An Easter Card on Good Friday

I've used Simon Says Stamp's pretty Outline Floral Cross die on quite a few Communion and Confirmation cards, but for my first time I'm using it on an Easter card.

To start with I used distress inks and water spritzing to make a rainbow panel, or I should say three rainbow panels on different cardstocks with differing results. After that I die cut the cross and decided which background it looked best against. The cross was adhered to the panel with foam pads and I added a Hero Arts flower gem to finish. I matted the panel on white card and added it to the card base using foam pads.

Die - Outline Floral Cross (Simon Says Stamp) & Distress Inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn, tumbled glass and dusty concord) - Tim Holtz Ranger

For the inside I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts' Celebrate Everyday set, die cut it out and matted it on a piece die cut from one of the other rainbow panels.

Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts), Die - Labels 4 (Spellbinders) & Distress Inks (mowed lawn, tumbled glass and dusty concord) - Tim Holtz Ranger

I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Anything Goes Challenge.

Jar of Roses Slimline Card

This month's challenge over at the Die Cut Divas is to make a slimline card. I haven't made many slimline cards so thought I'd challenge myself and give it a go.

Stamps - Everything's Rosy (Sunny Studio Stamps), Bouquet For You (Stampendous), It's Your Birthday (Hero Arts), Embossing Folder - Happy Birthday (Cuttlebug), Dies - Everything's Rosy (Sunny Studio Stamps), Christmas Florals (Precious Marieke)

One of my favourite layering stamp sets is Sunny Studio Stamps' Everything's Rosy set. I love how dimensional and realistic the flowers and leaves images look and it's fun coming up with different ink mixes for them.

I made a cardbase and added an embossed background layered on silver glitter card. Next up I had some fun getting inky to make the flowers and leaves.

I arranged the stamped images and die cut foliage filler pieces on a jar I had coloured with distress inks (tumbled glass, broken china and faded jeans). The stems were coloured using watercolour pencils. To finish I stamped a sentiment from a Hero Arts set on a strip of card and fishtailed one end.

Three Cards for St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day! Again this year it's a very different St Patrick's Day here without the usual parades and celebrations. But we'll certainly enjoy the day off work and school anyway and have our own fun at home.

Today I just have a few more St Patrick's Day cards that I made this year.

The first card came together really quickly using the flip it die. The shamrock, made from hearts, was my way of using up a background that I made using acrylic paints. I didn't like the background I had created with the paints but it looked better cut into smaller pieces. The same background was also used for the shamrock on my third card.

Dies - Scallop Edge Circle Die Flip It (The Stamps of Life) & Heart Die, Embossing Folder - Shamrocks (Darice)

For the second card I made a background of patterned scraps and layered the squares on foam pads for some dimension. The little shamrock was again make using a heart die.

Dies - Scallop Squares (M&C Boutique The Works), heart die, Sentiment Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts)

For the third card I have the shamrock, cut out from the acrylic paint background I mentioned previously, as my focal point on the embossed background. I added the cross cut out of gold mirror card to celebrate St Patrick.

Dies - Framelits Hearts (Sizzix), Crosses Two (Spellbinders), Labels 10 (Spellbinders), Embossing Folder - Shamrocks (Darice), Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts)

It's such a beautiful, sunny day here today so I'm finally going to get a chance to enjoy pottering around and tidying up and getting things ready in the garden. Hope you enjoy your day whatever you do!

Scrappy Shamrock

Recently I've been sorting out my paper scraps and what a job it's been! I don't know how I've managed to accumulate so many scraps but I'm going to try to use more and more of them in my cards before the scrap containers burst at the seams.

With so many scraps of green patterned paper on hand, I decided to use some of them on a card I sent to my aunt for St Patrick's Day.

Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts), Embossing Folder - Shamrocks (Darice), Dies - Fancy Tags (Spellbinders) & Framelits Hearts (Sizzix)

I stuck strips of patterned paper onto pieces of light cardstock and die cut three scrappy hearts. The hearts were put together to form a shamrock and I used some of the card left over after die cutting the hearts to make a stem.

The background was dry embossed and the sentiment stamped on a die cut tag.

Here we don't send each other St Patrick's Day cards, so I usually only make one every year for a friend who lives further afield. But because of visiting restrictions this year due to Covid, I made a few more to send, so I'll post those tomorrow given the day that's in it.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been quite a while since I've blogged, but my good friend Linda told me about a fun challenge at the Die Cut Divas Challenge Blog. So I decided to join in.

This month's challenge is to make a fun fold card. I have to admit I think I've only ever made a couple of fun fold cards before, but after making one for the challenge, I think I'll be making lots of different kinds of fun fold cards from now on. So the card I made, using a z fold design, is a Valentine for my hubby.

Die - Renaissance Heart Fancy Die (Hero Arts), Stamp - Celebrate Everyday (Hero Arts) and Paper - Romantic Patterned Scrapbook Paper (Crelando)

I have a few different heart dies in my stash but one of my favourites is a Hero Arts die called Renaissance Heart Fancy Die. For this card I die cut the heart from silver glitter card and backed it with a light pink pearlescent card.

The z fold base was so quick and easy to make by just scoring the front of the card down the centre and folding it back on itself.

I used paper from a paper pad I found in Lidl over a year ago to cover the card front and inside. I left the centre panel blank so I could write my message on it. The sentiment was heat embossed using Versamark and silver embossing powder.

I thought the sweet little sparkly birds were so cute. There's lots more sparkle on the card but we've had cloudy day after cloudy day here since I've made the card, so I didn't capture it very well in the photos.

Sparkly Gift Tags

I really enjoyed joining in on Simon Says All That Glitters is Gold Challenge so when I woke early this morning gathered together some supplies to get a start on Christmas gift tags for bottles.

Dies - Eliza & Kate Snowflakes (Simon Says Stamp), Fancy Cut Christmas (Hero Arts), Circle Nestabilites (Spellbinders) and Stitched Circles (Pink & Main)

I think shaker cards are so fun so made a shaker to go on my first tag. I adhered five glittery gold stars to the plain black background of the shaker element, added a mix of sequins and stars and used a gold frame over the acetate to trap all the shaker pieces inside. A pretty bow, not made by me but recycled from a box of chocolates, finished off the look I wanted.

I love the way my friend Linda used a die to emboss the background on her bicycle card here. So I did the same with the Eliza Snowflake die on this tag, added the Kate Snowflake cut from glittery card and a little gold gem to the centre of the snowflake.

When I was taking photos of the tags on the bottles who should come along with his own bottle of Buck's Fizz looking for a chase - Toby! I don't know if it was coincidental or if he recognised the similarities between what I had and one of his toys, but I had a good laugh when I saw him and managed to get him to pose for a few seconds after I chased him down the corridor.

Glittering Gold

Today I was making a card for a friend who has a heart of gold and thought it would be fun to go with the theme set for Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge - All That Glitters is Gold.



These are the main supplies I gathered together for the card.



Stamps - Lavender Stamp Set (Power Poppy) & Maple Leaf (Hero Arts)
Embossing folder - Foliage (Darice)
Dies - Circles Nestabilities (Spellbinders) & Stitched Circle Dies (Pink & Main)
Distress Inks - spiced marmalade, mustard seed, barn door & rusty hinge (Tim Holtz Ranger)

I enjoyed getting inky with distress inks to make the leaves.


Originally I bought the Power Poppy set for the pretty lavender images but love the lovely sentiments in the set including this one that I embossed in gold.



On the background I used a Darice embossing folder with some autumnal coloured Core'dinations paper. After the panel was embossed I lightly sanded it and distress the edges slightly.

Happy Halloween👻

Happy Halloween! As you can see my two lads had fun carving pumpkins today.



It feels like forever since I posted but as I got a little inky for Halloween I thought I'd put my bits and pieces here.

First up is a card I made for my good friend Linda - thanks again Linda!



A couple of years ago she sent me some gorgeous Halloween papers that I hoarded until now. I used a Sizzix flip it die set which made it so quick and easy to make this type of card.



I used the sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Trick or Treat mini set. On the flip side of the sentiment piece I used the witch image from Hero Arts Ghostly Greetings set.



I again used Hero Arts Ghostly Greetings set for the little tag on this Halloween treat that I put together for my sister.



The trick or treaters here have finished for the night and we had a lots less callers compared to any other year. So we've got a mountain of treats left - I might just have to put the kettle on for a cuppa and have some chocolate treats with it.

Afternoon Tea Birthday Box Card

My sister and I put together an afternoon tea on our Mam's birthday. I just took a quick photo as we were starting to put everything out on the table, so lol it's definitely not artfully arranged for a photo, but it's the only photo I got of some of the spread before we started to eat! Anyway I thought it would be a nice idea to use the afternoon tea theme on the birthday girl's card.

Die - Docrafts Flower Doily (under the mini teacup and saucer candle)

A little while ago my friend Linda gave me a pretty die which was perfect for the card - thanks again, Linda! The die is Afternoon Tea by Joy Crafts which I've already enjoyed using over and over again. To make the box card base I used a die I bought recently, Lawn Fawn's Scalloped Box Card Pop-up die - love it! I made my first ever box card a few weeks ago using instructions I found online, but I have to say this die by Lawn Fawn means I can make box cards so quickly and easily.

Dies - Scalloped Box Card Pop-up (Lawn Fawn), Afternoon Tea (Joy Crafts) and Advent Drawer Deco (Tonic Studios)

The tea set was cut out from a scrap of patterned paper and the little hearts were cut from the tiny scraps I had left over using the hearts die from the same Lawn Fawn set.

To finish I cut out numbers from glittery gold card using Tonic Studio's Advent Drawer Deco die set.

I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Anything Goes Challenge.

Yarn Bombing and Emoji Card

June Fest is on again in our neighbouring town Newbridge. We happened to be in Newbridge one glorious sunny evening and came across the yarn bombing in Liffey Linear Park. It was so enjoyable strolling through the park and taking in all the fun and funky knitted and crocheted pieces that decorated trees, lampposts, railing, benches etc.

Because it was so sunny and bright and I had to take photos on my phone, unfortunately, my photos don't do justice to the installation, but here goes anyway!

The first hint of what was to come was the way the swan statue at the entrance to the park was bedecked in colourful knits.

Well done to whoever yarn bombed this life sized angel!

Crochet flowers were trailing from the flower basked on this lamppost

and the trees along the pathway were full of colour.

There was even a little bit of Christmas to be found with this gingerbread man on his bike

and a snowman was tucked away in a tree decorated with candy canes.

I loved this fun couple

and the aquatic pieces on this lamppost.

If you want to take a breather, near this teacup lamppost with cupcakes and donuts

there is a fabulous bench under a shady tree.

After a little break how about shooting some hoops

or taking a stroll to the end of the park

where some colourful mushrooms had sprouted at the base of this tree?

Flowers, bees and sea life were out in force on the banks of the River Liffey.

I couldn't think of a better placement for this poo emoji

and there were lots more emojis to be found on this lamppost.

After coming home I thought I really must make a card using an emoji die set I picked up on a fun shopping trip last year with my friend Linda.

Die - Emojis die set (Spellbinders)
Stamp - Woodland Creatures (Hero Arts)

I just wanted to make a quick and simple card using one of the emoji dies and because of the way all the trees were decorated in the park I wanted to use some kind of woodgrain on the card. In the end I recycled a piece of card I had saved from packaging.

Hope you enjoyed taking a peek at some of the yarn bombing in Newbridge. It's well worth a visit if you happen to live nearby or even not so nearby :)