Hello

It's a beautiful sunny morning, and I feel pleased with the card I came up with today!

I took the sketch from

CAS Colours and Sketches

...and decided that I would like to use some crocus dies by Alexandra Renke as the the vertical elements. I used a piece of card that I had smooshed some purple inks onto for the die cuts and daubed a little distress ink onto the stems. I rather like the random dispersal of colour achieved with the smooshing technique. It took me a few die cuts to be happy with the colouring for the sentiment, some had too much white, some not enough, but I was quite pleased with the final piece. The ones I wasn't too keen on are stacked beneath the final layer. The die is by The Stamp Market.

Not having entered into my old creation "Less is More" for ages and not often using purple as a colour choice, I thought that I would add another card to their challenge this time.

The DT is SO talented and the standard of CAS cards submitted is incredibly high... due I am sure to the superb inspiration of the designers!

Have a great day everyone!

 

Joyful

I thought that this last year I was well ahead with Christmas card makes, but what with the ones that I sold at my choir to raise choir funds, requests from friends for sets of cards and ones for personal use, I had to start on a last minute production line once more. This year I will try to do better.

This is a very small card, about 10.5 cms square with which I used inlaid dies. Firstly I coloured a piece of card with Brusho and mica powder and  spritzed with water. When dry, I die cut the pieces and also cut a set from plain white card. The joy of this technique is that you end up with a positive and a negative so making two cards instead of one. The tiny tree is layered several times, so as it wouldn't sit neatly overlapping the plaque I die cut a space in the SSS die-cut for it to sit in.

It's such a good idea to join in with Christmas challenges throughout the year, so that you have a ready supply when required, so do join us at Happy Little Stampers!

Delightful Daisy

I was delighted to be invited to join in with the challenge at Addicted to CAS as Guest Designer and I couldn't resist making another daisy card. This is to say thank you for the invitation!

I made the panels by stamping an IO Cover the card stamp with Versamark and then adding a wash of watercolour in gradually deepening colours as I went down the image.

I cut out several of the flower images and layered them adding the complete leaves and petals to the bottom layer only.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted, het embossed in white. I had to extend the die cut for this to accommodate the length of the words. I simply cut from one end, went part way through, then turned the sentiment around and removed the die, repositioning it around the other end of the sentiment, and cut the rest of the way, making sure that the notches matched up.

Addicted to CAS - Daisy

Photo Inspiration

The challenge at Just US Girls this week is to use this picture as inspiration!

I used the colour and the fact that there is a large flower predominating the picture.

I used a die from Memory Box, colouring in the insets with alcohol markers and 

layering up the outline die. I added some micro beads to the centre of the flower and covered the petals with Glossy Accents. 

The flower was mounted on a stitched die cut base layer, using dimensional pads. A simple sentiment from Lilli of the Valley stamped in a complementary shade of ink completed the card.

Still busy

We seem to still be busy in the Stokes household at the moment and so here is a quick card for the challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch

I never seem to start early enough with Christmas cards and every year I think I will be more organised, but it hasn't quite happened yet!

I really don't remember the make of this conifer stamp, but it had a clear picture stuck to the back of the cling stamp, which I find very difficult to adhere to acrylic blocks, so I took it off and now I can't get rid of the sticky residue. I've tried a variety of solvents but it seems to want to stay!

I just repeat stamped the image in a couple of Distress Ink colours. I then added the layered sentiment die cuts from PTI., which I twinkled slightly with Glamour Dust.

Back from Hols for LIM's 6th birthday!

Can you believe that Less is More has reached its 6th Birthday?

I am so proud of the way my challenge has developed over the years and am simply delighted that I have been able to hand it over to such an awesome team... which is taking it forward to its next fabulous phase. They are such a terrific, talented bunch of girls and I simply love the work of them all!

The challenge for this birthday week is a colour challenge and it's to use 3 adjacent colours on the colour wheel.

For this card I smooshed some Platinum Inka Gold together with some Aqua Tints in red and yellow and after spritzing with water, took prints to use for the sentiment and as backing for the die cut heart border. The word 'simply' was computer generated. 

It's basically what I think of this fabulous team!

We have just returned from a lovely winter break in Florida and the Caribbean. The weather in Florida this year was unseasonably warm, the temperature was in the 80's each day and we had a wonderful time. The cruise to the Caribbean was equally beautiful and the the seas allowed us to visit the island of Great Stirrup Cay which is a private island belonging to the Norwegian Cruise Line in the Bahamas. Last year the weather was too rough to allow the tenders to come alongside the ship in order to take us ashore. 

This is me at Mountain Top on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands last week. It was spectacular!

It's because we're taking lots of lovely vacations plus my Granny duties in Worthing and Bath that I have stepped back from Less is More on a weekly basis,  but I do hope to join in from time to time!, 

Blending

For this card I used a blending method which might not immediately spring to mind,... I blended a variety of embossing powders  over this negative flourish stamp from WOW.

It's so simple to do, really effective and a great way of using some powders that may not look their best alone! Lots look really good accompanied with a little gold or silver.

The butterfly is from SSS as is the sentiment!

It's actually the card I made for one of my LIM teamies Sarah G!

It's also for the challenge at AAA Cards