After a Christmas hiatus, Less is More is back with a new clean and simple card challenge. ‘We’re probably all sick of sweat pants and casual clothes, so let’s look forward to a time when we can all dress up again’ sets off the clothing/fashion theme. I remembered that I had done some paper piecing of dresses when I was with Craftwork Cards and managed to unearth the ‘Sophie’ stamp set from 2016 which is perfect for dress-up!
Time for another look at the First Edition North Star paper pad from Craft Label. As well as the glittered design, two foil designs and two pearlescent designs, half the pad is double-sided as well. It’s a 200gsm paper, so a decent weight for card making and also making 3D projects as well. Today, I used the grey-green papers which accompany the blue-silver colour scheme in the pad.
More Craft Label goodness, hopefully for your inspiration and inspired purchases! This time I’ve used the Christmas Sentiments decoupage paper for three decoupage cards. For the square card, I decoupaged a square piece of white card first before mounting on the gold mat. For the DL card, I just stuck a piece of the decoupage paper to the mat – it’s see-through and the clear tape sticky is just visible as a dark lines (subtle but there) so I’d not do that again. Finally, I decoupaged the paper direct to the A6 card. Of course, the card buckled and it took a fair bit of work to get it flat enough again. I needed to outline the gold heat embossed sentiment with Stickles to help it stand out against the decoupage paper. This helped tie the text to the embellishment as well.
More Craft Label goodies! In my last DT post, I used the Winter Sparkle decoupage pad and paper pad to make a shadow box. This week, I’m using the same pads to make several Christmas cards for your inspiration…
Another challenge is live at Less is More. This time it is a one layer card with the theme ‘festive’. As before, one layer cards mean just that: no hiding behind layered papers or mats, perfect printing first time and minimal embellishments. Even die cuts aren’t allowed as they are an added layer. I normally paper-piece the stamp I chose to use, so that was not an option in a one layer card. Instead, I went with some colouring-in:
I stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black using a stamp platform, and then again with Versamark as I then decided to heat emboss the outline with clear gloss to make it stand out a little. I then coloured in with ProMarkers adding lots of layers and then highlights with a correction pen and Posca markers. Finally, I added some stickles and liquid pearls to give a little more interest to the card.
Craft Label is stocking several different Christmas themed paper pads, in various sizes, and I’ve had a chance to play with two of them. First up, the First Edition North Star paper pack. This features 48 sheets, 3 each of 16 designs, one glittered design, two foiled, two pearlescent and half are double-sided. The colour palette is grey, silver and navy blue with some cute penguins and polar bears as design elements. Backgrounds are varied from patterns to grungy watercolour. The papers are 200g/m2 weight and are printed with soy inks. The pad is available in 12×12″ (£15.99), 8×8″ (£9.99) and 6×6″ (£7.99). Here are three quick and easy Christmas cards made with the pad:
It’s time for another challenge at Less is More… This time we have a colour challenge: Blue and Silver or Red and Gold. For me, they are classic Christmas colours, so I’ve used that theme for my cards this time around. First up, my choice for my design team card. It’s hard to see with the reflections, but the snowflakes are heat embossed in silver. The watercolour is Chipped Sapphire Distress Stain flooded into water, then splattered with water and blotted dry.
It’s recipe time at Less is More and the theme chosen is ‘more than one type of foliage’. One of the main aims of the challenge (aside from making sure the card is clean and simple) is to make the theme to be the focus of the card. There was only one stamp set I could think of in my collection that would fit the bill – a set of five fern fronds by Hero Arts. Here’s the eventual winner, from three I made, for my design team card:
It’s a CASe challenge over at Less is More. Ok, it was a new one for me too. Apparently, CASe stands for ‘Copy And Share everything’ and the aim is to take inspiration from any or all of the elements of a starter card, all the while keeping to the clean and simple principles. Here’s my card, and below is Sharon’s card that she made as our starter for ten:
It’s a one layer card challenge at Less is More today – a card made from a single piece of card folded in half where the image is stamped or printed directly onto the card stock. It also has no additional layers and only minimal embellishments. It can be trickier than you think, especially if you are stamping and muck up the print first go (or several goes!). One slip with the pen/ink and you have to start over. Here’s my take on the theme ‘Cheers!’:
