Muse Challenge #278 - Happy I Do Day

Good afternoon

It's a new week at Muse challenge and it's my turn to be your designer.

I recently purchased a new mini stamp set from Clearly Besotted's August Release called I Do Day and really wanted to ink it up, and as wedding season is in full swing I thought this theme would be ideal for this challenge.

Hopefully you can find some inspiration from this one such as the apricot colour, monochrome design, white embossing, florals, wedding, roses, etc.  This was quite a quick and easy one to make too.

Here it is...

I wanted a soft colour to go with this pretty roses stamp and found this unusual apricot colour in my stash.  It's not a colour I use often but I thought it would be lovely and soft for a wedding theme.  I stamped the roses four times, at different angles around the edge of the panel in VersaMark ink and then heat embossed in white.  I then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment (also from this stamp set) also in white.  I popped the panel up on the card base using fun foam.  The sheen from the embossing can be seen better below...

To finish I adhered a scattering of co-ordinating sequins, from two different sets of shaker mixes.

Materials used:

• Coloured Cardstock: Bazzill Basics - Assorted pack
• Stamp: Clearly Besotted - I Do Day
• Ink: VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White
• Sequins: Little Things from Lucy's Cards - Pearl Necklace and Peach Schnapps

Challenge entries:

STAMPlorations - Summer Theme & Sketch Challenge - Anything Goes

STAMPlorations - Summer CAS Card Challenge
Cards in Envy - Somthing New (new stamp set)

I hope you can gain some inspiration from my card.  The challenge linky will be open for a week :)

Thanks so much for visiting.

For a Crafty Friend

Hi there

Yes, three posts in one day!  Just catching up and sharing some recent makes.

This was the card I made for my fabulous crafty friend, Sarah of Sazzle Dazzle Crafts who celebrated her birthday on Thursday.

My starting point was the colours, I just knew I had to use aqua/turquoise/teal shades as these are her favourite colours.

Here's what I did...

This was my first attempt doing the ghosting technique with Distress Oxides and it worked like a dream!  I blended three shades of Distress Oxide ink onto a panel of cardstock and then fixed a stencil in position before spritzing with water, lifting the stencil and blotting with a paper towel.  Afer adhering the panel to the card base I then die cut the friend sentiment three times, twice from white cardstock and once with white glitter cardstock and adhered these stacked up together to add dimension.  The happy birthday was then heat embossed in white onto a strip of dark grey cardstock.

The sparkle from the white glitter can be seen clearer in the next pic...

Materials used:

• Ink: Distress Oxide - Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean; VersaMark
• Stencil: Studio Katia - Mandala
• Die: Pretty Pink Posh - Hello Friend Script Dies
• Stamp: Altenew - Beautiful Lady
• Embossing Powder: Altenew - Pure White
• Glitter cardstock from stash

Challenge entries:

STAMPlorations - Summer CAS Card Challenge

Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes - With Toppings option - Water (ghosting technique spritzed with water)

Thanks so much for visiting, I hope you're having a lovely weekend :)

Unicorn Sparkles

Hi there

I'm popping back today to share this card I recently made for an order, for a little girl's birthday, the niece of a work colleague.

As well as being from her auntie it needed to include pink, glitter, her name and her age too.

Here's what I came up with...

I started by stamping the unicorn and colouring it with a mix of ProMarkers and FlexMarkers.  I used a cloud die to cut some pink and white glitter cardstock which I positioned and adhered along the top of the panel.  I die cut the letters for Izzy's name from the same pink glitter card and the number 9 from the white.  I die cut the balloon from some purple glitter polka dot card and drew the balloon string with a silver pen before adhering down the die cuts.  I stamped the sentiment in black before popping the panel up on 3D foam.  To finish I added some sparkle to the unicorn's horn and and hooves.  The sparkle can be seen much clearer below...

Materials used:

• Stamps: Azeeda - Proud Unicorn; Clearly Besotted - Sweet Little Family
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Coloured with ProMarkers and FlexMarkers
• Dies: MFT - Bottlecap Letters; PTI - Modern Numbers; Lawn Fawn - Puffy Cloud Borders; Clearly Besotted - Let's Party Die
• Accents: Spectrum Noir - Clear Sparkle pen; Signo Uniball pen - Silver

Thanks so much for popping by, I appreciate all my followers and visitors so much :)

Less is More Challenge #377

Good morning, crafters!

Where are these weeks going?  It only seems like five minutes ago I was writing my last Less is More challenge post!  So, as it's time again, our new challenge just starting over at Less is More is a Theme challenge and this time it's all about Pets.

Our fab new Sponsor for August is STAMPlorations so please do play along for a chance to be our August winner!

And our June winner is joining us as a Guest Designer for this challenge, that's the lovely Hannelie, Desert Diva.  I'm sure she needs no introduction so please do pop over to see her, say hi and take a look at her fab card.


Ok, onto my cards for this one.

You may think this first one is a bit of an odd choice but yes, I did in fact have a pet mouse when I was a child!  My brother used to keep reptiles and therefore, sadly, used to breed mice to feed to the snakes.  My pet mouse was a rescue pet, it was just too cute!

I bought this gorgeous little stamp a short while ago in a sale at Lili of the Valley and don't know why I didn't ink it up earlier!  It was simply stamped and watercoloured with my Zigs.  I stamped a simple sentiment and then mounted the panel on some dark brown textured cardstock.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Lili of the Valley - Lucky Mouse; Wild Rose Studio - Everyday Greetings
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black
• Watercoloured with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers
• Coloured Cardstock: Bazzill Basics - Assorted pack

Challenge entries:

STAMPlorations - Summer Theme & Sketch Challenge - Stamps and Anything Goes

I kept my second card super simple, I think this cute image didn't really need much more...

I began by embossing with a die directly onto the card front.  The cutest little bunny was then stamped within the square and the sentiment below.  I coloured him with my Polychromos pencils.  The embossed square can be seen more clearly in the next pic.

That was it, super simple and quick :)

Materials used:

• Die: MFT Die-namics - Pierced Square Stax
• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Under the Weather
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black
• Coloured with Faber Castell Polychromos

Challenge entries:

STAMPlorations - Summer CAS Card Challenge
Inkspirational - Challenge #166 - Make a card in 10 mins or less (this took me 7 mins, 21 seconds!)

As always, my fellow teamies have created some lovely cards which you can see over on the main LIM blog here.  Please do follow their individual links for more info, and perhaps more cards too!

I hope you find time to play along with this one.

Happy Little Stampers August 2018 CAS Challenge

Hi guys

It's time for a batch of new monthly challenges over at Happy Little Stampers and today it's the new CAS Challenge for August.  I'll get straight to it, we want to see...

The winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE.

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE THE RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED!

For my DT card this time I didn't have a clue where I was going with it, I just wanted to use some new dies from my stash.  It just evolved as I went along.  I used the Happy Little Stampers Wish You Were Here stamp set on this one...

I started by masking off a border around the edge of my card base and then spread some Nuvo Glimmer paste through a stencil to add some subtle interest to my background and left it to dry.  I recently treated myself to the fab Tag Along die collection from Clearly Besotted so I wanted to play along with that set here.  I cut the hearts die, also new to my stash, from black glitter cardstock and again from some card I'd blended with Distress Inks.  So I then adhered the black outline part of the hearts die to the tag and inlaid the coloured inner heart pieces.  I stamped the sentiment in black below this and then finished off by die cutting the bow from the same black glitter cardstock and the circle surround from the same piece of card I had ink blended.  The tag was then popped up on 3D foam.  I think the 'wish you were here' sentiment fits perfectly with a hearts theme.

Materials used:

• Stencil: Memory Box - Scraped Paint
• Embossing Paste: Nuvo Glimmer Paste - Moonstone
• Dies: Clearly Besotted - Tag Along Die Collection; STAMPlorations - Clustered Hearts Die
• Ink: Distress Ink - Candied Apple, Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Stamp: Happy Little Stampers - Wish You Were Here
• Glitter cardstock from stash

Challenge entries

CAS on Friday - Challenge #138 - Tag It

STAMPlorations - Summer CAS Card Challenge
Allsorts - Week 278/9 - Tags

Don't forget, the challenge linky is open until the end of the month, and do keep an eye out for the remainder of the August HLS challenges, all due to start shortly.

Shifted Stencilling

Hi guys

I saw a new challenge over at Inkspirational this morning which is to make a card in ten minutes or less!  I find one of the quickest ways to make a card is to use stencilling.  This card took me 8 minutes 56 seconds!

I've been meaning to ink up this new stencil from Skull and Cross Buns for a few weeks so today it received its first inking.  You can check out the full range of their stencils, here.

This one creates such a fabulous background design and I chose to do shifted stencilling on this card, I love the shadow effect...

On a panel of kraft cardstock slightly smaller than the card base I first inked through the stencil with white pigment ink.  After cleaning the white ink off the stencil I then shifted it up and over slightly and blended with three colours of Distress Oxide ink.  I gave it a blast with my heat gun to dry the ink and added a little anti-static powder to the centre so I could stamp and heat emboss the sentiment in white.  I then popped the panel up on fun foam.  I love the way these Distress Oxides blend on kraft cardstock, they're still very new to me so I'm still experimenting :)

Materials used:

• Kraft cardstock:  Neenah - Dessert Storm
• Stencil: Skull and Cross Buns - Decreasing Circles Stencil
• Ink: Hero Arts - Unicorn; Distress Oxide - Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon; VersaMark
• Stamp: Skull and Cross Buns - Congrats Script Font
• Embossing Powder: Altenew - Pure White

I'm also linking up at the following challenge:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #302 - Make Your Mark


Thanks so much for popping by. 

Less is More Challenge #376

Good morning!

Firstly, apologies that it's been two weeks since my last post, life's just been busy and I've not found much time to craft.  However, I did have a little free time last weekend and decided to give my blog a facelift.  I hope you like my new design, I'd love to know what you think.

So, let's get back to the main reason for this post, it's new challenge day at Less is More and I'm here to introduce the challenge for the fortnight ahead.

Woohoo, it's that genre that fills some of us with dread...yes, it's One Layer challenge time!  Here's what we want to see...

Continuing as our July sponsor is Seven Hills Crafts so please do play along for a chance to win our monthly prize.

I have just the one card for you this time.  I was looking for something stripey in my stash and came across a stencil I've had for a while but never used.  Stencils are a great choice for one layer cards.  So, as you do in the summer heat, I made a Christmas card, never too early is it! 

Here it is...

This was pretty simple to create.  I taped the stencil down to my card base, with the large bauble off the right edge and masked off the rest.  I then blended with Distress Oxide ink in Wilted Violet, and the hanger part with silver pigment ink.  With the stencil still in place I spritzed with some shimmer mist.  I then repeated the process with the smaller bauble, but this time blending with Distress Oxide ink in Mermaid Lagoon.  I then used a silver pigment ink pen to draw the string.  To finish I stamped the sentiment in black which I shaped to follow the curve of the bauble.

The shimmer mist can be seen better in the photo below...

Materials used:

• Stencil: Imagination Crafts - Candy Stripe Medium
• Ink: Distress Oxide - Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon; Versa Color - Silver; Versafine - Onyx Black; Signo Uniball pen in Silver
• Stamp: Paula Pascual - Christmas Messages
• Accents: Cosmic Shimmer Mist - Pearl Mist

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #301 - Anything Goes

CAS on Friday - Challenge #137 - Christmas in July

AAA Cards - CAS Game #119 - Christmas in July

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Add a Little Sparkle

Thanks so much for visiting.  There is a great mix of design ideas created by my teamies so please do pop over and take a look if you have time, and if you need inspiration.  Don't let the one layer theme scare you, why not have a go and link up :)