Hero Arts 90 Minute Scramble

A little while ago Tami was looking for volunteers to host some 90 Minute Scramble Challenges on the Hero Arts Flickr group. Virginia hosted the first one, Karen the second and now I’m having a go today. It started at 3.00pm GMT and will finish at 4.30 GMT (4.00pm-5.30pm here in Ireland) – see here if you’d like to join in. Barb is hosting the next one on the 6th of November – more details are here.

The challenges are great fun and you really have to work quickly to make, photograph and upload a card within the 90 minute deadline. It’s a lot easier to do when you’re setting the challenge though! I thought it might be fun to go for a using something unexpected challenge (adding something that wasn’t bought specifically for card making) and ended up using washing powder on my card! There are flecks of pink, blue and green in the powder so that’s how I came up with the colour combination.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Starry Night, Snowy House & Holiday Dolls.

To start with I stamped the Starry Night (thanks Sue I love this stamp so much!) image in pale blue for the background. Then I coloured the house with ProMarkers, popped the dormer part for dimension and added diamond stickles to the snow. I stuck washing powder on the ground with glossy accents and added some diamond stickles for more sparkle. Because I was sticking to the 90 minute allocation, my “snow” hadn’t fully dried before I took the photo but sure I suppose it makes it a bit more realistic! The card itself was embossed with the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder. I don’t know how long it will last, but there is a lovely scent off the card because of the washing powder.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for the challenge. Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Edited - I'm just adding a link to all the brilliant cards that everyone came up using unexpected items. As usual the ladies in the Hero Arts Flick group amazed me with their creativity! You can find all the fantastic ideas here.

PaperPlay Challenge - Colour Combo

Vera came up with the great colour combination of orange, blue and olive green for this week's PaperPlay Challenge. Whiff of Joy Stamps is kindly sponsoring the challenge and the prize is this adorable Christmas stamp.



A little while ago when Hero Arts was hosting the OWH Virtual Card Making Weekend, Sue came up with a couple of fun games to add even more enjoyment to the weekend. I was lucky to have been randomly picked as one of the winners and Sue very generously sent me the gorgeous butterfly set as well as a host of other wonderful goodies. She also sent me this absolutely stunning card which I love so much! Thanks again Sue for everything!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Butterflies (3 images), Birthday Messages & Old Letter Writing.

I applied spiced marmalade distress ink to the butterflies and using the same ink stamped them with the Old Letter Writing stamp. Then I applied Crackle Accents (love this stuff!) to parts of the butterflies' wings and added blue gems to the bodies. I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks onto some watercolour paper for the sky. For the ground, I lightly applied shabby shutters distress ink on watercolour paper, clear embossed a lot of sentiments from the Birthday Messages set and applied more shabby shutters. The twine was originally white and I coloured it with broken china distress ink.



I hope you'll join us on PaperPlay this week!

I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately but I have a lot of things going on at the moment. Hopefully everything will settle down soon!

Red Tinsel Ornaments

The Fabulous Flourish stamp is fast becoming a favourite of mine and I’m sure I’ll be using it on cards for lots of different occasions. This time I decided to use it on the background of this Christmas card which I’m submitting into the Hero Arts Holiday Cardmaking Challenge and My Partner in Crafting Crime Challenge #13 (Shine on you Crazy Diamond).


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Fabulous Flourish, Decorative Ornament & Three Christmas Trees.

I white embossed the flourish and sentiment on some kraft card. The ornaments are embossed with red tinsel embossing powder which has tiny flecks of glitter in it - lovely sparkle in real life but hard to capture in a photograph. I suspended the ornaments from the flourish with some yummy twine that Sue had sent me – thanks again Sue, I love using it on my cards! To finish I just added a few gems.



It's been a long week so I'm glad Friday is finally here! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Snowed in for Christmas

The current challenge at The Play Date Cafe is to use green, white and melon on a card.



I didn’t think I had anything in a melon colour in my stash but this morning I came across pp which I think fits the bill.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Snowy House & Holiday Dolls

I love my new Snowy House stamp so much and couldn’t wait to ink it up! Parts of the house are coloured with watercolour pencils and I paper pieced the rest (chimneys, roof, door, wreath and melon coloured part of dormer). I added diamond stickles to the snow on the house. The house itself is on pop dots as is the dormer window section. For the background I white embossed the snowflakes on white card and lightly applied some broken china distress ink.



I wanted to give some texture and depth to the snow on the ground so I layered some silk over a piece of wadding (batting) and machine stitched some meandering lines to form snowdrifts or what I hope look a bit like snowdrifts!



Because of all the sparkle (hard to catch in a photo!) with the stickles snow and silk, I'm also submitted the card into My Partner in Crafting Crime Challenge #13 (Shine on you Crazy Diamond).

Cracker Gift Holder

I love Christmas and everything about it so I wanted to join in again on the All Wrapped Up Challenge at Moxie Fab World and submit a project to the Shine on you Crazy Diamond Challenge at My Partner in Crafting Crime.

When I give a gift of money at Christmas I like to make little crackers as gift containers. Inside the cracker I put the money, some punched out snowflakes, a little treat and a silly joke - couldn’t have a cracker without one of those!


Stamps (Hero Arts) Stunning Snowflakes & Holiday Dolls

I white embossed some white card with the Stunning Snowflakes and cut out the shape of a cracker using an old cracker as a template. Then I coloured the doll with markers, applied diamond stickles to the white edges on her hat\jacket and added a pompom to her hat. I tied the cracker with some twine and added a couple of gems – thanks Sue for these!

Congratulations Jenny and Jason!

Today it’s Jenny and Jason’s wedding day! Jenny is one of our wonderful, bubbly hostesses in the Hero Arts Flick group and Tami has organised a surprise virtual wedding card shower for the happy couple.

Tami had suggested using a something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue theme. So I tried to incorporate all of these into the card in some way.


Stamps - Heart Winged Butterfly & Fabulous Flourish (Hero Arts), Congratulations (Docrafts)

Old – Congratulations stamp
New – Fabulous Flourish stamp
Borrowed – the smaller pearls on the butterflies are borrowed off a top!
Blue – broken china distress ink

To start with I embossed the flourish and sentiment in white on watercolour paper, applied broken china distress ink and spritzed lightly with water. I white embossed the butterflies on vellum and embossed parts of the wings again using an embossing pen and stardust embossing powder. Then I added pearls to the bodies. The little heart pearls from Hero Arts are one of my favourite embellishments so I just had to add them beside the sentiment!



Jenny and Jason, congratulations on your wedding day! Wishing you all of the very best as you look forward to a lifetime of love, laughter and happiness together!

90 Minute Scramble and giveaway winners

Tami from Hero Arts has organised a series of speedy card making challenges over at the HA Flickr group.

I had missed a few of these challenges but on Thursday finally got to take part in the great challenge hosted by Karen (froggietalks on Flickr). Karen's challenge was to use kraft, red and black on a card and the card had to be made and uploaded to the group in 90 minutes. The saying "more haste, less speed" is so true and I fumbled with everything - please don't look too closely at my wonky cutting! The card took about 30 minutes to make and it took nearly as long again to get an awful photograph outside at dusk (yuck colours inside from energy saving light bulbs). So I took this photo of it during the day.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Silhouette Grass & Messages

I hadn't got kraft card so ended up using some kraft coloured fabric. I clear embossed it with the Grass Silhouette stamp and cut it with the Labels 8 die. The butterflies are coloured with Promarkers and I added beads to the bodies and thread for the antennae.

These 90 minute scrambles are so much fun to take part in. So far two more have been organised, one on 23rd October and another one on 6th November. Full details are here . I'd highly recommend taking part in them!

Now on to the winners of the little giveaways. Thank you all for taking part and for your lovely comments. I really wish I had something to send to everyone. I picked the winners the old fashioned way by drawing the names out of a hat.

So this is going to to Linda (scrappin.bari)



and this is going to Dawn



Linda and Dawn, I hope you'll enjoy these and I'll email you for your addresses.

Wedding Anniversary

Today my hubby and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by - I hope hubby thinks the same thing too lol! Anyway this is the card I made for him. I kept it plain and simple as he seems to prefer that kind of style.


Stamp (Hobby Art)- Village Church

A couple of months ago I spotted the church stamp in a shop and I just had to buy it. It reminded me so much of the local church at home where we were married - very similar looking and out in the middle of the countryside surrounded by fields and trees. We had the most fabulous day and it was so sunny and warm, just like it is today.

The image is coloured with watercolour pencils and I just added some thread and a couple of Hero Arts heart accents. A bit of stitching on the background and I was finished - these CAS cards are done in no time!



Recently I seem to be up to my eyes in stuff so I hope to catch up with visiting blogs over the weekend. Have a great weekend everyone!

PaperPlay Challenge - Sketch

It’s Thursday so it's time for another challenge at PaperPlay. Stitchy Bear Stamps is kindly sponsoring the challenge this week and the prize is 4 wonderful images. Vera has come up with this brilliant sketch for us to play with.


I was delighted to have a chance to use this great image called Alexandria (on sale at 99c) from Stitchy Bear Stamps. When we go out trick or treating with the kids at Halloween, my friend and I get dressed up as witches - but somehow we never end up looking like this witch!



Stamps - Alexandria (Stitchy Bear Stamps), Lace Background (Hero Arts) & Jeepers Creepers (The Paper Company).

I coloured Alexandria with watercolour pencils and applied diamond stickles to her hat and the black part of her dress. Every time I use stickles or glitter on a card I find it really hard to photograph. So in real life the image is much more sparkly than it looks here. At her feet are some scraps of red tulle and the black card is clear embossed with the Lace Background. Last weekend one of my friends surprised me with a pressie of the Jeepers Creepers stamp set. I was thrilled with it and it turned out to be perfect timing for this card as until then I didn't have any Halloween stamps. The spider and sentiment are from that set.

I hope you'll join us for the sketch challenge on PaperPlay this week!

Happy World Card Making Day & little giveaways

Happy World Card Making Day everyone! I’m so glad I had a bit of time this morning to make a card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Heart Owls, Holiday Dolls & Three Trees

To start with I clear embossed the Holly Flourish on green card and added some gems and dots of red glitter glue. Then I added some twine which the lovely Sue had sent me a while ago - thanks again Sue! The owls are coloured with watercolour pencils. I coloured the little Santa hats (from the Holiday Dolls set)with Promarkers and added some diamond stickles to the rims and a little pompom to the top of each. The sentiment is embossed in white. I'm submitting the card into the current challenge at Hero Arts and the Jolly Holiday Greetings Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.

Given the day that’s in it, I thought I’d have a couple of little giveaway. I really wish I had some Hero Arts products (my absolute favourite!) to offer but I had to make do with picking items from what a local shop had in stock yesterday. So there are stamps, stickers, buttons, chocolate and a couple of things that I knitted.





I had fallen in love with a little crochet owlet that I had seen on Lisa Spangler’s blog and as I still haven't learned how to crochet, I was delighted to come across a knitted version of the same owlet here. So this was my first attempt at knitting a little owlet. I’m trying to track down owl eyes here and if I get them there will be proper eyes on the owl when I send it out!

So to enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and next Saturday I will pick two names out of a hat. Hope you all have a great weekend and are enjoying World Card Making Day!