Round and Round

Taking inspiration from the Less is More 'Round and Round' and the Addicted to CAS 'Wheels' challenges this week I made this card for my daughter Laura's partner, Max. He is a very keen sports addict and the more extreme the sport the better as far as I can understand! So my card for Max is an iris folded pattern of my own design for a bicycle. I'm not sure it completely fits the notion of CAS, maybe not quite enough white space, but will I enter it into ATCAS and as my second entry into the LIM challenge anyway and let the experts decide!

Entered into the following challenges:
Addicted to CAS Challenge 35: Wheels
Less is More Lucky Dip Week 165: Round and Round

Stef

Thistles and Wild Flowers

I've been playing around with stencils and paste and made this card for my friend Tracy's birthday. The background was made using textured paper coloured with Pan Pastels. The stamped thistles are from one of my favourite companies Lavinia Stamps with Distress inks. The paste is a pearlescent one from Dreamweaver used with a Sweet Poppy stencil (designed by Tracey from Lavinia Stamps) called 'Wild Flowers'. Inspiration for the shape came from this weeks 'Less is More' challenge.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:
Lavinia Stamps Challenge #3: Add Something Pink
Less Is More Lucky Dip Week 165: Round and Round

Thanks for looking!
Stef

CAS Autumn Tree

I wanted to make an Autumn card for my brother's birthday on Friday and taking inspiration from some of the CAS challenge blogs came up with the following design. My main inspiration came from sketch #10 on Less is More. I used a circle aperture card blank and created a background using my Ink Dusters, a moon mask and Distress Ink Pads (Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage, Dried Marigold, Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap).



















I stamped the image (Oak Tree/Lavinia Stamps) in Frayed Burlap/Peeled Paint and used gilding flakes (Yorkshire Dales/Indigo Blu) to highlight part of the tree trunk and branches. The card was finished with a simple sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

Happy birthday Neil and enjoy your holiday!

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:
Less is More: Week 139 Sketch #10
Addicted to CAS: #23 Code Word - Autumn/Fall
Addicted to Stamps and More: #64 CAS
Crafty Little Fairies: Autumn Colours

Stef

CAS Crochet Flower

I have made single layer crochet flowers and put them onto my cards in the past but have never mastered the art of making double layer flowers before. It is my friend Angela's birthday today and as she makes a lot of crochet baby blankets, I thought it was about time I had a go. Two blog challenges gave me all the inspiration I needed for the design of the card. I finished the flower with a dark green button and stamped and cut leaves using a lovely set of stamps from 'Clear Choice' and coloured with sepia and pine green 'Whisper' ink pads.

I would like to enter my finished card into the following challenges:
CAS(E) this sketch #44 using the following sketch from Chrissy Larson

And also into:

Less is More: Week 136 Colour Challenge where the colours are Dark Green and Rust.

Happy birthday Angela, I hope you like the card!

Making Twinchies with my Lavinia stamps

I was having a look at Lavinia Stamps great new challenge blog the other night, wondering what I could make to enter their second challenge. The theme is 'Bright and Beautiful' and it immediately reminded me of the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small', and so the idea started to form... I also hopped over to one of their designers, Eileen's blog (which is great by the way) and she had been making 'Twinchies' for the 'Show Us Your Twinchies' challenge blog. I had never come across Twinchies before so that was it - I had to have a go and combine the challenges.

Show Us Your Twinchies Challenge #4

The Twinchie challenge theme #4 is 'Spring' so that fitted perfectly. For my 'small creatures' I stamped Tracey's two pixies onto shrink plastic and made a background with inks, sponges, tiny star shaped sequin waste, a moon mask and a water spritzer, finishing with a few drops of fairy dust (Stickles). I was worried that the images would come out too small but actually they were perfect for what I wanted. So here we have my first ever Twinchie with the tiny pixies dancing at the vernal equinox!

Lavinia Stamps Challenge #2

For the Lavinia Stamps challenge, I made two more Twinchies, as before and graduated the different coloured inks so that they changed from earth to sky as you travel up the card. I used two more of Tracey's stamps, 'Slender Mushrooms' and 'Spiral of Spells' one on each Twinchie and mounted them all onto different coloured scalloped squares and then onto a tall white card blank. And so you have it - my take on 'All things bright and beautiful' and my first ever Twinchies!

Katie's 21st Birthday

Keeping with the Final Fantasy theme from last year and as she is cosplaying Rosa later this year, I thought I would make her a card featuring Rosa. Maybe she will put them all in a picture frame one day! For inspiration I chose a sketch from the Sketch N Stash Challenge Blog and am entering it into Challenge 110. The papers I've used are Papermania's Capsule Collection 'Heather' which I've had for a while but not used very much. I finished it with a gold fabric yo-yo; I so love making those, they are so pretty! I think she liked her card but enjoyed the Devil's Food birthday cake even more!!!

Made with love... just for you!

I sat down to make my husband a Valentine’s card and had a look at a few challenge blogs for inspiration. I also wanted an excuse to play with my IndigoBlu ‘Poppy Heart’ stamp, Flitter Glu and Mega Flake ‘Winter Dawn’ which I've had for a few months but haven't had a lot of time to play with and now seemed like the perfect opportunity! This is what I came up with (hope he likes it!):

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog: 193 Valentine’s Card
Daring Cardmakers: Love is in the Air
Divas By Design: Love and Romance
PanPastel UK Challenge Blog: 6 Love and Romance
Sketch and Stash Challenge Blog: 107 Sketch and optional theme of ‘Love’