Less is more... unless it's turquoise!

 

For Week #104 the LIM girls have on offer a sweet little sketch drawn by Jen.

 

The instructions are very simple:

 

Make sure that the card stays in this orientation so that the band remains in the horizontal plane, in the lower part of the card and that it takes up no more than 1/3rd of the height of the cardbase.

 

 

With this in mind I'm not quite sure how my 'band' crept a little up the card - I think it happened during the masking process! The sweet stamp is from Art Journey and is called 'Gorgeous Kids', and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I needed to do plenty of masking with this one, which I do enjoy but find tricky. I added some scoring to give added definition to the panel.

 

I have a real passion for turquoise (did you guess???) and so found myself swooooooning at the colour of the newly arrived library shelves.

Here's Mark, our lovely Caretaker beginning the assembly job. I can't wait to see the finished result, and neither can the kids as they've been pressing their noses against the glass panel in the door all day!

 Happy crafting everyone!

 

 

Dude, you rock!

Ok, I confess... occasionally I CASE a card. There, I've said it: I've finally come clean!
In truth I really don't do this very often, and if I ever do CASE someone else's work I don't show it on my Blog. However, I'm breaking this rule to share a card that I made over the weekend, inspired by the current theme at Less is More.

This fabulous original from the amazing Godelieve etched itself into my brain when I saw it a while ago. I wanted to make a card for my friend Rob's birthday and so needed a masculine look. No matter how hard I tried I kept coming back to the image that I had in my head of Godelieve's card, and so this was the result!  As you can see it is 'totally inspired' by the original, with the addition of a balloon, and a sentiment from Papertrey Ink.

Finally, here's a little funny moment from school today:

One of the children had written a story about time travelling back to the Tudor Period. It was an excellent piece, with lots of authentic language and images, only spoilt slightly by the fact that at the end of a hard days toil the servants sat down and shared a hearty meal of Pepperoni Pizza.

Happy crafting everyone!

Friends

 

What a nice theme for Week #103 over at LIM.

I was quite inspired and dashed off a few different cards. You can never have too many cards for the friends in your life! I'll share some of the others later in the week.

I had lot's of inky fun making this one. I'm really into emboss resist at the moment and am covered in ink as a result. My hubby says I look like a small child who has drawn on herself with felt pen!

This next card doesn't really fit the criteria for CAS, so I thought I'd just share it rather than entering it separately. The main image is an Emerson Quillin stamp and the words are from an Art Impressions quotes stamp. I think they're great in combination!

 

The first card is for my friend Karen's birthday, and the second card is part of a batch that I am making to raise money for Cancer Research in memory of my friend Shell.

Happy crafting everyone, and I hope that you are all managing to keep warm while it's so cold!

Health and Safety

I should be at college tonight but it was closed due to health and safety worries concerning the ice on the car park. This means that I get a bit of blogging time as I am up to date with all my work!

I'm hoping that this card has reached it's destination by now as it was made for a special (and very talented) blog buddy who lives in Norway.

All stamps are from Hero Arts, except for the numbers. Not sure where they came from but I've had them for years and they have gone all rubbery and sticky... yuk!

Happy crafting everyone, hope you all keep warm and cosy in your craft rooms!

Less is more, unless you are Mario Balotelli!

The girls over at Less is More are starting the New Year in great style with a totally yummy colour challenge!

 

They've asking for BLACK and WHITE with 'a touch or a splash, a hint or suggestion, a dab or a patch of a colour of your choice'.

The idea being that the black and white are predominant and the added colour is subtle.
 

 

There are some amazing entries this week and I'm rather shy about adding my own little effort to such a collection of gorgeousness.    

I used a lovely Hero Arts stamp that I've had for ages. I decoupaged three layers to give it some dimension then added a Hero Arts pearl and matching some SU card. Very quick and easy, and great for making in multiples.





Finally, here's a conversation that I had at school today...

Cute child: 'Miss, I can't make my mind up what to be when I grow up... either a footballer or a librarian'

Me: 'Well, I think you'd earn more as a top professional footballer but librarianship is very interesting'

Cute child: 'So how much do YOU earn Miss?'

Me: 'Not as much as Mario Balotelli'

Cute Child (looking surprised): 'Really Miss?'

Me: 'No, he makes a little more per hour than I do'

Happy crafting everyone!

 

 

Shabby Shutters and Peacock Feathers

Happy New Year everyone!

I've managed to squeeze in some crafting time before I go back to work next week. And what a lovely, inky time I've had using my new Distress inks!

I've kept the stamping minimal so that I could pile on the colour... such fun.















These two cards also received a swoooosh of Glimmer mist and look really lovely IRL.

For regular visitors to my Blog here is a little update of how things are progressing in the school library. This picture shows me working on a display a few weeks ago with my lovely new friends Kath and Helen.

 As you can see things are really shaping up now, and hopefully the new shelving should arrive fairly soon... I can't wait to see it as I've chosen turquoise.

 This picture was taken just before Helen went on maternity leave. I was convinced she was going to have the baby in the library, but thankfully lovely Logan Samuel John arrived safely at home as planned.



 The library is filling up with books and the response from the children has been wonderful. To say that they love visiting the library is an understatement! It was great to spend the run up to Christmas in a school, especially when one of the children told me in a broad Black Country accent that 'Jesus is Santa's son miss'. He's only 4 years old bless him!

 

So happy crafting everyone, and I promise to be back soon to visit and share!