19 December 2015

WEEKS 255 & 256

Happy Christmas Everyone!
We hope that you all have a wonderful time wherever you may be over the holiday period.

We have decided to let this challenge run for two weeks as many will not have too
 much time for crafting with everything else that's going on at this time of year.
SO ... thinking of home and families, our theme for you is ...

HOMESPUN
homespun
ˈhəʊmspʌn/
adjective
  1. 1.
    simple and unsophisticated.
    "homespun philosophy"
  2. 2.
    (of cloth or yarn) made or spun at home.

This may conjure up many differing images in one's mind, but think simple, primitive,
lots of white space, gingham, knitting, sewing, folk art... you get the idea!


Here are some examples to whet your whistles!

This is a little image from Little Claire I believe, with a tiny bit of paper piecing and 
colouring with alcohol pens. The large heart is die-cut from felt and the smaller one 
from a Stampin' Up Embosslit. The sentiment is computer generated.

Sarah
This is quite literally 'spun' having tipped up all my boxes of bits and bobs to 
find my flower 'spinning' loom and using Hemp twine I've fashioned this 
flower with a button threaded to the centre. It's not exactly postage-friendly hence
 the circular aperture and mounting on funky foam to allow the flower to be stitched 
to the card base. The striped design paper matches pretty well and adds a little
 more interest to the card. To finish a birthday sentiment from Happy Little Stampers


Anita

I stamped four different stitch designs from the Stamped Stitches set by 
Hot Off The Press on a cardstock panel and topped with a faux stitched heart 
by Clearly Besotted, stamped and die cut from some patterned paper.  
I tied some Hemptique twine in a bow to the back of a button by Stampin' Up, adhered this with a glue dot and stamped the sentiment from Paper Smooches' 
Chit Chat set in Celadon ink by Versa Color, to co-ordinate with the button.

Anne

Paper pieced digi from Pink Petticoat on kraft, colouring with Inktense pencils.  Computer generated sentiment, a dotty button and some twine added.


As ever there are more examples to be found on the individual blogs of the DT
and we would all  love to have you visit us there.
***


18 December 2015

ShowCASe Week 253


Hello there LIMettes - are you ready for a colourful showCASe!

It's time to reveal our choices following the blue and green 
colour combo challenge and what a creative and clever 
bunch you are - never ones for making it easy for us are you?

Here goes in order of entry:


what a wonderful background, watery and full of movement, 
great use of the challenge colours.



we loved that dramatic, offset snowflake and the doodled border, 
great use of the challenge colours.




what gorgeous colours for the adorable image and love the
splattering on the background too.


We're sure you'll all agree that these are spectacular and well worthy
of our ShowCASe badge. Congratulations ladies and we hope you'll take 
a ShowCASe badge from the page at the top and display it proudly
on your blogs to show our thanks and appreciation!

There's still a little time to enter our One Layer 
'What's in my Stocking' challenge which ends at 10.00pm GMT today
before we announce our final challenge for 2015 tomorrow
at 8.00am GMT -  we hope you'll join us then!



12 December 2015

Week 254 ONE Layer Challenge

It's

 ONE LAYER WEEK

These challenges seem to come around really quickly!
Here's another and this time we'd like to see

WHAT'S IN MY STOCKING ?

Are you up for a little fun?
You can take this cue any way you like, but remember it must be a
ONE LAYER CARD with lots of white space!

A stocking is not necessary on your cards, but you may like to depict
something which may have been in one!

Here are our examples to get you in the mood!

Anne

I am always happy to find chocolate in my stocking, this Rubber Romance 
image and sentiment sum it up - at least the chocolate!  
Coloured with Copics.


Chrissie
If I'm ever stuck for an image for any particular challenge, I often look to the Internet 
for copyright-free colouring pages. This is one which can be easily downloaded.
The sentiment was computer generated and I think is rather fitting for this image. 
It was coloured with alcohol pens and gently twinkled with Wink of Stella.


Sarah

The images are from Clearly Besotted: Naughty or Nice, coated in 
glossy accents and left to dry overnight before inking with distress ink
in Blueprint Sketch. The curve detail is created using the MFT Die-namics stitched 
border dies to emboss the card base. The sentiment is from CAS-ual Fridays


Anita

I stamped this gorgeous image, 'Hanging the Stockings' by Lili of the Valley, 
and sketchily coloured it in with my Derwent Coloursoft pencils, 
I think pencils were a good choice for this style of image.  
The sentiment is from Happy Little Stampers 'Mixed Christmas Sentiments'.  
Oh to be a child again with the excitement of hanging up our stockings 
waiting for Santa. I couldn't share what's likely to be in my stocking 
as I don't get one anymore! (can you hear those violins?!) haha


We hope you enjoy the challenge and that you are feeling super festive!

***


11 December 2015

Fruity ShowCASe

Good morning all!
Week 252 SHOWCASE
Here is our showcase for the Fruity challenge from week 252! 
What a great bunch of cards were on display!

Pears, Mistletoe, CAS
We all loved this card with its perfectly co-ordinated sentiment and image, and the inky backdrop is fantastic.

Joyce's stamping is so crisp and vibrant, a wonderful layout and the stamped plaid strip is flawless.

A lovely traditional card, lots of white space, wonderful colouring and just the right amount of sparkle.

We're sure you'll all agree that these are splendid indeed.
Congratulations to you all. Please take our ShowCASe badge from the page at the top for your blogs.

Our thoughts are with all the folk in Cumbria at the moment during the dreadful floods, let's hope we can support the businesses which are still operational in the area during this really trying time.
There's still a little time to join this week's colour challenge which ends at 10pm GMT tonight, but another fun one will start in the morning at 8am, so do join us then!

05 December 2015

Week 253 Colour

Morning LIMettes are we ready to have some colour-fun?

Yep it's that one again but first of all being the first Saturday in 
the month means we've also a new sponsor to announce! 

We are delighted to welcome back 'Dies to Die for' who are generously offering a
 £15 voucher to our December winner to spend in their online shop HERE





So back to our Colour Challenge and this week it's 
Green & Blue

Here's what the DT have created and we hope you feel inspired to play along. 
Please remember to keep your cards Clean and Simple with some yummy white space!

I started by making a stencil using a die from Clearly Besotted's Leafy Accents and sponged Mowed Lawn Distress Ink onto a cardstock panel.  I then stamped the butterfly from Clearly Besotted's Elegant Butterflies set using Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink, drawing in some of the ink with water, and die cut using the co-ordinating die.  I stamped the sentiment, from Pure Florals Cosmos by Uniko and then created some ink splatters with a mix of Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and water.  The butterfly was adhered on 3D foam and some clear Wink of Stella added to it for some shimmer.

My Crazy Birds fly again, this time with accessories!  Coloured with Copics, 
Glossy Accents on the eyes.  The sentiment is computer generated.


Here is a sweet little stamp from Hobby Art coloured with alcohol pens and with the bear gently twinkled with Glamour dust! After cutting out, it was mounted on a stitched square die-cut, popped onto dimensional pads and accompanied by a sentiment from Happy Little Stampers.

Using a piece of blue textured cardstock from Papermania I've die-cut
snowflakes with the Lawn Fawn snowflakes die before mounting the card
on 3d foam. The sentiment is from Happy Little Stampers and I've added
subtle green with some gems from my stash to the centres of the snowflakes.


We hope you have some fun and find a little time to play along!

***





November Winner

Hi there LIMettes!
WOW! Not only has another month zipped by in a flash
but we are almost skipping into a new year too! 

That's a mountain of wonderful creations you have delighted us with
and today we are announcing our winner for November!

Generously sponsored by 

November Sponsor

Our super loyal and lucky winner for this one is 

Viv

Viv has been supporting and entering our challenges forever and even
enters more than once a week. It never ceases to amaze how she finds the time 
and energy combined with other entertaining activities described in her cheery posts.
She certainly knows how to party as well as create stunning and inspirational cards.

We love your work Viv and hope you'll continue to support our challenges.

Congratulations and please contact us by email for details of how to claim your prize
LIM2011@gmx.com

There's a winner's badge waiting for from the page link at 
the top of the blog. We hope you'll 'wear' it with pride on your blog!





04 December 2015

ShowCASe Week 251

Morning all, it's 'number-cruncher' time!
Well ... time for us to announce our showCASe following the
numbers challenge and what a brilliant and fun collection to select from!

So here goes in order of entry:

Neon, bold, striking numbers - who can resist this eye-popper!
Perfectly crisp, clean, classy and we love the stunning simplicity!


Another crisp and clean card with elegant die-cut numbers in pretty pastel shades.
All set against a striking and ornate clock face with the most awesome sentiment!


Here's a discreet and super clever take on the numbers challenge!
Once again crisp and clean stamping, lots of white space and one brilliant
'think outside the box' card. 


We hope you enjoy our showCASe and agree these are well worthy winners.
Congratulations ladies and we'd be honoured if you take a showCASe badge from 
the page at the top and display it proudly on your blogs with our thanks and 
appreciation for your continued support of our challenge.


Ok so we've a new challenge starting tomorrow but if you're quick you can 'squeeze' 
a card in to our fruity challenge which closes as 10pm GMT this evening.

Have some crafty fun!








28 November 2015

Week 252 Recipe

Good morning  LIMettes!

Today we have a recipe for you and what we would like you to include in your creation is 
FRUIT!

Do remember to leave plenty of white space and limit the amount of layering that
you add to your cards... basically keep your designs 
CLEAN AND SIMPLE!
Here are our examples to get you started!

Sarah

It's Christmas at every opportunity for me so satsumas are festive - yeah?
 I started out by stamping a wood grain background from Winnie & Walter  
followed by the embossed sentiment from Happy Little Stampers. The rest of the 
elements are die-cut using circles for the 'satsumas' and Clearly Besotted Autumn
 Foliage for the leaves and pine-cones. For added interest and definition I've inked 
with distress inks plus Wink of stella and glossy accents to some to them. 



I printed a digi image from a Pink Petticoat set called Partridge in a Pear Tree, coloured with my ProMarkers and then die cut with an MFT fishtail flag die.  The musical notes were stamped from the Rockin' Robin set by Clearly Besotted.  I used two more of the fishtail flag dies to cut two pieces of co-ordinating patterned paper, the polka dot from MFT Dots & Stripes Neutral and the green from Santa Express by Doodbug.  I adhered some kraft cardstock to my card base, layered the papers and finally popped the image panel up on 3D foam strips.
 Stamp and sentiment are both from Heartfelt Creations. Sentiment is gold embossed, 
cherries are coloured with Copics and Glossy Accents added.  The frame was cut 
with Simon Says Stamp stitched squares and rectangles.

Here the fruit is the olive in the martini!
The image is from Art Impressions, stamped in Memento Tuxedo black and embossed 
with WOW Neutral Ultra Shimmer embossing powder. The olive was coloured 
with alcohol pens  and the glass glazed with Glossy Accents.
The sentiment was computer generated using  Bohemian Typewriter font and reads 
'It doesn't matter is the glass is half full or half empty... it clearly needs topping up!'

Do try to visit the DT's personal blogs where you will find some additional cards to inspire you!

We hope you have fun with this one, obviously there are many kinds of fruit... 
including mistletoe and holly if you still need to get some Christmas cards done!

We're waiting to see what you can come up with!
***


27 November 2015

Santa ShowCASe Week 250

SHOWCASE Week 250
What fun cards were submitted for our Santa challenge and it was a delight to choose our showcase for this week!
Even the ONE LAYER element didn't cause too much trepidation it seems, as we had some terrific submissions!
Without further ado, here are our choices!

What amazing colouring! If you haven't visited Rachel's blog, we would urge you to do so, you won't be disappointed with her fabulous work!

What perfect use of white space and immaculate stamping !
Just beautiful!

Deepti has achieved such a vibrant scene with her exceptional inking and stamping!
What a fun card!

Congratulations ladies, please take the badge from the page at the top to pop on your blogs with our thanks.

There's just a little time to join in our numbers challenge which ends tonight and don't forget to check out our new challenge tomorrow at 8am GMT!

21 November 2015

Week 251 Theme


Morning LIMettes are you ready for our theme week?

You certainly had some fun with Santa in every shape and style last week
but you can put all Christmas ideas out of your mind for this one - our theme is
NUMBERS!

We would like to see numbers, or reference to them in some way!
DO keep your design Clean and Simple with lots of white space!

Here's what we've been up to ...

Here I used a  a collage of numbers background stamp from Kaisercraft, stamped and clear embossed then inked with a variety of Distress Inks. The sentiment from Winnie and Walter was triple layered and mounted over the stitched tag die!

Sarah

This one's for my daughter's friend so she quickly sifted through my sets looking for words and phrases to describe her friend! I love the 'You're a Good Egg' and 'You Crack me Up' from Mama Elephant: Just Hatched. The others are taken from various Uniko Studio and Clearly Besotted sets.
 The words are stamped using a sticky pigment ink then heat embossed in clear EP to add some shine! The sparkly '18' die-cut is from Avery Elle then inlaid  into a stitched circle from Simon Says Stamp. To finish I've scored a few lines above and below the panel then added some sparkly gems from my stash.

I stamped five balloons in blue shades and die cut with their co-ordinating dies, these from Clearly Besotted's Make a Wish set.  I then positioned them roughly where I wanted them and marked under each one with a pencil.  Further down the card I marked a central point then drew in the 'strings' with a fineliner pen.  The balloons where then adhered in place and the sentiment from Paper Smooches' Birthday Sampler set was stamped onto a panel, die cut using a stitched rectangle die by MFT.

My numbers card was a bit of an ageist dig for a good friend.  The Crazy Bird was coloured with Copics and given bulgy Glossy Accents eyes.  The splats are MFT stamps and the text computer generated.


We hope you enjoy this one and look forward to seeing what you
come up with! Don't forget to visit some of your fellow LIMettes too
with some encouraging feedback - we all love those comments eh!
PLEASE NOTE
Blogger in its wisdom has introduced a random verification system . If the DT try to comment and the verification questions cannot be understood, comments may not be left!
We are really sorry about this and hope that Blogger will come to its senses and remove this silly process very soon!
***


20 November 2015

ShowCASe Week #249

Morning all, it's time for another ShowCASe following our

FIRE-coloured Challenge

Those colours definitely seemed to inspire you LIMettes!
There were so many striking and vibrant cards to enjoy looking at.  
We've narrowed the choices down but could not choose between these 
- so, in order of entry, it's a Top 4 this week!

We hope you'll agree these are simply awesome and worthy of our showCASe!

 The plaid that Rema created using fiery colours is clever, but then to die cut 
and inset to create a CAS design with lots of white space is sheer genius. 
 Love the overstamped sentiment!


Stunning colouring of a timely poppy, the rich, fiery shading and
 the off the page image make a striking card!


The strong colours worked really well for these feathers, 
perhaps they are from a mythical phoenix?   
Nicely balanced design with plenty of white space!


Sylvia-Anne
This sunset is a real piece of art, what clever blending of inks, 
set off to perfection by the silhouette in front!


Huge congratulations ladies and please take a ShowCASe Badge
from the page at the top - we'd love you to 'wear it with pride'
on your blogs and thank you for your continued support of 
Less is More!


There's still a little time to join our one layer Santa challenge 
which ends at 10pm GMT tonight then we'll be back with a
new challenge tomorrow morning at 8am GMT!




14 November 2015

One Layer Week 250

It's back to
ONE LAYER 
cards again this week and we have a super fun theme for you to adhere to!
It's SANTA!

Do remember to leave lots of white space and do keep your designs really simple!
Here are our cards to give you a few ideas!


I bought this fun stamp from Little Claire, at Sincerely Yours show when I was out and about with Chrissie.  I've coloured him with Koh-i-Noor pencils on kraft card and added a sentiment from Dylusions.

I love Penny Blacks ducks and this one is a real cutie. It was coloured with Distress Inks and  a water brush and accompanied by a computer generated sentiment, which reads... What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck?   ... a Christmas Quacker!


Sarah

Santa falling down the chimney is an old wooden stamp that's been
in my stash forever and I've used various sets by Clearly Besotted, 
Uniko and Paper Smooches to create the colourful explosion of gifts and images.




This card took a bit of planning but was pretty simple to create.  I sketched a Santa hat onto a post-it note and cut it out from the inside to create a mask, firstly minus the white parts.  I used a grey card base as I wanted the white to eventually show up.  I blended Barn Door Distress Ink through the mask to add some light and shade.  I then cut two more masks for the fluffy parts of the hat and swiped a VersaMark ink pad over the negative space onto my card base.  I then heat embossed these areas with white powder by Wow!  I finished with a sentiment from MFT Christmas Cuteness.

We are really looking forward to seeing what you all come up with and just think, it will be one less card for you to make when the time comes for you to send out your own Christmas cards!

***


13 November 2015

Paper Piecing ShowCASe

ShowCASe  
Week 248

We have another group of deliciousness for you today with our 
Paper Piecing ShowCASe
Without further ado here they are in the order which they were submitted.


We thought Tara's paper piecing of this comfy pile of blankets was just fabulous.  Paired with the crisp stitched panel makes this perfectly CAS.
We loved the sentiment and Susan's fantastic paper pieced image.  The colour blocked design also made this a really striking card.
Joyce
Such a fabulous scene for Christmas.  Those images look wonderful after being paper pieced and Joyce managed to keep her card beautifully CAS even with the bold two-part sentiment.

What a wonderful bunch!
We're sure you'll want to join with us to congratulate these ladies on their wonderful inspirational work!
If you haven't visited them already it would be great if you could pop by their blogs to leave a few kind words! 

DO please take the showcase badge from the page at the top!

There's still a tiny bit of time left to join in with this week's FIERY colour challenge, but do come by tomorrow for our new challenge starting at 8am GMT.

11 November 2015

October Winner

Hello LIMettes, another month has whizzed by 
which means it's time to announce our winner for October!

Our generous sponsor for the month was 

October Sponsor

and our winner is 

Maaike of  Cards by Maaike

Maaike never seems to miss a challenge, producing fun, striking and
inspirational cards week after week! What's more she is always zipping here 
and there with a friendly comment for her fellow LIMettes, offering 
appreciation and encouragement every time.

We're sure you'll agree that Maaike is a very worthy winner.
We always appreciate your contribution to our challenges Maaike
and hope you enjoy your prize.

Please contact us by email for details of how to claim it.
LIM2011@gmx.com

There's a winner's badge waiting for you at the top of our blog, 
which we'd love to see displayed on your blog with our thanks!

Congratulations!

If you haven't already entered our current 'FIRE' coloured challenge,
there's still time before it ends on Friday at 10pm GMT