Week 74 Lucky Dip and Guest Designer

June is one of our 5 week months, which means a special one for "Less is More"
and we are delighted to have Kim join us as our Guest Designer this week.
Many of you will know Kim as a regular to "Less is More" admired and gathered much inspiration from her.
Kim lives in Colarado, America. We are sure you wil lhave seen the horrendous fires happening in the state at the moment. We'd like to offer our thoughts for everyone's saftey at this time.

For our challenge we have decided to take our 

"Less is More"  

header as the inspiration for this challenge.

** Our blog header has a transparent panel behind the "Less is More" 
This one however, has a white background to make it better to copy into your blog posts should you wish **

We love to see how many different ways this could be interpreted.

You could simply do a CASE of it or use any of the elements as your theme... a decorated frame, the music, the flourishes, the flowers, the sentiment, the colours, the little jewels, there's really quite a lot of scope to let your imagination roam.

If your link is somewhat tenuous however, we would like you to explain just what your inspiration was.

Kim

...isn't it wonderful!


Chrissie

This is a straight case of our header. I used some Artemio music manuscript, a Kaisercraft collage stamp for the bottom part and a flourish whose origin is  a mystery to me. I spotted the Less is More stamp on a website and bought one for Mandi and myself as I couldn't resist them.
I began by stamping the sentiment and then popped a mask over it to add the other stamps.

For this one I took my inspiration from the music and the flourishes, plus the general colours. Once more it's the Artemio music stamp and some Indigo Blu flourishes (they are rather difficult to spot beneath the SU butterfly).
The other stamps are from Blockhead. The inks are SU Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake and Soft Suede applied with Ink Duster Brushes over a Post It mask across the bottom of the card. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Mandi

I was absolutely buzzing with ideas for this challenge, but, sadly my fingers weren't!! Nothing else would materialise. Isn't it strange when that happens! I have loads of part ideas nestled deep in my brain.....
My Keep Calm sentiment was computer generated. Keep Calm sentiments are everywhere over in the UK.
I mounted it with 3d foam onto a square of brown card. The flourish, I have used all this week by Cheery Lynn. Roses, gem embellishment and punched leaves to finish.

We cannot wait to see what you creative lot come up with

More than ever before don't forget.......
"Less is More"

Week 73 Recipe

Here we are again, Saturday morning and  new challenge.
Thank you for all your FAB entries last week, you seemed to enjoy getting all shiny!

Our recipe this week will give you the opportunity to dig out some of those scraps of Designer paper that have been lurking around in your craft space, as our challenge is

'Paper Piecing'

Mandi

                               Not being a colourer I enjoy paper piecing, when I have the time to fiddle and cut!

This is an old Pink Petticoat digi image, Lola Rose. I copied the image into a Word Document, where I resized and printed onto white card stock. I then copied and pasted another 2 images onto the page giving me 3 in a row. I then lightly stuck the 2 paper panels to another A4 sheet where I knew the images would print. Gving me the perfect size to paper pierce the different elements. Once trimmed I stamped the Penny Black Happy Birthday and attached the panel with 3d foam to my 6" square card. Added the gems to finish.

This is a retired  Stampin Up stamp set. I paper pierced using scraps of pink, lilac, coral and olive. The 'flames' are glittered as is the edge of the panel. The Happy Birthday is Penny Black.

Chrissie

As Stampotique is our sponsor this month, we have been delighted to have members of their DT join us in our challenges, I do hope that you have been able to visit them and leave a few comments..
This is a stamp from their range which I think is SO cute and perfect for paper piecing! The papers I have used are from Cuddly Buddly, where I had my first ever designer role. I must say that the flowers were really fiddly to cut out!

This one uses Woodware stamps by Francoise Read. In order to keep the CAS feel to the card I used just a strip of blue to suggest the sky, which I embossed with a Cuttlebug random dots folder and added scored white edges.
The sentiment was computer generated in Pea Roxygirl font. Once more the papers are from Cuddly Buddly

Week 72 Theme

Having got over our lovely Jubilee celebrations we are now in 'football mode' in Europe. Not exactly ideal for us girlies, but important enough to have it on ALL our TV channels everyday...or so it seems!

We really loved your flourish cards last week, it really is so brilliant to see how comfortable you all are with one layer now.
Third week of the month and Theme Week
We want to see

Something Shiny

Chrissie

Here is a really pretty butterfly die which I bought at the NEC at the last craft show. It's cut from silver card and backed with a piece of turquoise tissue. The mount is Spellbinders Labels 18 with an oval in the centre embossed with a Cuttlebug leaf folder. The sentiment was computer generated using Andalus and Passions Conflict ROB fonts.

This gets its shine from a bunch of gems scattered along this Spellbinder border diecut. It's such a pretty edge. The flowers are from a two step Stampin' Up set with some Glamour Dust added, which sadly doesn't show up too well on this picture, but in fact twinkles beautifully!
It's easy to keep files of sentiments you have used, so that you can just alter names without having to remake the whole sentiment for each new card. Here you can see how the sentiment has been altered from the first card to suit the recipient. It's very time saving!

Mandi

For my first card, I stamped the branch and birds in Versafine Onxy Black, then the Thank you and added the teal flowers. They are punched from Stampin Up Itty Bitty punch, diamante gem in the centre. The strip at the side is silver mirri card, embossed with a bark EF. Horrendous to photo!

This little set is all Penny Black Salutations. It's a fabulous set. I embossed the vase in WOW Embossing Powder Metallic Copper, it is far shiner than the photo shows...honest! The flower head is in black, which I stamped, cut out then shaped with my fingers to give dimension. Sentiment and then gems to finish. 

Two lots of shiny in fact!

Hopefully you can see it better here.

Do join us for this shiny challenge and once more, apologies for not getting the showcase sorted sooner, but we have both been running around our own tails recently!

Week 70 ShowCASe Red White and Blue

What great Celebrations were held country wide for the Queen's Jubilee and what wonderful Red, White and Blue Contributions we received.

Here are our fabulous showcase entries.

Anne

Pauline

Jodpea

Gina

Pia

These are all so different but each is stunning we're sure you'll agree.

Do please take the ShowCASe badge from the page above to display on your blogs.

Just Wonderful!

Week 71 One Layer

What a wonderful week of Jubilee Celebrations... the cards were beautiful even if the British weather left a lot to be desired.

The weeks go by so quickly and it's 

ONE LAYER CARD

time once more. 

The challenge this week is to

 USE A FLOURISH

Lots of ideas spring to mind... most of them not one layer, so get your thinking caps on LIMister and LIMettes!

Mandi

Was SO looking forward to this week, when Chrissie and I chose it. I use a flourish loads...well so I thought!! It seems they are mainly die cuts - NOT one layer!!!
Hey ho, so here we go with this one.
A Stampin' Up set I love, it's called Creative Elements. It has this flourish and other bits and bobs, so handy!
I literally stamped twice as you can see in Versafine Black Onyx and coloured the various little segments with my Stampin Up markers. Promarkers or Copics they ain't but they are double ended and FAB for this kind of pin point colouring. I added these colours...
Melon Mambo, Pacific Point, Lucky Limeade, Tangerine Tango and Perfect Plum.  Aren't they the coolest names!! I punched the oval, which is also SU. Their punches are THE best quality and go through card [this is 270gsm] like butter! I used the computer to generate the sentiment, the font is Yorkshire. I printed it onto some perfectly matching Melon Mambo card stock and attached it to the inside.

** I have since added one of my ones that didn't quite make it to the bin here on my blog **

Chrissie

This simple card was made by cutting a template in a Post it note with a Spellbinder die and inking with Spun Sugar and Concord Crush inks, using Ink Duster brushes. I then stamped an Inkylicious flourish in Rich Razzleberry and added the Hero Arts sentiment after the masking had been removed.

This one uses a Clarity stamp corner flourish to flank a Stampin' Up sentiment, both of which have been heat embossed in silver, which sadly doesn't show up too clearly on this picture. I really must try harder with my photography!