You have a fortnight to join in the latest Less is More clean and simple card challenge. It’s a photo inspiration theme – take whatever elements you like from the provided photo prompt, whether it be colours, shapes, theme, words and so on. Oh, it’s also a one-layer card challenge – no embellishments, matting, die-cuts… Everything has to be on the card blank. Scroll down for the inspiration photo and description of how I made this design team card:
Less is More challenge blog is following up their ‘B is for Beach’ theme with a new seashore-related subject: ‘under the sea’. Just enter your clean and simple card designs in the next two weeks featuring the theme for the chance to have the accolade of being shortlisted for our favourite card. I’ve not got any ocean-related stamps, so have created this panel card to fit the theme:
It turns out that commissions seem to come like stereotypical buses – none for ages and then two at once. I had the pleasure of accepting two very different commissions last week. The only thing was – they were both last minute with a very short time constraint. I did some juggling and evening work but fit them in and delivered both on time. Here’re pics of the projects:
Finally! A challenge for which I had a choice of stencils and stamps to use in my card design – dogs/puppies. This is this week’s theme over at AAA Cards‘ clean and simple card challenge blog. After using technology to make last time’s card, I thought I would go back to my card-making roots and go for something using basic techniques:
I’m a bit behind on posting my Bible journaling templates, sorry about that. First up, last month’s session was based on verses that were ‘by request’. I received four nominated verses and chose the last to complete the set. I also admit to rejigging one of my older templates, so you may recognise it.
I’ve had a few problems with my laser cutter over the last six weeks or so… One of the cables was causing intermittent faults. The presumption was that after four years of use, it was gradually fracturing. I managed to keep the machine limping on until I replaced the cable this week. As a result, I’ve had to feed projects into the machine through a slot so that the lid was barely lifted – an interesting exercise.
It would have been fine if I had not been asked to do several projects in those weeks. A small group craft session for church folk, the ‘Be Still’ evening and a large group craft session for my church’s retired men’s group. All of these needed kitting out with laser-cut items.
Here are the projects I designed and crafted for the small group and the men’s group. They feature crosses for the Easter season. Both are available as workshops at the Studio for groups of up to eight people. To book, just get in contact with me.
I was asked to run a craft table at a recent ‘Be Still’ community event at my church. The aim of the evening was to take the chance for attendees to have some ‘me’ time with massages, facials, mindfulness sessions as well as the craft table. I looked for all sorts of inspiration and didn’t really find any. I then stumbled on some photos of retro signage and decided to go with the theme. I created six different laser-cut wood signs, each with a typical self-affirming phrase often linked to mindfulness sessions. For each, I spent a long time finding a relevant Bible verse or passage to move it from self-centred to God-centred.
I’ve been using polyurethane casting resin for a long while now, batch-making every mould I have when it’s out. Consequently, I now have containers full of paintable mouldings. Do I use them up? Infrequently! The latest challenge over at AAA Cards is to add small and few elements to a clean and simple card with the optional extra of ‘baked goods’. This immediately put in mind some of these cupcake mouldings languishing in my stash. A quick lick of paint later and the choice of a large card to make them look small, I came up with this:
Oh, this one is a real toughie! I don’t think it’s a secret that the design team were all scratching their heads with the latest challenge over at the clean and simple card challenge site, Less is More. We could think of several ways of making a monogram, but most weren’t only one layer. That ruled out die cuts, cutouts and all sorts of other clever stuff.
Anyhoo, I scratched my head successfully and came up with three designs. The first, the N, technically didn’t fulfil the definition of a monogram, being a single initial. Then the stencilled and embellished A didn’t fulfil the definition either and turned out not to be a favourite. Finally, the graffiti monogram meets the definition, but might not be considered a traditional monogram.
I recently took delivery of the latest Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous mini-stencils, along with a Crafter’s Workshop 6×6″ stencil. Along with those came some DecoArt Americana acrylic paints. I decided that I would have a play since I haven’t done much art journaling during COVID lockdown. The text was an image transfer, put together in Adobe Illustrator before printing in reverse ready for sticking down. The woman’s head mask is by That’s Crafty!.
