ATCs Swapped with Libby

Last week I blogged about the fabulous ATCs I received from Libby in a swap organised over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group. Now Libby has finally received the ATCs I sent her. Unfortunately, this set was made in bit of a hurry as I mislaid the set I had originally made for Libby, so please ignore the dodgy bits on the ATCs! Libby came up with the great idea of making the ATCs based on what we love, so here are some of the things I love:

1. Family and home & 2. Gardening and butterflies


Stamps (Hero Arts) 1. House with Plant & Right at Home 2. Leafy Vines

On the first ATC I just applied distress inks to a piece of paper from a book and coloured the house with markers. For the second one I embossed the vines, applied mowed lawn distress ink and spritzed with a mix of perfect pearls and water. The tiny layered butterflies were punched out.

3. Sewing/fabric & 4. Ireland



Stamps (Hero Arts) 3. Sew Artsy & Be Happy 4. Postcard Collage

For the sewing ATC I embossed the machine, cut out the image and added some thread. Then I frayed some fabric for the background, stamped the sentiment and hand stitched over it. On the Ireland ATC I just stamped the map on some kraft card, distressed the edges and used markers to colour the map of Ireland.

5. Hillwalking & 6. Glendalough/historical places



Stamps (Hero Arts) 5. Be Happy 6. Scattered Leaves & Magical Background

On the hillwalking card I rummaged through my fabrics for a mix of colours, shades and patterns and tried to make a background that looked like a lake and mountains. The sun was stamped on card with distress ink applied. Then on my last ATC I framed a photo from Glendalough in a die cut window and added it to a background which had been covered with distress ink and stamped with the Magical Background and leaves.

I had so much fun making these little cards and really enjoyed my swap with Libby.

Thanks with Kanzashi Flowers

Recently I came across this great video on how to make kanzashi flowers. I'd never heard of these before, but thought I'd give them a go.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Classic Fabric Design, Antique Engravings, Scattered Leaves and Messages.

The petals of the larger flower start off as 2 inch squares and these are folded over a few times. On the smaller flowers the squares are only one inch, so they proved to be a bit more fiddly, especially with slippy fabric!



To start with I clear embossed the Classic Fabric Design on white card and applied shabby shutters and forest moss distress inks. The flowers are made from shot silk and I added some pearls to the centres from an old necklace. The butterfly was stamped with a brown chalk ink and I just added some pearls and thread to finish.

I'm submitting the card into a few challenges:

Lily Pad Cards - Fabric\Felt Challenge
Hero Arts - August Challenge
Creative Card Crew - Hand Made Flowers Challenge
Paper Creations Ink - Show Us Your Flowers

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.

Frayed Poinsettia

I’ve been following Jennifer McGuire’s brilliant Thinking Inking series on Two Peas in a Bucket and the challenge this week is to stamp or ink on different surfaces. I picked three fabrics for my different surfaces.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Music Background, Scattered Leaves & Three Holiday Trees.

Firstly I used a cream upholstery sample for the background. I white embossed it with the Holly Flourish and applied some antique linen distressed ink. For the poinsettia I used two pieces of fabric – a scrap of patterned fabric for the bottom layer and a piece of plain red fabric stamped with the Music Background for the top layer. I stamped one of the leaves out of the Scattered Leaves set onto a cream fabric.



To make the flower and leaf I put two pieces of fabric together and machine stitched around the pattern using a very small zigzag stitch. Then I snipped as close as possible to the stitching without actually cutting into it. I wanted a fuzzy look on the flower\leaf so I just frayed the edges a bit with my nail. The dotty ribbon made me think of snowballs so I added that, some lace, gold beads, twine and a red gem to finish.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

September CCC Cards

I love taking part in Deborah’s Card Chain Challenge and because of this month's challenge I received a wonderful card from Kelly in the U.S. and sent Corey, also in the U.S., a card. Deborah is currently taking names for her October Card Chain Challenge (wonderful choice of colours, template and themes) so if you’d like to take part, you can put your name down here to join in the fun!


Stamp (Hero Arts) - Flower Chick

Above is the fantastic card I was lucky enough to have received from the super talented Kelly, along with some lovely goodies - thanks again Kelly! I love the design, vibrant colours and of course the wonderfully coloured chick with Kelly's signature flower in the chick's hair.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass, Outline Flowers, Scattered Leaves & Messages

The card above is the one I made for Corey. I had read somewhere that she likes chocolate brown so I used brown for the card base and followed Deborah’s colour palette (loosely!) and friendship theme. The Grass Silhouette is embossed in white and I decided to use one of the flowers from the Outline Flower background. I love this stamp but haven't used it recently so thought it was time to ink it up again.



I stamped the flower three times, coloured with watercolour pencils, layered and added dots of diamond stickles to the stamens. The leaves are stamped using a couple of chalk inks and the butterflies are punched from a scrap of card, left over from another project, which had been sponged with spiced marmalade distress inks.

I'm submitting the card into Hero Arts Everything Autumn challenge. I'm really going to have to think about getting a Pro account on Flickr - big difference between photos uploaded from Flickr and straight from the computer! I've had a mad, busy week this week so hopefully I'll do some catching up on blogs and everything over the weekend!

Swirling Autumn Leaves

The starting point for this card was when I saw the Offset Scallop Gallop Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. I really liked the idea of using offset scallops on a card and wanted to use an autumn theme for Jenny’s "Fall into Autumn"challenge and Hero Arts’ “Everything Autumn” challenge.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Scattered Leaves, Flourish Background, Scallop Borders and Messages.

I embossed the Flourish Background in white on a piece of fabric from an upholstery fabric sample book. The leaves are clear embossed on scraps of upholstery fabric. Because the embossing is all over the leaves they didn’t fray when I cut them. Even if they did fray I wouldn’t mind because it would give that tattered autumn look. I clear embossed some pieces of card with a scallop from the Scallop Borders set and layered them. To finish I just added some gems and machine stitching.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

PaperPlay Challenge – Autumn is a Comin’

Julie set the challenge on PaperPlay this week and it is to use an autumnal colour scheme on your card\project. I love all the glorious colours of autumn so I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Simon Says Stamp is kindly sponsoring this week's challenge and the lucky winner will receive $15 to spend in the store. There are so many wonderful goodies to choose from here.



Stamps used (Hero Arts) – Antique Engravings, Scattered Leaves & Flourish Background

I used distress inks (worn lipstick & spiced marmalade) for the sky and stamped the wheat using two brown chalk inks. The dragonflies are stamped on acetate and I added copper stickles to the wings for some sparkle.



I stamped the leaves with shabby shutters distress ink and an orange chalk ink. Then I raided the garden shed for the raffia and snipped some berries off a wreath I have around a candle. For a bit of sheen I covered the berries with glossy accents. I clear embossed the Flourish Background on the cream card and added machine stitching using a dull gold thread.



I’m submitting the card into the current Hero Arts challenge – Everything Autumn.

Summer Fields

This is another entry into the June Challenge at Hero Arts. During the summer time as kids we used to spend hours and hours playing in the fields near home. The fields always seemed to be full of poppies, butterflies and ladybirds so that’s what I wanted to include in my summer card.

Summer Fields, originally uploaded by heather maria.

For the background I sponged distress inks (broken china, antique linen, shabby shutters and mustard seed) on white card. The wheat is stamped with antique linen and I embossed the seed heads with enchanted gold. I coloured the poppies with markers, added beads to the centres and used yarn (white yarn coloured with a green marker) for the stems. I applied glossy accents to the ladybirds.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Silhouette Grass, Scattered Leaves, Antique Engravings, Poppy Background, Birthday Messages

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.

Can't leave that large flower down!

I have really fallen for the Large Flower stamp by Hero Arts and I know it will be one of those stamps I will use over and over again - no dust will gather on this one!

Here's a card I made recently using this stamp. Before machine stitching the flower I made a "sandwich" of a piece of fabric, wadding, snippets and threads of organza, a piece of organza. For the leaves, I stamped a leaf from the Scattered Leaves set (Hero Arts) on cotton fabric, layered it on another piece of fabric, zigzag stitched around the edges and cut out.



Here are some more cards I've made using this stamp.

Organza again





Vellum





A couple more!

Some Fun With Fabrics

I used to do a bit of quilting but once I started making cards that kind of took over. But I still love to go through my fabric stash and use bits and pieces of fabric on some of my cards. These are a few cards I made recently using fabric.

For this one I stamped a piece of hand dyed fabric with the Large Flower from Hero Arts, layered with wadding and a stiff piece of fabric and machine stitched. The flower centre and background are pieces of upholstery samples.






Stamps (Hero Arts) Large Flower, Woodgrain Circle, Birthday Messages.

I had to try a tutorial I came across on making organza flowers. Various size circles are cut out of organza and the edges are curled by holding them over a flame. The organza circles are then layered to form a flower.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Branch Background, Scallop Borders, Birthday Messages, Scattered Leaves.

Since I don't get to make many quilts anymore, I thought it would be fun to make a mini quilt for this card using up little scraps of fabric. I was over the moon the other day to see that the card had been picked as one of the winners of the Moxie Fab World Fun with Fabrics challenge.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Sew Original, Birthday Messages.

Hello and Welcome!

Well I never thought I'd be saying this, but hello and welcome to my new blog!

I thought I'd start with a couple of cards I made for the June challenge (Summer Fun & 4th July) at Hero Arts

As soon as I saw the Flourish Grids stamp set by Hero Arts, I knew I'd have to get it and this is my first card using this set.



I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks to the upper part of a panel of white card and spritzed with water. Then I sponged the base of the panel with shabby shutters distress ink. For the flowers I used two pink chalk inks to get a few different shades. The flowers have diamond stickles centres. Originally the background was white card which I sponged with worn lipstick distress ink and stamped randomly with the flourish background using water.

Stamps
(Hero Arts) Flourish Grids, Scattered Leaves, Flourish Background, Birthday Messages, Dolls .


For the second card I used a stamp which is my absolute favourite - Large Flower by Hero Arts. I just saw that the Crafty Angels challenge this week is using your favourite stamp so I'm entering this card.



The flower is embossed in white, covered with distress inks (shabby shutters and broken china) and has four layers. The scallops and sentiment were also embossed in white and covered with worn lipstick distress ink. For the card itself I lightly applied shabby shutters and broken china distress inks to white card and splattered water on it. I just added some machine stitching and beads to finish.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Large Flower, Scallop Borders, Birthday Messages.