Less is More #362

Hi guys, and a very Happy New Year to you!

I'm here to introduce the first challenge of 2018 over at Less is More and we're changing things up a little this year.  The challenge will be changing to 2-weekly.  For full details about the challenge please do pop over to the main challenge blog.

Ok, let's get to it, and this time it's a Colour challenge...

And to kick off our new challenges of 2018 we also have a fab new Sponsor for the month of January, Skull and Cross Buns Rubber Stamps.  I've recently joined the Design Team for Skull and Cross Buns and the lovely Emily Fox creates superb quality rubber stamps and also has some great little sets of clear photopolymer stamps too.  As well as the website, Emily also sells her stamps at Not on the High Street, and also has an Etsy store.  Emily is offering a prize to one lucky winner who participates throughout January so why not play along?

Ok, onto my cards, and as much as I love purples, it's still the colour that my camera hates for some reason, the colours always look more blue than they actually are.  For both of my cards I've used almost all stamps by our January Sponsor.

Here's the first...

I started with a gentle blend of Distress Ink through a stencil to lightly cover the centre of the card base.  I then stamped a few clusters of the leaves and hibiscus flowers directly on the card base before stamping the banner sentiment and die cutting with it's co-ordinating die.  A few clear sequins were then added to finish off the card.

Materials used:

• Stencil: MFT - Fishnet
• Stamps: Skull and Cross Buns - Tropical Party; Clearly Besotted - Mini Basic Banners (and co-ordinating die)
• Ink: Distress Ink - Milled Lavender; Altenew - Morning Frost, Lavender Fields, Midnight Violet, Deep Iris, Soft Lilac
• Accents: Little Things From Lucy's Cards - Sparkling Rainbow Sequin Mix

And for my second I used a Christmas lights stamp to create a celebration card...

On a panel of white cardstock I repeatedly stamped the string of lights in black ink and coloured with ProMarkers.  I die cut a curved edge and adhered the panel to the card base.  I coloured a strip of cardstock using one of the ProMarkers and adhered the purple trim, also cut with the same die, to the edge of the panel.  I used another of the ProMarkers to colour another scrap of cardstock and then heat embossed the sentiment in white and popped this up on 3D foam.  To finish I added some detail to each of the bulbs using a white pigment ink pen.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Skull and Cross Buns - Christmas String of Tree Lights, Tropical (sentiments)
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black; VersaMark
• Die: MFT Die-namics - Snow Drifts
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White
• Coloured with ProMarkers
• Accents: Signo Uni-ball pen - white

Challenge entry:

STAMPlorations - January Challenge - Theme and Sketch - 'Stamps and Curves'

Thanks so much for dropping by.  Please do take a moment to pop on over to the main challenge blog, my teamies are sharing some wonderful creations this week.  

Apologies for the delay with my first post of the year, I've had a horrible flu bug for the last week which really took hold of me so I've been out of crafty action.  Fingers crossed I'm over the worst of it and I can now start 2018 properly!