After a short hiatus over Christmas and New Year, it’s great that the Less is More challenge is back! This time, it being our 11th birthday, the theme is, well, ‘birthdays’. Make a clean and simple card (lots of white space and minimal elements) and enter the challenge 🙂
Another clean and simple card for you, featured in AAA Cards latest challenge: one layer with an optional extra of a big sentiment. The mood board for this week’s challenge included hearts, I’m sure, in time for Valentine’s Day. I looked out my only stamp to feature a heart, hoping it wasn’t too fussy for a CAS card, and used it along with a big sentiment for my card:
Over on the Less is More challenge blog this week is a lucky dip and from the pot came the chalkboard technique. In essence, this uses white pigment ink on black card, with the option of adding white heat embossing for even more contrast. An example video is available at the end of this post.
Three cards for you today in reverse order…
Another thematic challenge over at Less is More challenge blog – ‘summer flowers’. As I write, my garden has all colours of roses, some of them smelling divine (especially Gertrude Jekyll). Thus was my colour palette inspired and it was handy having the stamp from Stampendous to use (from 2013!). I think some of my ProMarkers are older than that, but are still in perfect condition thanks to my airtight storage solution.
It’s a new theme over at Less is More Challenge blog – this time it’s a colour challenge. We’re looking for clean and simple cards with Fuchsia, Yellow and Grey as the colour combo. There’re plenty of cards from the design team to give you inspiration, and there’s a prize drawn from all the entries at the end of the challenge. I’ve done three cards this time – I hope you like them!
Next week’s Art Journal Session has the theme ‘butterflies’. I’ve three new pages to share, but there are several in my past library that you can find using the search facility.
Over at Passion for ProMarkers, this week’s challenge is to include a tag. No distress inks here, it’s all done with ProMarker alcohol pens:
I have a penchant for sugar-free mints, especially when they are on show at the till in an Aldi. Their ‘complimints’ come in a small lidded tin, and I have often thought how suited to altered art it would be. So, this weekend I got on with altering one, upcycling it to enclose two mini-albums.
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!
