less is more sketch#10

It's sketch week at Less is More, with this sketch

I'm starting to get into Christmas mode, so I made this card using Jofy stamps from PaperArtsy. The bauble is coloured with pencils and whispers pens (to get the depth of colour) and finished with  some glitter glue.

I had to trim the sentiment to make it fit, but I like it with the squiggles so I also made another card, similar but not following the sketch, which I shall be entering for One Layer Wednesday's Free For All Challenge.

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Chutney Tuesday : spicy blackberry and apple chutney

If you are lucky enough to have a blackberry bush locally, here's a recipe to use all of those wonderful free fruit and continue to enjoy them over the coming months,

This is my own recipe and I'm absolutely thrilled with how it turned out, really tasty!

recipe
2 red onions and 1 white onion finely sliced
2 Bramley apples chopped into small chunks
400g blackberries (whole)
3g fresh ginger finely chopped (yes this is a tiny amount - it happened to be all I had)
1 clove garlic finely chopped
1 red chilli finely sliced including seeds
1tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbls oil
250 ml red wine vinegar
250g dark soft brown sugar.

Fry onion, garlic, chilli and ginger in oil, until softened. Add apples, blackberries, cinnamon, mustard seeds, vinegar and sugar.
Stir well bring to simmer and slowly increase to a boil, cook uncovered for approx 25 mins, stirring regularly to ensure it doesn't burn, until you can drag a wooden spoon through and it doesn't fill immediately. The appearance is similar to blackberry jam.
Transfer to hot sterilised jars. ( I just run them through hot cycle, top rack, of dishwasher) store in cool dark place for as few weeks, or as long as you want. Flavours develop with time, and should keep for ages)

less is more: fabric

The theme at less is more is fabric. I went the easy route and made a fabric flower.
 I have decided to do a quick tutorial for this flower.

 first use PaperArtsy's grunge flower #1 to cut a flower and leaf from felt. These dies cut so easily through felt.

 then trim as shown

 roll up, not too tightly.

 glue last bit in place and then glue to leaf

 squish, to open up the flower

Stamp a background, and attach flower.
The stamps I used are a splatter, script and sentiment, all from PaperArsty

my first guest designer week at Paperartsy.

If you haven't already seen it, I am happy to announce that I have been the guest designer on the PaperArtsy blog this week. I had projects featured sunday, monday and tonight (see the sneak previews above)
There's also a challenge to make something inspired by my projects, to win some stamps.
of course my pieces are all really quick and simple so it won't take you long to enter! I hope you enjoy.

Less is more: get well soon.

It's One Layer week at Less is more, so I just had to take part. The theme is get well soon. I decided just to go with the sentiment and simple embellishment. The sentiment is a studio G stamp, and the flourish is by PaperArtsy and stamped with jenni bowlin stick candy ink

 

and is the perfect size for this stamp. I finished by simply dotting pink glitter glue (cheap Craft Planet stuff) around the flourish. Job done!

p.s. keep an eye on the PaperArsty blog tonight, I'm not saying why....

(back at you, Laura!)

one layer wednesday: it's all about the sentiment.

I can't resist a good one layer challenge. This week the theme at OLW is "it's all about the sentiment"
I immediatly knew that I would use this sentiment from PaperArtsy, it's a great sentiment but it's also a nice big stamp which makes it a great focal stamp.

I am also entering this card for Daring Cardmaker's theme of "signature style". This is most definitely my signature style, right down to using the splatter stamp, which I seem to use all of the time!

I have overstamped with fresco Hey Pesto paint, which is a transparent paint meaning that you can stamp it over the sentiment and it won't obscure any detail. The stamps I used are the splatter (my favourite stamp) from this set and the flourish from this set.

I decided that the card needed a little more detail, I thought about adding some embellishments but decided that I wanted to keep it truly one-layer so decided to add some pink splatters.

*first problem: no pink paint! so I mixed some London bus(transparent) and nougat (opaque) to make a gorgeous pink.

*second problem: this paint was opaque(which I wanted it to be so it would sit above the green) which meant I couldn't stamp it as it would obscure some of the lettering. So I applied it with the end of a paintbrush, just dotting it wherever I felt it needed it.

I really like how it came out, and the best thing was the whole thing took less than 5 minutes!

 (you may note that I've been using a lot of PaperArsty recently, it's kind of taken centre stage on my craft table for a good reason which will be revealed very soon!)

Tag Along Challenge: Polka Dots

This is the first time that I have taken part in the new challenge "Tag Along". I couldn't resist a polka dot challenge, especially as I have had this idea floating around in my head for a couple of weeks. The flower was created by "inking" up a solid style stamp with paint and then adding dots with a different colour paint directly to the stamp using the eraser end of a pencil.

I found that it was important to use as little paint as possible, or else the stamp will easily slip on the paper.

The tag itself is a #2 tag from PaperArtsy. Which is also where the paints and stamps are from (links below)

 

The script is stamped with paint, just lightly touching the tag to the stamp to use only a small part of the stamp. I inked the edges of the tag with brushed cordruoy distress ink and stampes the "smile" and splatter with the same ink. I added a polka dot ribbon, which I inked first with the distress ink.

 Finally, I decided to mount the tag to a card.

materials
Paints: Sky and Guacamole
stamps:  script, flower. smile, splatter
tag: #2

less is more: rust and dark green

I wasn't sure that I would take part in this week's less is more challenge. The inspiration colours are beautiful, but I didn't know what I would do with them.
This is the photo from which the colours have been taken,

Bu then Laura took part and bascically challenged me to do so....

....so then I had to.

I've been enjoying playing with PaperArtsy's fresco paints recently, but I didn't have the quite the right colours, so I decided to have a play at mixing colours.
Cinnamon and smoked paprika made a nice dark rust, Tinned peas and little black dress made a good dark green.

Now these colours made me think of the change of summer to autumn, so I decided to play with paperartsy's small oak leaf die. I painted the die cut with the green paint and then overstamped it with the rust using the splatter mini, repeatedly.

To finish I stamped onto the card with a script stamp and the rust paint. I attached the leaf and a tiny knot of string.

That Sketch Again

I got a mention on Laura's blog today to say that I'd inspired her to take part in the sketch challenge on Clean and Simple Stamping. It reminded me how useful this sketch is especially for masculine cards. I had a card for a teenage boy to make, so I made this.  The side panel is patterned paper. The splatter stamp and star are from PaperArsty. The Happy Birthday is from a clear stamp set.

Havng a sketch to work from makes quick cards such a breeze. This card took no more than 5 minutes to make.

clean and simple stamping : sketch 256

 

 I love this sketch at Clean and Simple Stamping, this week.

 

I made this card, using Stamps and Paints from PaperArtsy.

To make the edge panel, I masked off the section with post-its and applied Hey pesto (transclucent paint) with a sponge. I then stamped a small splatter stamp  with cheesecake (opaque) paint.

I then stamped the splatter stamp again (twice) with tinned peas (opaque) paint (and a little bit of cheesecake).
I finished with a cool star stamp and a good luck stamp

less is more: use a rubber stamp

This week's challenge at less is more is so easy that I found it almost impossible! use a rubber stamp....
okay which one of my hundreds (*coughs-thousands*) of stamps do I choose?

I decided to go for a paperartsy stamp that never fails. It really is a useful stamp.

There was also an optional extra part of this challenge, to use water colours.

so to make this card, I stamped the flower with black archival ink and then just swooshed some water colour paint over it. to finish I stamped the script stamp with dusty concord distress ink while the paint was still wet.

One of the things that I like about this card is that because the archival ink is oil based, it repels the water colour paints, leaving a "halo" around the stamped image.

I am also entering this card for One Layer Wednesday's "silhouette" challenge