ATC swap with Marijke

When I was making ATCs for the current Hero Arts challenge, I thought it would be fun if a group of us got together to do an ATC swap. So that’s exactly what a bunch of us did in the Hero Arts Flickr Group. With the random draw it turned out that my ATC swap buddy was Marijke in the Netherlands.

It’s been great getting to know Marijke a bit better through the swap and I was delighted that she was as keen as me to swap quite a few ATCs! We decided to swap six and wanted to surprise each other with our ATCs so didn’t mention a particular theme or stamps. I sent two ATCs I had already made this month – the owls from here and the bees from here.

For the other four I tried to incorporate a bit of both of us and what we like into them. Marijke loves flowers and nature and with her being from the Netherlands I had to include some orange (reminds me of when I see the Dutch football team on tv!). For me I included some of my favourite things – fabric, vellum and patchwork. The typewriter with the Friend Definition background represents all the emails we've sent each other for the swap. Marijke has received her ATCs so here they are:


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Clouds & Big And Small Flowers
The clouds are stamped with tumbled glass distress ink. I paper pieced the leaves\stem and made the fabric flower. Sally kindly sent me the baker's twine I used on the button - thanks again Sally!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Sew Artsy
Using patterned paper I made a little strip quilt pattern for the background. I coloured the sewing machine with watercolour pencils and covered with a layer of Glossy Accents.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Happy Wishes & Old Letter Writing
I applied broken china, faded jeans and shabby shutters distress inks to white card and spritzed lightly with water. Then I white embossed the Happy Wishes image and added touches of diamond stickles here and there. The butterfly was punched from a piece of vellum which had been white embossed with the Old Letter Writing.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Type, Friend Definition & Small Variety Alphabet.
The typewriter was embossed using red embossing powder and the background was clear embossed. I used some letters from the alphabet set to create the message and just added a pearl heart to finish.

If you are still awake after this loooong post, well done!! Hope you all are having a fab 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 Challenge

I made this card for the June challenge at Hero Arts (Summer, 4th of July and Colouring Layering).

The flowers were embossed with white embossing powder and sponged with worn lipstick distress ink. I cut the petals on the smaller flowers to the outer part of the flower centres and curled. Then I attached them to the larger flowers with pop dots and added a few beads to the centres. This is my favourite leaf out of the Scattered Leaves set and I seem to have used it with so many different flowers!

Scattered Flowers, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Big and Small Flowers, Scattered Leaves, Birthday Messages.