Beauty Spot Bee

Over at the Hero Arts group on Flickr, Martha is hosting a fun 90 minute scramble over a 24 hour period. Her theme is to make a project in grey, black, white and use a small pop of one colour.

With this theme I decided to use a cute little bee image from Hero Arts, have yellow as my pop of colour and use hexagons wherever I could. To start with I clear embossed the hexagon background on a panel of grey pearlescent card. Then I die cut a hexagon from white card and die cut a black hexagon frame. After stamping the sentiment, I adhered the frame onto the white hexagon with foam pads and also use foam pads to attach the piece to the background.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Hexagon Background, Be Happy & Everyday Sayings

Then it was time to make the little bee. I black embossed the bee twice and coloured the images. After cutting out the bee and the bee's head from the second image, I used foam pads to layer the head for some extra dimension. In my haste to meet the scramble deadline, a stray speck of embossing powder ended up on the bee's face, so she's ended up with a beauty spot;) To finish I added some diamond stickles to the wings. I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes Challenge.

I'm happy to say we're having an Indian summer here this week and it's great to get out on walks and enjoy the pretty autumn colours that are starting to appear on the trees. Hope you're enjoying beautiful weather too wherever you are.

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.

Card on a Card Scramble

Yesterday in the Hero Arts Flickr Group Jayne hosted a great Scramble with the theme a card on a card. I don't think I've ever made a card on a card before but I think it's something I'll do again and again.

The ninety minutes to make, photograph and upload a card really flies by so I just tried to make a quick and easy card. To create a mini card I folded white cardstock and then die cut a circle (through both layers) at the folded edge but kept the fold just inside the circle die. After die cutting the flower shape out of the front of the mini card, I added a piece of backing card which had been stamped with the woodgrain pattern. I used shabby shutters distress ink spritzed with water. The flower was stamped on patterned paper and layered.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Butterfly and Flowers Stamp & Cut set, It's Your Day and Woodgrain Background

To finish the flower I added clear Wink of Stella and a button. After adding the flower to the mini card I used foam dots to adhere the mini card to a kraft die cut scallop circle.

I'm submitting this card into Hero Arts Tic Tac Toe Challenge using the circles, background stamp and watercolour.

Card for 100th Scramble

Last night over at the Hero Arts Group on Flickr Barb hosted the 100th Scramble in the group. Her theme was to use your all time favourite Hero Arts image stamp as well as your all time Hero Arts sentiment set.

As so many of my Hero Arts stamps are my favourites I had a hard time picking just one. I had whittled my choice down to two different stamps and even though my hubby didn't see which stamps I was dithering over, he said "it's got to be butterflies" so that's how I picked between the two! The butterfly I used is from the Antique Engravings set and has been inked up over and over again as I love it so much.

Stamp - Antique Engravings (Hero Arts)

I started by embossing and sanding the background. Then after stamping and cutting out the butterflies, I coloured them with Promarkers and added touches of diamond distress stickles to the smaller white dots on the wings.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings & Lil Hoot

Then I added some thread for the antennae and stuck the butterflies on the main panel using foam pads. After adding the sentiment, again on foam pads, I used glossy accents to adhere the gorgeous green sequins that my friend Trinh sent me - thanks again Trinh:)

Some ladies manage to make two or even three cards during the Scrambles but I inevitably only manage one and literally end up scrambling to get the card made and uploaded in time. So please just pretend you don't see the wonky card, places I missed colouring and blobs of glossy accents;) Even though it's a mad scramble it is so much fun. If you'd like to join in on a Scramble you'll find the timetable here.

I'm submitting this card into the Die Cut Divas Anything Goes Challenge. Happy stamping and enjoy your Sunday:)

Scrambling and a Trip to Glendalough with Linda

Over at the Hero Arts Group yesterday Jayne hosted a 90 minute scramble. I just loved her scramble theme - use one or more white flowers, use a script or cursive sentiment and also use a gorgeous photo, of what looked like old tiles, for inspiration.

As usual I was all over the place during the scramble, I started off with one idea, didn't like it and scrapped it after 20 minutes. So I started all over again with 70 minutes to go and this is the card I made.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Petal Background & Messages with Flourish

I started by making a card base and embossing the sentiment. Because I was rushing I didn't emboss it perfectly but thanks to a great tip from Donna, I added some white gel pen to the patchy places. Then I stamped portions of the background stamp four times and cut out the images to make a layered flower. To finish I added a dollop of glossy accents to the flower centre and threw on some beads. As the tiles in Jayne's inspiration photo had a distressed look about them, I did some distressing around the edges of the card.

Well now on to the next part of my post for today. Recently my friend Linda came over from the US to visit. I first got to know Linda in 2009 through the Hero Arts group on Flickr. I know a lot of good friendships have been made all around the world thanks to that group. Linda was a big fan of ScrapFest and I thought that sometime I'd go there and get to meet Linda and other friends from the group. But unfortunately ScrapFest is no more, so instead of meeting Linda in the US we got to meet here in Ireland. It was brilliant finally getting to meet Linda. Well I have to say when we met at Dublin Airport, I felt like I was meeting an old friend and we had plenty of time over the next week to chat away to our hearts content. Poor Linda must have been jet lagged but kept going the whole day and we even did a scramble together that evening. It was great fun scrambling side by side with Linda. Lol my scramble card is so awful I won't be posting it here but Linda made an adorable card which you'll find here. Linda completed her scramble card in no time, in fact I was still inking a background and she was done!

So after a sleep, we thought we stay fairly local the next day and headed off to Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains National Park and Russborough House. Unfortunately, after an absolutely glorious, warm, sunny day the previous day, the weather let us down a bit and there were drizzly showers every so often during the day. Now I'll stop rambling on and show some photos. Just an advance warning - I love taking photos when I'm out and about so this is a bit of a photo heavy post!

Glendalough Round Tower in the distance

Linda at the monastic settlement in Glendalough

A deer Linda spotted as we were walking along the boardwalk to the Upper Lake. The deer are usually in the more remote parts of the National Park so we were lucky to see this one.

Linda at the Upper Lake in Glendalough

Poulanass Waterfall

We came across this sculpture in the sensory garden that has the same uncontrollable hair as I do!

Lots of wildflowers were in full bloom including the Greater Stitchwort. It was thanks to the Park's lovely wildflower guide that I was able to find out the name of this pretty flower!


If you'd like to see different views of Glendalough on sunnier days, you'll find more in my posts here and here. I can't believe I didn't take any photos of Russborough House, but I've been there so many times and must have loads photos of the place stored somewhere (!) on my pc. Anyway if you'd like to see photos of this stately home built in the 1740s you'll find them on this website.

I think I've shown so many photos today that I'll leave it till another day to show more photos from a trip Linda and I did around the country. Hope you're having a lovely weekend:)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! It has been such a long time since I blogged, but between being busy with other things and wonderful weather which I've been sure to made the most of (never know when the rain will be back again!), I haven't been stamping much recently.

Anyway yesterday my friend Linda hosted a fun scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. At the mention of the word scramble, I seem to turn into a complete butterfingers but had a great time with Linda's paper piecing theme. A little earlier in the day I had made some chocolate and cornflake Easter nests and added mini eggs, so I thought I'd bag a few and add a paper pieced tag.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - CL758 A Little & B3837 Bunny Basket

I pulled out some card in spring\Easter colours and embossed and paper pieced the various parts of the tag. Then I added a little bunny on foam pads and after punching a hole in the top of the tag added some fibres. I don't know what the fibres are but they feel similar to raffia and are in the shape of twine. I'm submitting this card into A Blog Named Hero Layer Cake Challenge and Simon Says Stamp's Animal Antics Challenge.

I'm not the only one enjoying the glorious sunshine here. The garden seems to be full of ladybirds this year



and the flowers and shrubs are showing signs of soaking up all the lovely sunshine too!







Hope you're enjoying lovely weather wherever you are:)

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.

Flying Scramble

Last night Jayne hosted a fun and challenging scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group.

Jayne was inspired by baseball in picking the theme for her challenge and went for a triple play. I haven't a clue what that means in baseball terms but our scramble card had to include a triple play of trends - 1) use a photo frame 2) have at least one element on a slant and 3) have a metallic element.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Magical Background, BAM! & Ghostly Greetings

I haven't had a chance to play along in the scrambles in quite a while and had forgotten how quickly those 90 minutes whizz by! The fact that about 20 minutes of my time was taken up searching for my craft knife didn't exactly help, lol! I had tried cutting the photo frame with a scissors but it looked so bockety that way! I've seen YouTube videos of people completing a card in 10 minutes - lol I don't think I'll ever be capable of that!

For the background I stamped the Magical Background on blue card using faded jeans distress ink. I stamped the rocket twice, coloured and layered in parts for some extra dimension. To complete the metallic element part of the theme I added gold stickles to the flame from the rocket and silver pen to the rivets and piece protruding from the rocket nose.



Yikes got a bit splodgy with the stamping but that's what happens when you're scrambling! The next scramble in the group will be hosted by Janet on 28th July. If you'd like to join in on this scramble you'll find more details 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:)