LIM 178 Guest designer spot & my first ever tutorial - pop can flowers!

I am so excited this week to have had the opportunity to be a guest designer on the Less is More challenge blog. The remit was a recipe to use a recycled element on your card whilst maintaining the CAS style. This was a great project for me, not only because I like to recycle and find ways of reusing different things in my crafting but also because I am not fortunate enough to have lots of money to spend on my hobby and therefore if you can create beautiful cards from free stuff what's not to like!

I have played around with several ideas but settled on these two for the challenge. The first card uses the technique of iris folding, one of the first techniques that drew me into cardmaking and made it such an important part of my life. I have reduced the size of the original sailboat design, a pattern I have used many times. The main recycled element is to use the insides of standard envelopes that arrive in the post (mainly blue, but also some orange) to make my iris folding strips. The bright blue strips are from one of my wage packets!

The iris folded panel is finished off with two strips of recycled ric-rac used as waves. I also deliberately chose a scalloped edged card to reflect the watery theme!

The second card I made uses a technique that has become a favourite of mine, making die-cut metal flowers by recycling pop and beer cans. I first discovered this technique several years ago whilst browsing YouTube for different methods of creating flowers. These can be used on cards but could also be used as a brooch or as a hair slide. I think these flowers are so stunning that they just need a little something to show them off but not much so the CAS style is perfect for this!

Over the last few years I have discovered so much information and inspiration from tutorials and photos on other crafter's blogs. To thank everyone whose blog I have ever taken something from I would like to give something back by putting my first ever tutorial on my blog! So here is the method I use to make these flowers. I decided to do it in a pdf format as this made it easier to put together and will, I hope, be easier for people that want to download the project. Apart from that I couldn't place the photos exactly where I wanted to in the body of my post!

Click here to view my pop can flowers tutorial pdf

Thank you to Chrissie for giving me this fantastic DT opportunity. I will visit as many of your blogs as time allows to see how you all get on with the challenge and will look forward to joining in again soon!

Thanks so much for visiting my little world
Stef x

Laura's Wedding

Laura, a colleague from work, is getting married on Friday 23rd May. Looking for inspiration to make her a card, I came across a great sketch on this week's challenge for CAS(E) this Sketch. A sample card from guest designer Chupa really caught my eye and several hours later here is my interpretation of Sam's sketch, which I have stuck to quite closely. Laura's wedding colours are burgundy and ivory so I was keen to use those on my card. The wedding image is a digi freebie picked up several years ago now via Papercraft Inspirations magazine. The circular sentiment is also a digi one that I have had for a while. The frames were all cut using Nestability dies and instead of placing the sentiment at the bottom right I have punched a simple heart with a Tonic punch.


I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:
CAS(E) this Sketch #76


Thanks for visiting
Stef x

Peace, Love, Joy

I have just discovered a new stamp company (well, new to me anyway!), Uniko Studio, and their wonderful blog. I have made this card for Martin, using inspiration from their current challenge, to celebrate our wedding anniversary on Thursday 15th May (32 years!) As I don't own any of their stamps, I downloaded this digital freebie and coloured with Promarkers to tie in with the challenge theme.  I think it would make an equally suitable card for Easter or Christmas. I decoupaged the central flower and finished the centres with some small dotty buttons that I've had for ages. I coloured in the borders around each flower and used an embossing pen and 'Enchanted Gold' embossing powder to highlight the words. The image is simply mounted onto a pale lemon card blank and finished with a small green banner tag and another button!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:
Uniko Studio Challenge No 9: Easter

I will definitely be putting some of their lovely stamps on my crafty wish list! Thank you for visiting!
Stef

Stylised Flowers

I have been playing around, not entirely successfully, with shadow stamping today taking inspiration from both the current Indigo Blu and Less is More challenges. The theme from Indigo Blu is 'Spring Blossoms' while on Less is More it is one layer week with a shadow stamping theme. The stamp I have used is called 'Stylised Flowers' from Indigo Blu. This has been stamped with Versamark and embossed with silver pearl embossing powder. I then used circle masks to colour the backgrounds of each flower using my ink dusters. The trickiest part was inking up the stamp with three different colour inks at the same time as I wanted to get the same 'shift' in each of the shadows. The final touch was to wipe and buff the embossed flowers to make them 'pop'.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Indigo Blu Challenge 14: Spring Blossoms

Less is More Challenge 167: One Layer Card with evidence of Shadow Stamping

Thanks for visiting

Stef

Less is More 166

Today I have made a card for no other reason than I was inspired by this week's challenge on Less is More, a colour challenge 'A Touch Of Turquoise' (my favourite colour!). The stamp is one of my first ever stamps from Papermania, which I have stamped on hammered cardstock and cut out. The centre of the flower is filled with seed beads and I have used my ink dusters to create a delicate mist of turquoise ink around the flower. The card is finished with a stamped sentiment (again one that I have had for ages) and a tiny turquoise butterfly. I hope I've managed to convey the 'touch of' message and can't wait to join in again!

I have entered this card into:

Less is More Colour Week 166: A Touch Of Turquoise

Thanks for visiting!

Stef

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