Saturday 25 November 2017

Less is More #356


Morning friends! It's time to announce our latest challenge at Less is More and it's our Recipe week with the requirement to 'Let it Shine'


Now you may have heard that Kylie of Happy Little Stampers & Kylie's Addicted to Stamps held a little Craft Retreat in Manchester earlier this month and I was delighted to attend and meet up with fellow LIM teamies, Anita and Sharon along with a bunch of other crafty buddies.

Kylie decided it was time to introduce 'light up' cards and basically I'm hooked! To begin with all that circuit building with batteries and positives/negatives was a little mind-blowing but now back at home I just can't get enough of them. 


This Eiffel Tower card is one of my Retreat cards, although I rehashed it a little when I got home as I could see a channel of light behind the tower. The image is from Happy Little Stampers and initially it was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black then heat embossed using Clear Sparkle embossing powder on a 'Distressed' Background. The mini picture shows the 'light-up' effect when the sentiment is pressed. 


 

This one was very simple to make and positively oozes CAS! Firstly I debossed a stitched circle die by Simon Says Stamp, then added the reindeer thumb print image from the Clearly Besotted 'In Print' set. The sentiment is from the MFT set 'Jingle All the Way' - I have to say the light-up effect on this one is the best (so far!) and my reindeer (Rudolph) has a shiny red nose from Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents too. 



While I had the MFT 'Jingle All The Way' set on my desk I couldn't resist inking up these mini Reindeer and adding another 'Rudolph' into the mix. The images are coloured using Promarkers andn you can see the 'light-up' effect in the mini picture at the top.


If you get the chance to have a go with light-up cards you'll have a whole load of fun and why not try it this week and link up to our challenge!

As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Dies to Die For so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.




I hope you'll play along and thanks for calling by!



Sarah

Honey I Shrunk The Kit #14

Hey there friends, I'm so excited to be sharing another day out with my fellow Honey Babes for another HISTK post! BUT I'm absolutely dreading it at the same time as it's my turn to host! What I thought might be a fun kit to work with turned into a bit of a nightmare as my mojo went AWOL in the last few weeks so I'm relying on the Babes to showcase it to the MAX!

Honey I Shrunk the Kit logo



The name of my kit is 'Sugar Fix' and here's a little piccy of the contents: 


... and here's the list of contents:

Stamps: Reverse Confetti: Donut You Know (plus donut die), Neat & Tangled: Say Yes to Donuts, Avery Elle: Pick N Mix (plus dies) and Mama Elephant: Carnival Cupcakes (plus dies)
Other Dies: L’il Inker: Smile, Mama Elephant: Columbus Circle and Neat & Tangled: Hooray word dies
Other Items: Hobbycraft Basics: patterned paper, Action Wobbler, Doodlebug: bakers twine & Anita’s: half cut pearls

Somehow I managed 5 cards, some I like a lot more than others and this first one has to be my favourite. I made it for my niece and nephew for Halloween using the action wobbler behind the bag of sweeties. I used a couple of extra images from a CBS dis-continued set called In the Spirit.


No additional items were used for this one other than the kit and the images are coloured with Promarkers.


My colouring medium for the next one was the Kuretake Zig Clear Brush Pens but my doughnut looks a little burnt, don't you think? I used a wonky stitched die-cut panel (thanks to fellow Honey / LIM teamie, Anita ... quite convenient that she came to stay at my house recently and brought some of her treasured stash with her)!!!


Ooooh! What's this ... another wonky stitched panel (thanks again Anita)! Images and die-cut sentiment once again coloured with Promarkers, with the 'it's a boy' sentiment by CBS.


I'm really not sure about this one but had a few bits and pieces to use up so a framed display of sugary, jelly sweeties, all coloured with Promarkers and coated with wink of stella and glossy accents.

I hope you like my cards but I'm sure you'll love my teamies cards even more! Don't delay, check out these lovelies as I'm off to do now! Thanks for calling by and I hope to be back with more Honey I Shrunk the Kit kits next year! 

Hazel Hodgkins: Hazel's Paper Designs
Sarah Gray: Funky Fossil Designs
Shona Chambers: Twine Around
Anita Bowden: Neet & Crafty
Sarah Platt: Sazzle Dazzle Crafts ... that's ME!


Sarah

Friday 24 November 2017

Uniko Challenge #44

Hello crafty friends it's that time again when we are announcing our latest monthly challenge over at Uniko and the theme for this one is Christmas! Totally appropriate and brilliant timing for dashing off some of those much needed holiday cards.

Here's mine and it's a little tease because it's a 2-FER and you'll need to check back at 'reminder' time for the other 'half'! Both cards use the Winter Foliage set by Uniko with a die-cut Christmas sentiment from MFT die-namics teamed with a Uniko one too! The images are stamped using Altenew Inks and I've also used the Basic Stitched Border edge dies from MFT too. 





Here's the cue card which we'd love to see you use in your own blog posts and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

                                             


You have until Friday, 29th December to link up to the challenge, so no excuses for not joining in! 

The details you need about prizes and how to play can be found over at Uniko HERE and as always thanks for calling by my blog today.

Sarah

Saturday 18 November 2017

Less is More #355

Morning friends!

After my little break at the Happy Little Stampers Retreat in Manchester, last weekend and several days entertaining fellow craft buddies, Anita and Kylie, I'm back, with this week's challenge for Less is More 

Hopefully you managed to check out some of the retreat photos on Facebook - we had a brilliant time and Kylie is the most fantastic teacher with loads of tips for card making and getting messy in particular. If you get the opportunity to attend one of these events in future then you certainly won't regret it!

This weekend it's fellow Less is More teamie, Susan's birthday and she kindly agreed to let us CASE one of her cards for the challenge so I'm sending HUGE birthday greetings and sharing my 'Susan Inspired Card' below


It's just the one from me this week as my mojo has run off and left the building!!! I've gone festive as Susan did with a stitched front panel and a main focal point of 2 little robins. I couldn't resist adding a delicate blended sky and touches of glittery snow to the background. 


Supplies: Clearly Besotted - Rockin' Robin stamps and dies - layered up for added dimension, Distress inks in Tumbled Glass with wonky stitched border dies from MFT Die-Namics (thanks Neets!), inks are Altenew and I die-cut some glitter paper with the Neat and Tangled Punchinello die for snow.

Here's Susan's stunning CASE card


As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and our sponsor for this month is Dies to Die For so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.



Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by 


Sarah

Wednesday 15 November 2017

STAMPlorations Giving Thanks Blog Hop 2017

Hi there friends, I'm delighted to be representing Less is More, as a Guest Designer, once again in the STAMPlorations Giving Thanks Blog Hop following a lovely invite from Shery, owner and talented designer over at STAMPlorations!

Why not visit her blog HERE for some fabulous inspiration! AND why not head to the Less is More blog HERE where there's links and details about how you too can join in the blog hop and win some prizes along the way


I've used some lovely Fall themed stamps which Shery sent me and I've stamped the images using some masking here and there, coloured with promarkers. The panel was die-cut using a WPlus9 Scalloped rectangle die before mounting on fun foam then a kraft cardbase where I've stamped some of the leafy images in a tone on tone effect.



Today marks the 3rd time Shery has teamed up with her own wonderful team of designers at STAMPlorations as well as a selection of Guest Designers, like me, from various Challenge blogs, where Shery generously sponsors with prizes throughout the year. 


Shery is also releasing a whole new bundle of stamps to coincide with the Blog Hop and there's a Thanksgiving sale too. I'd say there's plenty to get you tempted to play along and I hope you feel inspired to do so.


Thanks for stopping by my blog today and don't forget to head over to the STAMPlorations site HERE for all the info as well as the Less is More blog

Sarah

Saturday 11 November 2017

Uniko Revisit - November 2017

Hello there fellow crafters it's a REVIST month over at Uniko where Bev askes us to 'dig out', dust down and bring a previously released set back into the spotlight! Well it's not just one set this time but a whole array of exciting products ... some new and some older so let's get this party started!

First of all I'm delighted to announce that the long awaited coordinating dies for the ever-popular Flower Power Series have arrived! I, for one, have been waiting for these for years - mainly because I'm lazy and hate fuzzy cutting! So here's a couple of little cards using those along with a recently released Stencil to coordinate with the Background Block - Wonky Stripes Stamp.


If you follow my blog regularly you'll know I love to go a little wild with colour and inking up this stencil with the Distress inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed (with mixed shades in between) seemed the way to go. With all that colour I decided to leave the flowers to outlines only and just added a little promarker colour to the centre followed with glossy accents. I only used half of my stencilled piece so scroll on down to see how I used the rest! 



These 2 are very similar and use another of the Flower Power images with matching dies. Believe it or not the Stencilled backgrounds on both examples come from another half of a 'stencilled' panel,  each card using a quarter so plenty more scraps to create something else! Here I die-cut the stem and leaves also but coloured them with a black Promarker and added some white gel dotty detail


Next up it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!! Which is as well seen as we are dusting down or should I say glittering up those Designer Snowflake Dies and this is my first ever spinny card. The background uses another newly released stencil to coordinate with the Background Block Scattered Dots but I thought it would work as snow! Yeah??? 



Having die-cut a circle from my card front and a separate panel, I blended Distress inks through a stencil of the same size on to the inside of the card. Once the ink had dried I placed the stencil over the top and used texture paste followed by glamour dust to create some festive snow. The Snowflakes were die-cut using glitter paper and adhered to card with a piece of sparkly twine sandwiched between the two to create the 'spinny' effect.  

... and last but not least here's how I used up that extra half of stencilled wonky stripes from earlier?


The stencilled panel was sliced down the middle and adhered to the card base with one strip down each side. The front panel is mounted on 3d foam and features a festive tree from the Previously released Christmas Pop set, stamped in closely coordinating colours using Altenew inks.

As is the tradition there's a blog hop giveaway and you'll find all the details including the links to my fellow teamies blogs and a sneaky peek at what they've created for the REVISIT post over at Uniko HERE

Before I leave you to hop here's the image of the sets and as always thanks for visiting my blog today and I wish you lots of luck on the hop!

   




Sarah

Saturday 4 November 2017

Less is More #353 & #354

Morning friends!

YES you read the title correctly it's a 2-week challenge over at Less is More due to a few of the Design Team spending a mini-break together at the Happy Little Stampers Retreat. So to avoid any mishaps with scheduling posts we're giving you a little extra time to play along and a little breather for us too!

Being the first challenge of the month it's COLOUR week and we're delighted to welcome back Dies to Die for as our sponsor for this month. What's more we have a FAB-ulous Guest Designer and winner of our September Challenges joining in for this one! It's the awesome Birgit of Rapport Fran ett Skrivbord so I hope you'll head over to her blog to leave some lovely feedback and check out her A* talents while you're there.


There's no need to use actual Firework images as it's the colours we are looking for but we're happy to see some fireworks too! 

Here's my card and just the one this week as I'm frantically trying to get organised for next weekend's retreat and keep up to date with all my DT posts at the same time as working! 



I've used a mish-mash of multi-coloured circles using Distress Inks blended through some hand-made die-cut circle stencils. Once the ink had dried I stamped and heat-embossed various 'firework' images from the Clearly Besotted set: Set the Scene. To finish a white strip with a die-cut sentiment by Sugar Pea Designs. I used the same embossing powder over the die-cut to match my fireworks and popped the strip up on 3d foam.


As always there's loads of fabulous designs from my fellow teamies over on the main blog HERE and don't forget our sponsor for this month is Dies to Die For so do play along for a chance of a prize, which we announce at the start of next month.



Hope you'll play along and have some fun and thanks for calling by 




Sarah