The Joy of Stamp Positioners!

As regular readers of my blog will know I recently bought a hinged stamp positioner - the Stamping Buddy Pro by Nellie's Choice. I am really pleased with it, at £16 it was not as considered a purchase as some of the others on the market but it does everything I want it to do so I'm happy.

This card was so much easier to make with the positioner and I was able to accurately ink and stamp each word twice to get a deeper colour. The stamps are from Winnie & Walter's the big, the bold and the happy set. I used squeezed lemonade, spiced marmalade and ripe persimmon DIs.
I am entering this into this week's Less Is More challenge where the colour challenge is 'Hot & Spicy'. You can see all the entries here.
While I had the stamps out I decided to make another one in cooler colours - cracked pistachio, peacock feathers and blueprint sketch DIs. I love how this one has turned out especially as this card base has a hammered effect and it is hard to get a clean impression on it.

 

LIM 324

It's been a while since I've been able to enter the challenge on the Less Is More blog. This week the theme is 'Spring Walk'. The die I have used is a freebie from a magazine. I mounted it on a blended background of spring colours - salty ocean, worn lipstick, mowed lawn and abandoned coral DIs. I cut out the butterflies from an extra diecut and stuck them over the existing butterflies for a 3D effect. The card blank is a very pale pearlescent green. Some clear sequins finished the card.
 

LIM 296

The theme this week on the Less Is More blog is turquoise & lilac. I used a brush strokes stamp by Inkylicious with Impress cerulean blue and Stazon vibrant violet for the background. The diecut is by Joy Crafts and the sentiment is by Clearly Besotted (who have now sadly shut up shop until the new year). I edged the panel in blue and mounted it on foam pads.

LIM 281

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a card using the faux bleach technique. I heat embossed a Hampton Arts daisy stamp and used Gelatos and water to create the stripes. I tore the paper around the image and mounted it on foam pads.

LIM 279

This week on the Less Is More blog the colour theme is purple. I used one of my new Tim Holtz debossing folders to make this very CAS card. After outlining the debossing with a purple pen I added some punched hearts. The white card was mounted onto a lilac/grey card blank.

LIM 271

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a one layer card with a geometric shape or pattern. I used a sentiment from a Kaisercraft stamp set and added a chevron from the same set.

LIM 270

Sneaking in a last minute entry for this week's challenge on the Less Is More blog which asks for a card on a coloured card base. The diamond die is by Tim Holtz and the sentiment by Simon Says Stamp.

LIM 269 Part 2

I was sorting through some patterned papers in a vain attempt to tidy up when I came across some baby pink polka dotted paper. I immediately thought of this week's challenge on the Less Is More blog which I have already entered (see my previous post below) and I just had to make another card for the challenge.
I cut and made up a bow from the paper which has a slight pearlescent sheen to it. I love the combination of pink and black - it's frivolous but elegant so I decided to put the bow on a black card blank. I added the sentiment from Clearly Besotted and a few candi dots (the small one was punched with a Crop-a-dile).
This is a simple card but has a lot of dimension:

LIM 269

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is Polka Dots. I needed to make a card for a little boy so decided to use the theme as a starting block. I used a Hero Arts elephant die and some spotty paper. The elephants were grounded on some washi tape and I gave them some gem eyes to co-ordinate. The sentiment is by Winnie & Walter.

LIM 268

It's been ages since I entered the challenge on the Less Is More blog, not because I haven't wanted to but time just seems to slip away these days. This week the challenge is 'What's outside your window'. I decided to use a Marion Emberson stamp set called Build a Tree as outside my window at the moment things seem to be waking up from their winter slumber and bursting into life. The sentiment is by DoCrafts. I raised up the stamped panel with foam pads and trimmed the front of the white, side-fold card base so that it was shorter than the back.

I added a strip of Brilliance orchid ink to match the flowers.



Softly Falling Snow

No this is not wishful thinking. I am quite happy with the weather at the moment although there is a distinct autumnal nip in the air when the sun goes down. This card is for 2 challenges:

Less Is More - something shiny
Craft Barn weekly challenge - snow/snowflakes

I embossed the snow folder on a small square of scrap card and rounded 2 corners. I added a silver Marianne snowflake diecut. The text and the stamped panel were raised on foam pads.

LIM 237 - Another Wedding Card

 

An early entry from me this week as I just happened to be putting the finishing touches to this wedding card when I saw that this week's theme on the Less Is More blog is 'Congratulations'.

I cut a 12cm square card from white Bazzill cardstock and added an 11cm mat which I embossed with a lattice folder. the Hobbycraft sentiment was stamped, gold heat embossed and die cut with a nestie labels die which I embossed with a rubber mat. The flower is a Marianne die with pearls added. Quick and simple but I like the elegance of gold and white for a wedding.



LIM 234

It's a busy week here but I needed a thank you card for a friend who made us the scrummiest chocolate and raspberry birthday cake imaginable. I used an oval nestie as a stencil with tumbled glass DI and then added the Cuttlebug diecuts which used tiny scraps of paper from my scrap bags. An old Hero Arts sentiment finished off the card.

A very Happy Birthday to Chrissie of Less Is More who is celebrating a significant birthday this week!

 

I am entering this into the following challenges:
Less Is More - Snippets
Craft Barn - Clean & Simple

LIM 232

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a masculine one layer card. I went for this horse head stamp from Katzelkraft's contes et merveilles set. I often use it for male cards and it always stamps beautifully to show the intricate detail. After stamping it with Archival sepia, I masked it and brushed a stripe of peacock feathers DI across the card. A sentiment by Winnie & Walter finished the card. I would have liked to have added a few sequins or gems but as it's a one layer week I decided to leave it at that.

More Flowers

It's hot, hot, hot here and I'm in the mood for clean and simple flower cards. I used 3 DIs to make a shaded background across the centre of the card blank and diecut 2 sets of poppies from my first (and probably favourite) Memory Box die. I stamped the text, punched the letters out with a small square punch and raised them on foam pads.
I am entering this into:
Less Is More Weekly Challenge - red, white, blue
Memory Box Monthly Challenge - red, white, blue

LIM - 226

It's been a while since I have been able to enter a challenge on the Less Is More blog but the pink glitter embossing powder was part of a prize for this card I made for the 4th birthday challenge and so it seemed appropriate that I should make a card for the LIM challenge the first time I used it. This week's challenge is 2 or 4 legs.
I've never used WOW embossing powders before and given my previous attempts with glitter embossing powders I wasn't expecting much but these are amazing. The colour I used was pink sorbet and I was surprised at how much of the detail it picked up. The stamp is from a Hero Arts stamp and die set and the pink elephant in question is perched on a ball, circus elephant style, which carries the sentiment.
The background is something I read about on Kristina Werners blog. I have used the Distress Ink smooshing technique but I've never done it with acetate before. I find you have more control over the placing of the colour this way. I used picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade and peacock feathers. So a big thank you to the ladies at LIM for my prize and also thanks to WOW for giving me the opportunity to try out their embossing powders.

LIM 212 - Wings

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is wings. I've been wanting to try out this pair of corner stamps from the same Katzelkraft set as the birds I used last week. There is a beautiful stylised bird in each corner flourish. I added a Memory Box die cut for the word 'happy' and stamped the 'birthday' text. The ink used was Impress peony purple. The panel was raised on foam pads and mounted onto a white card blank.
Thank you to everyone for your congratulations on my recent LIM win.

LIM 211 - Love

The theme for this week's one layer challenge on the Less Is More blog is Love. I had almost completed this card when I read that I had won a birthday prize for my previous entry which you can see here . The sponsor of the prize is WOW Embossing powders!
Anyway back to this card. I did not want a pink card so I went with this pair of Katzelkraft love birds (well I think they're love birds although they look like they've had a bit of a tiff at present). I used the waste from a previous die cut as a stencil to sponge a circle with broken china DI. Now I know that the circle doesn't look like broken china but I used a piece of cut & dry foam that had been used for some darker inks and the waste stencil I used had brusho on it so my ink sort of mutated into a mixture of all of these. I highlighted some areas of the birds with a water pen that had the remnants of another project on (I know I'm sounding very slovenly but I like these little surprises my desk provides). The sentiment is an ancient one from a mixed UM sheet. So that's it. I will try and visit as many of you as I can to check out your one layer entries.

Less Is More

I haven't taken part in the Less Is More challenge for some time - through lack of time rather than unwillingness to take part. This week is their 4th birthday so I decided I needed to put some time aside to make a CAS card. I reached for Clearly Besotted's brushed poppies set and stamped it in Brilliance orchid and starlite black. The sentiment is from the same set. Although the set makes a 2-step flower I decided to stick with one layer.

LIM 196/KTZ S3 K

This week on the Less Is More blog the challenge is to make a Christmas card with non-traditional colours. I covered a piece of card with peacock feathers, picked raspberry and ripe persimmon DIs and then stamped and embossed a KTZ stamp. I cut out 3 of the 4 tiles  and triple embossed them with UTEE. The tiles were mounted onto an orange card blank which I embossed with the snow folder and highlighted with a white Uni Posca pen.
I am also using this card as my special K entry for this week's Katzelkraft Christmas Challenge which requires us to revisit a technique we haven't used in a while.