Tropical Birthday

Hero Arts has a great Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge this month so when I had a bit of time to get inky this morning I just had to join in on the fun.

With the card I made I (accidentally!) managed to cover two of the lines - circles, background stamp & watercolour and background stamp, birthday theme & die cutting.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Tropical Background & Messages with Flourish
Die (Hero Arts) - Delicate Butterfly Fancy Die

I started by applying distress inks (spiced marmalade, worn lipstick & barn door) to the background stamp, spritzed with water and applied this to cream card. After the panel had dried I stamped the sentiment, die cut the opening and adhered some acetate at the back of the panel. The bright pink backing card for the shaker was also stamped with the same background stamp but because it was stamped in pink on pink it has left a very subtle pattern. After adding a mix of sequins and putting together the shaker panel I adhered it to a cream card base. My good friend Linda sent me the pretty butterfly - thanks again, Linda:)

I heat embossed the butterfly twice using enchanted gold embossing powder and used foam pads to attach it to the card.

My Mam is doggy sitting at the moment so this morning I brought Max, our hairy friend, for a ramble up the hill behind my Mam's house. Here are some photos I snapped along the way.

Enjoy your weekend!

Butterfly Hello

I enjoyed making this shaker card the other day so wanted to make another one today using a pretty Memory Box die (thanks again, Linda!) and a couple of Hero Arts stamps.

Die - Isabella Butterfly (Memory Box)
Stamps - Be Happy & Messages With Flourish (Hero Arts)

I started by making a black card and embossing the sentiment. After cutting the butterflies out of a panel, I layered a strip of acetate to the back of the panel and partially adhered the butterflies' bodies. A coat of glossy accents was applied to the bodies and the stamped butterfly trails were added.

To make the colourful backs for the butterflies, I applied various distress inks (broken china, tumbled glass, mowed lawn, shabby shutters, spiced marmalade, worn lipstick and spun sugar) to white card and splattered/spritzed the card with water. Clear glass beads were trapped between the acetate and backing layer. After adding the panel to the card, I adhered strips of baker's twine to the sides.

I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp Let's Be Clear Challenge ( I used clear beads, acetate, glossy accents and clear stamps) and Virginia's View Die Cut Challenge.

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:)