Another attempt at LIM Sentiment Focus Challenge

Having posted that I had some doubts about the three cards that I featured in my last post, I received mixed comments and some interesting feedback, which certainly gave me some food for thought. I've taken another stab at the Less is More Challenge to make a one layer card with the sentiment as the focus, and this is the result:

Once again I was able to give a first airing to some stamps that I had never used before. The background is a stamp from Elusive Images which is stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Lavender. Sadly the shimmer doesn't show up well in the photo. The sentiment is from a  clear set by Cloud 9. Just a touch of bling finishes the card off. I did think of using pearls, but didn't have the correct shade, or tiny flowers punched from vellum, but they didn't look right. So there it is, very simple.

My initial reaction to the feedback on the previous cards was to mull over the advice offered and try to do better next time. However, I just couldn't resist reworking them to try to take on board the points that were made. Here follow the results, which you may or may not think look better.

For this one I replaced the Kids Quote sentiment with a quote that I found on the internet and typed into a text box in Word. I used what I think looks like a more sophisticated font to fit better with the style of the frame.

 Here again, I've replaced the sentiment - this time with another stamped sentiment from the Cloud 9 set. I've used a blue ink instead of black, but am still wondering if it's a little too dark for the background image. I'm tempted to try it again with the text stamped in a softer grey shade. 

Finally, I reworked the ribbon on this one and added some black gems. Someone did ask in one of the comments how I managed to emboss the front of the card without the lines of the folder showing. Well the truth is that I didn't manage that with this card, and the ribbon is there primarily to hide that line. If I were starting this card again from scratch, I would emboss it more carefully and make sure that the edges of the folder did not pass through the pressure rollers in my Cuttlebug, as I did with the cupcake card above. It's hard for me to describe exactly what I mean, but there are some good and useful resources on the internet if you do a search for Cuttlebug tips.

Once again, many thanks to all who took the time to view and review my cards. All of your comments are really appreciated.

LIM Challenge - Sentiment Focus

I really love the Less is More Challenge for several reasons, including:
It's all about Clean and Simple cards, which are my favourite style.
It's inspiring me to use stamps and techniques that I've never used before and to try out new ideas.
Best of all, it's creating a lovely supportive community of LIMettes, many of whom take the time to visit each other's blogs and leave comments. I'd like to thank all those of you who visited this blog last week and left encouraging comments. I really do appreciate it.

Anyway, this week's challenge is to make the sentiment the focus of your card, and I leapt into this with great gusto, as I have several sets of sentiment stamps that have yet to see a whiff of an inkpad. So much gusto in fact that I've ended up making three cards and I can't decide on one to submit for the challenge, so I'm going to list all three. To be honest, I've slept on these and now am not quite so sure about any of them, so if you do feel like leaving a comment, I would appreciate some constructive criticism. So, taking a deep breath (and once again apologising for my poor photography), here goes with attempt number one:

The sentiment is from a really cute Inkadinkadoo set of Kids Quotes, which fits neatly into the frame created by the Cuttlebug Embossing Folder. To give a little taste of chocolate, I stamped the small cupcake from an Elusive Images set and coloured it with my Prismacolor pencils.

For card number two, I used Tim Holtz stamps and embossed with a Nestability die:

I wanted to keep the background image very subtle so used a pale chalk ink for that one, which sadly doesn't show up very well in the photo. I'm not entirely sure that the image fits in very well with the sentiment, which suggests something rather more chaotic to me, but I didn't have anything suitable that would fit in with the CAS theme.

I've used another Tim Holtz sentiment for the third card:

This one would also fit in with last week's theme of A touch of Red. I used a different embossing folder for this one and I picked out the heart with a glaze pen, so it's glossy in real life. I'm not sure about the ribbon and bow on this one. I think it may be a little too dominant.
I'd be really interested to hear what anyone else thinks, but even if you don't leave a comment, thanks for looking.

A Touch of Red

Finally spurred into a return to blogging by the fantastic new CAS challenge blog at Less is More, here is my entry for this week's challenge, A touch of Red. I also made a second, similar card:

The image stamp is by Rubber Romance, I stamped in Versafine then clear embossed to give a sharper contrast and set the ink. The sentiments are by Hero Arts. Sorry the photos aren't brilliant, but I'm out of practice. I hope you like the cards.