Scramble Shaker Card

Over in the Hero Arts Flickr Group last night LaVon hosted a fun Scramble in which we had to make a card based on one of these three sketches.

It turned out to be a real scramble for me as I started the Scramble a bit late because I was yapping on the phone. Then after scrapping the first card I started, I decided to make a shaker card. I don't know what or if I was thinking as I'm slow at making shaker cards even at the best of times not to mind when there is a time limit!

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Playful Animals & Birthday Messages

Anyway I started by embossing the mini card base I made and then set to work on the shaker element. I used scraps of blue and green card for the sky and grass. My Mam gave me a bag with a lovely mix of sequins a while ago and I used some of these as they are pearlescent white with hints of pink. After stamping the pig twice, cutting and colouring, I popped one of the heads on foam pads for dimension. The sentiment was embossed badly and in a last minute hurry as you can no doubt see from the stray flecks of powder!

I'm submitting this card into a2z Scrapbooking's September Challenge.

Felt Flower Card and Tag

I had a birthday card and gift tag to make for an upcoming birthday so thought I'd join in on a couple of challenges while I was making them - Hero Arts Tic Tac Toe Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Use Your Favourite Technique and/or Product.

In the Hero Arts Tic Tac Toe Challenge I picked the line with circles, birthday theme and your favourite colour. My favourite colour would be a toss up between blue and green and I love combining both colours with white. For the Simon Says Stamp Challenge I used a favourite technique, stitching, and favourite product is Hero Arts Stamp & Cut sets.

Stamp & Cuts sets (Hero Arts) - Butterfly and Flowers and Happy

I stamped the flowers and leaves on felt and, after the ink had dried, hand stitched the images and cut out. To finish I added buttons and sequins to the flower centres. The die cut sentiment on the card was cut from a scrapped watercolour background that I made ages ago and the "birthday" sentiment was stamped using faded jeans distress ink. To finish I added a sprinkling of sequins.

After die cutting the gift tag, I stamped the sentiment with faded jeans distress ink, added a flower and some sequins.

Butterfly and Flowers Stamp & Cuts set (Hero Arts), Birthday Messages (Hero Arts) and Pierced Circles Dies (Spellbinders)

Flowers and Butterflies Gift Bucket

I'm playing along again with one of Cath's 350 Cards and Gift Week Challenges over at Moxie Fab World. This time I thought I'd try the Gift Packaging Challenge .



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Blossom Art & Birthday Messages

Sometimes I like to give gifts in small buckets and picked up this little one a while ago. I embossed the flowers on vellum, cut out and layered. Then I added little flower gem centres and adhered the flowers to the bucket. To try to give a light, airy feel I used some organza ribbon for the bow and tulle as packaging.



I had loads of tiny little butterflies left over from punching borders for cards, so to use up some, I sprinkled them over the present and tulle. Well I better go tidy up my stamping supplies, you'd never guess the huge mess I made putting together this tiny gift bucket! Thanks for visiting:)

Happy Happy Birthday

I wanted to make a feminine birthday card incorporating some exquisite lace that my friend Linda had sent me – thanks again Linda:) So I decided to ink up the pretty Leafy Vines stamp and make a fabric flower and leaves for the card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Leafy Vines & Birthday Messages

For some shimmer, I embossed the Leafy Vines image with enchanted gold embossing powder. Then I added Linda’s lace to the panel and embossed the sentiment in gold on peach card.



The flower was made with a shimmery fabric and some netting. I used the same type of shimmery fabric, in a darker colour, for the leaves and just added some machine stitching up the centre of them. Then to tie in with the lace, I added some pearls to the flower centre. I must go shopping for some pearls as I seem to go through loads of them in no time - it's a good excuse to go to my lss again!

I’m submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge as well as Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Challenge.

Wild Flowers Happy Birthday

I'll be in work for one day tomorrow and then back on the rest of my holidays again, so I thought I'd squeeze in a bit of play time today!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Wild Flowers & Birthday Messages

One of my favourite Hero Arts stamps which I use over and over again is the Wild Flowers image - I just love it! For this card I embossed the flowers twice on grey, shimmery card and added some gems. I had my sewing machine nearby from yesterday's card and decided to try a type of ribbon treatment that I hadn't done before. It was quite quick and easy to do so I'll have to try it again. To finish I just added the bow and embossed the sentiment. Yet again my friend Linda sent me something that I used on this card - the yummy ribbon, thanks again, Linda:)



I'm submitting this card into the Ellen Hutson LLC Hero Arts Wood Take 'n Makeand the Anything Goes Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.

Autumn Leaves

I can certainly feel a change in the weather here, with a bit of a nip in the air in the mornings and evenings and suddenly the evenings seem to be closing in a lot earlier. Even so, I love autumn and for my card below included some of the colours we’ll get to enjoy on the trees over the next little while.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Maple Leaf & Birthday Messages

I remember as a kid having so much fun jumping into big piles of leaves in autumn and to this day I still love the rustling sound of leaves as I go on walks at this time of the year. So I thought I’d make my own little pile/path of fallen leaves on this card. To start with I inked pieces of scrap card with various distress inks (spiced marmalade, rusty hinge, mustard seed, tea dye, forest moss, barn door and walnut stain – not only do I love distress inks, I love their names too!). Then I applied the same inks to the leaf stamp and lightly spritzed with water before stamping. After cutting out the leaves I adhered them to a panel which I then trimmed. The sentiment is embossed and I just added some gems to finish.

I’m submitting this card into the Repetition Challenge in the Moxie Fab World, as I used the same leaf stamp for each of the leaves, and the current Hero Arts Challenge – Fall Feast.

A Long Post!

I have to give a warning that this is a long and photo heavy post! I just wanted to share the cards I made for a class I gave in An Siopa Buí in Spiddal on Saturday.



Stamps (Penny Black) - Social Butterfly & Petal Party

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me so didn't get to take any photos in the class or of the spectacular scenery in Connemara. On the journey to and from Spiddal I saw three double rainbows, which just shows you the kind of weather we had that day - beautiful sunny spells with lots of downpours too!



Stamp (Penny Black) - Betsy Bluebell

Anyway we got to play with some of the fab new Penny Black stamps. Kerry, who owns the shop, was as hospitable and funny as always and I couldn't have asked for a lovelier group of ladies in the class. I hope they enjoyed the day as much as I did!



Stamps - Puzzle Parts (Penny Black) & Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

As you'll be able to tell, I couldn't resist doing one of my favourite techniques, emboss resist!



Stamps (Penny Black) - Petal Party & Puzzle Parts

Kerry asked me to show the class how to make a splattered butterfly trail like I had previously made on the first card in this post. So some went with the bold purple background....



Stamps - Social Butterfly (Penny Black) & Birthday Messages (Hero Arts)

...and some with the soft blue background.



Stamps - Social Butterfly (Penny Black) & Birthday Messages (Hero Arts)

Purple is a colour that I don't use very often but I just went for it on this card!



Stamps (Penny Black) - Delicate Pattern & Petal Party

As some of you may have noticed, I love to play with fabric, so at the end of class we made a fabric brooch. You can find a tutorial for making this type of fabric flower here and for the brooch it's just a matter of making a large and small flower and adding a pearl, button or jewel to the centre.



Well done if you've made it all the way through this extra long post! Thanks for visiting:)

Celebrate with Style and Crafting Ireland

When I saw all the fun challenges for Card Creations Week over at the Moxie Fab World, I thought I'd try to make a card for each of the five categories, but with the deadline looming tonight, it looks like I'm only going to manage to squeeze a card into three of the challenges!



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Sew Artsy, Classic Fabric Background and Birthday Messages

So for this card I went with the Damask and Brocade Challenge. I white embossed the background with the Classic Fabric Background. Then I had some fun making a dress for the dress form using some ribbon, beads and gems. I just added some more ribbon and a big gem to finish.

Recently Nicole Mullen of Crafting Ireland asked if I'd do an interview and pick some of my favourite cards for a feature in the free online magazine. Yikes it was hard to pick favourites and when I was looking back through my cards, I wondered what on earth I was thinking when I made some of them. Yes, the good, the bad and the ugly are all there in my Flickr photostreams and blog! Anyway if you'd like to see some of my favourites, you'll find them in Crafting Ireland Issue 10.



The magazine is brilliant as it's packed full of great tutorials, articles and tips. Also I've realised through reading it how many crafty shops I didn't know existed here - looks like I'll have to plan some more shopping trips!

Splatter on the Double

Well I just knew I was going to have great fun with the Spatter Technique Challenge in the Moxie Fab World!

I remember when we were kids, my sister, my brother and I used to love making splatter pictures. Truth be told, most of the paint probably ended up the table, floor and even ourselves rather than our “artwork”! So doing some splattering yesterday evening brought me right back to when we used to do splattering with paint and stamping with cut out potatoes (didn’t realise I’d get so hooked on stamping at a later stage!). Another favourite was splashing melted candle wax on paper, painting over it and then peeling the wax off. We even dropped splashes of wax on our hands so we’d have monster hands – how we didn’t burn the house down I’ll never know!


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Antique Engravings & Birthday Messages

Anyway after some splattering I ended up with two cards. For the first one I wanted to make a butterfly trail splattered with paint and sprinkled with gems and pearls. So I masked part of the panel and got splattering. The butterfly is embossed on vellum and I just added some gems to it too.


Stamps – Skater Ian (Greeting Farm Stamps) & Clouds (Hero Arts)

For the second card I attempted to make a wall with graffiti, but I soon realised I’d never make a graffiti artist, so my wall turned into part of a skateboard park! I coloured the image with ProMarkers and stamped the clouds with broken china distress ink. Since I had to give up on the graffiti idea I used QuigleyWiggly font from Word for the sentiment.

I’m also submitting the butterfly card into the current Hero Arts challenge. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend:)

Ribbon Scraps

For Lily Pad Cards' First Birthday Blog Hop please click here.

Since I'm such a hoarder of all sorts of left over bits and pieces from other projects, it's great to finally use some up in the Don't Throw it Away Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.


Hero Arts Stamp - Birthday Messages

Today I used up some of my scraps of ribbon on this card. I only needed a few supplies to make the card and it was one of the quickest cards I've made in a while. To start with I punched some circles out of the black panel and then punched out some slightly larger circles from scrap card. I covered these with a variety of ribbon scraps and stuck them behind the panel. Using a rotary cutter I trimmed the surplus pieces from the edges. Instead of having to fiddle around with positioning the sentiment stamp, I stamped the sentiment on a piece of card and positioned it as I stuck it to the back of the panel. Then it was just a matter of adding a gem and attaching the panel to the card with adhesive foam pads.

I've just been told by someone here that the card makes them think of planets and the 70s - I'm still trying to figure out if that's a good thing or not!

Hope you all have a lovely Easter:)

Lily Pad Cards’ First Birthday Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to the Lily Pad Cards’ First Birthday Blog Hop!



You should have arrived here from Karin’s blog. I’m so delighted to be celebrating the 1st Birthday of Lily Pad Cards and to be part of this Blog Hop – congratulations and thanks Deborah and Vicky!

There are three prize packages with a total retail value of over $300 to be won! These prizes will be awarded by random draw. To be eligible, you need to “like” Lily Pad Cards on Facebook. To increase your chances of winning, you can leave a comment on each of the blogs participating in this hop (including the Lily Pad). Your name is entered in the draw each time you comment on a blog (but only one comment per blog, please). To be in with a chance to win one of these wonderful prizes, comments should be left by 12:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, April 8. Good luck!


The Dream Team!

Well for my cards today, I wanted to use colours inspired by lily pads and a certain fabulous frog – yes Frederick duPonde you know that’s you, and honestly, George Clooney isn’t a patch on you! In honour of the equally fabulous Vicky and Deborah, I also made sure I included the colours of the Greek and U.S. flags.

So below is my first card.



Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Friends Definition, Wild Flowers and Birthday Messages), faded jeans distress ink, VersaMark, white embossing powder, card (cream & navy), upholstery fabric, baker’s twine and gems.

Of course I had to make a card especially for Frederick....



...and here it is



Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Froggy, Be Happy, Write Your Message,Friendly Flags and Heart Owls), card (white, blue, green & red), inks (black, green & blue), Happy Birthday embossing folder, blue ProMarker, Glossy Accents, white pen, baker’s twine and gems.

Since it’s a day of celebration, I have some brownies and baklava at the ready and am now ready to enjoy lots of hopping! The next stop on the hop is Lidiya’s blog. If you hit a bad link, you can always go back to Lily Pad. to view the master list of blog links. Please report any bad links to aris@inlinkz.com. Thanks for visiting and have fun hopping:)

Pink, Pink and More Pink.

In my scrap heap, I had a flower already embossed, coloured and cut out which was leftover from this card. So I used it for a quick, girly card I wanted to make.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Flower Background & Birthday Messages

I stamped the Large Flower Background in pink on pink card and used the same ink for the sentiment. The flower had been coloured with distress inks (worn lipstick and shabby shutters) and I just added a bow and heart gem. I bought the picot edge circles Nestabilites fairly recently and I think I’ll end up using them a lot. The gems danced all around in different positions on the card until I settled on where they are now and I’m still not sure if I like where I put them - lol I think that’s what took most time on the card!

Happy Birthday Honey

I love the cute little bees from the Be Happy set and decided to use them on my hubby’s birthday card this year.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Be Happy, Clouds, Magical Background, Birthday Messages, Envelope Pattern & Heart Owls

The clouds are stamped with tumbled glass distress ink which had been lightly spritzed with water. All of the hills and the sun came from pieces in my scrap mountain. I coloured the little bees with a ProMarker and colouring pencil. To finish I just added a little diamond stickles to the bees’ wings and Glossy Accents to all the hearts. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the red background is stamped with the Magical Background using VersaMark.

A quick post today, but right now I have a slice of birthday cake calling me!

Inspired by Anita - Hero Hostess Inspired By Challenge

As this is our last week as Hero Arts Hostesses (the time went by way to quickly:(), we have planned one final challenge – “Inspired By”.

I’ve been so inspired by all my hosti sisters and everyone in the Hero Arts Flickr group. So for our challenge each of the current Hostesses has made a card inspired another Hostess, in order of the Hostess announcements. That means I’ve made a card inspired by the super talented, super fun and super sweet Anita and my good friend Linda has made this amazing card inspired by me. For my card inspired by Anita I tried to make a masculine card for this month's Hero Arts Challenge.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass, Large Canvas Stripes, Flower Text and Birthday Messages.

I’ve noticed from Anita’s photostream that she seems to love a blue, green & brown colour combination, buttons and stripes so I tried to incorporate all of these into my card. For the top portion of the card I applied faded jeans distress ink to white card and spritzed with water. Then I applied shabby shutter distress ink to the Silhouette Grass stamp, spritzed lightly with water, stamped on the background and then over stamped with a brown chalk ink. I stamped the green patterned paper at the bottom of the card with the Large Canvas Stripe using shabby shutters distress ink. The butterflies were punched from a scrap left over from another project (the Flower Text stamp had been embossed on white card with shabby shutters applied). The sentiment is embossed and I just added some buttons, a crimped brown strip and some twine to finish.

Anyone who would like to take part in the challenge can create a card\project inspired by any member of the Hero Arts Flickr group - there are 3,627 members to choose from! Full details of the challenge are here. I hope you'll join in on the fun:)

I am submitting this card into the Simon Says Emboss It Challenge.

Card, Treat Holder and Jelly Beans

I’ve wanted to make a couple of projects for the past few days and was delighted to finally get a bit of time to make them today.


The first one is a card I made for Kathy's Colour Throw Down at Lily Pad Cards. I didn’t have the exact colours for the challenge but used colours as close as possible to them. I used a sketch from the current Hero Arts challenge and because of the masculine theme in the challenge went for a card for a little (or maybe not so little!) guy.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Clouds, Going, Envelope Pattern, Magical Background, Be Happy and Birthday Messages.

To start with I applied broken china distress ink to the Clouds Background, spritzed liberally with water and stamped on white card. I coloured the car with Promarkers and applied a layer of Glossy Accents for some sheen. For the sun I applied spiced marmalade distress ink to white card and stamped with the Envelope Pattern using the same ink. On the bottom strip of the card I applied shabby shutters distress ink to white card and stamped the Magical Background using the same ink. The sentiment is embossed.

I made a treat container to go with the card and am submitting it into the Food Wrap Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.




Stamps (Hero Arts) – Clouds, Going, Envelope Pattern & Be Happy.

The cloud background, sun and car were all made in the same way as on the card above. I just added a little peep hole for the jelly beans. Both my kids said they preferred the treat container to the card but I’m wondering if that had anything to do with the jelly beans they had as a result of me making the container!

Birthday Owl

Stamps (Hero Arts)- Clouds, Tree Trunk, Heart Owls, Be Happy, Birthday Messages, Envelope Pattern & Adorable Baby Girl

For a while I’ve been intending to quilt a cloudy sky using the Clouds background stamp and finally got around to it. I stamped white fabric (which has a white pattern) with faded jeans distress ink, placed it on 2 layers of wadding & 1 layer of backing fabric and machine stitched around the clouds. A piece of green paper was stamped with the Envelope Pattern and the grass from the Be Happy set. I paper pieced the leaves and owl, who has a slightly startled expression due to my lack of smaller googly eyes!



I have a couple of busy days ahead and hopefully after that my computer problems will be finally sorted out and I’ll be able to go visiting blogs again - I'm having withdrawal symptoms:(

Wild Flowers with Flower Brooches

After watching Kelly Rasmussen make fabulous fabric flowers and use them in brilliant ways in a video on the Hero Arts blog, I just had to give it a go. So I made quite a few the other day using different colours and fabrics. I'll add them to cards, bags, tops and like Kelly did use them for hair accessories.


I love the gorgeous colour combination for the Play Date Cafe Challenge this week and made a couple of the flowers using these colours. The flowers have pins on the backs so can be used as brooches.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Wild Flowers and Birthday Messages

I applied broken china distress ink to the Wild Flowers stamp, spritzed with water and stamped on watercolour paper. Then I lightly distressed the edges to go with the slightly frayed flowers and added some gems. When I have very small scraps left over from projects, I often punch butterflies from them and keep them in a jar for another time. The butterfly here is one of these and had been from a project where I used dusty concord distress ink. I just added the little heart pearl to the body.

Below are some of the flowers I made – I won’t bore you with them all! All the stamps mentioned are by Hero Arts.

Denim from an old pair of jeans stamped with the Magical Background (the pattern is more obvious in real life) using faded jeans distress ink.

Gingham with the button stamped with the Envelope Pattern using worn lipstick distress ink

Hand dyed fabric stamped with the Envelope Pattern


Another hand dyed fabric


Cotton on the bottom layer (stamped with Old Letter Writing)......


.... with a layer of organza petals on top


When I folded each petal in half, I didn’t fold them perfectly but offset them a bit to get a more ruffled look.


If you'd like to make these kind of fabric flowers you should watch Kelly's brilliant video.

Hero Hostess Takeover!

It’s Hero Hostess week on the Hero Arts blog this week and we’ve had such a fun time making birthday cards and projects for the blog!

Linda and Sharon were first up on Monday with wonderful cards for a friend and a guy. On Tuesday Sally shared a stunning gift box which she had created and is sure to make a present extra special. Wednesday saw Anita with her very first video tutorial and she created a gorgeous card with wonderful instructions on how to make twisted ribbon flowers. So Friday is finally here and I’m sharing some gift wrapping ideas.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Antique Engravings, Blossom Art, Large Flower & Birthday Messages

I often make my own wrapping paper and embellishments for gifts. I love choosing the stamps and colours to make these and had great fun going through my Hero Arts stamps to wrap these particular gifts. Full instructions on how I wrapped the gifts are here on the Hero Arts website so I’ll just give the short version now. I stamped a butterfly randomly over pieces of some blue craft paper using VersaMark.



To decorate the parcels I white embossed the butterflies and flowers on vellum and added a selection of gems – thanks again Joy for some of these! The bottom layer of the sentiment was also white embossed on vellum with the top layer white embossed on a scrap of the blue paper.



The blue paper I used was from a roll which is 70m long and cost the same as a single sheet of wrapping paper. So I’ll be able to wrap lots of presents from this roll and will be able to customise them to suit the recipient’s tastes. The other day I wrapped a present for a friend using different paper and stamped embellishments. She told me that she has saved the embellishments so that she can make her first cards using them – hopefully she’ll get hooked on card making too!



I'm submitting this project into The Shabby Tea Room "Party Time" Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Challenge.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!