Less is More #454 - OLC - Autumnal

Hello there. It's time for another challenge over at Less is More and its that dreaded one layer week! 

I've been missing for a while as I had a busy summer, then I went to the UK to visit my grandchildren and whilst I was there my dear old mum fell and fractured her wrist so I spent some time looking after her. But I'm back home now and catching up with everything.

I thought I'd make a one layer card for this challenge where the images wrap around to the back of the card. So to show how that worked here's a brief photo tutorial (the second larger leaf appears on the back of the finished card).

First I embossed the leaves from the Erika's Maple stamp set in a variety of embossing powders. I also embossed the 'falling leaves' words from the sentiment in that set too.

This (blurry) photo shows the difference in the embossing powders.

Then I masked the leaves and stenciled a background to represent an autumnal breeze.

Before folding the card in half I water coloured the leaves with some Zig pens. You can see where the fold will appear because I made a mark at the top of the card so that I could get my placement right.

Easy peasy!

STAMPS:  Visible Image Erika's Maple

STENCILS: Visible Image Fibres

INKS:  Versamark clear, Distress Ink Speckled Egg 
PENS:   Zig Clean Color Real Brushes
OTHER: White card, WOW embossing powders and glitters (Gold Sparkle, Rich Pale Gold, Copper)

Please head on over to the challenge blog to see some fantastic inspiration from the design team

LIM BLOG
LIM FACEBOOK PAGE
LIM INSTAGRAM

I'll sign off for now 👋 but I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,
Sharon xx

Sleepy Hedgehog

 

Hello there. Sorry I've been a little bit MIA, but summertime is always incredibly busy for me. I've managed to have a trip back to the UK to see my Mum for the first time in 2 years!!! That was lovely 😁. I currently have my daughter staying with me and there are a couple more things planned for early/mid September too.  However I have managed to squeeze in a card using the BRAND NEW Hedgehog Hugs stamp set from the Autumn Visible Image release. This is my sleepy hedgehog.

I'll get right to how I made this card......

First stamp the leaves in various shades of distress oxide ink. I confess I didn't use all of these, but I wanted a choice of the base colour.

 

 Next colour them in with some marker pens and fussy curt them out. Set aside for later.

 

 

Stamp the hedgehog onto a panel the same size as your card front and heat emboss with clear embossing powder, then colour him in with marker pens. Make sure you know where to place him so that he is at the bottom just above the frame that you will use.

Take some ripped paper and blend some hills and sky into the background using distress inks.

Stamp the grass around the hedgehog. Take the small tree from the VI Minis #1 set and stamp this in first and second generation ink to represent some tree branches. 

Die cut a frame border for the little scene and stamp and heat emboss the sentiments onto it. Secure this fram to the scene with foam tape. Add the leaves to the frame and add a few falling from above too. Use 3d foam pads to attach those. Then take some coloured stickles and add leaves to the bare tree branches and highlight a few of the leaves with a clear stickles too.

 

And that's it. Your card is made .....once the stickles have dried ;-)

Stamps Used:

(please click on the picture to be taken direct to the stamp set in the online store):

 

 

  

 

Other Supplies:

Distress Oxide Inks, Distress Ink, Promarkers, Stickles, WOW clear embossing powder, white card, tickles, 3D Foam pads , Stitched rectangle die.

 

Visible Image social media and other links (just click on the words in capital letters):

SHOP where the fantastic stamps are sold
BLOG with all the latest news and posts
FACEBOOK PAGE with info, inspiration and giveaways
FACEBOOK GROUP come share your work with us
INSTAGRAM
PINterest

TWITTER

That's it from me for now. Thanks for stopping by and I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,
Sharon xx

Less Is More #449 - Shades Of Blue

Hello everyone. The summer is in full swing now and to celebrate it we have a colour challenge at Less is More of shades of blue. So whether your weather is dreary or sunny you can dream of blue skies and blue seas, maybe even a blue haze of mountains and make a card with all those glorious shades.

My card is right at the edge of CAS today because the stamp is a little busier than usual, but I just love it, and I've used a couple of card front dies too. The image is a newer one from Visible Image and I just heat embossed it with a beautiful copper embossing powder (neutrals are fine to use with the LIM colour challenges), and then coloured parts of it with blue promarkers. The sentiment comes from the same set of stamps too (which also has an awesome butterfly in it!). The edge of the smaller card front die was also coloured with a promarker and it was raised up on some fun foam then 3 blue gems were added to finish it all off.

STAMPS:   Visible Image Butterfly Effect

DIES:   Sweet Pea Designs Card Front Dies
INKS:   Versamark Clear
PENS:   Promarkers
OTHER: White Card, WOW! Embossing Powder (metallic copper), blue gems, fun foam

 
The smashing guest designer at LIM this week is Sid (Harpies Corner) and he's created a superb CAS card which you can see, along with some awesome inspiration from the design team over at the challenge blog.

 
LIM BLOG
LIM FACEBOOK PAGE
LIM INSTAGRAM

I'll sign off for now 👋 but I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,
Sharon xx

A Babies World

 

Hello there. Here's something a little different today; a mixed media card which puts me in mind of premature babies in their little incubators. Having had a premature baby myself (now in her mid 30s) and an 'extremely premature' grandson who is in senior school now, I am familiar with special care baby units and babies in incubators. I would have welcomed a card like this to announce the birth of my daughter. This could also be used as a special card to announce a pregnancy, couldn't it?

Anyway it is made with some inks, embossing powder, luna paste and brilliant Visible Image stamps and stencils.

Here's the walk-through of how it was made:

First attach the baby bloom stencil to some white card and begin by blending squeezed lemonade and dried marigold inks around the baby shape, keeping the yellow in the middle and the orange around the outside.

 

Next attach the square root stencil over the top of the baby one and blend through with the mustard seed and spiced marmalade inks.

Before you remove the square root stencil, stamp some of the tiny bubbles from the Stay Weird stamp set using the mustard seed and spiced marmalade oxide inks, and doodle some white dots with an opaque white pen.

Now remove the square root stencil and add some glittery gold luna paste through the flower part of the stencil only. Remove and wash the stencil and set the card aside to completely dry.

 

When I returned to my card, the oxide inks had faded into the background slightly, so I stamped some more 'bubbles' with ripe persimmon distress ink.

 

Once the ink had dried, I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment, splitting it over two parts of the card by masking off the parts of the sentiment I did not want in each section. Then I trimmed it to a card front size and added it to a card blank.

Stamps and Stencils Used:

(please click on the picture to be taken direct to the stencil and/or stamp set in the online store):
     
 

    

      

 

            

Other Supplies:

White Card, Distress Inks (Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon), Distress Oxide Inks (Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade), Zig opaque writer (white), Cosmic Shimmer Luna Paste (stellar Champagne), Versafine Onyx Black Ink, WOW! Primary ebonyembossing powder

Visible Image social media and other links (just click on the words in capital letters):

SHOP where the fantastic stamps are sold
BLOG with all the latest news and posts
FACEBOOK PAGE with info, inspiration and giveaways
FACEBOOK GROUP come share your work with us
INSTAGRAM
PINterest

TWITTER

That's it from me for now. Thanks for stopping by and I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,
Sharon xx

Less Is More #448 - CASe Card

Hello there. Ive been having some problems with my google profile ☹️ and it wouldn't let me access blogger on my PC (which is also where I keep my photos and the LIM challenge cue cards). But, better late than never, I've managed to fix it with the help of Firefox.

 

So to the latest LIM challenge.

 

It's Elaine’s birthday today so she has made this fabulous card for us to CASe (Copy And Share everything) at the LIM challenge.

 

Happy birthday Elaine

With a CASe card the idea is to take inspiration from the sample card, be it in the colours used, the subject matter, the layout etc.etc. For my card I took inspiration from the colours, the varying heights and the way the image was cut up.

This is how I made mine.

Stamp the image onto watercolour card, add colour to the background with watercolour pens and a water brush. Concentrate the colour at the outside of the image. 

Let everything dry. Cut the image into the various sections, coat each section with clear embossing ink and heat emboss each piece with ultra thick embossing crystals. Repeat the heat embossing step until you have a glossy tiles effect.

Before adding the pieces to a card blank, position them on top of the card blank so that you stamp the sentiment in the correct spot. Once the sentiment is added, stick the images down at different heights (some directly glued to the card blank and others with foam tape of 2 differing thicknesses. 

This photo shows the shine and the different heights (even though it is a bit out of focus).

STAMPS:   Stampers Anonymous Eclectic Collages CMS045. Sentiment Uniko Flower Power 2
INKS:   Versafine onyx black, Versamark clear 
PENS:   Zig Clean Color Real Brushes (light green, orange,red)
OTHER: Watercolour card, water brush, Cosmic Shimmer UTEC clear, foam tape and foam pads, white card.

Please head on over to the challenge blog for some fantastic inspiration from the design team

LIM BLOG
LIM FACEBOOK PAGE
LIM INSTAGRAM

I'll sign off for now 👋 but I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,

Sharon xx

A Beautiful Rose

Hello there. Today I have a fast and CAS make for you using some Visible Image stamps and a stencil. I really hoped I'd have time to make a few more cards using the other two flowers in the stamp set...but as usual, time ran away from me.

Here's how I made this one:

First swipe some ink onto a glass mat and spritz with a tiny bit of water. Press some acetate into the ink and then place the acetate onto a piece of card to transfer the ink, making sure to leave a large area of gorgeous white space for the sentiment. Dry the ink and then add some more ink to the card using the same technique to add droplets.

Now blend the same colour ink through a stencil over the top of the ink added in the previous step.

Wait for the distress inks to completely dry, then stamp the flower onto the card panel and heat emboss it. Heat emboss the sentiment too. Heat emboss the flower once again onto a piece of water colour card.

Take some pens, or water colour paints, and colour the rose and the leaf on the watercolour card, then cut them out.

Layer the panel onto the card blank, then layer the rose and leaf onto the panel. Add a few nuvo drops in white for some texture and your card is good to go.

Stamps and Stencil Used:

(please click on the pictures to be taken direct to the stamp set and stencil in the online store):

 

  

  

Other Supplies:

White card, water colour paper, piece of acetate, lucky clover Distress Ink, water spritzer, blending brush, Versamark clear ink, WOW! primary ebony mbossing powder, Zig clean color real brushes ( Greens: 040, 048, 049, 400. Pinks/red: 024, 027, 202, 260),  Nuvo Crystal Drops Gloss (simply white), 3d foam pads 

Visible Image social media and other links (just click on the words in capital letters):

SHOP where the fantastic stamps are sold
BLOG with all the latest news and posts
FACEBOOK PAGE with info, inspiration and giveaways
FACEBOOK GROUP come share your work with us
INSTAGRAM
PINterest

TWITTER

That's it from me for now. Thanks for stopping by and I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,

Sharon xx 

Less is More #447 - Christmas In July

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. 

I'm sharing a couple of cards today with the theme of Christmas In July. I can't believe how fast this year is slipping by, and this regular challenge theme is the reminder for me to make a start on some Christmas cards.  

Here's a close up of my first card which shows off the sparkle in the star and on the embossing. I do love a sparkly star at Christmas.

I used my new favourite stamp, the thread stamp, as a background because it sort of echoes the scribble around the star. Stamp this and the sentiment in versamark and heat emboss with a glittery gold embossing powder. The smaller image is stamped twice, and embossed with the glittery gold embossing powder. Die cut one into a circle and blend blue ink all over the circle. On the other one just cut the star out of the middle. Build the circle and the star up with foam pads and add some nuvo drops onto the central star.

STAMPS:   Visible Image (Christmas Chaos and Where Flowers Bloom)

DIES:   Lawn Fawn Stitched Circles
INKS:   Versamark clear, chipped sapphire Distress Ink 
OTHER: WOW! metallic cold sparkle embossing glitter, white card, white blizzard Nuvo Drops


My second card is a mix of stars and holly

Using the stencil and moving it around so that the top half of the card blank is filled with stars, blend green ink through the cluster of stars. Stamp and heat emboss the sentiment with glittery gold embossing powder. On a piece of scrap card, stamp and heat emboss the holly image, then colour the holly and berries with your pens. Die cut this with a deckled rectangle die, and die cut another larger rectangle from some coordinating green card. Layer these up with foam tape and place in the centre of the inked stars and add some glossy accents onto the berries.

STAMPS:  Visible Image christmas chaos

STENCILS: Visible Image iconic christmas

DIES:   Spellbinders deckled rectangles
INKS:   Versamark clear, lucky clover Distress Ink
PENS:   Flex Markers (chilli red & pine)
OTHER: WOW! metallic cold sparkle embossing glitter, white card, glossy accents

Please head on over to the challenge blog to see it and for some fantastic inspiration from the design team

LIM BLOG
LIM FACEBOOK PAGE
LIM INSTAGRAM

I'll sign off for now 👋 but I really hope to see you again soon.

Hugs,
Sharon xx