I think I'm liking this....

...stenciling.  I bought another template from Imagination Crafts when I went to the NEC as well as another 8 pots of stencil paint so be prepared to be well and truly sick to the back teeth of this technique.

I saw a sample that one of the ladies had done and loved it. I thought it was soooo pretty I made one similar.

I used the Leaf Swirl template and lime green stencil paint and to add the lovely sparkle I used Magiglaze (finally gotten around to using this, I bought it at the NEC in the spring, again it's from Imagination Crafts) and some extra fine glitter.

I punched the tiny flowers with my EK Success punch and added a gold crystal to the centres.

That's when it went all wrong - I tried to stamp the sentiment directly onto the card and disaster - it smudged!  I was well miffed, as you can imagine so put Silhouette into action and created a mat and re-stamped the sentiment onto it and then mounted it onto foam pads.  Rescued, phew!

Sorry the photo's a bit dark - very gloomy day here in Solihull today.

Sue.x

Red and Orange

Hope you've been having a great weekend. What glorious weather it's been considering the time of year. Lovely for taking a walk and seeing all the beautiful colours nature gives us in autumn - stunning.

I've used some of those stunning colours for my card today; red and orange which also work for the two challenges I'm entering it into: bonfire/firework colours.

Here's what I used:

Shaped card cut out on my Silhouette

Lavinia leaves, Fairy and Toadstool stamps

Stamping Up Pocket Silhouettes

Versafine Onyx black inkpad

Fired Brick and Wild Honey Distress Inks

Tim Holtz blender applicator and sponges

Fine glitter

Liquid pearls

This was a lovely messy one to do. Inky fingers all over the place, great fun.

Here's the challenges I'm entering:

http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/2011/11/challenge-189-baby-youre-firework.html

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2011/11/week-40.html

That's it from me. I'm off to play with some of my NEC goodies this afternoon. 

Bye for now.

Sue.x

Less is more week 39 - Stars - take two

I've had a bit of time to spare this afternoon (all O/H's shirts are ironed and hanging in the wardrobe) so had time to make another quick card for lessismore's Stars challenge.

I used my Silhouette to cut out the star shape and numbers.  Added some glitter here and there and matted and layered a few times.

Sue.x

Less is more week 39 - Stars

Two birds with one stone -  a Christmas card and a challenge card rolled into one.   I desperately need to get on with some Christmas cards so used this week's lessismore challenge to get on with it.

The theme this week is 'Stars' and here's my card:

I have to thank Sarita for the idea on this one as I cased this card from her blog (I hope she doesn't mind).  I too have had this Glitter Girls Star Wrapture for years tucked away in my stash and never used it. Luckily for me this fitted in with this challenge perfectly.  

Because I'm rubbish at cutting out, I scanned the Wrapture into my computer and got my trusty Silhouette to cut the shape out of pale green vellum.

The holly stamp and sentiment are from HOTP and stamped with Olympia Green Versafine.

That's it from me tonight folks - have a good evening.

Sue.x

Hubble bubble toil and trouble....

Happy Halloween for those that like to take part in the fun!  

I don't normally make Halloween cards, but Jodie at bugaboostamps was giving this cute little image away as a freebie so it would have been rude not to.

The spiders and spider's web are also freebies from very generous Bird of http://www.birdscards.com/ who gives away loads of fabulous cutting files and digi stamps.  I used my oh so wonderful Silhouette to cut them out.

I coloured the image with Promarkers

Used a Cuttlebug folder for the background

and

Googly eyes I had in my stash

I had a few spiders left and the Trick or Treat sentiment so I put them on the inside:

I'm going to enter this into the following challenges:

http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/

http://charismacardz.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-43-anything-goes.html

http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-158.html
http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/week-155-no-sentiments.html

I hope you like it.  I really must get on with some Christmas cards this afternoon, I'm running way behind. It might help if I turn the computer off so I'm not tempted to spend so much time browsing around. 

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by.

Sue.x

Less is more week 38 - Polka Dots

It's Wednesday, hubby's at footie, got my Less is More card done! Yeah!

And this week's challenge is:

"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."

so here's my card:

Here's what I used:

Walzingmouse Gingham & Co background stamp for my Polka Dots

Anna Griffin sentiment stamp

Clarity stamps Art Deco lady

Spellbinders Nestie

Promarkers

Rose and leaves cut out on the Silhouette

Ribbon from stash

Hope you like it.

Sue.x

And now for something completely different.....

.............. Vintage.  This is not my usual style, as you know, CAS is my thing.  

I do love the vintage/distressed/layered and design papers look, but I'm just not very good at it.  I often go on a blog hop and admire the beautiful work done by loads of talented people and wish I could create something half as good.  I decided to have a bit of a play yesterday as I had the whole afternoon to myself and a stack of Distress Inks that never get used. I realised another reason I stick to CAS, they're quick and easy to do while this card took me hours.

Here's it is:

I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. Here's what I used:

Sugar Nellie Daisy stamp

Prisma pencils

Top note shape cut out on my Silhouette

Cuttlebug embossing folder

HOTP papers

Distress ink - Tea Dye and Vintage Photo

Bakers Twine

American Seam binding coloured with Distress ink

Claire Curd sentiment

Button from stash

I've found I can enter this into loads of challenges this week:

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-119-vintage.html

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.com/2011/10/cupcake-164-buttons-and-bows.html

http://totallypapercrafts.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-89-layer-upon-layer.html

http://charismacardz.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-42-embossing.html

Have a great weekend and hopefully I'll be back soon with my usual Less is more card - I'm off now to see what this week's challenge is.

One other thing before I go - I've gained a few new followers recently, so I would just like to say welcome and thank you so much for choosing to follow me, I really appreciate it.

Sue.x

Less is more week 36

Afternoon all! Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

Still loving taking part in the lessismore challenges, you may have noticed.  This week's challenge has been a great one for me again.  So quick and easy. Here's what Chrissie and Mandi asked for:

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!

And here's my card:

I used my Silhouette to cut out a heart shape and sponged Fired Brick and Walnut Stain Distress inks through the aperture.  I then stamped the sentiment with my Whispers Word stamp using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  

Sue.x

THE COLOUR OF YOUR EYES

is the theme for this week's lessismore challenge.  This took a bit of thinking about cause I have green eyes and it's not a colour I use often.

Here's what I came up with:

Green definitely is not my favourite colour, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

Here's what I used:

Clarity large leaf swirl stamp

Hero Arts Antique Engravings butterflies

Stampin Up Scalloped punch

Stampin Up oval punch

Stampin Up sentiment stamp

Adirondack Mountain Sky inkpad

I scored a couple of lines at the top and bottom of the card and decoupaged the butterflies.

While I'm at it (I've been a very bad blogger lately), here are a few other things I've been doing this week:

I thought it was time to get cracking on some Christmas cards, I know a lot of you will have started months ago, but I always leave it to the last minute.


I've used Milly from digistampboutique and coloured her with Promarkers
Cuttlebug embossing folder
A bit of stitching
Ribbon and brad from stash


You may have read in previous posts that my daughter was off to Australia for 6 months for part of her gap year.  Well she's gone. Sob, sob!  She's au pairing for a family with an 8 year old girl so I made her as couple of items to give to the little girl when she arrived:

The base card was printed using my Tatty Teddy cd and then the box shape cut out on my Silhouette.  The image is also from the cd.  Lauren intended to fill it with sweets but had to do it when she arrived at the airport in Melbourne because of strict rules the Aussie's have about bringing foodstuff into the country.


And this little bookmark, again using my Tatty Teddy cd and a scalloped nestie.

This is the back:



and here's how it looks on the corner of a book page:

Quite fun little projects, I hope Nina liked them.


Ok, that's enough from me.  Sorry about the long post, but I had a bit of catching up to do.

Sue.x

Charisma Cardz - Inspired by a song

Good evening all! Hope you're well.

Here's my first shaped card using my new Grand Calibur and Grand Scalloped Circles dies.

For my card I've used:

Largest Grand Nestie scalloped circle
Petite Scalloped Circle
Fizzy Moon Stamp
Promarkers
Marianne Creatables die
Pink Petticoat paper
Silhouette Machine - plain circles, daisy, tag, fancy border
Do-Crafts ribbon
Craftwork cards candy


I'm going to enter this into the charismacardz challenge for this week which is entitled 'Inspired by a song'.  My song is 'You don't bring me flowers' by Barbara Steisand and Neil Diamond.

Thanks for dropping by.

Sue.x

More Tatty Teddy

I've been umming and ahhing about whether or not to buy the Docrafts Tatty Teddy cd rom recently launched on Create and Craft.  I really do love this little bear, but do I want to spend that much on a cd when I have so many other things on my wish list?  Tough one!

Until I make up my mind, I bought this little stamp to keep me going.  I'm quite surprised at how small some of the stamps in this range are. Anyone else think this?

Anyway, he's very easy to colour.  Ice Cool grey 1 and 2 Promarkers for his fur and Artic blue for his nose. The brolly was coloured with Versacolour Orchid ink pad - the same one I used to create the background.

I've also treated myself to the Waltzingmouse Gingham &Co background stamps - they're fab and I can see them being used alot.

As you probably expected, I used my super, brilliant, fabulous, I'm so in love with it, Silhouette to cut the doily and also to make a mat for the punched out word window label (Stampin Up).  The scalloped edge was also done with a Stampin up punch - Scalloped edge.

Hope you like it and don't get too bored with all the Tatty Teddy cards I'm sure will be appearing very shortly.  I get the feeling the cd was very popular.

Sue.x

Here comes summer

Hi folks.  I expect you think I've gone nuts with the title of this post with the miserable weather we're having at the moment. I'm forever the optimist that the sun will come out to stay at some point.

I made this card to go into the secretcrafter challenge which is 'here comes summer', but I'm also going to enter it into a few more challenges who have an anything goes theme:

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/07/week-110-free-and-easy-july.html

http://oldiebutagoodiechallenge.blogspot.com/2011/06/oldie-but-goodie-22.html

http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.com/2011/07/anything-goes.html

I created the sky background using a template cut out on my Silhouette and Adirondack Stonewashed ink.

The waves and palm tree were also cut out on my Silhouette.

The image is Surfabella from Stamping Bella and coloured with Promarkers

The coconuts are Card Candy from Craftwork Cards.

A bit of Kraft paper has been used for the sand.

Those waves look a bit terrifying to me, but I'm sure the fearless Surfafella will love them.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great weekend.

Sue.x

Happy 71st Birthday, Mom

Firstly, I'd like to say hi to my new followers and welcome to my blog. I hope you pop by often.

This is the card I made for my mom's birthday.  It was very much inspired by Julie who's blog I visit often.  She makes beautiful cards and I've admired her great talent for ages. 

I used a Sizzix embossing folder, Nellie Snellen corner die and the flowers were cut on my Silhouette.  I inked the flowers up with gold ink - unfortunately, it doesn't photograph well and looks very dark in the photo.  The gold mat has a slight sparkle to it which again doesn't show up in the piccie, but it's very pretty.  The sentiment was done on the computer using a mix of fonts.

Sue.x

Criss Cross Graduation card

Whoo hoo!  We've just found out that our youngest daughter has gained a First Class degree in Law with Business from the University of Birmingham.  We are totally overwhelmed and so very proud of her.  She's worked really hard for this and really does deserve it.

For her card, I decided to make my first Criss Cross card. A bit of a change from my usual 6 x 6 square.

The cute images are digis from Bugaboo.  She reminds me of my little Polly (our nickname for her) when she was a little girl.

I used Promarkers to colour the image and used the computer for the sentiments.

The papers are HoTP Paper Pizazz called Mixing Baby.  The colour of the collar for the Law school at Birmingham is olive green which is why I chose these colours.

I used Labels Two nesties to mat and layer and of course my usual Silhouette contribution is the lattice fence and leaves.

Swirl is a Sizzlet

Tab punch is from Stampin Up.

I'll put some piccies of her in her Mortar Board and gown after the graduation ceremony on the 15th.

I'm going to enter this into this week's

i love promarkers challenge which has a theme of 'Anything Goes'.

totally papercrafts challenge - Spots and Stripes

Treat yourself

A really quick post. I'm trying to get some gardening done and I'm just dodging a really heavy shower at the moment.

I used Pink Petticoat image for this card.  I thought the gingham paper looked a bit like a tablecloth (Pink Petticoat paper).  The sentiment is also part of the cakestand package.

Again, I used my Silhouette to cut around the shape and coloured it in with Promarkers. I used foam squares to mount it onto the card.  

I used Stamping Up punches for the sentiment and the scalloped edge.

Ok, it's stopped raining so I'm off back to the garden.

Sue.x

Less is more - Week 18 - Monochrome

I'm back! It's so nice to be home.

Hope you're all well and looking forward to the weekend.

Sadly, for the first time since it started, I missed the lessismore challenge last week and I nearly ran out of time for this one as I appeared to have left my mojo on holiday until today when I came up with 3 things I wanted to do.

1. Use this really old Inkadinkado stamp I dug out of my stamp drawer (another sadly neglected stamp)

2. Get a bit more practise using my Silhouette to cut around stamped images

3. Use my Distress Inks (got a whole stash of them and hardly use them)

So, this is what I did:

Scanned my image into the Silhouette software and cut the outline

Stamped the image using Walnut Stain Distress Ink positioning it carefully over the cut outline

Cut out a circle with Nesties and inked with the same Walnut Stain ink

Used the computer to generate the sentiment changing the font colour to match the Walnut Stain ink.

My Silhouette machine continues to amaze me with each new feature I discover on it.  I just love it (sorry, I've probably said that once too often).  I bought my machine second hand off e-bay a couple of years ago and it's been brilliant.  I have the original machine and I was wondering whether to upgrade to the newer SD one (Create and Craft have quite a good deal on at the moment with flexi pays).  If anyone has had the Original and changed theirs to a newer model - what do you think?  Is it worth it?

Sue.x

Take two and three

Boy! This week's Lessismore challenge should be 'easy peasy' to quote Chrissie and Mandi, but I've really struggled with this one.

I didn't like my first card so went back to the drawing board and came up with these two:

Sorry to bore you but this one is done my Silhouette again.  I cut the butterflies out of the base card and then crimped some card to place behind.  I then cut out another butterly in green and crimped that too. The sentiment is from HoTP.  Finally I mounted it onto a 6 x 6 base.

This next one I'm not too keen on:

The colour has been washed out with my lack of photography skill - it really is a nice cream coloured card.

The butterflies are from the Clare Curd collection and I've decoupaged the large one and added gems to both of them and made some antennae with some wire.

I crimped some kraft card and wrapped some rafia around (a bit rustic I thought). The sentiment is HOTP and the whole lot has been mounted onto 6 x 6 card.

Ok! I think I'm gonna give up on this one now.

I'm off on my hols on Friday (volcanic ash permitting) so will unfortunately miss the LIM challenge (the first one I've missed), so have a good week everyone and see you in just over a week.

Thanks Mandi for your comment that the second butterfly wasn't needed. You were right, I think it looks much better now!

Here it is:

Sue.x

Not very CAS

Ok, I'm a bit quicker off the mark with my card for this week's Lessismore challenge, but I think I will definitely be back to the drawing board as I don't think this will qualify as a CAS card. 

The lovely ladies (Chrissie and Mandi) have given us a fairly easy task this week (in comparison to some other previous challenges) and that is to create a card with butterflies.

I wanted to use the scroll frame which I cut on my Silhouette, but didn't like it on a square or rectangle card.  So,  my next thought was to cut out a card base, again on the Silhouette.  The butterflies (a beautiful Anna Griffin stamp) have been stamped onto white card and then again onto acetate and coloured with Promarkers (on the reverse side as I also used Stazon which doesn't mix with Promarkers).

The sentiment is from a huge pile that I have in a K&Co box that I bought as a TSV from QVC yonks ago and never use.

I then thought that maybe it would look more CAS if I mounted it onto a rectangle base:

But I think I've only made it even more elaborate looking - hey ho! I will enter it anyway!

I can't say I'm overly keen on this card, so I will be back with another try.

If you've never come across this challenge, do go and take a look, it's really addictive and the LIMettes are such a lovely bunch - I've never had so many comments on my cards since joining these challenges.

Sue.x

Less is More Challenge Week 14 - Colour challenge - White on White

Well there's been a gremlin in the system then.  I lost my post from yesterday because of a problem with blogger.  I haven't been able to access my blog until now.  Such a pain - having to do it all again.  I was late enough with my lessismoore this week so glad that it all back up and running again to get my card uploaded before it's too late.  The theme this week is for White on White.

This is what I used:

Silhouette 3d ruffle flower

Silhouette trellis

Sizzix die for the leaves

Paula Pascual sentiment

Pearl from stash

I had all good intentions of getting around to comment on other enteries for this week, but unfortunately couldn't because of the blogger problem.  Hope to do better with tomorrow's challenge.

Sue.x

Thank you

Hi all, hope you all had a great weekend and for those of you interested, enjoyed the wedding on Friday. I intended to watch the service, but ended up in front of the TV from 7.30am until 1.45pm.  What a wonderful day it was!

Well, my lovely daughter has gone back to uni so I have taken the opportunity to sit at my craft desk and had a little play.  This is the card I made. 

Originally it was going to be my entry into this week's less is more challenge, but I'm not sure it really fits the CAS look (I'm going to enter it anyway - I'm sure the ladies will let me know if it's too OTT for the challenge), so I've decided to enter it into the following:

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2011/04/week-13-lucky-dip-thank-you-or.html

http://just-add-ink.blogspot.com/2011/04/jai-66-just-add-flower.html

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/2011/04/challenge-96-anything-goes.html

This is what I used:

Silhouette machine for the frame, leaves and flowers

K&Co background paper

Computer for the sentiment

Antique Linen Distress Ink for inking the edges of the frame and flowers/leaves

Just before I go, I would like to congratulate the very talented Kerry on becoming the guest designer at Less is More - it's very well deserved.  Kerry has always been a great source of inspiration for me from the beginning of my cardmaking.  Please visit her blog if you get chance, it's well worth it.

Hope you like it!

Sue.x