Week 53 Colour

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)

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

Birgit

Simple beauty

Ivanka

Simply elegant

Laurie

Perfect placement

Jenni

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

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!

Week 51 "Theme"

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.