Thinking about chocolate

Hello, crafting friends!

I've been thinking about chocolate a lot in the last week. No change there, you might be thinking (and you'd be right!) but this chocolate pondering was more because there are a couple of challenges with a chocolate theme!

Hmmm. Chocolate. Not my first choice when deciding on a colour! And if my thoughts strayed to actual chocolate, well who can blame me?! To make my chocolates, I used the diamond shape from Spellbinder's Optical Illusion Geo dies. I varied the card stock to make dark, milk and white chocolates and decorated them with various stamps from my stash and a tiny die cut heart.

I needed somewhere to display my chocolates so I masked off the edges of a card panel and blended chocolate milk colour ink up from the bottom to a fade. Once the mask was removed, the chocolates were arranged on the panel and those that were hanging off the edge were trimmed. I finished with an appropriate sentiment put together from a couple of sets.

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in at Less is More's 10th birthday challenge where the colour Chocolate is the theme; Since I used dies to make my chocolates, I'm also linking up with Happy Little Stampers Die challenge where Anything Goes; I'm also linking up with The Dream Factory, a new-to-me challenge which uses films to inspire crafters; this month's movie is Chocolat.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Back in 2011, I remember being so excited about a new challenge that was dedicated to CAS, my natural style of card making. Like many other crafters around the world, I became a fully-fledged LiMette and looked forward to the new challenges posted each Saturday! It's lovely to see Chrissie and Mandi return to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of their 'baby'. They both really engaged with their followers, making a point of visiting every single entrant to the challenge. That made it seem like a club where everyone knew each other but, as the challenge was extremely popular, it must have been a massive  workload. Of course Less is More is a fortnightly challenge now and has a much larger team of talented designers to share the load. I love that some of them were LiMettes right from the start :) Happy birthday Less is More!! *clinks glass*

Sending hugs,

A sweet valentine - but not too sweet

Hello crafting friends!

I've come up with another valentine that won't revolt my family too much! Come and see:

This was the best fun to make! The sweets are from You're So Sweet by Hunkydory and I just placed them all together on my stamping platform, inked them up and stamped them with Memento black ink. They were then coloured with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and fussy cut. It did take a little time but I'm the kind of weirdo that likes fussy cutting!

The sentiment has been put together from a couple of Clearly Besotted sets - 'you're the sweetest' from Sweet Berries and 'Sweet' from Apples and Pears. I used my Stamping platform to position it onto a card panel. It makes a cute little greeting but I'm sure I can get away with it if I pretend it's a joke!

Once I'd got my sentiment positioned where I wanted it, I cut it out with a long stitched rectangle by Christina Griffiths and then replaced it into the negative space to give it a nice embossed frame sort of look. And with everything ready, I positioned the sweets around the sentiment and glued them in place.


CHALLENGES
This card leapt into my head when I saw Joanne's fabulous sketch at The Paper Players this week, so I shall link up there. I'm also linking up with Just Add Ink, where there's a lovely bright colour palette to inspire us; I chose Lovely Lipstick, Blueberry Bushel and Daffodil Delight to colour my sweets.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My daughter used to play with all sorts of odd toys when she was a little girl - buttons, scarves and, memorably, saucepans because she had an audio story about kitchen implements coming to life. The pans were ordinary stainless steel from my cupboard but she called them Bubble and Squeak and loved them so much that she once persuaded me to take her to the shop to buy cakes and treats as it was 'Bubble's birthday'! Hence a conversation between OH and I yesterday.
OH: I'm just nipping down to the shop to get a packet of biscuits.
Me: Why? Is it the saucepan's birthday?!

Have you, or someone you know, ever had a non-conventional toy? I'd love to hear about it!

Hugs,