Happy Birthday Honey

I love the cute little bees from the Be Happy set and decided to use them on my hubby’s birthday card this year.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Be Happy, Clouds, Magical Background, Birthday Messages, Envelope Pattern & Heart Owls

The clouds are stamped with tumbled glass distress ink which had been lightly spritzed with water. All of the hills and the sun came from pieces in my scrap mountain. I coloured the little bees with a ProMarker and colouring pencil. To finish I just added a little diamond stickles to the bees’ wings and Glossy Accents to all the hearts. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the red background is stamped with the Magical Background using VersaMark.

A quick post today, but right now I have a slice of birthday cake calling me!

Bucket and Pillow of Shells

It’s been ages since I posted, but now I’m back from holidays and feeling on track again after a bad cold. I wanted to cover two themes in Hero Arts’ July challenge (summertime and parties), the Fanatical About Botanical Challenge in the Moxie Fab World and the Simon Says Stamp and Show Anything Goes Challenge.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Magical Background & Messages

For my kids the ideal summer would include a trip to the beach every day, so when I think of summer, I think of making sandcastles, gathering shells and traisping through the rough grass in the sand dunes. So with this in mind I made these treat containers, which might be suitable for a summer party, and included bits and pieces that I associate with the beach. Then I filled them with chocolate shells - one of my favourites!



For the sand bucket, I covered a coffee cup with sand patterned paper. The handle was made with florists wire and pearls from a cheap necklace. I applied tumbled glass distress ink to white card and using the same ink stamped it with the Magical Background. I added a strip of this, some May Arts ribbon, raffia and a stamped shell to the bucket.



For the pillow box I applied tumbled glass distress ink to white card, stamped with the magical background using the same ink and die cut a window when the pillow shape was cut out. To finish I just added the shell and raffia.

Now I'm off to have some shells and a cuppa!

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:)

Batik Summer Butterflies

This month part of the Hero Arts challenge is summertime, so I decided to go with summery colours and butterflies for this card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Butterfly Wallpaper, Antique Engravings & Messages

I love the gorgeous Butterfly Wallpaper stamp that Linda kindly sent me – thanks again, Linda! I wanted to try the batik technique I had seen Tami Hartley and Lisa Spangler use on their gorgeous cards here and here. Firstly I embossed the image in white on white card and then applied tumbled glass, broken china and faded jeans distress inks. Then I covered the embossed image with a piece of vellum (usually a piece of copy paper is used) and ironed it. By ironing the image, the embossing is transferred onto the vellum and the original piece of card has a batik look.



Using the vellum was just a little experiment - I had my fingers crossed it wouldn’t melt or get stuck to the embossed image! Well it worked and now I have a piece of vellum with the butterflies image on it which I’ll be able to use on another project. The big butterfly was coloured with a ProMarker and I just added some pearls and black thread to finish. The sentiment was stamped with tumbled glass distress ink.

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.

Best Wishes Mike

During the Hero Arts blog hop last week it was mentioned that “This blog hop is in honor of our friend Mike, who is battling cancer. The world is simply brighter with Mike in it, and words can’t express our appreciation to Mike as a business partner and friend. The Hero Hostesses will be sending Mike and his family some of the cards shown during this week’s blog hop”.

Deborah gave details here for those who would like to send a card to Mike. This is a card I made for Mike who really sounds like a very special man indeed.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Designer Woodgrain, Birthday Messages & You're the Best.

I find masculine cards really hard to make and usually end up keeping them fairly simple and plain. To start with I applied shabby shutters and broken china distress inks to a piece of white card and spritzed with water. I stamped the dragonflies on this card and also used it for the bottom part of the background. For the top part of the background light brown card was clear embossed with the woodgrain stamp. To finish I white embossed words from two sentiments and added some machine stitching.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

Christmas Shaker Gift Bag

Yesterday, after making my first Christmas card for this year, I was feeling a bit Christmassy and decided to make a Christmas gift bag for the current Hero Arts challenge and the All Wrapped Up Challenge at Moxie Fab World. I absolutely love this shaker card that Sally made recently so I decided to make gift bag with a shaker on it.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Holiday Dolls & Three Trees

I recycled a bag like this one for my base. To cover up the name of the shop on the front of the bag I stitched the embossed snowflakes panel to pink card. For the sky inside the shaker I embossed various snowflakes in white and applied broken china distress ink. The doll is coloured with Promarkers and I added diamond stickles to the bobble on her hat. I stamped the sentiment on the acetate cover and added some punched snowflakes and beads to the shaker. To finish I just added a clear button which I had covered with glitter and tulle for the handles.



If anyone has any tips on taking photos of acetate, I’d love to hear them – I was nearly driven demented trying to get a photo without reflections!

Quilt Card

Last week I received these yummy goodies as a prize from Dawn and Paula from the Die Cut Divas Group on Flickr. If you have a machine for cutting or embossing, it's a great group to be in and there's lots of inspiration and a fun monthly challenge to be found there.



Dawn also sent me this gorgeous card along with the goodies.



Thanks again Paula and Dawn!

I’m terrible for hoarding papers but these Kaiser Craft papers are just too gorgeous to stash away. So I decided to try an idea I saw on Lin’s blog. She has been making the most wonderful quilt cards here, here and at this one here has a link to a tutorial on making these.

I used some of the papers from the paper stack, cut them into triangles and arranged them till I was happy with them. Then I ran the "quilt" through the Cuttlebug using a Labels 8 die and did some machine stitching. I embossed the sentiment in gold on another piece of paper from the stack.



Stamp (Hero Arts) Messages CL181