Summer

Less Is More #459 starts today. We are challenged to create a CAS, One Layer Card (which is a card base only - no layers, no die cuts) with just One Word.

It's cold and windy where I live, and we had ice and snow this week. My word of choice??? Summer!

Something to look forward to. Spring would have worked beautifully for my hopeful heart, but I put the pedal to the metal and drove right into Summer. I stenciled the sun with Shimmering Rays from A Colorful Life Designs with Distress Oxide Inks, stamped my word from Neat & Tangled's Hello Summer with VersaFine Onyx Black, then clear heat embossed it. I resisted the urge to do anything more here. Serious CAS... Channeling my inner Chrissie Stokes!

Please head over to the Less Is More Blog and see what the Design Team has created for your inspiration. I hope you'll play along with us to share your creations. Remember to keep your design Clean And Simple which we define as designs that include large areas of CLEAR AND CLEAN space with NO PATTERN, NO INK and NO TEXTURE See challenge guidelines on the Less Is More Blog.

LIM BLOG

LIM FACEBOOK PAGE

LIM INSTAGRAM

I'm also playing at:

Krafty Chicks #600 - All Occasions

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Thanks For Celebrating With Us

Today we have a new challenge at Time Out - it is our 8th birthday and we are celebrating big time!

We have a lot of prizes from our fabulous sponsors and we also have 4 of our former former DT members joining us. Please join us in our celebration. Come visit our blog and check out the awesome makes that the design team have created and the wonderful prizes offered by our sponsors. 

For my card, I used Pinkfresh Studio Mini Slimline Essentials Bundle Die Set and the Candles stencil from A Colorful Life Designs. I colored each candle with Distress Oxide inks, and the flames with Dreamweavers Metallic Gold Embossing Paste. My sentiment is from SSS Messages For Everyday.

I am so pleased and proud to be a member of this wonderful Design Team. I was so thrilled the day that Sandie Munro invited me to join the team for this wonderful challenge that she and Nonni created. There have been many changes over the years, but thankfully the team is still thriving and this celebration is so significant. Happy Birthday to us!. Hoping you will join us in our celebration.

I'm also playing at:

SSS Wednesday Challenge - AG

Krafty Chicks Challenge - All Occasions

Use Your Stuff #442 - Birthday

Cupcake Inspiration #538 - AG

Snowy Day Valentines

The day before Valentine's Day it snowed all day. I spent a cozy, crafty day making Valentine cards. These are four of them, all made with snippets from past Valentine making sessions.

I recently received a wonderful package of goodies from a dear crafty friend. It had some fun things in it that I have admired in her work, and were perfect for making valentines. The first three of my valentines have the background of little cross stitch hearts made with an embossing folder that is no longer available, and that were in my goodies package along with that wonderful little piece of washi tape on the second card. I still have some wonderful things from that package waiting to appear on future cards.

National Peanut Butter Lovers Day

 

It's time for a new challenge at Festive Friday where every challenge is an inspiration list based on a selected holiday/festivity from the traditional to the unusual. Challenge projects must include at least three items from the festivity inspiration list. Your project does not have to go with the challenge theme. You can just use 3 or more items from the inspo list for your creation.

Today's festivities are inspired by National Peanut Butter Love's Day, which takes place on Tuesday, March 1st. The challenge runs from February 18th to February 28th.

I like to create a card for our challenge that goes with the theme. For this one, I dug into the deep, dark recesses of my stash and pulled out the Perfect Match stamp set from Sweet Stamp Shop. I've had it since 2012 and never inked it up. It was time! I stamped the peanut butter and jelly bread images along with the sentiment, colored them with Copics, added a little WOS and die cut the panel with Spellbinders Square Hemstitch dies.

The peanut butter reference is obvious, but in looking to add some texture to the background, I found my also never-before-used SU Painted Texture Embossing Folder, and it really reminded me of smeared peanut butter on bread. I embossed a piece of kraft card stock, swiped it with some Tea Dye Distress Ink for more definition, popped up the white die cut panel, added some twine to match the grape jelly adhered it to the kraft card base,  and my card was complete.

I used neutrals, brown, texture and twine from the inspo list.

Come play with us! Remember that your project does not have to go with the challenge theme. You can just use 3 or more items from the inspo list for your creation!

For more inspiration, be sure to visit the rest of the  Festive Friday Challenge Design team:

Ann Schach

Beth McCullough

Sharon Hashimoto Burkert

Melanie Hungerford

Helen Jennings

Melva Peters

Jaydee

Diane Evans

Joanne James

I'm also playing at:

Watercooler Wednesday #335 - AG

As You See It Challenge #268

A favorite technique of mine is to add texture with embossing folders swiped with ink.

I Heart You

I spent the day yesterday making Valentines. It snowed all day, one of my sons was home to watch Super Bowl with his dad, I made a big pot of soup... what a great day!

Here is one of my Valentines that I made from mostly new schtuff. The only things that are not new, are the sentiment and the card stock.

Products used:
Stamps: MFT Pure Innocence I Heart You.
Dies: SSS Mini Interactive Envelope, Pinkfresh Studio Curvy Foliage and Sparkling Diamonds.

I'm playing at:

Colorful Options February 2022 -  Rosey Red

Tic Tac Toe #148

Left Column - Red, Heart, Sentiment

NBUS #35

CIC #537 - Valentine Hearts

Happy 11th Birthday Less Is More!

The Less Is More Design and Admin team is back with a new year of challenges. As we begin a new year, we celebrate the 11th birthday of our challenge with LIM Challenge #458. Way back when the challenge started, I was making cards with lots of layers and embellishments, and CAS was a new and not-so-easy discipline for me to master. Fast forward, I became a member of the Less Is More Design Team on January 5 2019! I was so excited then, and am excited now that despite some concerns that the challenge was going to end, we are starting up again. Thank you so much to our former and our new leadership. I am so glad we are moving forward.

So quite appropriately for our first challenge of 2022, the theme is "Birthdays".

I have been trying to master the art of hot foiling with a Glimmer Machine, and I am making some progress. I just got this wonderful Birthday Candle Background Glimmer Hot Foil Plate & Die Set  from Spellbinders, and it was the perfect choice for this occasion. I used this fabulous rainbow foil and die cut the candles after foiling. In the picture below my card, you can see the affect of the foil when you turn it in the light. It's hard to photograph head on. I popped up each candle with foam tape and adhered them to white linen card stock, then adhered that panel backed with foam to a white card base. I stamped a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp Simple Sentiments 02, and my card was complete.

Please head over to the Less Is More Blog and see what the Design Team has created for your inspiration. I hope you'll play along with us to share your creations. Remember to keep your design Clean And Simple which we define as designs that include large areas of CLEAR AND CLEAN space with NO PATTERN, NO INK and NO TEXTURE See challenge guidelines on the Less Is More Blog.

LIM BLOG

LIM FACEBOOK PAGE

LIM INSTAGRAM

I'm also playing at:

Seize the Birthday #231 - Sparkle & Shine

Watercooler Wednesday #334 - Occasions

CAS on Friday #224 - Male

CASEing Michele

 Time Out #207 begins today, I am so excited about this challenge because it is our first CASE The Artist challenge, AND even better, our artist to CASE is the incredibly talented, friendly and funny  Michele Ferguson of I Card Everyone. 

We are generously sponsored by STAMPlorations. Winner gets a $25 gift voucher to spend in the STAMPlorations Store.

Michelle's creations are so artful and inspiring. She is a lover of nature and takes a lot of inspiration from it in her art, especially flowers, birds and butterflies. Michele has an enormous talent for design and use of color. She is an artist extraordinaire and my favorite enabler, as I want to buy everything she uses to do her magic LOL. If you haven't already, please treat yourself to a visit to her blog where you can't help but be instantly awestruck.

Here is Michele's fabulous card for the CASE-ing!

We welcome Ashwini Rao of Experiments With Card Making Etc and winner of Time Out #204 as our wonderful Guest Designer. 

It was such a joy to make a card inspired by Michele's. I went with a white heart, surrounded by floral die cuts in shades of pink and a touch of green. I added a foiled die cut sentiment. All of the products except the sentiment (SSS) and the white heart (Spellbinders) are from Pinkfresh Studio. Guess whose work introduced me to that awesome company??? These are the Pinkfresh products I used to create my card:

English Garden Washi Tape and matching dies

Curvy Foliage Die

Curvy Leaves Die Set

Please hop on over to the Time Out Challenge Blog to see the wonderful creations that Ashwini and the Design Team came up with to inspire you. Come play with us!

I'm also playing at:

Pinkfresh Studio February 2022 Challenge

Inkspirational #258

Paper Players #577 - Love & Friendship

Cupcake Inspiration #537 - Valentine Hearts

Love Enclosed

 It's time for a new challenge at Festive Friday where every challenge is an inspiration list based on a selected holiday/festivity from the traditional to the unusual. Challenge projects must include at least three items from the festivity inspiration list. Your project does not have to go with the challenge theme. You can just use 3 or more items from the inspo list for your creation.

Today's festivities are inspired by St. Valentine's Day, which takes place on Monday, February 14th. The challenge runs from February 4th to February 14th.

I like to create a card for our challenge that goes with the theme. This one was easy peasy. I just got the Heart Grid Hot Foil Plate from Pinkfresh Studio and I had to break it out (or heat it up as the case may be). I foiled it in red for my background, then die cut that piece with Lawn Fawn Scalloped Rectangles and adhered it on a black base. The heart die cuts are from Spellbinders January 2022 Small Die of the Month Club Kit and the sentiment is from Spellbinders January 2022 Glimmer Hot Foil Club of the Month Kit. I glued the hearts together and popped them up with foam before adhering to the foiled heart panel. I foiled the sentiment in gold and popped it up on the die cut hearts. I used red, romantic sentiment and hearts from the inspo list.

Come play with us! Remember that your project does not have to go with the challenge theme. You can just use 3 or more items from the inspo list for your creation!

For more inspiration, be sure to visit the rest of the  Festive Friday Challenge Design team.

Ann Schach

Beth McCullough

Sharon Hashimoto Burkert

Melanie Hungerford

Helen Jennings

Melva Peters

Jaydee

Diane Evans

Joanne James

I'm also playing at:

Color Hues #34 - Red & Black

Double D Challenges - Hearts

Happy Birthday!

I needed to make a card for a very special birthday. Back in August I pinned THIS card created by Jenny of My Paper Epiphany when she was GD at Seize The Birthday #221 By The Sea Challenge. I CASEd it for my lighthouse loving husband's birthday card, and he just LOVED it. Thank you so much for the inspiration, Jenny.

I created the sky with Brushos. The lighthouse, clouds and birds are all cut from Cottage Cutz Lighthouse and Lighthouse w/Clouds dies. The sentiment is from Happy Little Stampers Butterfly Birthday.

I'm playing at:

Seize The Birthday #230

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Krafty Chicks Challenge #596 - All Occasions