Autumn birthday card.

I love the colours of autumn and they are so easy to use in crafting. I was so pleased then that two of my favourite challenges were takinf autumn as their themes.
Less is more has a colour challenge : "Autumns's bounty" and One Layer Simplicity Challenge has the theme "turn to fall"

I also needed a birthday card for a friend that loves autumn colours so the timing was perfect.

The card was made with an old set of "see-Ds" stamps (I don't even know if they still make these, but if they do the set is whimsical garden) and then, of course the colours are distress inks: vintage photo, spiced marmalade, barn door and mustard seed. I just used post-it notes for masking and randomly stamped.

one layer simplicity #3 and less is more #161

I made a decision today that whatever the new challenges today at One Layer Simplicity and Less is more, I would combine them to make a card, and hopefully one that would be useful.

Less is More announced yellow and green as the theme, so straight away I thought Daffodils, and then One Layer Simplicity announced use water. yes! I could do that. (although just read the one layer simplicity challenge again, and it specifically says to use water to create a background or spritz your inked stamp, so this card probably doesn't qualify - it's okay, the kind people at the challenge have allowed it.... and even edited the challenge to include the technique :D.  )

I used distress inks and a water brush to colour this daffodil stamp from The frantic stamper.

And that's a mothers' day card sorted!

less is more, week 154 : one layer hearts

I find it very hard to resist the one layer weeks at less is more so here's my quick card using PaperArtsy stamps.

Just simple stamping and colouring with Derwent colour soft pencils. The hearts are colour with red, edged with black and then the colours blended with a derwent blender pencil.

less is more: any previous challenge

This week at Less is More we are challenged to make a card based on ANY of the previous challenges.

  I have decided to go right back to the beginning to week 2 and the very first one layer challenge - a flower or a tree and show this card that I have made for my mum's birthday.

i think that all of the stamps are hero arts except the splatter which is PaperArtsy

less is more: christmas card- use a bird

The theme at Less is more this week is to use a bird on a Christmas card.
For the Christmas cards that I make for my book group each year I try to incorporate book pages somewhere on the card. So, that was what I had in mind while making this.
Also every time I see this leaf die from the grunge flower #1 set from PaperArtsy, it reminds me of a bird, so I thought it was time to try it out in that way.
I have used PaperArtsy paints too. The blood orange (for the red breast) and spiced paprika (for the body) are both translucent so show the words through well. The cinnamon (main body) is semi-opaque, so gives a bit more coverage but not too much. I only applied a tiny amount of the paints, anyway, for a subtle hint of colour.

I drew on the eye and feet with a fine tipped marker.

The words are from PaperArtsy's squiggly ink range.

p.s. sorry, I know it's tuesday, but I have no new chutney recipes this week!

less is more- photo inspirations

This week at Less is more, we are challenged to use this photo

to inspire our use of dark card with a splash of colour.

I made a simple heart stencil from post-it notes and then stamped through it using the small splatter stamp from this paperartsy set and some opaque paints from the fresco range of paints (I used guacamole, sky and cheesecake)


I finished by stamping the sentiment with cheesecake paint.

PaperArtsy opaque paints, work brilliantly on dark card, and a lovely to stamp with.

Less is more - string or twine

I love this challenge theme at the Less is More Challenge, I have a bit of a thing for string it's so cheap yet adds a lovely rustic feel to projects.

At first, I was just going to use it to hang a bauble on a card, so went straight to this Jofy set of stamps. Then I spotted the "trunk" of this christmas tree and thought it would be perfect to be made of string.

I stamped it once onto the base card and glued the string directly over the trunk. I stamped it again onto card and coloured with a combination of pencils and marker pens. The attached with 3D foam.

I finished with some more string to further highlight the theme.

I have been working with string in another way this week. A friend asked me if there was anything I could design that you could pop over a salsa jar so you could put them straight on a table without looking cheap. I thought that a string based cover added a nice rustic feel to a table and made these covers by crocheting string. Very easy to do, double crochet (US single crochet) into the back loop only of previous row, until it fits round the jar stretched. Make it as wide as you want to cover the label on your particular jar. Mine is 9 stitches wide.

My PaperArsty Guest designer week and the less is more challenge

Have you checked out my week as guest designer on the PaperArsty blog this week. I've ben using dies in a variety of ways.There's a challenge you can take party in to win stamps, by making something inspired by my pieces. the challenge is here, and you can see below a sneak peak of my samples. Check out the full projects
here, here and here

You have until noon tomorrow to enter, and as most of my projects are very quick amd simple, you have plenty of time!

I decided to use one of the techniques from my GD week to make this card for the Less is More Challenge this week. The theme is Trees. Now I don't have any tree dies so I decided to handcut the aperture of this card (just draw it on the back, no one will even see the pencil lines). This card only took about 10 minutes, so there really is still plenty of time to enter the PaperArsty Challenge.

The paints I used are Tinned Peas, Hey Pesto and Guacamole, from PaperArsty's range of fresco paints. And the words are from a JoFy christmas plate, the splatter is of course the well used Mini 72

I'd love you to come and take part in my challenge at PaperArtsy, It's such a thrill looking at all the artwork.

less is more: one layer challenge witches and wizards.

 I took a slightly oblique look at this week's challenge on Less is More and instead of using a picture of a witch or wizard, I used the famous quote from one of the Witches in Macbeth.

I was inspired to do the moon and brayering by Martyn Parker and Barbara Gray, from their classroom session today!

The stamps are from PaperArsty Halloween 04. I used Faded jeans distress inks, and a lot of post-it notes.

less is more: White on White Christmas

The theme at less is more is White on White but with the added stipulation that it must be a christmas card.
Of course this colour theme is just perfect for christmas.

I decided to go with a vellum-effect card (I don't really use Vellum- I use tracing paper, it works just as well.)
I also decided to use the fact that torn white card looks like snow.

The Stamp is by Crafty Individuals, and I have used moonlight white brilliance ink, which works perfectly on tracing paper.

less is more sketch#10

It's sketch week at Less is More, with this sketch

I'm starting to get into Christmas mode, so I made this card using Jofy stamps from PaperArtsy. The bauble is coloured with pencils and whispers pens (to get the depth of colour) and finished with  some glitter glue.

I had to trim the sentiment to make it fit, but I like it with the squiggles so I also made another card, similar but not following the sketch, which I shall be entering for One Layer Wednesday's Free For All Challenge.

.

less is more: fabric

The theme at less is more is fabric. I went the easy route and made a fabric flower.
 I have decided to do a quick tutorial for this flower.

 first use PaperArtsy's grunge flower #1 to cut a flower and leaf from felt. These dies cut so easily through felt.

 then trim as shown

 roll up, not too tightly.

 glue last bit in place and then glue to leaf

 squish, to open up the flower

Stamp a background, and attach flower.
The stamps I used are a splatter, script and sentiment, all from PaperArsty

Less is more: get well soon.

It's One Layer week at Less is more, so I just had to take part. The theme is get well soon. I decided just to go with the sentiment and simple embellishment. The sentiment is a studio G stamp, and the flourish is by PaperArtsy and stamped with jenni bowlin stick candy ink

 

and is the perfect size for this stamp. I finished by simply dotting pink glitter glue (cheap Craft Planet stuff) around the flourish. Job done!

p.s. keep an eye on the PaperArsty blog tonight, I'm not saying why....

(back at you, Laura!)

less is more: rust and dark green

I wasn't sure that I would take part in this week's less is more challenge. The inspiration colours are beautiful, but I didn't know what I would do with them.
This is the photo from which the colours have been taken,

Bu then Laura took part and bascically challenged me to do so....

....so then I had to.

I've been enjoying playing with PaperArtsy's fresco paints recently, but I didn't have the quite the right colours, so I decided to have a play at mixing colours.
Cinnamon and smoked paprika made a nice dark rust, Tinned peas and little black dress made a good dark green.

Now these colours made me think of the change of summer to autumn, so I decided to play with paperartsy's small oak leaf die. I painted the die cut with the green paint and then overstamped it with the rust using the splatter mini, repeatedly.

To finish I stamped onto the card with a script stamp and the rust paint. I attached the leaf and a tiny knot of string.

less is more: use a rubber stamp

This week's challenge at less is more is so easy that I found it almost impossible! use a rubber stamp....
okay which one of my hundreds (*coughs-thousands*) of stamps do I choose?

I decided to go for a paperartsy stamp that never fails. It really is a useful stamp.

There was also an optional extra part of this challenge, to use water colours.

so to make this card, I stamped the flower with black archival ink and then just swooshed some water colour paint over it. to finish I stamped the script stamp with dusty concord distress ink while the paint was still wet.

One of the things that I like about this card is that because the archival ink is oil based, it repels the water colour paints, leaving a "halo" around the stamped image.

I am also entering this card for One Layer Wednesday's "silhouette" challenge

less is more: washi tape

This week's theme at Less Is More is Washi Tape. You can either use some you've bought or improvise. I've seen people make it before with surgical tape and wanted to have a go. I had some lovely fresco chalk finish paints to play with from PaperArtsy, and I'm experimenting with the different types (opaque, semi-opaque and translucent.)

I had a scraggy bit of micropore tape, so I stuck it to my cutting mat














 and sponged on the translucent blood orange. I then stamped the opaque sky blue,


 


using this swirl stamp (one of my favourites from PaperArtsy)


 
and then did the same with this splatter (another fave).
 

Then I stamped this script (yet another fave) in black ink.





 close- up

 

I used this to make a card using another PaperArtsy stamp (all of the stamps I have used have been from the  hotpicks sets) and the splatter again. I stamped the flower under the tape, but the splatters over it.

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. I'll definitely be trying it again.