Happy Rainbow

It's a beautiful sunny day here today but this week we've had our fair share of rain and enjoyed seeing some spectacular rainbows. So I thought it might be fun to add a different kind of rainbow to my card today.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Happy Stamp & Cut, Clouds Background & Fantastic Birthday

I started by inking up the clouds background stamp with salty ocean and faded jeans distress ink, spritzed it with water and stamped on white card. Then I die cut and stamped the sentiments and added a sprinkling of silver sequins to represent raindrops and also to use some of the big stash of sequins I seem to have accumulated in no time!

Next it was time to make my "rainbow". I applied double sided sticky tape to a piece of scrap card and added rows of embroidery thread in rainbow colours.

Then I trimmed the excess threads around the edges and added it to the back of the cloud panel.

After adhering the tiny extra pieces from the die cut sentiment I added strips of yellow card to the panel and used foam pads to adhere it to a red card base. I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamps' Happy Birthday Challenge.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

This morning I received some happy mail from my good friend Linda (thanks again, Linda:) ) and immediately put to use one of the window die cuts she had sent me. I just had to make another card with the funny looking moose from the Missing You set. As he has a slightly mischievous look about him, the moose brought to mind one of my sons' favourite books when they were younger - If You Give a Moose a Muffin. Well I must have read that book to them hundreds of times and can remember all the giggles that ensued because of that rascal of a moose!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Missing You, It's Your Day, What's Cooking and Clouds Background

Originally I thought I'd have the moose peeking in the window at a muffin, but then I decided to bring him inside close to the muffin. Actually come to think of it I wouldn't mind being that close to a muffin myself right now:) So I started by masking off most of the card, leaving a small rectangular aperture to stamp the clouds. I applied a mix of blue distress inks (broken china, tumbled glass and faded jeans) to the stamp and spritzed liberally with water before stamping. On top of that went the die cut window followed by the moose and muffin which had been coloured with ProMakers. I added some Glossy Accents to the moose's eyes and went a bit dotty adding white gel pen to the moose's body - hope he's just blending in with the muffin rather then allergic to it;) After that the sentiment was stamped with tea dye distress ink.

I'm not exactly sure if this constitutes a CAS card, but it's a CAS card for me compared to my other cards, so I'm submitting it into Simon Says Stamp Clean and Simple Challenge and A Blog Named Hero Layer Cake Challenge.

We had another beautiful sunny day today with temperatures reaching 20C/68F earlier on. The garden doesn't know what's happening to it with all this early summer like weather. The bluebells are completely out

and the first bloom on the camellia has fully opened.

I just love the splashes of colour that are appearing around the garden. Hope it's sunny in your part of the world:)

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).

ATC Heaven!

I was so excited when I got home from work the other night and discovered a package from the very talented and sweet Libby Hickson. Libby and I were paired up in an ATC swap over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. We did our swap at a leisurely pace, in my case at a very leisurely pace indeed as I mislaid the first set of ATCs I had made for Libby! Anyway I'm hoping that Libby will receive the ATCs I made any day now, but for the moment I'd love to show you the amazing ATCs I received from Libby. It's a pity my photos don't do any justice to just how beautiful they are in real life.

For our swap Libby came up with the great idea of making ATCs based on what we love and I had fun guessing what Libby would come up with. Lol now why is it that I don't have a chocolate stamp in my stash?! If you know Libby at all, you'll know that one of her big loves is cycling so I was delighted to see this fun biking scene with the cute glittery bicycle and sweet banners. Being a bit of a fabric fiend I just love the way Libby used canvas on the seashell ATC and layered the images so beautifully, to show her love for the oceans, aquariums and fish. Not only does the ATC look pretty but it feels lovely too.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - 1. Cloud Backgrounds, Envelope Pattern, 2. Antique Engravings

Next up is a gorgeous, gorgeous ATC representing Libby's love of poppies, flowers and gardens. Not only is the colouring fab but I wish you could see the wonderful glimmering gold background in all its glory. Isn't the veggie ATC showing Libby's love for cooking and vegetables just the cutest? I have to say I'm a girl (or I should say auld wan!) who loves her veggies and this ATC just makes me smile.


Stamps (Hero Arts)- 1. Delicate Blossoms & Friend Definition 2. Kiss the Cook

Now we're off travelling with Libby to a couple of her favourite places - Texas and New York. Again there's wonderful colouring, distressing and layering on Libby's Texas ATC and it's just such a fun one. I've never been to Texas but I'm with Libby on loving New York City. It's such a brilliant place to visit and I love the wonderful, atmospheric sky Libby has created as a backdrop to this lovely skyscraper skyline stamp.


Stamps (Hero Arts)- 1. Howdy, Magical Background 2. Newspaper Skyline

As you can probably tell I just LOVE all of these ATCs! I included the names of stamps when I recognise them but I'm afraid I've missed out on a few. Libby, thanks again for swapping with me, I enjoyed it so much! Also thanks for all the yummy goodies you included in your package, I'm going to have great fun playing with them:)You can find Libby's inspiring blog here.

90 Minute Mayhem aka 90 Minute Scramble

It has been too long since I've been able to take part in one of the 90 minute scrambles over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. But today the timing was right and I was able to join in on Janet's fun scramble.

The idea is to design, make, photograph and upload a card to the group in 90 minutes. 90 minutes sounds like a long time but it's amazing how quickly the time flies by. Today for the first time, I actually got to make two cards before time ran out. So please excuse the not so great photos as I was a bit rushed when I was taking them!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Lattice Background and Right at Home

For the first card, I embossed the lattice background and applied distress inks (shabby shutters, faded denim, tumbled glass). The flower is one I had made a while ago and I added a gorgeous heart button from a pack of wood buttons which my friend Linda had sent me. The sentiment was stamped with walnut stain distress ink.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Clouds Background, Woodland Creatures and Picnic

To make the background on the second card, I stamped the clouds on blue card using faded jeans distress ink. Then I added a strip of patterned paper and layered some ribbon (thanks again, Linda!) over it. I paper pieced the kite and coloured the raccoon with colouring pencils.

Hope you are all having a great weekend:)

Hero Hostesses Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to your next stop in the Hero Arts 2012 Catalogue Blog Hop with the Hero Hostesses!



You should have arrived here from Anita’s blog. She is so talented and fun, I can’t wait to go hopping myself and see what she has created! If you find a broken link, you'll find a master list of the hop links at the Hero Club Blog. Also, if you happen to come across any broken links, please report them to Tami.

Don’t forget to leave comments as you hop! Hero Arts will be awarding prizes from randomly drawn comments. For a chance to win, simply comment on ANY of the stops along the hop on ANY day, including each day’s starting post at the Hero Club Blog. The more comments you leave, the better your chance of winning! Good luck!

The Hero Arts 2012 catalogue is packed full with fab stamps to suit every style you could possibly imagine. I had so much fun getting inky with the stamps the ever generous Hero Arts sent me to play with. Usually I give details of how I’ve made a card, but I’ve omitted that today as my post is quite long as it is, so please feel free to email me if you have questions about any of the cards. Now on to what I got up to with the new stamps!

I love flowers and knew I had to get the Newspaper Tulips K5576 stamp as soon as I saw it. Tulips come in so many colours and I’ve had a great time trying out lots of different colours on the Newspaper Tulips, so quite a few of my family\friends will be recieving tulip cards soon!



Hero Arts Stamps:
Newspaper Tulips K5576
Flourish Background CG119
Four Hearts CG425 (for the punched heart sentiment piece)

Other supplies - inks (dried marigold distress ink, VersaMark & VersaCraft Celadon), white embossing powder, cream card, cotton upholstery fabric, string, gem, heart punch and Labels 8.

I'm submitting this card into the Die Cutting Challenge in the Moxie Fab World and the Around the House Challenge in the Moxie Fab World (used upholstery fabric).


Hero Arts have created three new clear stamp sets in collaboration with Operation Write Home. Hero Arts will donate 25% of the profits from these sets to that great organisation – love that! One of these sets is Right at Home CL583 which I love and used on this card along with lots of other Hero Arts stamps.



With all the great elements in this adorable Right at Home set - the house, picket fence, framed picture, kite, cloud and sentiments, I just couldn’t resist it and will be using these images on cards for all different kinds of occasions.


Inside card

Hero Arts Stamps:
Right at Home CL583
Dot Flower Pattern CG335 (wallpaper on inside)
Cloud Background S5215
Be Happy CL377
Adorable Baby Girl CL265

Other supplies – distress inks (tumbled glass, shabby shutters, broken china & antique linen), patterned paper, white & red card, colouring pencils, heart gem and string.



I absolutely LOVE the new Greetings set CG414 and can imagine using both stamps in so many different ways. On this card I teamed the butterfly thank you stamp with a background stamp I use over and over again – Old Letter Writing S4878



Hero Arts Stamps:
Greetings CG414
Old Letter Writing S4878

Other supplies - Ribbon Lace CH231, distress inks (tumbled glass, shabby shutters & antique linen), cream & white card, VersaMark, white embossing powder, pearls, thread, button, seam binding, patterned paper.



I want to send a great big thanks to my favourite company, Hero Arts, for a wonderful new catalogue brim full of fabulous products and for inviting me to take part in this blog hop!


Hero Arts Stamp – Four Hearts CG426

A big thanks too to Tami and Deborah for all that they’ve done in organising the hop and of course the Hero Hostesses for all the amazing projects they have created – girls you’ve been so inspiring and have made my shopping list a lot longer!!

Last but not least, a big thanks to you too for visiting and now it’s time for you to go hopping again. At your next stop you will visit the super creative Tracey! Enjoy the rest of your hopping, I’m off to do some hopping too!

Happy Birthday Mark!

This is a card I made for my son Mark who celebrates his birthday today. Happy Birthday, Mark! Since Mark’s birthday is on the 4th of July, I decided to go with a red\white\blue colour combination and some stars and stripes.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Canvas Stripes, Friendly Flags and Clouds Background

To start with I applied barn door distress ink to the stripes stamp and spritzed lightly with water before stamping. The clouds background was stamped in the same way using tumbled glass distress ink. For the blue flags, I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks to white card and embossed the flags in white. I used a scrap of the stamped canvas stripes for the birthday flag.

Happy 4th of July to all you who celebrate it too:)

Critters in Love ATCs

I had so much fun making my last set of ATCs and couldn’t resist making more for the current Hero Arts challenge. This time it’s critters in love. I’ve uploaded the photos from a laptop (pc in for repairs:( ) and it’s a really cloudy day here, so sorry if the photo is terrible!


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Adorable Baby Girl, Heart Owls, Designer Woodgrain, Be Happy, Envelope Pattern, Woodland Creatures & Clouds Background.

Ladybirds card
For the sky I applied tumbled glass distress ink to white card and spritzed lightly with water. Shabby shutters distress ink was applied to white card and one of the hills was stamped with the Envelope Pattern. The tree was coloured with watercolours pencils and the hearts coloured with a ProMarker and covered with Glossy Accents.

Owls card
I applied distress inks (pumice stone & walnut stain) to white card and stamped the woodgrain using walnut stain distress ink. The owls were coloured with watercolour pencils. I stamped the leaves on patterned paper and the hearts were coloured with a ProMarker and Glossy Accents applied. For the background I applied shabby shutters distress in to white card and stamped with the Envelope Pattern.

Raccoons card
The grass was stamped on patterned paper and the clouds stamped on white card. I coloured the raccoons with watercolours pencils. The hearts were coloured with a ProMarker and I applied Glossy Accents to them.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

Hero Hostess Good Friends

Over at the Hero Arts Flickr group all the new Hostesses have happily donned their new colourful aprons – Linda (purple), me (green), Anita (hot pink), Sharon (aqua) and Sally (pink).

Sarah came up with the brilliant idea of a colour combination challenge based on the apron colours. Here’s a quick card I made this morning to celebrate becoming a Hostess with these wonderful ladies. I'd love if we could all meet in real life as we did on this card, well just not on a tree branch!



Stamps (Hero Arts) – Clouds, Heart Owls, Tree Bird and Messages

I ran out of the smaller size googly eyes so my little owl has the same surprised and excited look as I did when I received Tami's email about becoming a hostess!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Hero Hostess and Friends : )

I still can’t quite believe this is happening, but I have just become a Hero Hostess!! I’m so excited and feel honoured to have been invited to be a Hostess by Hero Arts. I would like to say a big thanks to Hero Arts, my absolute favourite company (as you can probably tell from my blog!), for everything so far and for what promises to be a fun three months ahead.

Hero Arts is such a generous company and I love the fantastic quality and amazing range of their images\products. Nearly everything I’ve learned about card making has been through the artists on the Hero Arts blog and the members of the Hero Arts Flickr group. As well as learning and enjoying the fun aspects of the blog and group, one of the brilliant and unexpected benefits for me in joining the group has been the wonderful friends I’ve made within the group. I know a lot of other great friendships have also been formed because of the group. My good friend Linda donned her apron yesterday and I’m so happy we’ll be sharing this great adventure together. I can’t wait till you “meet” the rest of the hostesses during the week – you’ll love them!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Scattered Leaves, Antique Engravings, Clouds Background, Big and Small Flowers, Music Background, Tree Birds and Messages

Tami from Hero Arts gave us the great theme of friendship to work with for our cards for the blog this week. The blocks on my card represent some of the wonderful friends I’ve made in the group and have had great chats and laughs with. A detailed description of how I made the card can be found here on the Hero Arts website, but here is a brief description. I applied various distress inks (Shabby Shutters, Mustard Seed, Broken China, Spiced Marmalade, Dusty Concord, Faded Jeans and Barn Door) to panels of white card and spritzed some with water. Using the same inks I stamped the images on each panel, the exception being where I used white ink for the Music Background. The sentiment was embossed in white and the completed panels were then machine stitched to the card base.



To make the flowers I stamped a piece of red fabric and a piece of yellow fabric with the small flower from the Big and Small Flowers set. Then I put together three layers - a piece of unstamped fabric on the bottom, wadding in the middle and on the top the piece of stamped fabric face up. Using a tiny stitch setting on my sewing machine, I stitched all the layers together by stitching the outlines of the petals. The smaller details were hand stitched and I sewed some beads to the centre. Then I cut out the flowers trimming close to the stitched edge without cutting through the stitches.

Hero Arts' Virtual Cardmaking Party

Over the weekend Hero Arts held a Virtual Cardmaking Party in celebration of Operation Write Home’s birthday. There were lots of great challenges and fun games to take part in. Amazingly, over 600 cards were created by members of the HA Flickr group during the weekend to donate to Operation Write Home. These are the cards I made over the weekend.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Froggy, Clouds Background, Write Your Message and Flourish Background.



Stamp (Hero Arts) Birthday Messages.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Froggy & You’re the Best.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Heart Owls, Flourish Background & Branch Background.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Antique Engravings & Birthday Messages.

A big thanks to Hero Arts and everyone in the HA Flickr group for making it such a brilliant, fun weekend!



As you can see I had fun getting inky!

PaperPlay Challenge – Sketch and Stash.

The challenge on PaperPlay this week is “Sketch and Stash”. Sandie has provided the great sketch below for you to try this week.

An added option to the challenge is to use some of your new stash. I have to put my hand up and admit to being guilty of buying goodies and then not using them for ages or even worse, ever! The mottled pink card is my something new from my stash.



Wink, Wink, Ink is kindly sponsoring this week’s challenge and the lucky winner will receive 3 digi images from the store here. I had such a hard time deciding which Wink, Wink, Ink image to use on my card as there are so many cute and gorgeous images to choose from. In the end I opted for this cutie called Pearl. I love the adorable images in this set and the fact that they are in both b&w and colour. The coloured version would be so handy for printing out and whipping up a quick card. The sentiments to go with the images are great too.

Stamps used:- Pearl (Wink, Wink, Ink) & Clouds Background (Hero Arts)

I coloured the image with watercolour pencils, popped up the sunhat and a couple of the little ruffles on the back of the swimsuit and added a pearl to the shell. The sentiment inside the card is one of the ones provided with Pearl – “Finding a friend like you is a rare and unexpected blessing!”

My 10 month old computer decided to stop working completely on Monday and I really thought it was gone beyond repair. Thankfully, it’s back in action again at half speed at the moment, but with a replacement part it should be back to normal later today. I have a lot of catching up to do! I missed the computer so much I even resorted to using my sons' PlayStation 3 to access the internet for a few things! But it’s so much better and quicker to be using a keyboard again. Luckily I haven’t lost anything (especially photos) but my motto from now on is backup, backup, backup.

PaperPlay Challenge - Bon Voyage

Bon Voyage is the title of this week’s challenge on PaperPlay. So your card can be for a vacation, moving house etc.

Simon Says Stamp has kindly sponsored this week’s challenge and I’m sure the lucky winner will have a great time picking out yummy new goodies to the tune of $15 from the store.



Stamps used: - House with Plant & Cloud Background (Hero Arts) & New Home (Anita’s).

I love this house stamp from Hero Arts so I’ve stamped off lots of images and have had fun colouring them using different colour combinations. The house here is coloured with watercolour pencils and for the background I sponged distress inks (shabby shutters, broken china & faded jeans) onto white card. I love looking at all the creative cards/layouts that Trinh comes up with and I absolutely loved the way she embossed the Cloud Background in white on one of her gorgeous cards here. It made such a beautiful, soft background so I decided to use her idea on my card.

I’ve been buying bits and pieces of ribbon since I started making cards and hardly ever use them, so I think it’s time to start digging into my stash. I find it hard to make nice looking bows and spend ages fiddling around with ribbons trying to get it right. It's too late now for this card but next time I must try this make your own bow maker that I just came across - I have the jar, the pegs and I certainly have the ribbon!

I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the challenge!

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.