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

My Unpaid Therapist

 Time Out #206 begins today, It's an Inspired By Words challenge. See the challenge badge above. The challenge runs from Thursday, January 27th to Wednesday, February 2nd. We are generously sponsored by Altenew.

Challenge winner as chosen by our Design Team will receive $15.00 in Altenew store credit to use in the Altenew store. In addition, our winner will be eligible for a guest designer spot in a future challenge.

Joining us for this challenge, we have the incredibly talented and lovely Nancy Leppek of Scrapper at Heart and winner of Time Out Challenge #203. Nancy is a prolific and wonderful paper crafter. Please treat yourself to a stroll through her blog. You are sure to be inspired.

 For my card I focused in the word "friend". I used the Pinkfresh Studio Starburst Circles stamps and layering stencils for my background. The sentiment is a combination of The Greetery's Opposites Attract stamp set and Pinkfresh My Favorite Things To Say #2. Very simple, but really goes to the heart of the quote for me. 

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

I'm also playing at:

Krafty Chicks #596 - All Occasions

Never Before Used Schtuff #34

SSS Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Watercooler Wednesday #333 - Occasions

May Peace Fill Your Soul

 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 World Wetland Day, which takes place on February 2nd. The challenge runs from January 21st to January 31st.

I like to create a card for our challenge that goes with the theme. I must say that in terms of what's in my stash, this one had me stumped at first. I found one stamp set that could work, but I wasn't thrilled with it. So I Googled, of course. First I looked at wetlands images. I noticed lots of herons standing in marshes. Then I saw blue herons. Then I Googled "blue heron digital stamps". And I found this: Digital Stamp Design : Heron Bird Standing In Lake. Not only was it absolutely perfect, but it was a FREE download! (It's the little things). What luck! I downloaded it, printed it, and colored it with Copics. I then die cut it with Spellbinders Hemstitch Rectangle dies and popped it up with foam on white linen cardstock. I added a sentiment that I love from a PTI set called Peaceful Garden, mounted the white panel on a black card base and my card was complete. I used birds, grasses, green. water, blue 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:

Freshly Made Sketches #519

Watercooler Wednesday #333

On Your Special Day

I am thrilled to be here as Guest Designer for the new Color Hues Challenge where the challenge colors are Silver and White. I was in need of a wedding card for a couple who is very dear to me. Silver and white were a perfect starting point for that, so I went with a wedding theme.

 I recently spent a few hours learning to "Glimmer" (I love this new verb). To create my card, I started with the Spellbinders  December 2021 Large Die of the Month which has a very elegant lattice design. I die cut the base piece in white, then the middle piece in SU brushed silver. I did not use the top piece. I used the Foliage Border Glimmer Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from Foiled Basics by Yana Smakula for the circle and flowers, and a  sentiment from Yana's Special Sentiments Glimmer Hot Foil Plate & Die Set. I felt that the card base needed a little texture, so I used Altenew's Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover die and that did the trick.

Head over to Color Hues and check out what the fabulous Design Team has come up with to inspire you and join us in the gallery. I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Im also playing at:

Try It On Tuesday - In With The New

Everything is new except for the debossing die and the pearls.

Watercooler Wednesday #332 - All Things Feminine

Never Before Used Schtuff #34