Less is More week 82-recipe

Hi everyone just a quick post as I'm busy getting ready for our trip to Brittany! The LIM challenge this week is a recipe and it's 3-2-1  So the idea is to have 3 of something, 2 of something and 1 of something on your card.
Here's what I came up with:)

My recipe is 1 girl, 2 words and 3 pearls. The stamp was a freebie with a magazine and I paper pieced the dress with Anna Griffin paper and added a little glitter. I popped up the flowers so technically I suppose that counts as 3 as well! The sentiment is a WOW one and the pearls are from Meiflower.

Thanks for visiting and I'd like to welcome my latest follower, Jean and hope you will continue to visit:)

Addicted to Stamps theme-CAS

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's challenge at ATS which is CAS. We want to see clean and simple designs with lots of clear space and minimal layers and embellies! For my card this week I was inspired by Vicky who makes the most amazing cards.

I masked off a central panel with post its and stamped the centre with Crumb Cake and Chocolate Chip using a selection of stamps from the Spiced Paisley set. I stamped an extra image, added a brad and  popped it up for a little dimension ( shh.. mainly to cover a smudge)! The sentiment is a WOW stamp stamped in Crumb Cake.

Pop over to the ATS site for more inspiration from the DT and I do hope you'll play along with us this week:)

Another card for the boys!

Not just another male card but a special one for Dom, my eldest, for his birthday  and something that I thought he would really like:) He is a writer and loves books so when I saw this book box at a craft fair I knew I just had to have it! It actually came with another smaller box inside which is still naked!!
So here is my literary creation:)                

 The main photo doesn't show the true colour but first of all I painted the box with cream acrylic paint and the rest of it is gilded with gold cream paste. I also antiqued the edges with the gold cream on the front. The book label is from Tando aged with alcohol inks and a couple of added brads. The bird is Little Vermillion from SU stamped and coloured. The letters on  the spine are cut on my Silhouette and edged with a black pen. I cut a long strip of card to fit the box and concertinaed it  then stamped Dom's name using gothic alphabet stamps from Aspects of Design. I coloured them with PM's and edged them with a gold marker pen. I attached a tassel so that it can be drawn out. Hope you like it:)

This is me saying au revoir for a couple of weeks as we are off to France tomorrow although I do have a couple of scheduled posts (hopefully) !

Fabulous blog candy!

Over at the Craft Barn they have a MEGA candy give away, check out the picture below!!

Pop over to the Craft Barn  to find out how you could be in it to win it:)

Addicted to Stamps theme-GOLD

OMG how fast do these weeks go round! Here we are again with this week's Addicted to Stamps challenge and the theme is GOLD. So anything with gold on it ie: mirri card, embossing, pens etc;
I actually made a card for another challenge a few weeks ago with the same theme so I had to try something different. So here is what I came up with and I hope you like it:)

I bought a stencil and some dreamweaver paste at the last Ally Pally show and this is the first time I've used it! The base card is a DL and I matted it with gold Angel hair paper. Once the paste was dry I mounted it onto the card and added some gold stickers to the corners. The sentiment is an old  SeeDee one.
Do check out the rest of the DT cards for inspiration and I hope to see you playing along this week:)

"beside the sea, beside the sea..."

Over at Crafty Cardmakers the theme this week is to make a postcard with a beach scene and there has to be sea and sand.  Having just bought a Michael Powell stamp of beach huts I had to have a go:) So here is my take on the challenge:

My postcard is 6 x 4 and I used SU Marina Mist, Baja Breeze, So Saffron and Certainly Celery and sponged the colours onto the card to create the background. The stamp is almost the width of the card, fortuitously,  and I inked it up with black Memento and stamped it across the centre. I added some colour to the stamped image and the sentiment was created with my Xyron digital runner.
Thanks for visiting me and I love to read your comments:)

Less is More week 81 theme-Tearing

The LIM challenge this week is the theme of TEARING. My first quick glance and I read it wrong and thought it said TEA RING!! Confused or what? I'm pretty good at tearing especially when things go wrong:) Anyway tearing made me think of ancient papers and so this is what I came up with:

          Recipe:
Ribbed square base card
Judikins cube stamp Hieroglyphics
Darkroom Door sentiments
Gold ink and metallic bronze EP
Tiny gold gems

Thanks for visiting me I love to read your comments:)

Addicted to stamps Scrapbook challenge

Hi everyone and welcome to our 3rd scrapbook challenge at ATS.  This month the theme is 

and it was chosen by ME so I do hope lots of you will play along.

Here is my LO which as usual I created in Craft Artist.

I took this photo during a visit to Barrington Court in Somerset whilst staying with my sister Karen. 

It is a Tudor Manor house, now empty, with the most beautiful walled gardens which were a mass of flowers during our visit.

The clematis I cut out in the programme and was then able to use it as an embellishment.

I do hope we've inspired  you to play along and if you are a newbie to scrapping try the digital way. You can get a free download of Craft Artist which is the easiest programme ever to use by clicking here

Less is More week 80-one layer

Did I have a good time at Newmarket on Friday? it was fabulous!! Tom Jones was amazing, what a voice and we couldn't believe how close we were to him.The stage was in the middle of the stands and we were on his right, about 20 yards away! Fabulous weather, no winners unfortunately, but as we left he emerged from the back of the stage to get into his car and said goodbye to us:) Then off to Portsmouth for my son, Keir's birthday BBQ and more Charlie time:)

Anyway back to the matter in hand, the latest LIM challenge which is:

ONE LAYER CARD

and this time the subject of your creations should feature

FUR or FEATHERS

(This should give you plenty of scope.)

As ever, please don't forget that white space and keep any embellishments to a minimum.

I saw the challenge on Saturday and have been thinking about it since then but couldn't come up with anything particularly original so decided to use some cute House Mouse stamps. It was a good chance to make another Christmas card (and one that's cheap to post)so here's what I created:

Stamped with black Memento ink and coloured with PM's. Glue pen and glitter to highlight the fur on his hat. The sentiment is from a freebie Christmas set, coloured with a red brushmarker and the addition of two red gems.

Thanks for visiting me, you know I love to read your comments and return the compliment:)

Addicted to cards theme-boys

Morning everyone and welcome to another challenge here at ATS. This week we are asking you to do a dreaded male card...one for the boys! August is when I have 4 boys cards, the two important ones being both of my sons. So here is what I came up with for Keir, my youngest, and daddy to my favourite boy, Charlie Bear!! I don't like to go on too........ much about him so I created his own page at the top of my blog, says the proud grandmother:))

Isn't this the perfect card for today's modern men? Keir doesn't have quite so much time these days for gaming but he still enjoys a play:) I found the template on the web and cut it out in black card keeping the top at the fold so that it would open as a card. I printed out another on white card and coloured and cut out the buttons and popped them up on foam pads.
Here is the template if you'd like it for yourself:

We are off to Portsmouth for his birthday on Saturday and hoping for fine weather as Keir loves a BBQ! We normally travel down on Friday but I have a date with Sir Tom Jones at Newmarket:))

This is a scheduled post so by the time you read it, it will all be over and hopefully there will be some fabulous cards from you in the challenge. Do check out the rest of the DT for inspiration and good luck with the challenge.

Can't wait to show you what I made for Dom, my eldest son's birthday, but that's not till the 28th:)

Addicted to Stamps BINGO!

Morning everyone and welcome to our 2nd BINGO challenge at Addicted to Stamps. Lots of choice in this challenge, just pick any line, horizontal, vertical or diagonal and use it for your card, tag, ATC, canvas or whatever you fancy:)

For my card I have chosen the diagonal line of
Metal (the topper), Free (the ribbon) and Flowers.

The base card is A5 with the front folded back on itself. The metal topper is actually kitchen foil (did you guess?) folded in several layers and embossed in the cuttlebug. I can't get on with real metal, always end up cutting myself:) This technique works very well and is CHEAP! I matted it onto blue card and popped up on foam dots. I punched top and bottom and threaded organza ribbon through and attached a blue knot.
The flowers are SU Botanical Blossoms ( a two step stamp ) stamped initially in grey versamark and overstamped with Bashful Blue. A little glitter at centre.
I do hope you'll play along this week, check out the ATS blog for the amazing cards that the rest of the DT have made:)
Good luck!

Less is More week 79-colour

Well I was out shopping earlier and it was glorious, now I've had to put the lights on, the sky is black and thunder is rumbling all around!! Time to post this week's challenge for Less is More.  I'ts a  colour challenge using BLUE and GREEN.
Here is what I came up with:)

The centre tile is stampbord that I coloured with alcohol inks. I stamped on top with black memento ink using an old Rubadubbadoo stamp and Chapel Art ferns. I used a gold leaf pen around the edges. I matted it onto a piece of card that I sponged with Shabby Shutters and Stormy Skies DI and overstamped with the ferns. The word sea was part of a freebie stamp from Craft Stamper.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, I love to read your comments and pay you a visit:)

Colour challenge at CBGM

Welcome to our latest challenge at Creations by Gill McCall. This month we have a colour photo as inspiration for you to follow. Fabulous colours aren't they? So summery, unlike the current weather!

We would like to see a creation of your choice, the only stipulation being to use the colours in the photo.

For my card I have used  a free Kanban kit that I got from Create & Craft




It's a fold I'm sure you recognise but I don't know what it's called! If you flip the back up it goes in a DL envelope. I covered the base card with pink and yellow paper and the large topper I attached and added some butterflies and a bow which were diecut decoupage in the kit.


Do pop over to Gill's blog and check out the inspiration from the rest of the DT team. Can't wait to see what you come up with as we love to visit your blogs:) Good luck with the challenge and please remember to mention CBGM in your post and be a follower of Gill's blog.

..............oh no I'm late!!!!!

Morning everyone and welcome to our 2nd Make your Mark challenge at Addicted to Stamps. For this challenge we'd like you to produce, well anything really, as long as you use MARKERS on it:) This could be promarkers, copics, aquamarkers, watercolour pencils, crayons.........well you get the picture!

For my card I have used a cream base card, matted with some blue card from my stash. I stamped a Pilkington lane image with black Memento ink onto watercolour paper and used water colour pencils to colour the scene.

 I tore around the image and mounted it on to white card and popped it up on foam pads. The sentiment was generated with my Xyron digital runner, fussy cut and added with an old Rubbadubbado stamp of a fish. A couple of gems finished it off.

I hope you like it but do check on the rest of the DT cards for some fabulous inspiration and I can't wait to see what you come up with for our challenge:)

Good luck!