Over at AAA Cards challenge blog we’re celebrating 9 years of clean and simple card-making. There’s even a money prize up for grabs! The challenge this time is ‘pink birthday’. I searched through my stash and remained uninspired by what I had on a generic birthday theme. Eventually, I settled on one of my flower stamps, coloured it pink and made it a birthday card with a stamped mini-sentiment:
The recipe challenge this week over at Less is More is to use vellum in your clean and simple card design/make. One of the trickiest things is to find a means of attaching it to the card without the glue showing as a darker area given its translucency. I’ve got around this by taping a fold-over flap to the inside of the card. I found the flower in a long-neglected box of Pergamano parchment craft. I mounted it on black to get the right contrast for the white of the stretched vellum. The sentiment is stamped in white pigment ink several times to get it opaque.
Another no layers card at AAA Cards in their latest challenge. There’s also the option of a ‘plant/grow/farm’ theme. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t have any stamps featuring tractors or farmyard animals/birds, so went instead for another interpretation of ‘plant’ and featured a flower on my one layer card:
It’s time for a new challenge at AAA Cards… This time we’re to use a birthday moodboard as our theme (pic below), with the optional choice of ‘birthday’. The challenge has been running for 8 years and continues to go from strength to strength. I’ve used the balloon theme with colours from the bottom right to make my birthday card.
It’s the last challenge of the year at Less is More and this time around it’s a photo inspiration. The idea behind this is to use the colours or textures or style within the photo to make your clean and simple card/project. Here’s my take on the photo inspiration (further down the post):
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.
Challenge time again at Less is More, the clean and simple challenge blog. This time, it’s a colour challenge: use pale blue and yellow, and black and white are allowed. It took me a little while to come up with my design – a couple of the design team had already posted their cards and I didn’t want to do the same or a similar card. Here’s my final take on the challenge:
I took a couple of hours over the weekend to make a series of cards using the new paper pad from First Edition, Oh So Sweet available from Craft Label. I’ve already made a scrapbook layout with a description of the pad contents here, so I won’t repeat it again. Though I love the pastel colour palette, I did find it missing some dark contrast pages and had to add distress ink to some of the edges to get that contrast where I wanted it.
New in at Craft Label are the First Edition Bon Voyage paper pads. They feature two canvas designs, three spot UV designs and half the 48 sheets are double-sided. The pads are printed with soy inks and being acid and lignin-free are perfect for scrapbooking. I’ve also used the papers to make cards, five of which are featured below. I think the papers are also perfect for more masculine cards as well as travel-related projects. Here are six projects for your inspiration:
The thing with a 6×6″ paper pad is that when you’re using the papers to make cards, the pad doesn’t last very long – go with the 12×12″ pad! This also gives you the opportunity to do scrapbook layouts. The paper pad, stamps and embellishments I have revisited are from Dovecraft – Butterfly Kisses – available from Craft Label. Here are the five additional card designs…
As well as the paper pad and embellishments, I used two coordinating Distress Oxide colours to stamp with: Dusty Concord and Bundled Sage. Top tip: give the clear stamps a good wash before first use to remove the manufacturing film that can cause the ink to bead up rather than lay flat.
