Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy St Patrick's Day! It's funny even though I'm Irish, I never made a St Patrick's Day card until I joined the Hero Arts Group over on Flickr.

As I don't have stamps of rainbows, crocks of gold, leprechauns etc., I inevitably end up making a card with a shamrock formed from hearts. This year I used one of my older Hero Arts stamps (Ancient Motif) as the pattern reminds me of carvings and floor tiles in some of the old monasteries and churches here in Ireland.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Ancient Motif & Celebrate Everyday

The embossing folder I used for the background is an Xcut one by Docrafts called Swirls. Once the panel was embossed, I stamped the sentiment in mowed lawn distress ink.

Next it was on to making the shamrock. I stamped the Ancient Motif image using mowed lawn distress ink, die cut the hearts and also cut out a stem for the shamrock. Then I lightly applied some more of the same ink to my pieces.

After curling up the hearts at the edges, I stuck them to the card with foam pads. A little green heart gem was added to finish. I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp's Lucky Challenge and the Die Cut Divas' Let's Emboss It Challenge.

After a very wet and windy winter, it finally feels like spring has sprung. We've mainly had lovely weather this week with temperatures even reaching the dizzying heights of 15C (59F);) It's great to see buds beginning to form on the trees and, of course, I just love the burst of sunshine that the daffodils have brought to the garden.

I can't wait for the last of the nighttime frosts to be finished with so we can plant some annuals out in the garden.

Toby recently had a hair cut and all his curls have disappeared - he looks like a little puppy again!

Anyway with it being St Patrick's Day and a bank holiday here, we're all off work/school and looking forward to a fun day ahead. Here's a photo of Toby ready to celebrate the day!

Hope you have a fun St Patrick's Day wherever you are:)

Carving possibly of St Patrick in the Cathedral at the Rock of Cashel

Lil Hoot Birthdays

If you've visited here before you may have noticed that I'm mad about the cute little critters from Hero Arts Lil Hoot set. I don't think they've spent a lot of time in their package since they popped through the letterbox!

Anyway today I pulled out the owls and bears again to make a couple of birthday cards. On the first card I started by cutting a window in a panel of Core'dinations card, embossed it and did a bit of sanding. For the sky I applied distress inks (tumbled glass and faded jeans) onto white card and spritzed with water.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Lil Hoot, Christmas Reindeer & Be Happy

The bears were coloured with ProMarkers and layered for some dimension. After stamping and cutting out the grass I coloured it with ProMarkers and mowed lawn distress ink.

Next up are the owls. Again I die cut, embossed and sanded a panel of Core'dinations card. For the sky I applied distress inks (tumbled glass and faded jeans) to the clouds background, spritzed with water and stamped on white card.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Lil Hoot, Clouds Background & It's Your Day

The owls were coloured with ProMarkers and to finish I added glossy accents to the eyes.

I'm submitting the cards into Hero Arts' Birthday Challenge (kids catagory).

Scramble Rainbows

I always enjoy the 90 minute Scrambles over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group and on Saturday had fun hosting one. The theme I went for was making any project using mainly neutral colours with dashes of at least three other colours. Over here you'll see all the amazing cards everyone came up during the scramble.

I made a couple of sample cards using the theme and time limit. For the first one I embossed the owls and thought bubble and cut out a window in the bubble.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Lil Hoot & Write Your Message

Then I embossed the sentiment on a piece of white card, applied distress inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn and broken china) and placed it behind the speech bubble. If I had more time I probably would have added machine stitching but because I was in a hurry just added faux stitching with a white pen. To finish I added googly eyes - I have to start using up the collection I've accumulated over time!

I have lots of little scraps of white card left over from other projects so I decided to use some of these on my second card.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Tiny Star Background & It's Your Day

I applied distress inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn, broken china and milled lavender) to some of these scraps and stamped the star background on them using the same inks. These pieces were placed behind circular windows I had die cut in a panel of card. Then I just stamped the sentiment and added die cut frames around the windows.

I'm submitting the second card into the rainbow of colour section of Hero Arts birthday challenge.