge over at Less is More to celebrate our 7th Birthay and we've got more delightful designs from some of our past Design Team members. 

We're also delighted to have Seven Hills Crafts kindly sponsoring the challenge and Tara (owner) is joining us as a Guest Designer too.
So let's get down to the latest Clean and Simple challenge for the next fortnight and here's the cue card  
There's often lots of debate in Blogland around the use of dry-embossing and how it can be used as a Clean and Simple element of a card so I can't wait to see what you come up with and I've 3 ideas to share with you today.
You'll find our guidelines and requirements for this technique over on the main Less is More blog HERE along with some superb ideas and inspiration from my talented teamies.

First up I've used a faux letterpress technique, as featured in an older video by Jennifer McGuire HERE which uses a detailed Tilda Flower die from Memory Box with a little ink to the edges then run through my Big Shot to 'emboss' the image onto watercolour card. 

Other Supplies Used:

Dies: Lil'Inkers: HI word die / Stamps: Avery Elle: Sentimental / Ink: Altenew

There's 2 challenges I'd like to pop this one into ... Addicted to Stamps and More, where they are looking for Clean and Simple Cards and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, where the requirement is to add a die-cut.

This card features a very subtle linear embossing technique where regular score lines have been marked using a folding board. I started out by inking up a beautiful stencil, which I received as a gift from my buddy and ex-DT member at Less is More, Sarah G of Funky Fossil Designs. Since stepping down from our challenge blog she's certainly not been sitting around but has set to work making various stencils, laser-cut MDF shapes and home decor/gifts. The stencil here, called Beautiful Mandala is available to purchase in Sarah's Folksy store HERE and she's also kindly offered 2 stencils as a gift to one of our birthday winners at Less is More this month. Why not head over HERE and look at what else is in store!

Other Supplies Used:

Dies: The Works: Stitched Square & Waffle Flower: Sentiment Strips

Stamps: Avery Elle: Sentimental / Ink: Distress Inks in Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio 

 

Last but not least an underwater little scene using a circular die-cut piece of brusho-coloured card, which I then ran through a 'wave-effect' embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers. I've also used my 3 circular dies to create a de-bossed element to frame my focal image.

Other Supplies Used:

Dies: The Works: Stitched Squares & Sizzix Framelit Circles

Stamps: Paper Smooches: Briny Blue plus coordinating die & Create a Smile: Underwater Love

I'd like to pop this card in at Timeout Challenges where the theme is 'Hobbies' - Fishing is a popular hobby I believe although not one of mine!!! Hope it counts - sadly it's not twisted with a one layer.

I hope you've enjoyed my inspiration for this challenge and don't forget we've extra prizes this month with it being our Birthday. Our sponsor for the challenge is Seven Hills Crafts as well as a random mystery prize and Sarah's kind stencil for this month only so do play along for a chance, and we'll announce our winners at the start of next month. 


I hope you'll play along in our birthday challenges this month and have some fun with us.


Thanks for calling by today!

A Trio of Cards - just for fun!

Hi Friends, I don't often get time to create just for creating sake but today I made a little time to finish off some cards that had been sat in pieces on my desk for a while and what's more I'm hoping they'll fit into  a couple of challenges too!
First up it's my fellow Less is More Teamie, Anita, who is playing MUSE this week at the Muse Card Challenge so couldn't resist 'casing' her gorgeous card. The colours are so neutral, calming and subtle ... quite the opposite to my usual style but I've had a go!

In addition to the colours I was inspired by the shiny leaf die-cuts and design paper

peeping through the negative space. Here I've used a flourish die by Sizzix and instead

of using the design paper behind I've water-coloured a panel in Autumnal browns and 

greens using Distress Inks. I've splattered some gold and bronze paints too using the 

Gansai Tambi water colour set. The leafy die-cut is from my stash (sorry not sure of

the manufacturer) and it's coated in Versamark ink before heat embossing with Ranger

Liquid Platinum embossing powder. The sentiment is by Happy Little Stampers, which

is embossed using the same powder before popping up on 3d foam.

Here's Anita's card

I'd also like to enter this one at 

Addicted to CAS - Watercolour

The next two cards use two floral sets from Altenew that are my

favourites at the minute! Beautiful Day which I bought a couple of 

weeks ago having admired it for months (it seems) and Remember This

which I purchased last weekend at the Happy Stampers Festival.

I've also kept to a similar design as I'm loving the effect of a coloured

bloom or two with the remainder of the images in black outline.

So here's Beautiful Day inked with Altenew Inks also with the panel

cut from a WPlus9 die in the Sunshine Layers die set then popped up

on green fun foam for added dimension. I've added a black gem to the

centre of the flower and some glossy accents for added detail.

I'd like to pop this one in at Addicted to Stamps and More where it's

their CAS week of challenges plus

CASology where the cue card is Support

EDIT: Thanks to Anita for suggesting I enter my floral card in the 

latest challenge over at Virgina's View - Focus Point

 Last but not least - here's 'Remember This' by Altenew

  again inked up using Altenew inks with the smaller blooms coloured with Promarkers, in what I hope are almost identical shades! I couldn't resist adding a few sequins to the design but looking at the photo I'm kind of wishing I hadn't!  So there's a brand new challenge in blogland simply called The Flower Challenge
What a perfect idea and a perfect name as who can resist all those wonderful bloom sets out there and now there's a challenge just to showcase those very things! Bliss! So I'm heading over there with this one and it's their first challenge titled "Anything Goes With Florals" and there's a whole month to enter so why not have a look and enter too!
Ok that's all for me today and thanks for calling by my blog. Catch up soon!

AAA Cards Challenge #72

Morning friends and I'm here again with details of the latest challenge over at AAA Cards. Our theme for this one is to use a New To You Technique 
For me I'm kind of hooked on Brushos following my attendance at the super duper Happy Little Stampers weekend retreat in Swindon. I can't believe it's a whole month since! Kylie (of HLS) was an excellent  teacher and a star player with the Brushos so she shared some of her stunning tips and tricks with them and one I've not tried previously is  to use laundry starch instead of water to activate the colours!
WOW! The vivid colours and spectacular patterns they create just  encourages me to make more and more background panels!!!! So here we go 

To maintain the clean and simple look I've hidden some of my Brusho

'master piece' behind a die from Sizzix but not before I'd die-cut the 

dragonfly by Clearly Besotted from the same piece! The sentiment

is also Clearly Besotted from their Brushed Greetings II set.

I can't wait to see how you play with this challenge and I'm hoping to 

learn lots of new techniques over the next fortnight! As always my

teamies have made some spectacular cards and if you head over to the

main AAA Cards blog there's links to their blogs 

We are also joined by Alexandra of Made by Alexandra who is our

Guest Designer for this challenge and a previous winner of our challenge.

Please head over to her blog and give her a friendly welcome!

Our sponsor for this one is Stampendous so our lucky winner will 

be in line for a prize - hope you feel inspired to play along!

Thanks as always for stopping by and I'll catch up with you again soon.

Happy Little Stampers August - part 2

... and I'm back with another Brusho inspired card which I'd also like  to enter at the Happy Little Stampers - Anything Goes with Dies Challenge!
If you read my earlier post you'll see I'm completely hooked on Brushos following the fabulous weekend I spent at the Happy Little Stampers retreat in Swindon 2 weeks ago. Kylie, the queen of Brushos, taught us some wonderful techniques with this medium and I'm literally awash with ready prepared Brusho panels!!!! 
This one uses a die by Sizzix (Mixed Media #2) by Tim Holtz which I've die-cut  twice at both ends of the front panel. It was quite tricky to remove all the little pieces as  it's such an intricate die but I've now investedin a metal shim for my Big shot,  with some birthday pennies, which is working a treat now!

I've popped the Brusho panel and die-cut overlay onto fun foam for some  added interest and dimension. The sentiment is by Avery Elle: Sentimental.


Ok that's all for now but I'll be back tomorrow with a new challenge for Less is More so hope you'll join me then! Thanks for stopping by!