Large Flower with a Sprinkle of Stardust

This morning I wanted to make a card for a friend who loves flowers and lots of sparkle. So I decided to use my favourite stamp (Large Flower by Hero Arts) for the flower.

Large Flower with a Sprinkle of Stardust, originally uploaded by heather maria.

I embossed it in white on vellum and used an embossing pen and stardust embossing powder to add some sparkle to parts of the petals. The flower is layered three times and I added some beads to the centre. For the background I clear embossed Ancient Motif (Hero Arts) on blue card. Then I mounted squares of this on to white card and did some piercing around the edges with my sewing machine. The card is a lot more sparkly in real life, but as usual I can't seem to catch all the sparkle in the photos!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Flower, Ancient Motif and Messages

Summer Fields

This is another entry into the June Challenge at Hero Arts. During the summer time as kids we used to spend hours and hours playing in the fields near home. The fields always seemed to be full of poppies, butterflies and ladybirds so that’s what I wanted to include in my summer card.

Summer Fields, originally uploaded by heather maria.

For the background I sponged distress inks (broken china, antique linen, shabby shutters and mustard seed) on white card. The wheat is stamped with antique linen and I embossed the seed heads with enchanted gold. I coloured the poppies with markers, added beads to the centres and used yarn (white yarn coloured with a green marker) for the stems. I applied glossy accents to the ladybirds.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Silhouette Grass, Scattered Leaves, Antique Engravings, Poppy Background, Birthday Messages

Crazy Quilt Card - PaperPlay Challenge

I wanted to make a card for the current PaperPlay Challenge (Something Old). As I’ve only been making cards for a little over 18 months I don’t have any very old things in my card making stash so I decided to use some old upholstery fabrics out of my fabric stash. Thanks to Lin, I’m on a bit of a quilt card kick at the moment! When I finished the quilt card in yesterday’s post, I just had to make another one!



Stamps (Hero Arts) Lace Background, Dolls

In keeping with the something old theme, I made a crazy quilt for the central panel and cut it out using a Labels 8 die. The bigger panel is also cut out in the same way from another piece of upholstery fabric. I clear embossed the Lace Background stamp (Hero Arts) on the card and embossed the sentiment in gold.



Crazy patchwork is a great way of using up odds and ends of fabric. Last year I made this little Christmas boot from scraps. On some of the fabrics I stamped various Hero Arts images in white, silver or pink ink. The colours aren't the usual Christmas colours as I entered it in a challenge in which unexpected Christmas colours had to be used.

Quilt Card

Last week I received these yummy goodies as a prize from Dawn and Paula from the Die Cut Divas Group on Flickr. If you have a machine for cutting or embossing, it's a great group to be in and there's lots of inspiration and a fun monthly challenge to be found there.



Dawn also sent me this gorgeous card along with the goodies.



Thanks again Paula and Dawn!

I’m terrible for hoarding papers but these Kaiser Craft papers are just too gorgeous to stash away. So I decided to try an idea I saw on Lin’s blog. She has been making the most wonderful quilt cards here, here and at this one here has a link to a tutorial on making these.

I used some of the papers from the paper stack, cut them into triangles and arranged them till I was happy with them. Then I ran the "quilt" through the Cuttlebug using a Labels 8 die and did some machine stitching. I embossed the sentiment in gold on another piece of paper from the stack.



Stamp (Hero Arts) Messages CL181

Introducing Toby

I just thought I’d show a couple of photos of my great pal Toby. He’s always happy, ready for a walk or play, eager for a snuggle and as you’ll see by the second photo, very patient!

Here he is trying to be a cool dude on the beach and ignoring the camera.

Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow.

A local charity had an appeal for used clothes and I was sorting though boxes of stuff that Mark and Adam had grown out of when I found this small jacket. The zip was broken and I wasn’t going to give it to the appeal so the lads decided to see if it fit Toby. Anyway he just looked so funny in it, I had to take this photo.



Have a great weekend wherever you are!!

A little bit of resist - Stormy Skies

This week on the Hero Arts blog, Jennifer McGuire has been showing lots of gorgeous cards and great ideas using resist techniques. So I thought I’d do some resist on this card.

Stormy Skies, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Silhouette Grass, Antique Engravings, Raindrop Background, Birthday Messages

I wanted to make a kind of stormy summer sky for the background so I embossed the grass in white on watercolour paper. Then I dabbed distress inks (shabby shutters, broken china and faded jeans) onto a piece of tinfoil and spritzed with water. I placed the embossed image in the ink, and hoped for the best as this was my first time trying this technique! The first attempt turned into a blobby mess so this is the second attempt.

A while ago I had dabbed alcohol inks and blending solution on glossy paper. When they didn’t blend and looked awful, I realised that I had used photo paper which wouldn’t work. I saved the paper anyway and stamped these dragonflies on it. For the card itself I embossed the Raindrop Background in white and applied faded jeans distress ink. I did a little bit of stitching on this card so I’m entering it into Jenny's Challenge #10 (In Stitches) as well as the Hero Arts June Challenge.

It's really dull and overcast here today so the photo isn't great but I think there's good weather in store for the weekend so I'm looking forward to that!

PaperPlay Challenges DT

I have some really exciting news to share - I am joining the PaperPlay Challenges design team! I'm really looking forward to making cards\projects and seeing all the entries for the challenges.

PaperPlay Challenges has a great weekly challenge which is set each Thursday. So if you would like to join in the fun, you can find the current challenge (Something Old) here. I'm hoping to see you there!

My desk and supplies are covered with plastic sheeting (some painting going on) so hopefully I'll get to rummage under the plastic and post a card tomorrow!

Hero Arts Challenge

I made this card for the June challenge at Hero Arts (Summer, 4th of July and Colouring Layering).

The flowers were embossed with white embossing powder and sponged with worn lipstick distress ink. I cut the petals on the smaller flowers to the outer part of the flower centres and curled. Then I attached them to the larger flowers with pop dots and added a few beads to the centres. This is my favourite leaf out of the Scattered Leaves set and I seem to have used it with so many different flowers!

Scattered Flowers, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Big and Small Flowers, Scattered Leaves, Birthday Messages.

PaperPlay Challenge - Home

The challenge this week at PaperPlay Challenges is home. So I decided to use this image from Papertrey Ink's Boards and Beams set. I really love the look of these kind of houses but wouldn't like to think of all the work involved in the upkeep of all the wood in real life, so a stamped one will have to do me!

The image is coloured with watercolour pencils. For the background I cut a shape out of white card using the labels 8 set. To get a white outline, I flipped the shape over while still in the die and lightly sponged the area with distress inks (shabby shutters and broken china). The sentiment is embossed in white on vellum and I just added these little heart pearls from Hero Arts and a bead on the door.



Stamp:- Boards and Beams (Papertrey Ink) New House (Anita's)

Can't leave that large flower down!

I have really fallen for the Large Flower stamp by Hero Arts and I know it will be one of those stamps I will use over and over again - no dust will gather on this one!

Here's a card I made recently using this stamp. Before machine stitching the flower I made a "sandwich" of a piece of fabric, wadding, snippets and threads of organza, a piece of organza. For the leaves, I stamped a leaf from the Scattered Leaves set (Hero Arts) on cotton fabric, layered it on another piece of fabric, zigzag stitched around the edges and cut out.



Here are some more cards I've made using this stamp.

Organza again





Vellum





A couple more!

ATCs

I love making ATCs as it's great fun working on a small scale and of course it's a good opportunity to use up scraps (and I have a whole heap of those!). Here are a couple I made recently using the Happy Wishes stamp from Hero Arts.

For this one I clear embossed the image on white card and then applied distress inks (broken china, shabby shutters, antique linen and faded jeans). The sky was spritzed with water. I white embossed the butterfly on vellum and added diamond stickles to the back of the wings and butterfly trail. Then for a bit more sparkle I added some more stickles here and there on the flowers.



For this ATC, I applied distress inks (spiced marmalade and worn lipstick) to white card and spritzed with water before stamping the image in black. I stamped the butterfly again, coloured it with distress inks and popped it. Then I added some touches of copper stickles here and there.

Happy Birthday Adam and Woodland Creatures

My son Adam wanted me to put his birthday card up on the blog so when I was doing that I thought I'd add another couple of cards I made using the super cute Woodland Creatures set from Hero Arts.

On Adam's card the balloons and letters are stamped using chalk inks and I coloured the other images with watercolour pencils. I just added a few touches of stickles to the candle flames and chocolate drops.

Happy Birthday Adam!, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Woodland Creatures,Birthday Messages, What's Cooking, Adorable Baby Girl.

This is another birthday card I made using the Woodland Creatures set. The images are coloured with watercolour pencils. For a little bit of sparkle, I added diamond stickles to the white spots on the mushrooms, glossy accents to the balloon and some gems. The little mushrooms on the base of the card are on little easels.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Woodland Creatures, Cloud Background, Adorable Baby Girl, Birthday Messages.

On this one I decided to make a hot air balloon for the romantic raccoon couple. I wove yarn over cardboard and made a basket out of it. To make the balloon I placed a layer of wadding between two pieces of fabric and stitched the outline and seams.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Woodland Creatures, Cloud Background, Adorable Baby Girl.

Some Fun With Fabrics

I used to do a bit of quilting but once I started making cards that kind of took over. But I still love to go through my fabric stash and use bits and pieces of fabric on some of my cards. These are a few cards I made recently using fabric.

For this one I stamped a piece of hand dyed fabric with the Large Flower from Hero Arts, layered with wadding and a stiff piece of fabric and machine stitched. The flower centre and background are pieces of upholstery samples.






Stamps (Hero Arts) Large Flower, Woodgrain Circle, Birthday Messages.

I had to try a tutorial I came across on making organza flowers. Various size circles are cut out of organza and the edges are curled by holding them over a flame. The organza circles are then layered to form a flower.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Branch Background, Scallop Borders, Birthday Messages, Scattered Leaves.

Since I don't get to make many quilts anymore, I thought it would be fun to make a mini quilt for this card using up little scraps of fabric. I was over the moon the other day to see that the card had been picked as one of the winners of the Moxie Fab World Fun with Fabrics challenge.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Sew Original, Birthday Messages.

Hello and Welcome!

Well I never thought I'd be saying this, but hello and welcome to my new blog!

I thought I'd start with a couple of cards I made for the June challenge (Summer Fun & 4th July) at Hero Arts

As soon as I saw the Flourish Grids stamp set by Hero Arts, I knew I'd have to get it and this is my first card using this set.



I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks to the upper part of a panel of white card and spritzed with water. Then I sponged the base of the panel with shabby shutters distress ink. For the flowers I used two pink chalk inks to get a few different shades. The flowers have diamond stickles centres. Originally the background was white card which I sponged with worn lipstick distress ink and stamped randomly with the flourish background using water.

Stamps
(Hero Arts) Flourish Grids, Scattered Leaves, Flourish Background, Birthday Messages, Dolls .


For the second card I used a stamp which is my absolute favourite - Large Flower by Hero Arts. I just saw that the Crafty Angels challenge this week is using your favourite stamp so I'm entering this card.



The flower is embossed in white, covered with distress inks (shabby shutters and broken china) and has four layers. The scallops and sentiment were also embossed in white and covered with worn lipstick distress ink. For the card itself I lightly applied shabby shutters and broken china distress inks to white card and splattered water on it. I just added some machine stitching and beads to finish.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Large Flower, Scallop Borders, Birthday Messages.