Paper Hugs

Another quick post today because I have just come across a challenge at SnS which is all about animals!  I love to make cards with animals in them, and have just completed several baby cards featuring elephants, but more of that later.  The card I am choosing for this challenge uses a gorgeous stamp by Stampendous called Spring Chick!  I coloured her brightly, mounted the image on aqua cardstock, then onto a yellow card covered with the hexagon hive die cut by Stampin' Up.  I added a frangipani bloom because I wanted to ground the bright yellow.  No sentiment on the front because this card could say anything you wanted it to.

Watercolour techniques are everywhere at the moment, and I am loving them!  As a total novice at anything 'arty', I love that the supplies needed are not expensive and in fact you can use inks etc that you might already have.  Just buy some true watercolour paper, and some sort of brush or aqua painter, and you can start to create some amazing effects  The challenge at Less is More this week is just that - use water to move your colour - so I am entering a card I have made - my very first watercolour card - which I created following a tutorial by Dawn Wolesagle from WPlus9.  I didn't have the stamps she used, but I did have another WPlus9 stamp set, called Folk Art Florals, so I had a 'go'.  I love the result, but of course, need to practise a lot more!  I'm showing it here, just to be part of this challenge.   I used Distress markers for the colour, just scribbling them onto an acrylic block and spritzing with water to dilute.  T...

This week's challenge at Less is More , is a one-layer card, with the prompt:  off the edge.  As is my usual method of participating in a challenge, I haven't yet looked at any other entries, but I have had plenty of ideas myself, but most of them require another panel of cardstock!  I'm sure if I thought harder I could adapt my ideas, but I have a sore leg (what a baby!) and I don't think I'm feeling as on top of things as I should be.  One of the 10 BCCs (skin cancer) I had cut out 5 weeks ago still hasn't healed, and is now more painful than when it was first 'done'.  Lower legs are notoriously difficult to heal, I believe, but I'm back to keeping my leg up and now taking anti-biotics, so will be on the mend soon, I hope.  You really didn't need to know all that, of course, so here is my card: I have used images and sentiment from Stampin' Up's Peaceful Petals stamp set, coloured with Copics.  I quite like the design, so am happy ...

The great idea for the colour challenge at Less is More this week is to choose the colours of your bedroom.  I would expect that if you choose the colours of your bedroom yourself, then they must be colours you like!  My husband was just saying today that purple (and yellow, but we'll leave that part out) were always his favourite colours.  Luckily then, that we have 'aubergine' and predominantly white in our bedroom, with a little dash of other colour such as pink, lime, orange.  And maybe that is why my latest card has just those colours in it, so perfect for this challenge.  My card today has been a bit of an experimentation, using stencils, both bought and home made, and a couple of Memory Box dies - I love their daintiness.  But you can see that this card echos the colours in my bedroom.  I do apologise for the terrible photo of it, but it is impossible to take a better shot, as I'm looking into a wall of windows!  Our bed linen...

If you are like me, then you love stamping more than anything else when making a card!  I certainly love my dies, paper, and embellishments, but if there is little or no stamping on my card, I feel a bit of a fraud!  Well, if you feel like me, then this week at Less is More, is just for you.  Challenge 174 is a lucky dip, and it is to use more than one stamp. Here are my entries - yes, both of them! My first was created with a stamp by Acid Drops and Whatnots, which was a free gift in the Australian magazine, Simply Papercraft, and I used the sentiment from the same set.   I teamed this fun image with the wave stamp which is by Stamps of Life, and was part of last month's Stamp of the Month.  For the splashes, I used raindrop dies by Sweet 'n Sassy, a stitched sun die cut by Lil' Inker, and some washi tape for the side panels. For this more traditional card, I used a lovely flower from the Gina K set, A Year of Flowers, and the sentiment is by Stampin...