"Less is More"

ShowCASe Week 57

2012-03-16T20:30:00.003Z

A bit later today, but, here are the showCASe entries from

Week 57 Colour

Neutrals

We have such a hard job choosing a selection as there are so many to choose from...thank you

It's great to see how so many of you are becoming more and more comfortable with the CAS genre and enjoying it too.

Please display our showCASe banner on your sidebar, from our page at the top.

Thanks again, see you tomorrow for our new challenge

Week 58 One Layer - Script

2012-03-10T08:00:00.000Z

Everyone's favourite... the One Layer Card!

Actually we think that some little time ago the thought of a One Layer Card struck fear into the hearts of many LIMettes, but we know that quite a few crafters now really enjoy this genre and make some stunning projects.

This week we'd like you to include

Script

This includes any text, not just handwritten styles, but must be in addition to any sentiment you might decide to add.

If you have no suitable stamps, you could always resort to your own handwriting (Shock Horror!).

Chrissie

This is a similar design to one I have made previously, but this is obviously a one layer version, which is a little more complicated to construct.
I cut a mask with a Stampin' Up heart punch and used the negative part to stamp through with the lacy stamp in SU white ink. I then used the punchie itself to mask the white heart whilst I stamped the script in black, which was then heat embossed.

This one began with the stamping of the woodgrain using an Impression Obsession stamp, off the edge of the card. I overstamped this with the Stampin' Up French Script in Soft Suede and followed that with an Artemio stylised flower. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Mandi

and bling is back.....breathe!

Easy peasy for me. The fabulous stamp is by Butterfly Kisses Chic Background Stamped in Versarmark and embossed with WOW Princess Pink....scrummy! It is, as I said last week, THE best embossing powder, it stays just as sparkly once embossed and doesn't fall off or overheat, as I found with older powders from years back. The rhinestone embellishment is from Hobby House yawn, I know I use them all the time!! And a feather from my stash.

Here is a close up... I was trying to show you how crisp and sparkly it is, but I'm not sure if you can see it in this shot.

Can we give another little mention regarding Word Verification. We politely ask you to disable this feature.You do need to be in the older style of Blogger to do this, (instructions are on our Help page above). It does make for ease for commenting for everyone, especially us, as with over 200 comments most weeks, trying to decipher the fuzzy letters doesn't aid our already full schedule or our frustration when we get it wrong. You can make the comments subject to moderator approval if you are worried about what may be published, but Blogger's new Spam filter is very efficient.
From this week we will add WV at the end of our comment if Word Verification is present, as it has been drawn to our attention on numerous occasions that sometimes authors don't even realise that WV is operational on their blogs!

Have a great week, happy crafting!

Scrap ShowCASe and February Winner

2012-03-09T11:53:00.002Z

Once more there was a plethora of wonderful cards to choose from for our 'Don't Scrap It' ShowCASe!

It makes us realise what a creative bunch LIMettes are and choosing is so satisfying but sadly we can't showcase everyone, so here are our choices for this week.

We're sure that you'll agree that all of these are simply stunning! DO please grab the ShowCASe badge from the page above the display on your blogs .

Wonderful work, thank you everyone!

Now for our February winner and we're sure that that this one will be really popular with you all. This lady has been a faithful LIMette practically from the beginning and produces the most wonderful contributions each week. Her family needs a few positive vibes at the moment so do please visit and give congratulations and all good wishes to

LYNNE

Cards from Lynne's Loft

We'll arrange for your prize from the Craft Room to be sent to you.

Congratulations Lynne, a most worthy winner.

Do join us tomorrow for our new challenge.

Week 57 - Colour

2012-03-03T08:00:00.000Z

It's the first week of the month (Gracious, it's March already) and so we've got a colour challenge which this week is

NEUTRALS
This could be anything from off white to black with any shade of beige, brown or grey in between.

We are delighted to be sponsored this month by

WOW! Embossing Powder has been established as a brand since May 2006 and has grown dramatically since then. We are rapidly becoming very well-known and respected within the craft industry. We pride ourselves on our fast and friendly customer service, and personal touch each and every one of our customers receives. We are the largest manufacturers of embossing powder in the world, therefore are very pleased and proud to offer crafters what we believe is the best product available at a great price.

WOW! Embossing Powder offer over 160 different colours of embossing powders: Embossing Glitter, Metallic, Puff and Ultra High to name a few collections. WOW! also sell Fab Foils, embossing inks, embossing pens, bonding powder, flock, stamps and stamping accessories.

The lucky winner will receive a caddy containing 12 varied WOW embossing powders!!

Mandi

I decided to use kraft for my first card. I stamped the Agapanthus, from the Kanban set again which I used on my personal blog the other day. It's a super little sheet, available from Create & Craft only at the moment, I think. I stamped on the reverse of the ribbed kraft card with Versamark then embossed in WOW Pepper embossing powder. For any of you that dont know, WOW embossing powders, are fantastic! I never used to be a big fan of heat embossing, but WOW powders have changed my mind competely. Whatever they are made of give a superb finish, they seem finer somehow and are available in THE most gorgeous colours!
Holding a dark brown piece of paper the same size as my kraft panel, I tore the bottom, then placed with the brown just down slightly. I prefer the ripped edge to be roughly the same shape. I roughly coloured the heads of the Agapanthus with a Chocolate Chip marker pen.
The brad is Stampin up, poked through, then Linen thread, also Stampin' up wound round the brad, then secured behind before sticking. The sentiment is from You are Loved, again Stampin' up.

For my second card I took my layout inspiration from our Neutrals colour block.
It is nothing like I planned in my head! How often does that happen!!
Looking at the photo, I planned my squares, roughly first on paper, then cut to size, in Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Crumb Cke and Sahara Sand. I then used Stampin' Up French Foliage and embossing folders [Swiss Dots and Square Lattice]to create different textures. This again is heat embossed in Pepper.
[As you can imagine, all my other powders are all sparkly and shiny, SO not Neutrals week!]

For any Stampin' Up products or if you would like to join my Stampers 6 club starting April 1st, please contact me Overmoores@aol.com
Only 3 places left!

Chrissie

I decided to do a card using some embossing powder from WOW!
For this I stamped my Blockhead Paper Arts tulip image with Versamark and then embossed the image with WOW Pepper Embossing powder. I applied bleach to the image using a water brush. It's amazing the different effects which result from doing this... it's largely dependent upon the type of paper or card used. This one was quite successful... some don't have such a dramatic effect. I added a little depth to the flowers by colouring the dried image with some Derwent Inktense pencils and blended the colours with a water brush (no bleach this time). It's mounted on an SU Sahara Sand card base and framed with a piece of cardboard cut with a Nestie. I lengthened the aperture a little to accommodate the size of the image.

This one is another stamp from the same set, with the same treatment, this time on black paper, with black embossing powder and no additional colouring. The picture isn't terribly good. I'll have to try and take another, but the bleached paper is just about the same colour as the Sahara Sand card.
As ever there are a few more examples on my personal blog, do take a look, I love to receive visits from you!

showCASe for Week 55

2012-03-02T18:29:00.003Z

We had lots of fabulous entries again this week

But we have to make a decision and these are they!

All superb...thank you to you all

A few this week as we had so many FAB entries

In no particular order

If you don't already have it, grab our showCASe banner from our page at the top

See you tomorrow with our new challenge

Week 56 - Don't Scrap It

2012-02-25T08:00:00.000Z

Last week's challenge proved really popular with lots of people and there were some truly stunning entries, however a few didn't realise that we are solely a Clean and Simple blog, submitting multi-layered and highly embellished cards, some of which were reluctantly deleted for straying too far from our guidelines by also combining too many challenges.

Blogger seems to have changed the format of the letters in the Word Verification section, making it even more difficult and time consuming to decipher them, so as we have so many comments to leave...

PLEASE REMOVE WORD VERIFICATION

Instructions for this are on our Help page.
Should it remain, we may not leave comments for you if our first attempt at deciphering the letters is incorrect!

This week we have a simple recipe for you to follow which is to use some of those left over bits and pieces we all tend to keep so this week

Don't Scrap it!

Chrissie

This card has an image from Blockhead Paper Arts coloured with Promarkers. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

I was inspired to purchase this stamp by one of our wonderful LIMettes, Birgit. She is a Guest Designer for Blockhead stamps at the moment and as you all know does fabulous work. Thanks for the inspiration Birgit!

I expect that nearly all of us have some receptacle for left over bits and bobs of card and paper and this is one of mine. The contents are vaguely arranged in colours and is where I went to look for the scrap of yellow matting for this card. Sadly the file is rather overfull and is badly in need of a sort-out!
I never buy card blanks and make all my cards from A4 sheets. Naturally there is a piece of card over when a card has been cut into shape and it's these pieces which I use for the front of cards for mounting images. I have another box of strips of card under my desk, but I won't bore you with a pic of that.

This one uses a scrap of backing paper from a Cuddly Buddly print out. The card on the front is all from the scrap box under my desk.
The Penny Black image was gently coloured with Promarkers and the sentiment from Personal Impressions was mounted on a Spellbinder's slider tag.
Once more there are a few more examples on my personal blog. Thank you everyone who kindly leaves a comment for me there!

Mandi

I must apologise for not getting to you all last week. I did try when I got time, but I ran out of time. Thank you for all of you who still visited me, it was very much appreciated.
I had to make a wedding card with the theme as 'proper red' black and ivory. I had one small scrap of what I consider a perfect red hammer card. I made the roses from that, the Sizzix hearts are also from an ivory scrap, cut and embossed.

Using scraps of paper is a favourite of mine. I do this kind of design very often. It's effective and does use up lots of scraps. However I never seem to see my pile going down!!

I use scraps all the time, however they seem to grow ten fold daily! I keep some in a drawer, then I have other slightly bigger pieces separated by colour in drawers.

Your scraps can be anything... paper, card, plastic, metal, fabric...we'd love to see the result of your creative imaginations... and do have fun!

ShowCASe Week 54

2012-02-24T15:23:00.001Z

You are all so comfortable with one layer cards now and even choose to do them even if you don't have to, which is terrific!

Here are our superb choices for Week 54, the theme was STRIPES and despite the

moans and groans you coped admirably!

Please take our showCASe banner from our page at the top to display on your sidebar

Anja

Emilie

Sally

Mieke

Sarita

Thank you everyone, as always

See you tomorrow!

Week 55 Theme

2012-02-18T08:00:00.000Z

We said it was a doozie and so it proved to be... last week's challenge really got everyone thinking and there were some superb ideas...our challenges certainly seem to stimulate the creativity amongst LIMettes.

Thank you everyone!

Now for this week's challenge and you can sit back and enjoy this one, it's a theme and this week we'd like to see you use
Punches or Die Cuts

Mandi

Oh, gosh what a week here. I have a permanent wedding head on so I can only show some invitation samples as my cards for this week. We also have my Stepson's wedding Thursday so as you can imagine, I'm knee deep here in stationery! Roll on next Saturday when I can breathe again!
I'll blog their stationery next week as it is a surprise for Jess [Bride to be]

Both my cards are using Pink Petticoat Stripes, in navy.
The heart is part of Nellie Snellen Multi Frames Dies - Hearts, with punched flowers with pearls in the centre.

The second card is using the Stampin Up decorative Label Punch and the starfish are from a Sizzix Sizzlit set.

The couple chose this as their design.

Apologies once more for not preparing early enough, things are just so manic.

If I can get you any Stampin' Up products, or give you any information please email me
Overmoores@aol.com

Chrissie

Here is a card made from some goodies which arrived yesterday. Dies from Memory Box and a stamp from Hero Arts.
After stamping, the card surrounding the image was masked with Post it notes and the colours Bashful Blue and Almost Amethyst from SU were added using ink duster brushes. I added a few splats from a Paper Artsy stamp in Memento London Fog.
The base card for the butterflies was coloured with the same colours using the same method and then die cut with the Memory Box dies. I glued the base layer and then stuck on the veined version adding Glamour Dust to give a little glitz! It's a pity that this photograph doesn't show it too well.
The sentiment is from SU.

This one uses an image from Chocolate Baroque in the style of Gustav Klimt, which I stamped onto deep brown paper and embossed with WOW Pale Gold embossing powder then coloured with Perfect Pearls. I cut it out with Nestie circles, mounted it using gold card and added a couple of embellishments from Cuttlebug ornamental dies.
The sentiment is from Kaiserkraft mounted on extended Spellbinder tag dies.
As usual there are a few more examples on my personal blog

We have added a Linky followers widget to our sidebar, as with all the speculation about Google followers disappearing imminently, we didn't want to lose any of you. You may like to add yourself to that bunch too... just in case!

The availability of dies for use in cardmaking seems to have exploded recently, with many new ones appearing almost daily... do show us what you can do with them.

Birthday Week Spot Prizes and ShowCASe

2012-02-17T15:41:00.000Z

We would like to thank you all so much for the fabulous entries for our birthday week challenge. As promised there are a couple of Spot Prizes and our usual ShowCASe of fabulous submissions.

To keep you in suspense a little longer we'll do the ShowCASe first.

I'm sure that you'll agree that these are a bunch of total stunners. Congratulations everyone, do please take the badge from the page at the top of our blog to display on yours!

Now for our Spot prize Winners

We have chosen a couple of people at random to receive a little something from us and they are.....

Nicky (146) & Margaret (213)

Please email us with your contact details so that we can get your prizes to you straight away!

Congratulations everyone!

Do come back tomorrow for our next challenge!

Week 54 One Layer

2012-02-11T08:00:00.000Z

What a busy birthday week!

So many lovely entries and lots of you came over and commented on our personal blogs,

for which we are very grateful. Thank you everyone who visited us.

Please do come back every week!
The second week of each month is when we get back to the basics of Clean and Simple Design... the
One Layer Card.

This week we have a really tricky challenge... I don't think we're going to be immensely popular with our LIMettes, but here goes... we would like to see
STRIPES
Making a one layer card incorporating stripes is not as straightforward as a regular card, but we'd like you be as inventive as you like.
You can use an image with a striped design, an embossing folder which incorporates stripes or draw or make some yourselves.

Chrissie

I don't have any stamps with stripes so I made a little one from some strips of foam stuck onto an acrylic block.
The stamp was great, but making a decent card with it was another proposition. I did quite a few abortive attempts which were ruined by the stamping of some inappropriate image at the last moment.
This is the card I ended up with minus a flower or butterfly or heart or leaf ar any other extraneous image which didn't really 'go'!

This merely has a Distress ink dusted panel in Brushed Corduroy, over stamped with a Paper Artsy splatter stamp in the same ink. The stripes were stamped next also in Brushed Corduroy and another round of splatters were stamped in gold Metallic ink.
The sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

The stripes on this one were made with the edge of a Distress ink pad stamped over the edge of a Post it Note used as a mask. The floral stamp is from Unity.
There are more samples on my personal blog.

Mandi

I was 'lucky' as I have a Stampin' up Striped stamp! However, as we said, it is pretty difficult of what else to do with it! It's a pretty tricky week!

OK, so I took my card base and wanted to stamp the cricle off the edge. I cut a hole with my nestie to use as a mask. Because the width of the stamp is exactlty the same width as the circle I found it quite tricky to get the exact placement, even with my Stamp-a-ma-jig! So I held the cut circle onto the stamp and inked through the circle in Versamark Orchid, then stamped it onto the card, just off the edge as you can see. I then stamped the Penny Black 'Ascent' stamp in Versafine Onyx Black over the top. I did make a little 'sun' in glitter using a zig pen and glamour dust.There is a feint look of stripes on the black, but, I think it adds to the effect. Finally added the sentiment, which is from a Stampin Up set You Are Loved.

Same process for this but using Stampin' Up Whisper White, which I clear embossed. I don't have any sparkly embossing powder so if you are really quick....no quicker than that! you can sprinkle with ultra fine glitter I used Glamour Dust.
no sentiment for this one, I can add or leave as is when I use it.

This is how the stamp looks once inked. you then stamp onto your card/paper

You will also notice some other stripes I was trying out. But, as my time was tight I couldnt get it quite as accurate as I wanted!
will definitely go back to it and post on my personal blog in a couple of days.

If you would like any Stampin' Up products, I'd love to get them for you.
Sale-a-Bration is running at the moment, until March 31st, where you can earn FREE stuff.

I also have a Stamper's Club starting April 1st, only 2 places left!
Please contact me for more details
Overmoores@aol.com

Don't let us down this week... we know you can rise to this tricky challenge... come on, show us your stuff!

ShowCASe for Week 52

2012-02-10T08:51:00.001Z

We had so many entries for our sketch this week.

Amazing how 2 lines drawn on a card could bring such imagination.

It is a sketch we loved too and have found ourlseves using it ever since!

Here are our handful of superb entries

Thank you ladies, they are fantastic

All stunning cards, thank you again!

Please take our showCASe banner from the top of our page

See you tomorrow for our new ONE LAYER challenge!

January Winner

2012-02-05T10:01:00.000Z

Good morning from a chilly UK

No snow for us in the extreme south, but it's certainly a cold one!

We are delighted to announce our winner for January.

Scoopy Sue

Sue has been with us from the start, joins in every week....

odd exception when she took a holiday, but that is forgiven....just!

Clean & Simple was completely out of her comfort zone, but as with lots of you, has grown to feel comfortable leaving white space AND enjoys it!

So a big thank you from us for all your efforts and participation.

Please email us to claim your super £20 voucher prize from

Thank you everyone for all your words of praise and encouragement

It means a lot to us both.

Week 53 Colour

2012-02-04T08:00:00.000Z

Now We Are One!

Just over a year ago we met to discuss how we would launch our idea for a Clean and Simple challenge, but never in our wildest dreams did we think that it would have caught the imagination of so many wonderful crafters.

We have to admit that we agree with lots of you... "Less is More " rocks!

Thank you for all your participation and your wonderful submissions. We are truly grateful to have the support of so many talented people.

In celebration of this momentous occasion, there will be spot prizes this week, so anyone could be lucky!

We are also delighted to be sponsored this month by Julia at

The Craft Room

She is kindly donating a £10 Voucher for for one lucky person to use at her online store.

She also has 30% discount for everyone in operation at the moment so do hurry to check out what she has available.

We have had a request to have a shorter time between the end of one challenge and the beginning of the next, as this is prime crafting time for those in the antipodes... so we have extended our deadline by a couple of hours at the end of the challenge and would be interested to hear you views on whether it should start at an earlier time on Saturday mornings.
All views would be welcome.

COMMENTS
Commenting on all your lovely work takes a large chunk from our week, but is something that we love to do. We are delighted that you visit each other to leave comments and we would indeed feel gratified if you could also visit our personal blogs and leave a word or two.
If everyone for whom we left a comment returned the kindness, we would indeed be blessed. We often add additional cards to our own blogs in line with each week's theme, so there would frequently be an additional source of inspiration too.

For our first Anniversary we are back to a repeat of our inaugural challenge which for the first Saturday of the month is colour... and this time we have chosen

AQUA

Mandi
I'm quite a fan of aqua, but to my horror there was not really too much on the aqua front in my craft room! In the end I used a Versacolor cube called 'Turquoise' but it's a definite aqua!
I took a piece of 8cm sqaure card and randomly stamped different flowers in varying strengths of ink to create a background. The flowers are Stampin' Up plus a very old Anita's flower stamp which I love!
The sentiment to finish, is a Marion Emberson designed set. I adore her designs.

My second card is literally a motif stamped in the same ink [The make escapes me but our lovely LIMette Viv will know] Of course if I hadn't thrown out the packet I could have told you. But I'm a bit OCD like that and I throw packets!
So I stamped, then added gems and glittered to finish. No sentiment, which isn't a cop-out,
I simply like it like this!

Sorry about the pale pictures this week

If you would like to purchase any Stampin' Up products please contact me overmoores@aol.com
The new mini catalogue has been launched and it is packed with some exciting new goodies! Plus it is Sale-a-Bration season where you can get extra free goodies for your money.

I have a Stamper's 6 Club starting April 1st For more details, please ask me! ONLY THREE places left [UK only sorry]

Chrissie

This card uses a stamp from SU's Simply Soft set, which is a two step stamp, the first step stamped in black Archival ink and the second with SU Baja Breeze.
The ribbon panel was die cut with a Spellbinder Edgeability die, scored with an embossing stylus using a score board and decorated with a length of grosgrain ribbon.

Back to my inked panel technique. This was dusted with an Ink duster brush using Tumbled glass DI and stamped using the same ink. The stamps are from SU French Foliage and a flower from Personal Impressions. The computer generated sentiment was cut with a Spellbinder fancy tag die.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments you left for us last week, we are truly heartened by the response to our endeavours... here's to another successful year!
It has been pointed out to us that to remove Word Verification is not straight forward with the New Blogger interface... there are instructions how to do this on our help page.
Have a great week!

Final ShowCASe (of our first year)

2012-02-03T08:05:00.000Z

What wonderful, wonderful work we have seen during the past 12 months!

There has been inspiration a-plenty from all around the globe and many, many new friendships have been forged. Isn't it great to have friends that you haven't actually met!

As ever we were spoiled for choice with all the fab submissions, but have chosen some stunning work yet again!

'Cut it Out' ShowCASe

Simple beauty

Simply elegant

Perfect placement

Licensed to Thrill

All wonderful submissions, do please take the ShowCASe badge from the page above, to display on your blogs and thank you all for your superb work.

Do check back tomorrow for our first birthday challenge!

Week 52 - Sketch

2012-01-28T08:00:00.000Z

Here we are at the final week of our first year in existence. What a wonderful year it's been, with so many faithful followers and dedicated participants in our challenges.

We have been delighted to see so many crafters coming to love the Clean and Simple genre as much as we do!
Thank you everyone for making our dream such a success.
We'd like to WELCOME all the new contributors we've seen during the past few weeks, however, there seem to be quite a few people still using Word Verification... it would make commenting much simpler for us if you could please TURN IT OFF!
Thanks.

For our challenge this week we have a SKETCH and we have a few basic ground rules.

We would like the card to be

rectangular
in landscape orientation
with the band remaining in a vertical position

As it's a very simple sketch, we would like it to remain as is without any rotation of either the card or the vertical band.

Chrissie

This card incorporates the 'Black Magic' technique.

I began with a piece of black paper and stamped the flowers using one of the outline stamps from SU's Fast and Fabulous set, in Black Archival ink, which I then embossed with clear Embossing powder.
I then overstamped these images, using the co-ordinating solid flower stamp in SU white ink, carefully aligning them with my DIY Lego Stamp positioner.
When the ink was completely dry and using watercolour pencils, I then coloured the petals with a couple of shades of pink, blending the colours slightly using a water brush and adding a few highlights with a white pencil.
The crackle background was added using SU Craft white ink.

This panel was then mounted on a piece of white card and the extreme edges embossed with an embossing stylus.

The sentiment is by Kaisercraft.

I masked this card with Post it notes to expose just the vertical panel.

I dusted this with Iced Spruce DI using an ink duster brush and then stamped it with a background stamp from Glitz it Now plus a damask stamp from Heidi Swapp, using the same ink.

The butterfly is made from a Dienamics die with lightly inked edges, glittered with Glamour Dust and embellished with a few pearls.

The sentiment is from the same Kaisercraft set as the previous card.

I bought both sets of stamps on my shopping trip with Anne (Stargroves) the other day. (What fun)

Mandi

A you can see I made a boo boo and put the sentiment in the wrong place...DON'T do as I do!!!

As England is on the brink of snow, I thought I'd remind us that Spring is around the corner!!
For my card I used some ribbed kraft card [but turned that inwards] I made a 'DL' [double length card from a sheet of A4. I stamped the beautiful branch from the Stampin' up set 'Easter Blossoms' in Soft Suede, as I thought that it toned in well with the kraft. The blue 'sky' is Bashful Blue, also from Stampin' Up. The little dabs of pink on the blosson are with a pink watercolour pencil. I added the little blossoms as we constantly see them lying in our garden in Spring.

Another DL card. I stamped polka dots and stripes from Stampin' Up, then punched 1" circles from them and from 3 colours, added my obligatory gem! The FAB sentiment is Hobby Art.

If you would like to purchase any Stampin' Up products please contact me overmoores@aol.com
The new mini catalogue has been launched and it is packed with some exciting new goodies! Plus it is Sale-a-Bration season where you can get extra free goodies for your money.
I have a Stamper's Club starting April 1st
For more details, please ask me!

ShowCASe "Birds"

2012-01-27T11:04:00.002Z

We always struggle to choose our favourites for the showCASe, but this week was particularly difficult with so many fantastic entries. However a decision has to be made and here they are...

All sensational

All well deserved

Please grab our showCASe banner from our page at the top

THANK YOU to everyone, as always. You REALLY seemed to enjoy 'Bird Week'

Lisa

Gay [Both cards]

Evelyn

Halina

See you tomorrow for our new challenge and the last of our first year!!

Week 51 "Theme"

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000Z

You all really seemed to enjoy one layer, birds last week, as we had another bumper week. Thank you.

One layer is certainly a breeze for you all now and many of you even enjoying it. Maybe it will take over the world!

We also have now tipped 1200 folllowers! Amazing.

Onto this week and it's theme time, we have chosen

"Cut it Out"

For this we would like to see some kind of hole or aperture in your card!

Here are our samples

Mandi

I made a 6x6" card from white hammer card, then cut an aperture from the centre of the front flap, with a heart die. This particular die is Nellie Snellen Multi Frames Dies Hearts. I used the very plain die from this fab set. I printed Wedding day in Scriptina font which I'd previously printed onto ivory paper from a wonderful set by Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose I used the big roses background in Blossom for one and Ocean for the other. As the paper is ivory I punched daisies from ivory card in 2 sizes. Placing them, I did the top and bottom first, so that I kept the shape and put pearls in the centres to finish. I will put close-ups on my personal blog here

Chrissie

This is a stamp by Tanda very much in the style of Rennie Mackintosh. The circle element seemed perfect for making an aperture and as luck would have it, one of my circular Nesties was the perfect size.

Here is the technique I used in order to cut out just part of the circle and leave the lady's image intact.

Cut around the edge of the image within the circle with a craft knife, continuing just past the edge of the circle.

Place the die in position, under the cut out section of the image.

Run the card through your die cutting machine.
The whole image was cut out with a rectangular Nestie adjusted to fit the frame of the image, as in a previous tutorial.

The image was coloured with Distress inks and the pink sections glittered with Glamour Dust.

This one has a die cut, rectangular aperture, which has been decorated with a Martha Stewart flower border and additional, matching, Woodware punched flowers. The butterflies are from Dienamics and Marianne Creatables, again with a little added Glamour Dust. The computer generated sentiment is in Passions Conflict ROB font and mounted on an oval Nestie diecut.

There are a few more aperture cards on my personal blog, one using no dies to make the aperture!.

We look forward to see your wonderful creations.

ShowCASe - Purple

2012-01-20T23:54:00.000Z

Better late than never... life has been hectic this week, but finally here are our showcase cards from the fabulous submissions for our Purple challenge!

Meadie

Viv

Gail

As ever it was really difficult to choose from amongst all the beautiful designs, but I'm sure you'll agree that all of these are worthy of our ShowCASe!

Thank you all, do please take the Special ShowCAse badge from the page above to display on your blog!

What inspiration!

December Winners

2012-01-15T13:00:00.000Z

We are pleased to announce our winners for December

As you know we had two sponsors, therefore two lucky winners!

Anne (Stargroves)

wins this FAB bunch of ribbons from

The Pretty Little Ribbon Shop

Deborah Frings

Prize from My Memories Suite

Well done ladies, both of you are valued contributors and visit many of your fellow LIMettes,

both of which are much appreciated by all.

Thank you.

If you could contact us we will arrange for you to receive your prize.

Week 50 One Layer - Birds

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000Z

The camp seemed pretty divided last week, re like or dislike purple, but there were some stunning submissions.

There also seems to have been a tendency by some, towards lots of layers and more complex designs and in some cases, a total lack of WHITE SPACE so this week we're back the basics of CAS and have our

ONE LAYER CARD

with the subject of

BIRDS

Remember to add NO additional layers and to keep embellishments to a minimum.

Chrissie

Uber simple... a chicken (did I ever say how much I like chickens?) from Artemio, gently coloured with Copics and with the addition of a sentiment from Hero Arts.

Penny Black this time and two gorgeous ducks!
These have such super expressions and I think this Stampin' Up sentiment is just right!
The image was stamped and masked, before the circle was inked through another mask, in Scattered Straw and Wild Honey DI, applied with Ink Duster brushes.
The images were then coloured with Copics.

Mandi
I don't have too many bird stamps, but I do have my FAB Stampin' Up Aviary set,
I love it's quirkiness! It is such a fun set. I used my Stamp-ma-jig to get the placement of the birds correct.

The sentiment is from a retired set as is the Pink colour. The other 2 colours are Pear Pizazz and Black. The branch is from another set called Hopeful Thoughts. I used the markers to ink the stamp, so I could colour the stem in black, the leaves green and the flowers pink. I chose to add a little interest with the punched flower heads and a few little trails of liquid pearls.
Lots of white space!

Even more white space on this one! Hopefully you can see it, taking the photo was pants!

The birgs are stamped in Tempting Turquiose, Pink Passion [retired] and Rich Razzlebury.

We do hope you enjoy this week as much as your passion for purple!
There are more examples on our personal blogs... do take a look!
Happy crafting
If you would like to order any Stampin Up products please contact me here

Just One Word ShowCASe

2012-01-12T14:42:00.003Z

Once more we had a fabulous selection of entries to drool over and as ever the decision of which ones to showcase was terribly difficult, but these really caught our eyes!

Laurie

Karin

Stephanie

Three beautiful cards with three wonderful one word sentiments

Thank you so much ladies, do please take the Showcase badge from the page above and display on your blog for all to see!

Don't forget to check back on Saturday for our new challenge!

Week 49 - Colour

2012-01-07T08:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all!

We do hope you had a good Christmas, we certainly did!

Lots of family time which is always a winner!

So onto the first week of the month and a colour challenge

this time we want to see

Predominantly Purple
This is a real challenge for both of us too, as neither would naturally make purple her immediate colour choice!!!

We are very kindly being sponsored again by a popular shop
The Craft Barn

They are generously offering a £20 voucher to spend online

Mandi

My card base is Stampin Up (Contact me here )Rich Razzlebury, the stamping is Elegant Eggplant, as is the embossed lines rectangle. I also stamped the sentiment in Elegant Eggplant too. The twine is in a matching shade from Pretty Little Ribbon Shop
The stamps are a new purchase Personal Impressions, Marion Emberson designs which I got form QVC.

This other card, I made in a similar vein to this picture I made my Mum for Christmas here
But I'm not completely happy with it in these colours, I'm not a purple person so not overly happy, ~I much prefer the picture in the ivory tone!
All supplies are Stampin Up Elegant Eggplant card base, Rich Razzlebury used for some butterflies, which are cut 'n' emboss ones.

Chrissie

From this contribution you can see why Mandi and I got together to make this blog... we think along the same lines and here we have each used the same Embosslits butterfly die for one of our cards.
For mine, I began with a piece of matt silver cardstock (the same as the matting layer) and pounced on it using a felt applicator tool using three different, purple alcohol inks... Eggplant, Purple Twilight and Wild plum, leaving some areas less well covered. I stamped the text stamp over it in Black Stazon and then wiped it off with a baby wipe which removes the alcohol ink where it has been stamped, in this case leaving it silver.
The butterflies were then die cut and embellished with a few gems. The background panel was inked with my favourite technique (sorry if it's getting boring) and over stamped with some Papermania stamps and SU splodges.
The sentiment is a rub on... something that I found lurking at the bottom of a drawer when I was ferreting around looking for inspiration!

This second one is an altogether simpler proposition. The sentiment was computer generated and then die cut with a Spellbinder's tag.The purple panel, I found in my scrap store already embossed with a Cuttlebug stylised flowers folder.
The white matting layer was edged with a Spellbinders Edgeability die and the ribbon holes made with a Tonic punch and an X Cut punch positioning gizmo and scored using a score board.
My friend will be coming round later today to pick it up... how odd that she asked for purple when our challenge was set months ago!

At present I'm on a course of antibiotics for a persistent cough, which is making me rattle somewhat. I shall be glad when it abates.
We really hope that you have all escaped the dreaded bugs and will continue to have a wonderful New Year.
We can't wait to see what fabulous contributions you'll come up with.

Music showCASe

2011-12-29T09:23:00.000Z

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas...we did!

Just popping by to announce our showCASe for

Music
What a wonderful array of cards we had, thank you

Please display our showCASe banner, which you can grab from our page at the top.

Well done ladies, your cards are simply sensational!

Don't forget our current challenge is running for two weeks
so we won't see you with a new challenge until 'next year'

7th January 2012

Willy

Ann

Julie

Gina

Thanks again to everyone, we value each and everyone of you that take the time and trouble to enter

Week 47 - Just One Word

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000Z

Before we let you know our final challenge for this year, which will run for two weeks,
we'd like to thank you all for your wonderful support and to wish everyone a very

Our final challenge for 2011 is

JUST ONE WORD

Whatever type of clean and simple card you make, the sentiment must consist of simply one word.

I guess our card to you would merely say "Thanks ". There are lots of sentiments where a single word can say it all... Enjoy, Welcome, Peace, Joy, Birthday, Sympathy, Love, Thanks etc..

It may be necessary to select just one word from a sentiment stamp in your stash. A good way to do this is to mask the unwanted words with sticky tape before the stamp is inked, which is then removed before stamping onto your project. If you ink the whole stamp, even if some words then have the ink removed, there's always the chance of getting a 'ghost' impression when you stamp with it.

Chrissie

You have most probably seen something similar to this from me before, but this time I wanted to try all neutral colours and so began with Crumb Cake cardstock as a base and sponged and inked a panel after masking the card with Post it notes. I used Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Sahara Sand and Soft Suede, plus the white of course.
The sentiment is part of a stamp from the now retired SU Occasional Greetings set, which I masked with Selotape before inking so as to use Just One Word!

Here is a fab Penny Black stamp of these amazing ducks wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas. They're coloured with Copics and the letters are gently glittered with Glamour Dust.
There are a few more One Word cards on my personal blog, which you can see here

Mandi

For my card I used a FAB set from Close to my Heart, Over the Rainbow. I love the quirkiness of it!

The colours used are Stampin Up, Bashful Blue, Pear Pizazz and Regal Rose.
I stamped the segments, then positioned them by using 3d foam. Once I had figured out where I wanted to rainbow to go, I then stamped the 'Somewhere'. When I was planning it, I did picture it going off the page, but as you can see that didn't happen!
To finish I used glossy accents on the rainbow.

My second card is, as Chrissie has done a variation on a previous design. I tend to do this, if it works, it works, so I alter slightly knowing it will be a lot less faffing for it to look right!

The letters are Sizzix Fun Serif Upper and Lowercase, sadly discontinued now, but, there are some sets around on ebay. the stamps are Hero Arts, coloured with Promarkers and then glittered with Glamour Dust, as are the letters.

We do hope you will finish the year being as creative as you have each and every week!
We will visit you all, but maybe not everyday.
Have a Wonderful Christmas!

ShowCASe Catch-up and November Winner

2011-12-19T14:28:00.000Z

It seems like we've both been manically busy over the past few weeks, Mandi producing stationery in epic quantities and Chrissie involved with many singing engagements and also the odd requests for sewing.

The long and short of the matter is that we have failed to post some Showcases and we also have to announce our November winner.

Without further ado and in no particular order, here are our ShowCASe choices.

Bit of Bling

GREEN

Let It Snow

With such fabulous submissions each week, choosing our showcase cards is always a difficult yet pleasurable task.

For our monthly winners we like to choose crafters who have shown loyalty to our challenges, by their submissions, commenting and general participation in "Less is More".

Our

November Winner

Christine

who almost without fail manages to get a fab submission for each challenge posted within the first hour of the post going live.

We will pass on your email details to Amber Ink so that they can forward your prize to you.

Please grab the winner's Badge above.

Congratulations everyone and once more, apologies for the tardiness of these postings!

Do please take the ShowCASe badge from the page at the top of the blog which we hope you will display with pride.

Theme Week 46

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000Z

So, is everyone ready for Christmas?

We do hope the last couple of challenges assisted in getting those final cards made,

or all in Mandi's case!

Thank you for all the snowy cards last week, luckily we have escaped the real white stuff so far down in our neck of the woods.

This week is Theme week and we have chosen

MUSIC

We get together and decided on the challenges for each week, some are obivoulsy more Chrissie, or more Mandi... it's no surprise that this week is more Chrissie!

We do hope you enjoy it and please be as creative as possible. If you don't have any musical stamps, maybe you would like to theme your card to a song.

One little tip: Chrissie can spot upside down music at 100 yards..so be careful!

Another little note re our showCASe choices. We know we are behind, but will endeavour to rectify that over the course of the next week. As you can appreciate LIM takes up a lot of time which we have been desperately running out of lately.

Have fun!

Chrissie

This card uses the Notes wheel from Stampin' Up and an image from Magenta of 3 instruments, which has been coloured with Copics, cut out and then embossed with clear embossing powder.
The sentiment is from SU Plane and Simple.
Mandi mentioned about me spotting music manuscript that has been added to cards upside down... if you're not sure about which way up it should be, a quick tip is to look at the quavers (the notes with a stick and one curly flick) The tail (or flick)should always be on the right hand side of the stick.

Details of how I made this one plus a few other music related cards are on my personal blog, here.

Mandi

Horrendous to photograph again!

6x6 card base, hammer effect card I buy from here

Sentiment printed on computer, font is Adore

The snowflakes are Martha Stewart, jewel embellishment from Hobby House and Glamour Dust to finish.

I don't think it needs much interpretation, but, my 'music' is of course 'White Christmas' probably one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever.
I did make another version too, when I remembered my music EF!

We'd like you to interpret the theme in whatever way you wish... we don't want to preclude you from entering this challenge should you have no music related stamps... we know that just by looking at Mandi's gorgeous card, you'll be humming away in no time! So do get creative!
Join us, we'd love to see your musical creations!

One Layer Card - Let it Snow

2011-12-10T08:00:00.000Z

What a lot of lovely greenness we saw last week!

Wonderful work ladies, but now we're back to that week which you all LOVE... the

ONE LAYER CARD

This time our theme is

Let it Snow!

Mandi

I'm not so sure you enjoyed going green last week! Maybe you will prefer the snow. Lots of you have it for real eh! Us Southerners are escaping it at the moment,

Photographing this was a nightmare! I ended up trying the mirror as the reflection seemed to show the gold embossed snowflake better than without it!
I do love snowflakes, they are so light and delicate, hence why I decided to use black lol
Supplies. Inkadinkdo stamps, stamped with Versafine Black Onyx, some are inked and stamped directly, then others are inked, stamped onto paper, then onto the card, for a lighter shade, adding dimension. I glittered the black snowflakes with a zig glue pen, then added the obligatory gems and a swirl of liquid pearls. Maybe you can see better in the close up photo.
It really is so sparkly, but, you will have to take my word for that!

Chrissie

Here is a card using one of my very favourite techniques... emboss resist.

I masked the image panel using Post It notes and stamped the Artemio snowflakes in Versamark which I embossed with Wow, semi-dull clear embossing powder. I used a stamp wheel which I think is a Rollagraph for the blobs, which I embossed with Wow Sparkling Snow embossing powder.

I then sponged over the embossing using Bashful Blue and Night of Navy inks applied with sponge daubers.

The sentiment from Butterfly Kisses was stamped in Night of Navy with a little touch of Glamour Dust.
There's another card using a variation of this technique on my personal blog!

For this card, I opted for a navy card base and stamped the various snowflakes in a trail using Versamark and embossed using Sparkling Snow embossing powder. The three larger ones are Inkadinkado and the smaller ones, Just Rite.

The sentiment is part of a MSE stamp which I masked with Sticky tape before inking as I only wished to use part of it, I then removed the tape before stamping.

ShowCASe Leaves

2011-12-07T23:19:00.001Z

It seems that we have been remiss and failed to post the ShowCASe for the One Layer week with the subject

Leaves

We're really sorry as there were some superb entries that week. SO without further ado here are our choices.

L.I.S.A.

Viv

Pauline

I'm sure that you'll agree that these are all absolutely stunning creations.

Well done ladies and once more, sorry for the omission! Do grab our Showcase badge from the page at the top of the blog!

Week 44 - Colour

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000Z

Christmas is fast approaching but first we'd like to thank you for voting in our poll... we were thrilled to discover that so many of you love the whole purpose of our challenge.... Clean and Simple cards and that you also find the examples that we post each week a source of inspiration.
We had thought that the fact that LIMettes comment on each other's cards and have got to know each other well, giving a feeling of community, may have rated a little higher, so it was interesting to see the results.
Thank you all so much for your participation!

Oh gosh we are in December already, where does the time go...well lots is spent at "Less is more" we are glad to say. Thank you for all your submissions for

last week. We certainly feel festive after all that bling!

Before we tell you about our challenge, we are delighted to announce our sponsors for this month.

The Pretty Little Ribbon Shop

is an online store supplying a good selection of quality ribbons, twine, rubber stamps and embellishments for all of your crafting needs. We aim to provide a reliable, fast and friendly service. International customers and small orders are always welcome.

These super ribbons are up for grabs, for one lucky winner,

My Memories Suite is the #1 rated scrapbook software. Not only is it affordable and fun, it’s also extremely easy. Whether you’re new to digital scrapbooking or a seasoned pro, My Memories Suite is the perfect digital scrapbooking software to use.

Winners to be announced early January 2012

So onto the challenge

It's the first week of the month and so once more it's a Colour challenge, this week we have chosen

GREEN
We're being kind, thinking that this challenge may allow you to catch up on any Christmas cards you may need to make... but of course any occasion card will be wonderful.
Chrissie

Here is a simple card using a stamp from Studio g. It's heat embossed in silver, coloured with Copics and mounted on a panel with embossed line edges with a little ribbon treatment added. The ribbon holes were made with a Tonic punch together the punch lining up gizmo... I'm not quite sure what it's called but it means that the holes can be punched equidistantly with no guesswork. This panel is die-cut with a Spellbinders Edgeability die. The sentiment is from Inkylicious.

This wreath stamp is from Penny Black with a few additional stars (MSE I believe) stamped on top in a contrasting embossing powder. The border panel at the bottom was made with the same stamps, plus larger star which is probably a Stampin' Up star from some set or other. I get a little confused at this time of year with what stamp comes from which set. The sentiment is certainly from Stampin' Up.
The edging on this is punched with Fiskars Upper Crest punch.
Mandi

I firstly stamped the Hero Arts branch from 'Magic of Christmas' set Then stamped a bauble from an Elusive set from 2007. I've had it that long and never stamped it.....shameful!
I coloured with Stampin' Up pens and one Marvy le Plume pen, then glittered, to within an inch of it's life lol
and added a couple of gems.

Penny Black Pine Silhouette stamp, stamped with Forest Green Stazon
Few pearls, gems and punched snowflakes to finish. The sentiment is Stampin Up set Seasons of Joy

I'd made this and..l.lost it! lol

Thank you all for your continued participation and support, it's greatly appreciated.

Silhouette showCASe

2011-12-01T20:18:00.001Z

Her are the fabulous entries we have chosen to showCASe for our

Silhouette Week 42

These created the most perfect silhouettes!

We are sure you will agree they are sensational!

Thank you to everyone who entered.

Tilly

Stunning scene

Jenny

It's the shadows that did it!

Cassandra

Subtle, perfect silhouettes

Mary Jo

Ingenius sentiment!

Plase grab the showCASe banner from our page at the top

Thanks again, see you on Saturday for our new challenge!

Week 43 Recipe - A Bit of Bling

2011-11-26T08:00:00.000Z

Why do you like LIM?

You will see we have a poll for you this week!
It would be interesting to know why LIM is popular with so many crafters, so we thought we'd have a little fun and let you vote. If there is something else which makes you enjoy our blog, maybe you could let us know.

Here is our recipe for this week and it's right up Mandi's street!

A BIT OF

Mandi
No presssure for me then LOL
I don't think I ever make a card without bling! I have such limited time right now, with Christmas orders and wedding orders that I had to whizz this up again. I have done similar for some of my orders, although not quite as much bling!

This tree is a new aquisition, Penny Black Slapstick 'Sparkling Tree' I absolutely love it. You can go mad or colour it subtly. Obviously me being me opted for the first option!
I printed the sentiment on the computer in a turquoise in 'LD Shelley Print' font. i stamped using Versafine, Imperial Purple. I tried all different inks and because of the solid trunk only Versafine worked by far the best. The gems are a lovely turquoise, green and hot pink. I then filled the rest of the spots with opal White ~Liquid Pearls and Diamond Stickles. to finish off I dusted with Glamour Dust. It really is VERY sparkly!

Chrissie

This uses SU Delicate Doilies stamped in Versamark and embossed with WOW glittery Princess Pink embossing powder. The sentiment was cut with Cuttlebug's Typewriter alphabet and glittered with Glamour Dust... some of which has strayed onto the body of the card. Sadly the pink looks a little pale in this picture, but it's a really pretty shade.
As you an see the bling takes the form of gems in the centre of each doily.

Here's one which makes me think of Vicky...she has a thing for robins. This little chap is by courtesy of Hero Arts. He's coloured with Copics and mounted on Nesties, with a sentiment by Paper Make Up.
You have to look closely for the bling on this card.... but it's adorning the decoration which Robbie is holding!
This is going to be the design for the majority of my Christmas cards this year!
Blogging time will be limited until Sunday as we have our 3 year old granddaughter and 9 month old grandson staying with us as our daughter moved house yesterday. I'm exhausted already!

Hope you enjoy this week, somehow we think you may!
Please do enter our poll, we are interested to see the results.

Week 42 - Theme

2011-11-19T08:00:00.000Z

Another week, another challenge.

Where do the weeks go to?

We saw some fabulous work on your beautiful One Layer Cards with minor variations of the interpretation of One Layer however. If in any doubt as to what we expect, just check with the definition at the top of our blog.

This week it's time for another theme which is

Silhouettes

n. A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black.

Chrissie

Here I used the same Hero Arts stamp which I selected for my Split Negative card a couple of weeks ago. This time its the complete stamp embossed on a black background using Heat it Up Snowflake Tinsel embossing powder.

The silhouettes on this one are from a Memory Box die, arranged in slightly closer proximity than on the die itself. The sentiment is from Penny Black.

This is in similar vein using all three of the deer from the Memory Box die. The trees are stamped from a Hero Arts clear set and have been twinkled with Glamour Dust. The background was embossed with Craft Concept's Starry Night embossing folder. This is a little more layered than usual but the design is still basically CAS.

Mandi

For my first card I used a digi image from Stitchy Bear I saw it on one of our LIMettes blogs, Caro a while ago and had to have it. Isn't it just adorable!
I dragged the digi onto a blank document, then added the sentiment to fit onto the right hand space.
The font is Fontasia V2 here
I used the text box method, which we have explained in the past. I went over the 'Magical' with a zig glue pen and sprinkled with Glamour Dust for a sparkly effect. I also added glitter to the fairy wings. The top has a panel of Swiss dots and a cute little fairy castle charm tied onto the ribbon.

For this silhouette I stamped a silhouette style stamp from Stampin Up, Ornate Flowers, in black onto Melon Mambo card stock. I lined up the small stamp by eye as there were only 3 of them and the set I have is a cling which you attach onto a acrylic block, making for easy lined up design. I trimmed one edge with a scallop edge punch, also Stampin Up and then attached to a black card base. It is an A6.....Approx 15cm x 10.5cm. The gems are in an orange shade, from Doodlebug.

Have fun with your silhouettes we can't wait to see what you come up with.

ShowCASe - Colour Week - Red & Orange

2011-11-18T12:47:00.001Z

We had an extremely difficult job once again choosing our favourites!

It is the same every time and whilst you are all fabulous, we do have to choose someone

and these are the ones with that little certain something!

So many of you used leaves, which as you know was this week's challenge...
We know what's going on in LIMette world at all times...be very afraid! lol

Well done and thank you!

Please display our showCASe banner which you can find on our page at the top of the blog.

Julie
[Inspired from Chrissie, we think]

Mary

[Couldn't resist with that sentiment!]

Carole
Perfect LIM-CAS!

Susan
[Second week running!]

Thank you again, you are ALL FAB

See you tomorrow with our new challenge.

October Winner

2011-11-16T13:24:00.001Z

We have chosen our winner for October and we are delighted to announce

Val

as our most worthy winner, we are sure you will agree.

Her work is always an inspirqation to us all.

We have spotted how computer savvy you are and think this prize is 'right up your street'

We have contacted the supplier

and they will contact you in due course with details of how to claim your prize.

Congratulations and thank you for all your support.

Week 41 One Layer - Leaves

2011-11-12T08:00:00.000Z

It's that week again!

ONE LAYER CARD

Merely the thought of a one layer card used to send so many into a tailspin, but now LIMettes approach this particular week of our challenges with confidence and even ..may we say, a little enjoyment!

The theme for your cards this week is

LEAVES
If you don't have any leaf stamps then there is sure to be a way that you can interpret this challenge... let's see what you can come up with!

Mandi
Well I am home again! I had a fabulous time, but am glad to be back on terra firma!
I have to say a huge thank you to Chrissie for covering for me, she worked so hard all on her little ownsome. Also belated thank you to Vicky for being our star guest I'm sorry to have missed your week.
OK so onto my cards.
My technique was the same for all of them, but using different shaped masks.
The stamps are unknown ones from QVC, with the exception of the sprig which is a retired Stampin Up Fresh Cuts set.

Colours:
Stampin Up Pear Pizazz, Melon Mambo, Real Rose, Tempting Turquoise. To get paler colours of the turquiose I inked, then blotted before I stamped onto the card. The sentiment is CTMH.

Colours:
Crumb Cake, Pear Pizazz, Tempting Turquiose, Melon Mambo, Versafine Black Onyx

Colours:

Versamark Lime and Orchid, Versafine Black Onyx

Chrissie

This one involves masking, inking and stamping. The stamps used are from Stampin' Up's French Foliage and is one of my all time favourite stamp sets.

The inks used are SU River Rock and Pear Pizzazz with a little Encore Gold stamp over the top.
The sentiment is also from Stampin' Up.

This second one uses the same inks and the same stamp set, although I only used the script stamp from it. The leaf shapes were made by cutting a mask using some Cuttlebug dies and then inking and stamping through the mask. The sentiment on this card is from Hero Arts.

This last one is again inked and stamped into a Nestie Labels 18 Embossed frame, through a mask made with the same die.(One of my £10 bargains from the NEC) Once more I used the same stamp set with a sentiment from Paper Make Up. For this one I used mainly Adirondack inks. Hazelnut, Lake Mist, Cranberry, Caramel and a little SU Chocolate Chip.

Let's see your leafy creations... and do have fun!

ShowCASe Week 39

2011-11-10T06:24:00.001Z

Choosing ShowCASe cards is always difficult, but each time we're filled with admiration for all the wonderful entries we see each week for our challenges. One thing is really apparent and that is how comfortable so many LIMettes have become with Clean and Simple Card making, which, for us, is wonderful to see.

Without further ado here are our choices for our STAR week.

Lisa

Susan

Rosemary

We're sure you'll all agree that these three are simply stunning creations!
Congratulations ladies, do please add this accolade to your blogs..

October's prize winner will announced very soon.

Week 40

2011-11-05T08:00:00.000Z

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot!

In the UK, it is traditionally on 'firework night' that the 'Gunpowder plot' of 1605 is commemorated. It was then that Guy Fawkes was arrested for laying explosives under the House of Lords.

Our first week of the month is another Colour challenge and redolent of bonfire flames we have chosen

Red and Orange

We are sponsored again this month by

Amberink

Chrissie

My first card for this week's challenge uses a couple of Anita's stamps... some of the first ones I ever acquired. They are similar in design, but differ in size and texture, one being solid and the other simply lines. The orange flowers were inked with Scattered Straw Distress ink with a little Wild Honey added around the edges. The stamp was lightly spritzed with water before stamping. The red ones were stamped with Barn Door and Fired Brick DIs. I found a little flower centre in an old box of SEE Ds, which I used to fill in the centre of the flowers. The large open flowers were stamped with Fired Brick ink.
The sentiment tag and the border are from Spellbinder's dies.

I made this card from one of Arielle's images from the Wax Fruit Company. I just love her images. It's a quarter of a gerbera which I flipped and rotated to make a full flower image. It's coloured with Copics.
The sentiment is from Hero Arts.
As Mandi is off enjoying herself on the Queen Mary, I thought I'd pop in an extra one this week. I made this a few weeks ago for a friend.

I'm sorry that this is such a rubbish picture ... I can't even enhance it very well in Picasa.

Once more, I used Distress inks. I swiped pieces of card with them before cutting out the butterflies with my SU embosslits folder. I double mounted the butterflies and then added a little Glamour Dust to each of the smaller butterflies. The sentiment was computer generated but I can't think what font I used... I'll add it later if I can find it!

Let's see lots of vivid reds and oranges this week, but remember that white space and minimal layering too!

Have a great week!

Polka Dot ShowCASe

2011-11-02T20:21:00.000Z

There were some stunning submissions to our challenge last week, it's seems that Polka dots are a favourite with lots of you. We love them too!

We could have chosen heaps of cards for the showcase this week, but we had to limit it somewhat and so without further ado, here are our choices for Week 38

Fiona #64

Such a dramatic splash of turquoise and bold polka dots

Mary G #130

Dotty holly berries!

Elaine #146

Elegant monochrome

Laurie #153

The subtlest polka dots of all!

We are honoured to have such fabulous submissions to our challenges...

Congratulations everyone, please take the ShowCASe badge from the page above to add to your blogs and thank you all!

Week 39 Lucky Dip - Stars

2011-10-29T08:00:00.001+01:00

This month once more we have 5 Saturdays and so we have another Guest Designer joining us for our Lucky Dip week. Her work is known and admired by us all and we are delighted that

Vicky

has agreed to be our Star Guest this month!

She gives so much inspiration to her fellow LIMettes and anyone else who reads her blog for that matter and we are delighted that she could join us.

As Vicky is such a star, it gave us the inspiration for our challenge for this week!

It is...

*STARS*

Details of how Vicky made these cards can be found on her blog here

Chrissie

For my first card I decided to do a Split Negative card.

For this I stamped one image in Versamark onto a black background which I then embossed with Snowflake Tinsel embossing powder. I stamped another image onto a white background and embossed that with Black Twinkle embossing powder. After trimming both images I then cut them in half vertically and put half of each image with its negative. As you can see, the other halves don't get wasted, you put those together to make another card. The stamp I believe is Hero Arts.

My next card uses my favourite emboss resist technique and I had fun getting inky with this Artemio star.

I stamped it with Versamark and clear embossed it, then sponged ink with a dauber in Bashful Blue and Night of Navy. I over stamped a few SU Splodges and embossed them with Snowflake Tinsel embossing powder.

The border is from a Martha Stewart punch and a small star charm is suspended from a double ribbon. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Mandi

It's great having the wonderful Vicky with us today, you all know how fabulous she is!

For my card I Printed the sentiment from the computer using Century Gothis font. Then stamped the tree from a small Kanban set. It's a FAB little collection of trees.
The star is a Stampin' Up punch, triple embossed to give that glorious glossy look!

We talk about our inspiration....

here's mine........

MY TOES all ready for my hols LOL

Now I couldn't leave you without a bit of 'Mandi Bling'

I am in total holiday mode now. My ever increasing list is almost ticked off. I've neglected you all this week...I'm SO sorry.

I shall not be on a cruise this week... but I will be at the NEC on THURSDAY!

I shall carry my "Less is More" tote bag (with Chrissie written on it) and if anyone is going on Thursday, DO please stop to say HI!

If any LIMette knows she will be there that day and would like to say hello... if you email me prior to the day, I can send you my mobile number.

I wonder what goodies are to be had this time!!
Have a great week everyone!

ShowCASe - Cocktails

2011-10-26T18:17:00.000+01:00

Here's our ShowCASe chosen from those inventive LIMettes who ventured a card for this tricky challenge.

We loved the ingenuity of some entries and enjoyed looking at them all.

As ever it was difficult to choose but here are this week's cards.

Tara #17

Brilliant, this really made us smile!

Jenny #67

Wonderful effect on the glasses!

Lisa #92

A great interpretation of her inspiration cocktail picture.

These three highlight the fact that our challenge could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Even if the subject of the challenge may seem difficult at first, there's always a way to get around it if you can think outside the box!

Great work ladies, please display our Showcase banner on your blogs. You can find it on the badge page at the top of our blog.

Week 38

2011-10-22T08:00:00.000+01:00

We seem to have stumped a few people with our challenge last week as the submissions were the fewest we've seen to any of our challenges, although there were some stunning entries.

This week we have a really easy recipe which is simply

POLKA DOTS

As long as your design is Clean and Simple, has some white space (or its equivalent) and polka dots in evidence somewhere, it will be perfect for this challenge.

Mandi

This week I did an A5 card [A4 folded] Firstly I printed the sentiment,I knew roughly where I wanted it placed as I print sentiments often and save lots of different positions.
The vases are PTI Gracious Vases. I LOVE this set, it's a popular one and used to perfection by many.
The polka dot circle is printed from Pink Petticoat
The vases are stamped in Versamark 'Turquiose' and 'Boysenberry' The central black vase is cut out and mounted onto 3d foam. The flower stems I thought matched the polka dots!
The 'shelf' is cut from Stampin Up Top Note die.

For Stampin' Up products please contact me here.

Chrissie

For this card I stamped a large Waltzing Mouse polka dot stamp onto some hammered card. I didn't want a completely covered texture, so the uneven surface of the card worked perfectly for this.

I then cut the edges of the stamped strip with the scalloped cutting blade on my Woodware trimmer and chopped it up into triangles.

The trunks of the trees were stamped with a sentiment stamp from SU and the greeting is from SU Contempo Christmas. I'm working on some more similar Christmas trees but using masking techniques instead and different background stamps for the various layers of the trees, It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Fewer cards from us this week, so let's see lots of inspiration from all our wonderful LIMettes!

ShowCASe Week36

2011-10-18T16:19:00.002+01:00

More difficult choices for us again this time... especially as so many people are now extremely happy leaving areas of their cards unadorned, making them true Clean and Simple cards.

So without further ado here are our choices for the Heart, One Layer card challenge.

Congratulations to you all. Please grab your Showcase banner from the Badge page at the top of our blog, which we hope you'll add to your personal blogs and display with pride!

We're looking forward to seeing lots more Cocktail cards... so do keep them coming!

Week 37

2011-10-15T08:00:00.000+01:00

Another week and another challenge, the theme for which is
COCKTAIL
You may interpret this however you wish... your favourite tipple, the colours of a cocktail or a simply cocktail of colours. Let your imagination run with this one, it will be interesting to see how imaginative you can be.
Here is a little fun... you can follow the link to see what cocktail you are... it's interesting to see that both of us are 'poised' ladies in the same proportions what's more!

Chrissie

You Are Made Of Ambition, Poise, and Giddiness

3 parts Ambition
2 parts Poise
1 part Giddiness

And a Splash of Genius

Limit yourself to one serving. This cocktail is strong!

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

Mandi

You Are Made Of Elegance, Poise, and Understanding

3 parts Elegance
2 parts Poise
1 part Understanding

And a Splash of Glamour

Finish off with a squeeze of lime juice

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

Chrissie
I have done a couple of different things with this challenge. Firstly I have the wonderful Penny Black stamp which Mandi gave me... I love these girls.

The sentiment, which reads, 'Honey, it's 5 o'clock somewhere.' is computer generated in what else but Cocktail and Cocktail Bubbly fonts.
The image was coloured with Copics.

This one takes a little lateral thought... and you can obviously see a cock('s)-tail!
We did ask you to be inventive!

Mandi

Firstly, I am so sorry I didn't visit many of the later entries.
This was due to my work load, I'm in the process of completeing a large wedding order.

Isn't Chrissie imaginative, I love her style, I know you all do too! Mine are more predictable, but I hope you like them.

This stamp is Creative Expressions, I've had it yonks, used it loads! The 'cocktail' drink I did using Promarkers. I wasn't having any success at first, they kept bleeding into each other, even when masking. So I cut them as strips, stuck them onto a piece of paper and then over stamped again with the glass, then cut out and stuck on! Cheating I guess but the 'Mandi way' lol. Finished off by coating with glossy accents, colouring the stem in black and also adding the 3 gems to finish,

For my second card I took inspiration from this picture.
I do love a cocktail. They conjure up a picture of tropical places, bursting with a plethora of vibrantly colourful flowers. Nothing to do with the alcohol content of course ...cough cough!

Stampes used, Stampin Up flower from the Growing Green set, Stampendous Daisy flower, and the other is a triple poppy design, no idea whose it is! Leaves are a mix od Crealies dies. The sentiment is my newly acquired Papertrey Ink

Yes, it's in your face, but, I like it!! Says a lot for me ha ha

Enjoy concocting your 'cocktails' maybe even have a real one!

Showcase Week 35

2011-10-13T22:28:00.002+01:00

Our job to choose our favourites seems to get harder week by week.

You are certainly getting the "Less is More" bug and also seem to be enjoying it, which is great!

These are our showCASe choices for Week 35
Colour of your Eyes

Ann

Margaret

Laurie

Tania

Benzi

Thank you ladies, please grab your banner from the page at the top.

See you here Saturday for the new challenge

Week 36

2011-10-08T08:00:00.000+01:00

We enjoyed your cards last week, as always, but also great to see lots of our
LIMettes lovely eyes that eagerly await our post Saturday morning!
It must be said that this was our least popular week, let's hope this one is more to your liking!

Being the second week of the month it is One Layer

An easy one for you it's

The ♥ can be singular, multiple, any colour, but, MUST be a one layer card, with no additional layers stuck on, apart from the odd embellishment or ribbon!

Mandi

For my card I folded a piece of A4 paper and hand drew half a heart, which I cut out. Opening the paper to reveal a full heart I placed it over the folded 6x6 card and secured with some sticky bits from a Post it note. Using a few retired SU stamps and an Anita's daisy stamp I randomly stamped within the heart aperture.
Using these SU colours
Basic Black, [new]Pool Party, [new] Calypso Coral and Melon Mambo.
The little black gems were added to finish.

For Stampin Up products please contact me via here
I am placing an order this weekend. There's still one place left on one of my Stampers 6 Clubs.
By joining you get a FREE catalogue and get to be hostess for one of the 6 months, which means a spend of at least £25......how fabulous!
If you don't want the commitment of a club and just want to order when you like please feel free to let me know. Catalogues are only £4.00 including postage to your door!
UK residents only please

Chrissie

At first glance you would say that this was decidedly not a ONE LAYER CARD, but in fact there is a hole in the front of the card and the image is attached to a piece of acetate inside....

so it kind of IS a One Layer Card after all.

You may be able to see it more clearly here.

The Heart is SU, the flower Inkylicious and the sentiment is Studio G.

This next card is one of my first using kraft cardstock, in this case Crumb cake from SU. I masked a section, then inked it with SU Whisper White, using a sponge dauber.

The image which I stamped in Versafine is a retired one from SU which I bought from the US via eBay. The copics reacted oddly on top of the ink and so I added some Glossy Accents to perk the colour up slightly. The sentiment is a recently rediscovered one from MSE.

Do show us your one layer cards, you're getting so good at them these days and as long as there is at least one heart in evidence, plus some white space, we'll be delighted.

September Winner

2011-10-06T14:16:00.000+01:00

It's so difficult to choose winners from the many, many faithful LIMettes who submit wonderful work to our challenges each week, but we've had a discussion and the name which emerged from both of us this time was Viv a.k.a. Daizy-Mae

The £20 voucher from the Craft Barn

will be on its way to you if you can let us know your contact details.

I'm sure you'll all join in congratulating Viv and thanking her for her wonderful contribution, both in her cards and her commenting on other entries to our challenges.

We fancied this prize ourselves!

Well done Viv!

Week 35

2011-10-01T08:00:00.000+01:00

Here we are again and it's time for another COLOUR challenge.

This week we have chosen

THE COLOUR OF YOUR EYES

You don't necessarily have to have an exact match, but if your eyes are blue, then any shade of blue will be fine, likewise with brown, grey, green etc.. (We aren't as mean as all that!)

However, the colour you choose should be the predominant colour on your card... we don't want to see just a hint of it.
Our sponsor this month is
Photo Paper Direct

Photo Paper Direct's site offers over 5000 heavily discounted Inkjet product, ranging from craft papers to photo papers. Since going live in 1999, it has offered industry leading paper products at discount prices due to its slim operation which is web based. During the month of October we are offering 'Less Is More' readers an EXCLUSIVE 5% off online voucher. Simply type lessismore during the checkout process for 5% off. Offer ends November10th.
They are also offering a voucher for £20 to the lucky winner this month!

Here are some canvas bags we made with PPD products. They provide the bags themselves plus the transfer sheets for the design of your choice. Watch out for these walking around craft shows in the future! We could fit quite a few goodies in these babies!
Today is apparently World Card Making Day,
so let's show the world what you can do!
Now for our cards

Chrissie

This week I've been messing around with this leaf stamp from Paper Artsy. Many of you have seen the robin, chicken and penguin on my blog that I have made this week and so as my eyes are a bluish colour, here is a little bluebird! The branch is from a SU punch and the sentiment is computer generated in Jenna Sue font.

This one again uses Distress inks. The base layer is swiped with Stormy Sky, Weathered Wood and Chipped Sapphire, the middle layer is embossed with a Crafts Concepts folder and the Paper Artsy Image is stamped using Chipped Sapphire. The sentiment is from SU's So Happy For You set. This is stamped with Midnight Blue Stazon as I really don't think that Distress Inks stamp precisely enough for sentiments.
I actually think that my eyes are more like the Weathered Wood colour rather than any of the others, but I can dream!

Mandi

Well I have green eyes! I made my card, showed my Mum and she said, lovely but your eyes aren't that colour! ha ha I made her look in the bright sun and she said OH, they are...sort of!
So there you go!

This fabulous motif stamp is Viva Decor, Baroque Set. I'd never heard of this set until our lovely LIMette Viv used it here.
I LOVE it! [I got mine on good ol' eBay]
I used this shape as I felt it replicated the shape of the eye.As the stamp is clear one and doesn't take dye ink overly well. I stamped with a couple of Versamark ink pads first Sage and Bamboo, then inked with Stampin up Pear Pizazz to finish. It gives for a slightly mottled effect.
The sentiment, I printed first from the computer in Young Love font. I played around for ages on placement. So have scraps of this design everywhere! Of course, my obligatory bling in the centre! Oh to have eyes the colour of the gem!

*** Only ONE place left ***
UK residents only please

£25 per month spend [plus £2.50 postage] for 6 months

I need 4 members to start the club October 1st [Today, but, order to be placed by 10th of this month] Just a reminder... you get a FREE BRAND NEW catalogue, you become a virtual hostess for one of the 6 months and get to choose goods to the value of
AT LEAST £25.00.

Stampin Up products are fabulous, high quality, with matching card stock and inks, also some ribbons, buttons, etc.

You really will not be disappointed.

I can also promise you service to match!
Contact me Mandi overmoores@aol.com or 07921 524090
or via here
*** Only ONE place left ***

Week 33 ShowCASe

2011-09-30T16:55:00.000+01:00

We have spent SO long looking through all the fabulous submissions which you supplied for us last week and choosing just a few was such a difficult task.

So many LIMettes submitted multiple times and many submitted posts with multiple cards on and we are SO grateful for all the wonderful support from so many of you for our attempt at 1000 cards in one week.

We have been encouraged to try for it again sometime... well we'll see... that was a lot of commenting to do... it makes commenting on a couple of hundred per week seem more like a walk in the park... yet that in itself takes us a long time!

One thing we have noticed is how much more comfortable lots of you seem with the genre and are sometimes producing one layer cards from choice!

Thanks go to you all, especially those who tried SO hard to help us try to achieve our goal, we'd love to name names, but would hate to miss anyone out, so HUGE thanks to YOU ALL.

Here are some which caught our eyes last week.

Fiona 61

Barb 87

Bastelengel 123

Larissa 224

Carol 545

Robyn 695

Daizy-Mae 700

HUGE Thanks go to Loli for this last submission. She waited until moments before the challenge ended to post it so that it would be the last one for us.

It brought a lump to our collective throats.

Thanks to all of you!

Please collect your showcase badges from the new badge page at the top of the blog, and we hope you will display them with pride!

WEEK 34

2011-09-24T08:00:00.000+01:00

Well what a Week!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

You girls certainly know how to keep us busy and what a TREMENDOUS effort on the part of SO many LIMettes.

It was almost with tongue in cheek that we suggested that we try for 1000 submissions in one week, but you very nearly did it, congratulations everyone! We are absolutely delighted.

Our eyes are now rectangular and our fingers are flat!

We visited everyone, but we couldn't leave comments for all... there were quite a few submissions with Word Verification still in place and this takes so much extra time, which this week we didn't have!

So PLEASE TURN OFF WORD VERIFICATION

After making SO many comments, it would have been wonderful to receive a few more on our own personal blogs, but there are still some problems on accessing Chrissie's blog we understand.

** If you can't leave Chrissie a comment, maybe you would try accessing her blog through a different browser. Tara couldn't via Firefox, but, could via Internet Explorer. Mandi uses Safari and that works fine ** Thank you

Mandi says Failing all else, leave it on here, LIM and I will copy it to Chrissie's blog

We seem to have had little time for our sample cards this week and here we are back with a

SKETCH

Chrissie

This is a digi image from A Day for Daisies.(I really got into my pears the other week), which I printed and masked before adding the stamping from three Paper Artsy stamps.

The pears are coloured with Promarkers and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up stamped with Memento ink in London Fog.

This one involves a little bit of simple recycling.
It always seems such a waste to throw Christmas cards out after the celebrations are all over and so the ones I don't send for official recycling, I keep back for reuse on my cards.
There were five little robins in a row, I now have five little cards with a robin on each!
The corners were cut with my new Crop a Dile Corner Chomper and the image mounted on some red backing with small pearls added to the corners. The sentiment is another from the same SU set as the first card.

Mandi

As the sentiment is printed on the computer I needed to do this on an A4 sheet first. I worked out the position using a scrap sheet. The font is Champignon. This is a 6" [15cm] square card. The square panel is about 8cm square. Once the sentiment was printed, it was scored using a score board, folded in half lengthways and 6cm was trimmed off, making a 15cm square card base.

I cut the square and stamped the Anita's daisy flower randomly in Stampin Up Tempting Turquoise and Old Olive. I joined the daisies with lines and leaves by hand using a Stampin Up black marker. Finally I added the 6mm black gems to the centres of the 3 whole daisies. The panel is mounted on 3D foam.

I had a bit of a lesson from Chrissie, as to how to do inked backgrounds! [She is SO FAB at it, as you know]. Taking a sheet of smooth white cardstock roughly measuring 7cm square, I inked the background. [There was no need to mask an area as I was trimming to size later] Whilst this isn't perfect I thought it was 'OK' I used Stampin' Up ink pads Rich Razzlebury, Melon Mambo and Peach Parfait and made the effect using SU daubers. The process of the sentiment placement was easy as it's the same as above! This time the font is Dear Joe 1 M&S. I stamped the Hero Arts Palm Tree onto the left hand side of the panel. To finish I stamped over the square with Versamark and heat embossed it with clear powder. The panel is mounted on 3D foam.

*** Only ONE place left ***
UK residents only please

Can I give a last shout out for my Stampers 6 Club.

£25 per month spend [plus £2.50 postage] for 6 months

I need 4 members to start the club October 1st. Just a reminder... you get a FREE BRAND NEW catalogue, you become a virtual hostess for one of the 6 months and get to choose goods to the value of
AT LEAST £25.00.

Stampin Up products are fabulous, high quality, with matching card stock and inks, also some ribbons, buttons, etc.

You really will not be disappointed.

I can also promise you service to match!
Contact me Mandi overmoores@aol.com or 07921 524090
or via here
*** Only ONE place left ***

We don't expect that there will be 1000 submissions this week, but we'd like to welcome back all those who joined us for the first time this last week and hope that you'll join us on a regular basis. We would love it if you could visit other LIMettes to leave a friendly comment.
Have a great week and thanks again.

ShowCASe for Seeing Double Week

2011-09-22T15:28:00.001+01:00

Whie we have just about any energy left in our fingers from all those commenting,

we just wanted to announce our showCASe entries for Seeing Double

Here are the ones that made the showCASe

Big thank you to ALL our LIMettes as always to you all for your participation.

We are sure you will agree these 4 ladies have created something extra special!

Please display our banner on your blog

THANK YOU for all your entries this week, you have excelled yourselves, but without appearing too pushy....KEEP 'EM COMING!

See you Saturday

Week 33 - 1000 Challenge - Anything CAS Goes

2011-09-17T08:00:00.005+01:00

What wonderful doubles we saw last week, once more choosing our ShowCASe will be a difficult job, but watch this space for our choices later in the week.

Now we are going for the 1000 submissions.

Anything CAS Goes
If you make more than one card for us, you will need to post them on your blog and submit them separately, for each card to count towards our target!
You are doing SO well, thank you all!

We hope that the scope of the challenge doesn't leave you wondering what to do... you could use any of our previous challenges as inspiration, CASE a card which has given you inspiration (as long as you credit the original crafter with the design), or just do your own thing.

You may enter as many times as you wish as long as each submission is with a different creation.

Let's go LIMettes, how many can we reach?

We may leave blanket comments to show that we have visited you, so we hope you'll excuse that on this occasion.

Mandi

To achieve perfect placement of coloured blocks, I placed scraps onto the square of card [13cm x 13cm] I then printed the sentiment on the computer, Cherish font.
I embossed the blocks with my Crafts Too embossing folder, keeping them in the same order as the finished card to achieve the following on design. The fabulous butterfly, I've had forever! One of my first purchases. It's from Creative Stamping, I doubt it's still in production.
The colours are Stampin' Up: Real Red, Pumpkin Pie and the new Calypso Coral.
The butterfly was stamped onto a scrap piece of card, coloured and and I cut out the wings only. I curled them for a 3D look. The body is stamped directly onto the card base, using a Stampmajig for perfect placement.

The second card is made in much the same way, but, the sentiment was stamped from an old SU set.

the colours are from Stampin' Up again.

Pear Pizazz, Melon Mambo and another new one Island Indigo. I finished off with my favourite bling!

Can I add that Chrissie and I show each other our cards, I showed her mine PRE bling! lol
I bought the rhinestone embellishment here.

For Stampin' Up products please feel free to contact me via here

or overmoores@aol.com

Chrissie

Here is a really simple little card with a gorgeous digi image from A Day for Daisies, aren't these ducks just the cutest! I think it would be a prefect for anyone having triplets too, but you don't need one of those cards every day! It's a Stampin' Up sentiment.

This one is a simple little card using a Stampin' Up Delightful Decorations bauble stamp adapted to make a vase. I simply put some sticky tape across the bottom of the stamp before inking with Versamark, and then pulled it off before stamping. I embossed the image with Fine Detail Gold embossing powder. This was then punched out using the SU bauble punch and the bottom of the card cut off leaving a similar border as around the rest of the stamp.
The flower is from SU's Silhouette Sentiments and the sentiment from SU Happy Moments.
The border punch is Martha Stewart.

ShowCASe and a Special Announcement

2011-09-12T22:30:00.001+01:00

Here is our ShowCASe of some fabulous submissions from our Metallic challenge. We were amazed by the variety of wonderful techniques in evidence from LIMettes this week.

Gina

Carole

Sylvia-Anne

Do please take our ShowCASe badge to pop on your blogs ladies

Now for the announcement

With the passing of 1000 followers, one LIMette thought that if everyone entered a card for any particular challenge, Blogger might break, so we're going to put it to the test...

Next week we are going to have a crack at seeing just how many submissions LIMettes can post on "Less is More" in one week.

We are doing something unprecedented and letting you know the theme in advance.

SO next week ANYTHING Clean and Simple GOES!

Get those CAS cards ready...will we manage 1000 submissions in one week... who knows?

Week 32 - One Layer - Seeing Double

2011-09-10T08:00:00.001+01:00

It seems that there were lots of shiny, happy people around "Less is More " last week with lots of beautiful metallic entries, thanks everyone, but now we're on to the second week of the month, which is a....
ONE LAYER CARD
entitled
SEEING DOUBLE
So on your entry this week, we'd like to see TWO of something.

Chrissie

My cards for this week both involve using a stamp twice, but each one employs a different technique.

This one uses a fabulous pear stamp from A stamp in the Hand, which is a completely flat stamp.
This is how I achieved this effect

I inked the stamp with Shabby Shutters Distress ink, then dabbed a little wild honey onto it using a Decopatch brush.
After this I inked around the edge of the stamp with some Forest Moss Distress ink, both directly from the pad and also with another stiff brush.
I then inked the text stamp from the SU French Foliage set, in Forest Moss and stamped this onto the pear stamp (Kissing Technique).
I then stamped it onto the card which had already been printed with the sentiment on the computer.
I covered this with a mask which I had previously cut out and then repeated the process for the second pear, positioning it using an acetate sheet and my Lego right angle. (Poor man's Stampamajig)

The fonts are Abadi MT Condensed and Eutemia I.

Note to self: Ensure the text stamp is aligned similarly on both images in future!

This one uses a stamp from the SU Silhouette Sentiments Set, Stamped twice without re-inking to imply the shadow effect.. I stamped over a straight edge mask to ensure that the branches ended at the same point on the left.

The sentiment is from Unity Stamps.
Mandi

I have a few doubles on my cards! Firstly the fact there are 2 of them, two cards for two friends!
The stamping technique is two step stamping, whereby 2 stamps are needed to make the complete image, an outline and a 'fill' solid design. So although there is only a single flower, it is double stamped! They are from Close to my Heart and as they are clear, you mount them onto an acrylic block, therefore positioning is easy! Having said that with this kind of 'loose' design I rather like it placed slightly 'off'.
The pink is a Brilliance ink and the green is one of the fabulos new SU In colours! This is so fresh and new it's very wet, therefore making a less solid effect. Have to say I quite like it looking 'smudgy' A quick fix would be to add a bit of Quickie glue and glamour dust!
The twine is from Pretty Little Ribbon Shop.
[Sarah gives an excellent service and sells at super prices, do go and have a look]
The double ends are made by sticking 2 gems, black in this instance, back to back over the cut end of the twine.

For my second card, I stamped a fern branch from the fabulous Inkylicious set 'Meadow Breeze. in an aqua colour. It's an excitig new colour from Stampin' Up. All will be revealed October 1st! There are 5 new colours in their 'In Colour' range, they are all lush!
I then stamped again in Versafine Onyx Black, as is the 'Thanks' which is from CTMH.
The ribbon is just from my stash. To create the little bow I punched 2 holes on the stems and threaded it through both holes from the front, then threaded the ends back up again, on opposite sides then trimmed to finish.

If you would like to receive a NEW 2011-2012 Stampin' Up catalogue, please click here to see the details of joining my Stampers 6 Club

Only 3 places left!

If you would like to have a catalogue but not join the club (they are free for club members) they can be purchased from me for £4.00 including postage.

[Will be posted 1st October]

So here you can see four different ways of using double stamping, We're wondering how many other ways of having 'double' of something, our wonderful LIMettes will come up with.

We leave hundreds of comments each week and if you could spare the time to visit our personal blogs we'd love to have some comments from you too. Thank you to all those LIMettes who regularly visit us and leave us words of encouragement, we truly appreciate it!
Blogger was playing silly kids this week and so apologies to anyone who tried unsuccessfully to leave Chrissie a comment, she appreciated the thought!

August Winner

2011-09-09T11:46:00.003+01:00

We are delighted to announce our winner for August.

You will all know her and agree she is a worthy winner.

Tara (Craftilicious]

Tara tirelesly runs her challenge blog and raises funds for a worthwhile charity.

Do stop by, if you haven't already.

Congratulations Tara and thank you so much for your continued support of our blog and of your fellow LIMettes

Ruth from a Passion for Stamps very kindly sponsored us,

please contact us and we will arrange for your prize to be sent.

Our winners banner for you Tara

See you all tomorrow with the next challenge!

ShowCASe for Things That Move and Take 3 Challenges

2011-09-08T16:46:00.000+01:00

Another week of inspiration from the LIMettes and we had a wonderful time mulling over the entries for this week's ShowCASe.

So in the order in which they were submitted, here are our choices for this week and I think you must admit that they are really stunning!

OK so we managed to forget to showCASe Week 29
Things that Move
How bizarre.....must be all that commenting, fuddled our brains!
Thank you Val for reminding us!
So sorry and huge congrats as usual to all these wonderful entries

Laurie

Lisa

Monica

Aren't we lucky to have such wonderful contributions to our challenges.

DO please take our ShowCASe banner and display it on your blogs with pride and accept our grateful thanks.

Thank you everyone!

Week 31 - Colour

2011-09-03T08:00:00.083+01:00

Good morning LIMettes.

Thank you all for your good wishes following our last post... we're delighted to have so many of you on board. We certainly enjoy seeing all your submissions.

It's the first Saturday of the month and so we have a colour themed challenge once more and this time it is

METALLIC

We'd like to see CLEAN & SIMPLE cards with something that has a METALLIC finish to it... ink, embossing, card, charms, actual metal... come on people let's get creative!

We are delighted to be sponsored by The Craft Barn this month.
They are generously donating £20 voucher to the winner.

We are a UK business selling a wide range of craft supplies for cardmaking, scrapbooking, home decor and gift projects including stamps, inks & paints, dies & embossing folders and stencils.

We are committed to providing the best, most up to date craft products at great prices, coupled with first class service.
Some leading brands that we stock include Hero Arts, Stampers Anonymous and Tim Holtz, Crafty Individuals, Martha Stewart, Spellbinders, Marianne D, Copic Pens, Viva Décor and Cosmic Shimmer to name but a few.

We are constantly adding new products to our range of craft supplies so be sure to add us to your browser favourites so you can pop back to see us.

Our blog is also a place not to be missed with lots of samples and tutorials by our talented DT as well as challenges, competitions and blog candies. Make sure to sign up as a follower ;)

Chrissie

This card has a triple embossed tile. Here is the method I used to make it.

Cut a piece of card to size
Stamp with Versamark.
Sprinkle with embossing powder and heat to melt the powder.(I used a layer of UTEE in platinum to shorten the process)
Repeat stages 2 & 3 a couple of times.
Sprinkle with different coloured metallic EPs and reheat... I used Copper plus Silver and Gold Sparkle.
Ink a deeply etched stamp with Versamark (I added some Black Memento too) and press firmly and evenly into the still molten tile and hold for several seconds.

The impression had a few little etched circles in it so I popped some gems into them.

The stamp is from Stempelglede Grunge Hearts

This one uses a piece of metal foil which I bought ages ago and didn't get around to using until now. I cut it out with a Nestie and embossed it in a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I thought to add a little interest I'd swipe it with some brown Stazon and discovered that it made a really pleasing effect..it removed some of the colour from the foil in places and left its own colour in others, I thought it looked rather nice.

The depth of embossing made me decide to mount it into a recess in the card and so mounted the panel section on dimensional pads. The three butterflies using the three colours used in the card are cut from Marianne's Creatables dies. The sentiment is from part of a Cuttlebug die.

Mandi

For my card I took a plain black card base [6" square]
Cut a panel of white card approx 12.5cm x 5.5cm.
I began by rubbing a Versamark silver inkpad around the edges, coming further in at the corners. Taking a clean tissue I buffed all over the panel, which draws out some of the ink.
I then stamped the leaf design randomly as you can see. The leaf spray is Creative Expressions.
I also stamped onto the card base.
The little elf, also Creative Expressions, is stamped over the whole lot in Versafine Onxy Black.
Lastly as it's metallic week, I took a gold Versamark pad and lightly added to the bottom right and top left corner, plus a few touches on the leaves on the cardbase using a cotton bud. (Q Tip).
To finish I mounted the panel onto 3D foam.
I refrained from adding a sentiment as I don't think it needs it!

NB The sentiment appears wonky...it isn't I assure you, it's the angle of the photo!

Not too much to say really. Circles using Stampin Up 3/4" punch, then varied decoration. That lovely metal flower brad is Stampin Up too.
The Happy Birthday is a Hobby Art stamp

Photographing shiny metallic card is a nightmare isn't it. I'm by no means an expert, but, what I did this time was to stand much further back and then zoomed in. Seems to have helped stop any reflections!

If you would like any Stampin' Up products please contact me overmoores@aol.com

I also want to tell you about my new Stampers 6 Club starting October first
There are only 4 places left, so please hurry, before they are filled.
It's a fabulous time to join as the brand new catalogue is out on October 1st...its full of FANTASTIC new products.....so exciting!
Full details are here

Something pretty amazing!

2011-08-31T10:12:00.000+01:00

We never cease to be amazed by the fabulous support that we receive for our challenges and now it seems that our following has exceeded 1000 crafters... how amazing is that?

1000 FOLLOWERS

We are SO thrilled by the support of all you lovely LIMettes that we have decided to give a little candy to celebrate passing the 1000 follower milestone. Rather than just give the small prize to the 1000th follower we have decided to give it to someone who has been a faithful follower and participant for many, many weeks.

So JAN of Loves to Craft

please email us with your contact details and your prize will be on its way!

Thank you everyone and here's to your continued support!

Week 30 - Recipe

2011-08-27T08:00:00.021+01:00

We loved looking at your entries again last week. You were so inventive and came up with some fabulous ideas!

So this week we are back to Sketch or Recipe

We have chosen a Recipe this time

Take 3 Challenges

We want you to choose 3 from any of our previous 29 and combine them in your design.
There is a list of our previous challenges under the tab heading at the top of our blog and you can also see the previous sketches under a separate tab.

Please state which 3 you have chosen.
NB There is no need to adhere to the One Layer if that is on the week you choose.

You may wish to go for your favourites or maybe your least...acetate springs to mind!

Most of all, be creative, have fun, remember our white space and the all important

"Less is More"

Mandi

Chrissie and I adore white on white, so we were bound to both choose it as one of our three!
[Hers is a total knockout, I'm in awe!]
For my first the card base is 6" square, the Decorative Accent swirl is Sizzix, then X Cut punches for the flowers. Sentiment done on computer, Nuptial font
Week 6 Off the Edge
Week 13 Congratulations or Thank you
Week 14 White on White
[also Week 15 Embossing]

For my second card, I took inspiration from a vase of articifical flowers Mum has.
My card is combining challenges

Week 4 3 Squares
Week 15 Embossing
Week 9 Touch of Red
I cut 3 squares 3.5,3 and 2.5cm and embossed them with Swiss dots folder. Once I knew where they were to go I stamped the branch from a retuiresd Stampin Up set 'For All you Do' The flower heads are from the same set, stamped in SU Real Red and cut out. I have used glossy accents on the larger flower head. The other leaves are from one of my favourite dies from Crealies. The sentiment is Penny Black to finish off. I placed it to fit the 'vase' step.

Chrissie

For my 3 challenges I chose ...
Week 14 - White on White,
Week 15 - Embossing and
Week 16 - Butterflies.
After I had done it I realised that it also fitted with
Week 13 - Congratulations,
Week 23 - Something with Legs and
Week 29 - Things that Move.
It has three kinds of embossing... regular dry embossing, heat embossing with Silver Pearl EP and Letterpress embossing which is achieved by cutting a shape with a Nestie (a rectangle in this case), which was then placed (still in the die) on top of an Impressability template and embossed using my tan mat.
Not much stamping but lots of die-cutting and layering, yet retaining lots of white space.
Marianne Creatables spray, SU tiny butterflies, Cuttlebug large butterfly. Nesties.

This card combines the challenges from
Week 4 Three Squares,
Week 18 - Monochrome &
Week 25 Button or Ribbon.
Incidentally it also fits with
Week 15 Embossing
Week 16 - Butterflies
Week 23 - Things with Legs
Week 28 - Use Ink &
Week 29 Things that move
Quite a bumper bundle, with lots of emboss resist stamping and ink sponging, using my fab Katzelkraft stamps which were part of my birthday present from lovely buddy Mandi, I just love them!

So now it's your turn, we'd love to see how you combine our challenges... and do have fun!

ShowCASe Use Ink

2011-08-26T20:25:00.003+01:00

Well this was an EXTREMELY difficult job to choose our ShowCASe with so many wonderful, wonderful submissions. We thought that everyone should be congratulated on a brilliant inky job!

However, we want to mention just a few, in no particular order, whose work caught our eyes this week.

Please grab our ShowCASe banner ladies and Thank you SO much!

We could have chosen SO many, so congratulations to everyone who took part and especially these fabulous LIMettes!

Week 29 - Theme

2011-08-20T08:08:00.020+01:00

Goodness, what a fabulous response to our INKY challenge!

There were so many truly stunning entries and the range of techniques was so extensive and varied.

Wonderful, wonderful work, thank you all SO much!

Choosing our showcase this time will certainly be a tricky task!

Now onto this week's challenge which is a 'Theme' and we would like to see

Things that Move

This could be interpreted in a variety of ways...an actual moving component on your card, so a pop up, a shaker, a spinner, a charm, a tag... we could go on...

On the other hand your card could have an image of something capable of movement, so the scope for that is almost infinitesimal!

Whatever you do, we're sure that all you LIMettes will be totally creative!

Chrissie

This card, using the SU Joie stamp set has several butterflies on it... all capable of movement, and the cut-out one is only attached through the body section and so the wings can be raised.

It was made with a mixture of emboss resist and overstamping plus a little inking too.

This one, for a newborn, has Pink Petticoat paper and an SU image embossed in silver and coloured with Copics. The ribbon holds a small silver coloured charm, which can waggle from side to side (the moving element) and the name has been added using Cuttlebug's Baby Face Alphabet.

A quick tip when adding small bits and pieces like these letters, is to add Double Sided Tape to the back of the card before running it through the'bug, so all you have to do is peel and stick once they are cut.

The baby carriages in the image (IRL) are also capable of movement.
I had intended making a spinner card this week, but we have had our grandchildren staying and so craft time was zilch... however you may like to see a few spinner and slider cards I made in true Blue Peter style... earlier!
SPINNER CARDS (Please click)
SLIDER CARDS

Mandi

My card base is Stampin up Crumb Cake, The plant Stamp is Stampabilities I thought the leaves matched the scrap of Stamping Up Speciality DP 'Sweet & Sour' The butterfly [my something that moves] is Papermania. I guess you could say the plant moves too! I stamped using Versamark Ultrafine, 'Onyx Black' which I thank Vicky for, as she recommend it last week for its proper blackness, I love it!
For Stampin up supplies please contact me here

ShowCASe - Colours of Your Flag

2011-08-19T15:39:00.001+01:00

What fabulous entries we had again, amazing just how many countries share our red/white and blue!

Without further ado we are delighted to annouonce the following as our showCASe entries.

All so different, but, so fabulous too!

Thank you ladies, do hope you will display our banner on your sidebar

See you tomorrow with our new challenge

Loli

Thanks again ladies

Week 28 - One Layer

2011-08-13T08:00:00.036+01:00

We were delighted to see so many nations represented in our 'Colours of your Flag' challenge last week, how wonderful that the love of crafting links so many of us worldwide.

Once more we are back to the second week of the month and so our challenge is for a

ONE LAYER CARD

If you are not sure of the principles of this genre, do check out our Guidelines at the top of our blog.

The special feature we would like to see this week is for you to

USE INK
** This does include ink pads **

...hopefully in a way you haven't tried before.... or using a favourite technique.

If you can avoid using the computer this week, that would be great, but we wouldn't want to to miss a week if the computer is your only method of card making.

Mandi

This week is very Chrissie, not very Mandi lol

I hate getting my fingers inky and don't do inky backgrounds ever! But, I had a bash.

This technique is in various forms around blog world, but, I kinda adapted in my own way!

I took an acryllic block and with my water brush added a few drops of water to LuminArte H2o's Persimmon and Pink Azalea, so I had puddles of colour. Using the water brush to pick up the colour I then dabbed a few areas onto the block. I knew roughly where I wanted them to be. You need to pay particular attention to how close the drops are as they spread lots and merge together. Great if that's what you want! I did and didn't as you can see.

[Also keep away from the edges of the block as it creates a line]

If your blobs look a little too wet it's best to take the excess off with the edge of a tissue, let it soak it up, rather than dab.

Turn the block over and press onto your card. Hold for a few moments, lift off. Voila!

Once dry I stamped with the Flamingo [Stampabilities] added ribbon and gems.

You can use numerous different inks for this technique, watercolour crayons, and if you prefer you can also spritz with water for a different look. It's all about experimenting really and although I'm a complete novice at anything like this, I do have to admit I quite enjoyed it AND have clean fingers!

Chrissie

I went shopping for a mustard inkpad, but ended up buying the inks you see here instead... and I am delighted with them.

They are from Adirondack and the colours are Pebble, Lake Mist and Pesto.

I masked the card with Post Its and sponged the colours into the gap with some cut 'n' dry foam. (I have run out of spare Sponge Daubers, so I must order some more from Mandi!)

The stamps I used are from Indigo Blu, with just a few additional leaves from Inkylicious to fill in some gaps at the bottom.

The umbrella (umbellate) plant stamp was added after the upper masks had been removed. I find building up a scene in this way is really satisfying. If you haven't tried it, give it a go... you may enjoy it!

I find this one rather serene.

Showcase - Feeling Fruity

2011-08-11T21:58:00.000+01:00

We had yet another difficult task to choose a showcase for this week, but after lots of thought here are our choices for the Fruity Challenge

Vicki

Tracy

Anne

Thank you all for your participation with these stunning cards, please take our Showcase badge to display on your blogs.

Well done everyone!

Week 27- Colour

2011-08-06T08:00:00.037+01:00

Some luscious entries were made in our challenge this last week and our mouths were watering looking at some of the fabulous creations.

Our Sponsor this month is Ruth from A Passion For Stamps, who is generously donating 8 digi images to August's winner.
There is a little information from Ruth on our sidebar, do visit her site and check out her fabulous images.

This week it's time for another colour challenge and for your delectation this week, we have decided to ask you make a card using the

COLOURS

YOUR NATION'S FLAG!

We should be able to see quite a variety of colours this week as we are fortunate enough to have crafters from all around the world sharing in our challenges. If you could describe the colours of your flag or include an image of it, that would be great.

We (Mandi & Chrissie) have the option of our English, St. George's flag or the Union Jack, of the United Kingdom
We decided to do one to represent each!

Chrissie

My 'English' card consists of a SU heart from the retired Mon Ami set, mounted on a length of rescued ribbon and some Pink Petticoat Harlequin paper. The latter two being placed on a sections of card with the sides embossed to form a finished edge.

The sentiment from Personal Impressions was cut by a large rectangular Nestie, passed twice through the Cuttlebug to scale down the size.

My 'British' card is for my niece who is about to move into a new house. I saw these stamps yesterday and although rather pricey in the venue where I saw them, I just couldn't resist them. They are from Dylusions by Dyan Reavley. The blue is a tad darker than it really should be, but I hope we can put that down to artistic licence! The spotty section is from a Waltzing mouse stamp and the sentiment from Stampin' Up.

I'm sorry the photographs are dreadful, even with Picasa's help... I may try to improve on them later.

Mandi
'English Rose' was in my head and it wasn't going anywhere!! lol

I decided to take the top right segment of the flag for my design.
Supplies used
15cm [6"] square card base
All from Stampin Up
'Real Read' ink, 'Real Red' card, 'Little Leaves' Sizzlit die, Growing Green stamp set, 'Silver Glass Glitter' for the centres of the flowers, 'Boho Blossoms' punch and a tiny punch I had free on a magazine years ago.

For my second card, again 15cm [6"] square card base. I firstly cut 2 blue and 2 red 4.5 cm squares and stamped the Rubber Stampede 'Etched Rose Background' stamp in Versamark. I then heat embossed with white embossing powder. I particularly cut the squares first, so whilst it was more fiddly, it meant the embossing wouldn't crack and come off if I cut them afterwards. I stuck to the card as shown, then made a rolled 'English' rose, die by Marianne. The leaves are Crealies, as the leaves that came with the rose die were a little large.

For Stampin Up supplies please feel free to contact me via here

We shall look forward to seeing your cards maybe your flags too!

Have a good week.

ShowCASe for Ribbon and or Button Week

2011-08-03T14:08:00.001+01:00

We are delighted to show you our choices for the showCASe entries we chose for

Theme week Ribbon or Button

We are sure you will agree these are all fantastic cards. AS you can see we had a difficult choice deciding this week!

Thank you ladies.

Please display our winning badge on your blog.

In no particular order

Heather T

July Winner

2011-08-01T08:16:00.000+01:00

We have lots of discussions about who should be selected to win any of our monthly prizes and there are lots of reasons for the choice of specific LIMettes... all the winners are dedicated LIMettes by the way!

This month we have chosen

Rosemary

and we're sure you'll all agree that Rosemary adds so much to our challenges with her inspirational cards. She always pays such attention to detail and we can't remember her missing a week since she first began submitting entries to "Less is More".

Thank you Rosemary do please grab our Winner's badge, which we hope you'll display on your blog with pride.

Week 26 - Lucky Dip

2011-07-30T08:00:00.003+01:00

Good morning LIMettes and a happy half birthday to us!

Can you believe it's been 6 months since our first challenge? We can't!

We've said it before but our success is down to your support and we thank each and every one of you!

One little bit of housekeeping before we tell you about the challenge.
As from this week we have decided to delete any entries that don't comply with our rules.
No offence meant.

Ok, so we have our 'Lucky Dip' week as it's the fifth Saturday of July.

The challenge is

FEELING FRUITY

We would like to see fruit on your cards or fruit colours...easy peasy 'lemon' squeezy!

We have great pleasure in welcoming the wonderful Ali as our guest designer for this week, she has been a dedicated LIMette since the very beginning has been so supportive of us and our challenges. She has created the most fabulous card for us. Thank you Ali.

Mandi

The only fruit stamps are from Stampin Up Cheers to You! This is a great little set and extremely popular, I'm sure you've seen it lots!

I stamped the 2 cocktails, coloured as you can see, particularly picking out the fruit on each! Glittered the 'drink' for the large slice of lemon I punched a 1 3/4" circle and used one section from the Build a Blossom punch, both Stampin Up. I think it's quite good for a lemon slice! The cherry is a 3/4" circle punch, I made a small hole and added the cord for the stalk. The sentiment is computer generated. 'Happy' is Century Gothic and the' Birthday' is Cocktail Bubbly here

For Stampin' Up supplies please contact me here

Chrissie

This is a simple card using a rather old freebie digi image from Whimsie Doodles, which I coloured with Copics and highlighted the strawberry by covering it with a liberal amount of Glossy Accents. I cut it out and mounted it on the yellow circle.

The sentiment was computer generated using Asha Outline and Amaretto fonts.

This is a card suitable for a chap!

An image from Stampin' Up's Studio Sketches, paired with a DP from Pink Petticoat which I lightly distressed with ink and added a few stamps from SU's French Foliage set.

Who would believe that we have been in existence for six glorious months. Here's to the next six... with your continued support!

ShowCASe - Circles

2011-07-29T19:48:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lateness of posting this

There were so many fantastic entries to choose from,. but, here are our choices.

Sure you will all agree they are fabulous!

Thanks again, please display our banner on your blog

See you tomorrow at 8am for the next challenge