Addicted to Stamps and More #200 - And 4th Birthday Celebrations!

Hi there

Well today there's a celebration at Addicted to Stamps are More!   Not only is this the 200th Challenge, ATSM is also 4 Years Old!  The lovely Kylie has been running this challenge since before I even discovered the wonderful world of crafty blogging and I think you'll agree that ATSM is a fabulous little challenge blog.

But I'm also a little sad today as this is my last post as a member of the Design Team at ATSM.  I've been part of Kylie's fantastic gang for the last two years (yes, really that long!) and have had an absolute ball but, after a lot of thought I feel it's the right time for me to step down.  Kylie, thank you for inviting me to be part of your lovely team and I can't wait to finally meet you in exactly a month's time! :D

Right, now to introduce this week's challenge, and we're back with this super fun Photo Inspiration Challenge...

To help us celebrate ATSM's 4th Birthday we have three fantastic sponsors all offering prizes this week...

Happy Little Stampers - $30 Gift Certificate

Paper Smooches - $25 Gift Certificate

QKR Stampede - 3 Digi Images

So I think you'll agree it's well worth playing along this week!

For my DT card I took inspiration from the polka dots and stripes, the quirky lettering style and the flower and butterfly...

I started by die cutting the happy birthday from the pink polka dot paper (making sure to keep the little bits from inside the letters!) and then affixed it to a scrap of cardstock entirely covered with adhesive.  I then cut the same lettering from the teal striped paper and inlaid these inside the pink panel, along with the little tiddly bits!  Once all stuck down I die cut with a stitched oval die and adhered this to a panel of white cardstock.  I covered the card base with the same striped paper and adhered the white panel over it. I finished off by popping up a flower and butterfly which were stamped, coloured with ProMarkers and FlexMarkers and die cut with their co-ordinating dies.

Materials used:

• Patterned Paper: Lawn Fawn - Let's Polka, Let's Polka Mon Amie
• Dies: Paper Smooches - Birthday Words; Lil' Inker - Stitched Ovals
• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Woodland Kisses (and matching dies)
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black
• Coloured with ProMarkers and FlexMarkers

Challenge entries:

I've used a few different dies on this card so I'm going to link up over at the Happy Little Stampers June Anything Goes with Dies challenge.

My teamies and I would love for you to join us this week and be in for a chance of winning one of those great prizes!  Thanks so much for popping by :)

Ghosting at Happy Little Stampers - There's Still Time!

Hi lovelies

Just popping by to share another card and remind you that there are still a few days left to participate in the June CAS challenge at Happy Little Stampers where our technique this month is Ghosting.

And you could be the lucky winner of the $15 discount prize at the HLS Shop.  So, if you're having a lazy Sunday why not have a go?!

Here's my card which uses the leaf image from the Doodled Flowers stamp set...

On a spare piece of white cardstock I blended a background in green and blue Distress Inks.  I then spritzed the leaf image with water before stamping onto my blended piece, held for a few seconds and then blotted away the water to remove the colour.  I continued doing this to create a random background pattern.  I then used a double stitched circle die to cut out a section.  I used a stitched die to create the pattern on my cardbase, adhered the circular piece over this and then added a die cut thanks in black to finish.

Materials used:

• Stamp: Happy Little Stampers - Doodled Flowers
• Ink: Distress Ink - Cracked Pistachio, Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon
• Dies: MFT - Double Stitched Circle Stax, Stitched Strip; Paper Smooches - Thanks Word

Challenge entries:

Happy Little Stampers - June Challenge - Anything Goes with Dies

Stamplorations - June CAS Challenge - Anything Goes (option: Blue)

Thanks so much for visiting today.

Less is More Week 282

Hi there

We have some wonderful news along with the new challenge at Less is More this week.  First the challenge details, and for our Recipe challenge and we would like you to...

Use a Stencil

Now for the news...

We have a fabulous new LIMette joining the Design Team.  And who better than Esther?!  Esther plays along every week and the support she gives to her fellow participants is amazing.  I think you'll agree that she will fit in just perfectly with our great little team. Welcome, Esther! x


Now onto my cards for this week...

I recently purchased a stencil featuring different sizes of stars so decided to do a little layered blending with Distress Inks to create this one layer card.  A bit of masking off areas of the stencil and shifting it around was all that was required before stamping the sentiment in black and adding some starry bling.

Materials used:

• Stencil: Efco - Stars
• Ink: Distress Ink - Milled Lavender, Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Twinkle Toes
• Accents: Papermania - Sparkling Stars Assorted Pastels

Just a little stencilling to accent the background on this one...

On some teal green cardstock I used an oval aperture cut from a scrap of cardstock as a mask and stencilled some translucent embossing paste through a striped stencil.  Next I stamped the flowers onto some clear vellum and heat embossed in white before adding some accents with a white pencil on the reverse.  The sentiment was also heat embossed in white and the flowers adhered over the oval detail before adhering the panel to the card base on 3D foam.  I'm a little disappointed that I've lost some of the pencil detail on the bloom, I couldn't find my thick vellum so this was very thin and the glue was much more visible.  Oh well, you get the idea!

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Bazzill Basics
• Stencil: MFT - Diagonal Stripes
• Embossing Paste: Dreamweaver - Translucent
• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - To Have & To Hold, Pretty Petals
• Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities - Classic Ovals; Clearly Besotted - To Have & To Hold
• Ink: VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White
• Vellum from stash

Challenge entries:

Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes

Penny Black and More - June Challenge - Flower Power

My teamies have worked wonders with their stencils this week, we have a really diverse selection so why not take a look, and on their personal blogs too.  We would love for you to join us this week.