Paper Hugs

The challenge this week at   Less is More has the theme - flowers!  How lovely!  My entry is my effort following a video tutorial by the very talented Therese for Scrapbook boutique.  You can check it out h ere .   In the tutorial, Therese used the beautiful Delicata gold ink for her flower, but in the absence of that particular ink (it would be awesome to own everything wouldn't it???) I used my little tear drop by Brilliance in Galaxy gold, quickly sprinkling clear embossing powder all over the die cut by Memory Box (Peony) as it is a quick-drying pigment ink, and heat embossed it.  In real life, it gives a beautiful textured finish which is very pleasing.  I scribbled and blended the colour from a few Distress markers for the bloom and single leaf outline and adhered the die cut over these.  The sentiment by Paper Smooches is also heat embossed in the same gold ink.  I mounted my water colour panel over a mint-coloured card, after wrappin...

My card today has been made for the May challenge at Scrapbook Boutique , inspired by this photo: Those delicious chocolatey swirls were the starting point for me, plus the autumn colours of the leaves. Having seen Jennifer McGuire using the Radio Waves stencil by Memory Box to make this card, I immediately thought of this stencil to mimic that shiny swirly pattern!  Firstly, I clear embossed through the stencil, then stamped and embossed leaves from the Gina K designs set 'Sunkissed Autumn' in the colours from the photo, finally adding a white embossed sentiment by Paper Smooches.  The buttercup hearts are from Simon Says Stamp.  A strip of russet dp separates the two different textures of the card and picks up the colour of the cake bases.

Another Sunday, another challenge commences for Less is More .  This week it is a colour challenge - use either three colours or three shades of the same colour.  I eventually settled on three colours, choosing those from some washi tape I wanted to use on my baby boy card - navy, green and soft blue. The elephant, from the Stampin' Up! set called Zoo Babies, is stamped in Soft Sky ink and the 'Sweet' die cut is by The Crafter's Workshop.  I die cut the word from the front panel, covered some spare card with the washi tape, then cut it out and replaced it into the negative space, remembering to add the little centres from both the 'e's.  The baby letters are from a Kelly Purkey letter set.  I'm photographing this late afternoon, and the light has already faded, now that we are well into Autumn.  I'll have to start earlier next time, right!

I have just discovered a new challenge blog:   Virginia's View and love what I have seen there.  I have only just started following Virginia, but her blog looks to be very interesting, and as she is so well-regarded in the card-making community, I am sure to find lots to inspire here. Challenge #3 (so a very new challenge blog, as I said) is all about Stitching.  Last night I finished a card I had prepped for my Probus Card Class the previous day, on which I had decided to use stitching around the image layer.  Perfect for this challenge!  With Mothers Day this month, the thanks could well be to all mums for all they do for us! I have coloured the flowers from the Stampin' Up! set So Very Grateful with Faber Castell Metallic pencils, blended slightly (I only had 4 pencils!) and finished with Gamsol.  I love the soft look these pencils have created.  I masked the sentiment strip to give the illusion of another layer and finally added liquid pearls...