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:)

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.

Crazy in two ways for paper piecing!

Below is a birthday card I made for a quilting friend. I was going to put the birthday sentiment on the outside but with so much going on there as it was, I decided to put it inside instead. I’m submitting the card into the Play Date Cafe Challenge Colour Splash Week and the Moxie Fab World Paper Piecing Challenge. This month’s challenge at Hero Arts includes the theme of birthdays.


To start with I stamped the Envelope Pattern in white on red card. Then I stamped this and two pieces of white card with the sewing machine and paper pieced it – yikes those pieces were tiny but I love paper piecing anyway! On a piece of white patterned fabric I stamped the sentiment and hand stitched it with red thread. Then I just threaded up the pieced machine, added a gem and some machine stitching on the black background.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Sew Artsy, Classic Fabric Design, Large Canvas Stripes, Flourish Background, Magical Background & Envelope Pattern.

For the patterned background I white embossed pieces of black card with the Magical and Flourish Backgrounds and stamped the Classic Fabric Design and Large Canvas Stripe in black on white card. These were then cut into strips. I cut a square of white card into four triangles applied the strips, trimmed and put the square back together again. I think I can safely say this card takes the record for the most time I’ve ever spent making a card but I had great fun making it!



Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend!