All Squared

At Less is More it is week 17, a recipe. The challenge is to choose one square from the grid and keep your image to just that space and leave the rest of the card EMPTY!!!  If you are using text or a sentiment it can extend a little outside of the square if necessary.  First I chose to use this pretty Clarity Stamps cat which I have had for ages  and don't get to use very often. I decided the top left hand corner was the best posistion for it, but thought it would look a bit as if was floating in mid air, so I masked off the corner of the card and coloured it with Spun Sugar Distress ink using cut and dry with a blending tool, and added a touch of Vitorian Velvet to define the edges. I worked out more or less where I wanted the crown and stamped it with Versamark and embossed with gold embossing powder. I then stamped the cat with Versafine Black Onyx and added just a little colour to the eyes and nose with colour soft pencils.I used a tiny bit of Diamond Stickles to embellish the crown but decided it didn't show enough and added some extra glitter.I then  stamped the text "Queen for a day" just falling out of my square. Both the crown and the words are Chocolate Baroque stamps.

The Stampman Recipe

At The Stampman fortnightly challenge this time we had to choose three elements from a bingo style recipe card. I chose torn/ripped, ribbon,and red as my three, and here is the card that I made with them.

I started by stamping the  little girl stamp onto ivory card and again onto a piece of patterned scrapbook paper. I coloured the childs face with colour soft pencils and tied two tiny ribbon bows and fixed them to her hair. Then I cut out just the dress part of  the second image and sewed three tiny buttons onto it and then stuck it over the first image. I tore round the edge and coloured it with Barn Door Distress ink. I took a piece of shaded red card and tore around it to fit the front of an ivory folded card and coloured the edge as before, then randomly stamped the "you make me smile" spiral in Tuxedo black Memento ink and the mesh with the Barn Door ink. I fixed a brad with some ribbon to the top left corner before sticking it to the card. I found some pearlised card with red daisies embedded into it which has been in my stash for years and I tore a strip of it ,edged it with the same red ink and fixed it across the front and then mounted the main image on foam pads over it.To finish off I stamped the word Smile in black ink at the bottom. All of the stamps I used are from Art Journey.  

Butterfly

             This week at  Less is More the theme is butterflies. I wanted to try and keep it really simple so I decided to stamp just one butterfly with this Chocolate Baroque designed Craft Stamper freebie. I started with some very pale pink pearlised card and embossed and a border along the bottom with a cuttle bug folder. I tried out several different inks for the butterfly and ended up using a very old pinky purple cube pad and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I fixed a strip of matching ribbon above the border and stamped the Crafty Individuals phrase ( one of my favourites ) above that. I added a few little gem stones to the bottom left corner to balance it all. I'm sorry the photo doesn't look too good, I think the the light was failing a bit when I took it. Thankyou all for looking anyway.

White Rabbit Syndrome

       I'm late, I'm late, just  squeezing in at the last minute this week with my Less is More entry. The challenge this time is for a one layer card using either dry or heat embossing. I began by stamping this Elusive Images stamp with Olympian Green Versafine and embossing it with clear EP.I stamped it again on spare paper and cut it out to to make a stencil  which I used to sponge colour on to the flowers through. I used DIs in Scattered Straw, Tattered Rose and Bundled Sage. Then I stamped the Infinite Beauty quote, a wood mounted Impression Obsession stamp in the Versafine ink and embossed it with the clear EP again.I thought it looked a bit stark so I added a few EI tiny butterflies in the Distress colours I'd used on the main image.It was still a little bit flat looking so I dug out an embossing stencil that I had years ago ( before the days of Cuttlebugs etc ) and hand embossed a circle around the stamped image. I was quite surprised to see how much differnce it made. I should have done a before and after photo but I didn't think of it at the time.

Plenty of Pattern

     I don't usually go for lots of pattern in my card making, but this month at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge is to use lots of it, so I had a go.I thought I would start with some embossed pattern so I chose some Core'dinations card and ran it through the Cuttlebug with the Floral Fantasy embossing folder. I then found a co- ordinating Artylicious patterned paper, which I cut to cover the front of my card just leaving a very narrow border and using a corner punch to round off the top right hand corner. I sanded the embossd card to reveal the core colour and cut a strip and fixed it to the lefthand side.I added a piece of patterned Papermania ribbon towrds the bottom and then on some paper from a Papermania pad I stamped two Elusive Images butterflies. I coloured the details with a turquoise glitter gel pen and cut them out. I stuck them to the card with silicone glue so that I could raise the wings slightly. I am reasonably pleased with the result, although it very different to what I usually make.
    St Luke's is a hospice in Sheffield providing care for people over 18 who have serious illness. When you take part in the monthly card making challenges, if you want to you, can donate the card you make to help raise funds towards the running costs of the hospice. A very worthwhile cause I'm sure you'll agree.

Friendship ATCs

I was looking forward to this months ATC theme at The Stamp Man, which is Friendship, because it was my own choice. A priveledge awarded me when Janet chose my "Secret Garden" as winner, back in March, I think it was.Thankyou Janet. When I chose the subject I already had these lovely stamps from Crafty Individuals in mind. I chose soft colours for the backgrounds as I wanted them to have a nice girly feel. I used Bundled Sage, Spun Sugar and Dusty Concord DI for the fisrt two, and because the third is a beach scene I used Scattered Straw and Tumbled Glass with just a little Bundled Sage. The images were stamped with Versafine Sepia and then I added a little more colour with a water brush and the same DIs that I

used in the backgrounds. The sentiments are all Crafty Individual stamps too, although I did have to doctor the"Happiness is" one a bit because it said "with a friend",and I wanted it to say "with friends". To finish them off I darkened the edges with Dusty Concord ink and added some toning ribbons and embellishments. The very tiny shells were collected on a beach in Spain near to where my sister lives. They are perfectly formed shells even though they are so small and we find them ideal for embellishing ATCs with seaside theme. I hope whoever receives these enjoys them as much as I have enjoyed making them. Thankyou for dropping by to take a look.  

Poppy Appeal.

Over at The Stampman Callenge at the moment the theme is Poppies, and we are invited to send our cards to them to be sold in aid of a British Legion event being held in Skipton in a few months time. Here is the card I have made. The Poppy image and the quote are both Clarity Stamps that I have had for a long time but I still like them a lot. I stamped them in Versacolour Crimson on ivory card and added a little colour to the poppy with a water brush, and I think I used Barn Door and Forest Moss Distress Inks.I then cut them to size and edged them with a Krylon Gold pen. I cut the red panel to fit a A6 ivory card, leaving a small border and edged it also with the gold pen.  I fixed the text piece flat onto the card and the poppy overlapping it on foam pads. I thought the lower right hand side of the card looked a bit bare so I stamped this Elusive Images swirl in the space with the crimson ink  and added a red pearl. This one will be on it's way to Skipton shortly.

An Award

I have been given this award by my sister Kate, thankyou Kate. Now I am supposed to give it to seven other recently discovered blogs and tell you seven random things about myself. Well to start with I have only just started looking at blogs so all are newly dicovered to me, However there are some which have caught my eye , so will list my chosen seven in a minute, but first here are seven random things you may not already know about me.
1. I am second youngest in a family of eight, the eldest is 84 and the youngest 63.
2. I have two grown up children, a son and a daughter and three grandchildren aged between 17 and 20.
3. I love making and swapping ATCs, and have quite a large collection of them,
4. I am a rubber stamp addict, I can't seem to stop buying them even though I already have loads.
5. I host a small craft group at my house once a week in order to share some of my considerable stash and pass on craft tips that I've learnt along the way.
6.  I could happily live without television.
7.  I enjoy reading a good book.

Now that you are in posession of that useless information, here is my list of awards.
 1. Lavinia at Kitchen Table Crafts
2. Wendy at Wendy'sArt and Craft Journey
3. Yvonne at Meggy's Way
4. Sandra at Is That The Time
5. Dianne at Butterflies and Bees
6. Anita at Crafty Me
7. Esther at Crafty Effusions

 If you feel able to accept the award, please tell us seven random things about yourself and pass the award on to seven other recently discovered bloggs. You can right click on the image to save and then repost it on your own blog.

Thankyou From Me

The Lucky Dip theme at Less is More this week is Thankyou or Congratulations. In an effort to prevent myself wasting so much crafting time dithering about, trying to decide what to make, what stamps to use, what colours etc,etc, I took a quick look in my box of bits and pieces of card and decided that I would use whatever came out more or less first. I found this blue card which was folded as if to make a card but had most of the front cut off, (obviously one of my former disasters), and then out came the lovely cream leather effect card, so I set to work with those. I used a Fiskars edge punch to to cut a decorative edge on the blue card and fixed the cream one under it. Then another rummage in the bit box resulted in finding a couple of pieces of matching card to cut the labels, which  I did using  Go Kreate dies. I stamped the Thankyou which came from an Elusive Images plate in Memento Paris Dusk ink and the little Stampin Up roses in Crimson Versafine, and then fixed it to the card overlapping the punched edge with foam pads.I then just added a matching ribbon to finish it off.  So here is my finished card for this weeks challenge and I would like to use it to say thankyou to all the lovely ladies who took the time to leave comments on my blog last week. I really appreciated it. 

Resist Techniques

• I spent a happy inky afternoon today making my entry for The Stampman Fortnightly Challenge, where the theme is resist techniques. I decided to go for the technique I am most familiar with and selected the script stamp from the Aspects of Design nauticle set.I stamped it onto glossy card with Versamark ink and let it dry a bit, then and then sponged colour over it using Distress inks in Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Chipped Sapphire and a little Walnut Stain. Feeling quite happy with the result I then stamped the Ship image, also Aspects of Design, with Versafine Sepia ink and sponged with the same colours.I cropped the script piece to size and cut a mount large enough to leave a small border from plain card and coloured the edge of it with first Tea Dye and then Chipped Sapphire DI. They were stuck together and fixed to the main card. I cut out the main image and made a mount for it in the same way and added a nauticle charm for embellishment, and  fixed it over the script panel with foam tape.

 Having finished my card I thought I would try the technique that uses paint to provide the resist, but looking through my paints I found the white pot had only a sad looking dried up bit of paint in the bottom of it. Not to be put off I added a small amount of water and shook it really hard and proceeded to stamp a nice swirly ATC sized stamp from Crafty Individuals. When the paint was dry I sponged over it with pink ink this time but I was far from happy with it. I think the paint was just a bit too thin for stamp I chose and didn't leave a clean image, probably would have worked better with a chunkier stamp. I will put it down to experience and try again another day. In the meantime I was still left with some time to play so I stamped the stamp again  with Versamark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder, and then trimmed it to ATC size.I inked it all over with Spun Sugar DI and then darkened the edges with Dusty Concord.The Butterfly, an Elusive images stamp was done the same way as the script panel on the card and coloured with the pink and purple inks and the details added with Sakura Stardust pens. I stamped it again in purple ink on the ATC and fixed the first one on top with silicone glue and added two puple gem stones and stamped the word Beauty.

I am entering the card for the Resist challenge. Thanks for taking a look.