It’s challenge time again at Less Is More, and the theme this time is ‘borders’. Now then… I know I have a stamp set of numerous borders. Could I find it? Nope. However, while I was trawling through my stamps, I found a couple that I thought would work as a border and sentiment, so here’s my DT card:
Less Is More challenge time again… and the theme is ‘OLC Going Dotty’. This is a one layer card challenge, with artwork applied directly to the card. No matting or layering is allowed and no other embellishments either. It can be quite tricky and it’s not unknown for several attempts to be needed to get perfect stamping and other mark-making. Here’s my design team card, just one this time:
Quick and simple – stamp a sentiment first in jet black archival ink and then mask. Apply distress oxide inks through a Tim Holtz mini-stencil and take off the mask. All done!
I’m delighted to be able to share that I have been accepted on to the Less Is More Challenge Design Team. You’ll all know that I have recently been taking part in their challenges after a long hiatus, and it’s an honour to join the DT. You can find the fortnightly challenges here, and a little more info on the card(s) I make following the theme here on my blog. You may even get to see the outtakes…
I’ve used one of my most favourite techniques for my card for the splats – get your Distress Stains out, make sure the tip is nice and juicy and then firmly tap against your page (actually, you thump it down with a bit of force). Watch where the spatter goes!
Here’s another clean and simple card for the Less Is More Challenge blog. This time the theme is ‘out of focus’ and suggestions were bokeh, airbrushed backgrounds and watercolour stamping. I chose to go down the alcohol ink background, a suitably defocused technique. Stamped over is a sentiment block of text, cut out to make a tag. Finally, a sentiment stamp direct to card finished off the design:
Over at the Less is More challenge blog, the theme is ‘tiny and few’. This leaves a lot of white space and is quite daring. Very quick though! It took a little time to find suitable stamps for this thank you card. I used an ombre ink effect on the arrow for a little added interest.
It’s time to come clean… I don’t like making fancy cards. This week’s challenge at Passion for ProMarkers is to use ‘fancy folds’. Thus this is outside of my comfort zone, so I decided I would do the most basic fancy fold, an easel card. I wanted to keep the border on the background paper, so mitred the squares. I carried that principle through to the sentiment, but doing it again I would have embossed it in white.
It’s the weekly colouring challenge over at Passion for ProMarkers and the theme this time is ‘for a child/children images’. I have a number of potential stamps that would have done the trick, but I’ve gone with the cute Tatty Teddy. I’ve chosen ProMarker colours to pretty well match the background paper.
Continue reading It’s been a long time since I regularly made greetings cards, back in the heady days of peel offs and basic rubber stamping. My style and media choices have changed significantly since, and last night I had a few moments to have a play during my Come & Craft Session: mixed media collage cards.
Next month’s art journal session is all about layers. There will be an unofficial ‘challenge’ to see who has the most layers on their page by the time the session finishes. I think my example had upwards of 20 by the time I had finished. The layers include acrylic paints which were stamped, stencilled and monoprinted using textured wallpapers. Over that were stamped archival inks before the title was stamped and matted onto the page.
It’s a bit of a melange, but I guess that’s the point of the exercise. I wondered after if keeping to a complementary colour palette may have worked as well – perhaps something to play with during the session next month. Spaces are available if you’d like to get inky and paint-splattered!
It’s just about time for the leaves to fall… the weather is distinctly autumnal (read wet!) and the leaves are turning. This art journal spread started off with a Distress Stain Spray background that I hadn’t used up to now. Next, stamp some fallen leaves (Tim Holtz/Stampendous CMS097) in jet black archival ink. Fill in around them with black acrylic ink. They didn’t particularly look 3D until I added some shading with Black Soot Distress ink. I’m not entirely happy with the quote placement. I can always paint it out if it aggravates me next time I look at it!
