LE Designs Blog Monthly Events

LE Designs Blog Monthly Events
1st Thursday of the month - A review of a craft product
2nd Thursday of the month - Craft room inspiration
3rd Thursday of the month - Stamp set/die cutter review
4th Thursday of the month - A craft room storage idea
Any 5th Thursday in a month - *GIVEAWAY*

Thursday 30 January 2014

Rose Wedding Stationery Collection

We are delighted to announce that our Rose Wedding Collection has now been launched and is now available to purchase on ebay following this link - Rose Wedding Collection

The Rose Collection features a striking black and white floral pattern and a beautiful rose crystal embellishment.

















Runway Inspired Challenge 52 -Dennis Basso



As soon as I saw the picture inspiration for this challenge, my mind started planning ideas of how I could turn this into a card. The first part that striked me was the studded belt and I know my dots embossing folder would create the same texture. The floaty dress said 'vellum' to me - my favourite medium to use! I loved how there was the contrast between the bold colours of the prints on the dress and the pastel background colours of the dress itself..... Thats what gave me the idea to create bold coloured images, but to soften that all over by adding the vellum sheet in front.

So........here it is, my take on the Dennis Basso picture for Runway Inspired Challenge number 52.


I used pale yellow cardstock and attached it on to a white base card. Prior to attaching though, I stamped Uniko Studio's Pure Floral small Chrysanthemum outline stamp using clear embossing ink and clear embossing powder which was then dried. The flowers were then painted with watercolour paints in a variety of bold colours. Once dry, this was attached to the base card and a shett of velum attached over the top to mute everything. The corners where the vellum was attached were then given a peal embellishment to hide the unsightly tape below!

I used a dot embossing folder to emboss a small piece of blue card (as per the belt in the picture) and then a birthday greeting from the same Pure Florals collection from Uniko Studio was embossed directly using silver embossing powder on to a piece of ribbon....I didn't have any pink ribbon and so I coloured a pice of cream ribbon in using a pale pink spectrum marker!

The photo actually doesn't do this card justice - the way the vellum sits makes the photo look out of focus as the pattern below looks 'soft'......however, that is exactly the effect I was trying to achieve!!!

Many thanks for taking a look.

Laura xx

Sunday 19 January 2014

Uniko Studio challenge 6

After much deliberation, a remake of the front of the card, and a flat camera battery needing recharged...I finally have my entry for the Uniko Studio challenge.

This was another sketch challenge which allowed me to use the Pure Florals Chrysanthemum stamps and matching dies that I have.

Here was the sketch given ......

I figured that most people would be adding the star objects to the top of the card, so being me, I just had to be different! I decided to add the objects then have the front of my card raised to give more depth!!

Here is my card....I'll talk through how I did it afterwards.


First, I stamped the small Chrysanthemum stamp 15 times and die cut the very centre of the flowers using a heart thinlit.

I then die cut the hearts in a diagonal pattern on a piece of A5 black card.

I made an A5 card as the very base of the card and laid the A5 heart cut black section on the top and secure with a few small bits of tape so it didn't move around. I then put a bit double sided tape on the first heart and popped it through the die cut heart and attached to the base card. I repeated with each of the other hearts and then lifted of the die cut piece, leaving just the hearts attached to the base card. (this sounds complicated and I'm maybe not explaining it very well but it really was quite simple!!).

I was then left with the hearts attached to the base card and I could then raise the die cut piece of card using foam pads in order to give the hearts the illusion of being set back. I was just about to put the pads on when I decided that the white hearts just weren't right....... I decided to get out my spectrum markers and colour if bright pink instead. I thought this worked really well with the black.

Once the top card was secure, I then added some ribbon and then began working on my flower.... I embossed in black on vellum a large and small Chrysanthemum. These were die cut out and then coloured on the reverse using the same spectrum pen as the hearts. I then die cut each of the flowers in white card too to place at the back of the vellum. The big flower was attached to the card and the smaller placed on top using a foam pad to give depth.

The sentiment was simply embossed in silver on black card and a bit of white card coloured with the spectrum pen put at the back....Viola!!

Any comments very much appreciated.

Laura xxx

Card in progress

Good morning all,

I knew that yesterday was to be the launch of the latest Uniko Studio competition, but I was worried that the challenge would be involving stamps that I don't have (yet).....I was delighted however to discover that it was a sketch and so any Uniko Studio products could be used. For me, this is the Chrysanthemum stamp as used in my entry for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Whilst I love my black and white combinations, I wanted to try and bring a bit more colour.......at first, I just could not see past the black and white ideas popping to mind. I set to work and made the card in black and white but I was disappointed - it just didn't pack the punch that I was aiming for. I then decided to grab my spectrum markers and wow, they were just what I needed!!!

After only a couple of hours, card was done.....well, almost. I've just got the sentiment left to attach and I'm just not sure how to do it!! Need more thoughts on this and then hopefully I can finish, photograph and post my card later today and linky up to Uniko Studio!!

Enjoy your day,

Laura xx

Saturday 18 January 2014

So today I have my very first competition entry for Freshly Made Sketches.....

Here was the sketch given as our inspiration....


I knew from looking at the entries already posted that everyone was looking at the image by way of the dark area being the upper layer......I decided to reverse this in order to make the dark area the lower layer and the white odd shaped bit, the raised area. I decided to go with my favourite colour combination- black and white, and made use of my favourite stamps of the moment from Uniko Studio. Here is what I came up with.....

Please let me know what you think.....Personally, I think not to bad for my first attempt! It's not perfect - the embossed part has some stray bits of embossing powder....but that's something to be worked upon!

Thank you for having a look :-) Laura xxx


Friday 17 January 2014

Hello Hello!!

Well hello and thank you for visiting my blog! This is my very first blog post and I am so excited about this new way of communicating with the wider world! I decided to set up this blog in order to chart my progress in the world of card making. I am a relative newbie but I am quickly learning on the job!

I first developed a real passion for card making after making my own wedding invitations almost 5 years ago. Since then I've done another person's wedding stationery and I'm currently working on the stationery for one of my best friend who married this summer.

In the past year, I have designed 5 Wedding Stationery collections which will hopefully be available really soon..... I'm just having a long thought process over how to photograph them!!

In the meantime, I have purchased a Sizzix Big Shot and have finally found out how to stop my stamps beading up.

I have been drawing on inspiration from various stamping and card making sites and I am ready to launch straight in to getting more involved..... I have already bookmarked 5 or 6 competitions that I want to challenge myself to enter!! Who cares if I don't win, it's card made that I can then use!!

My first stop is going to be the Freshly Made Sketches challenge

 I only saw it 5 minutes ago and already my head is buzzing with possibilities! I'm heading to my craft cupboard now to gain further inspiration..... Watch this space!!