Treat Container in Holiday Cards & More

I absolutely love Christmas, so was delighted when I received Holiday Cards & More in the post today. I've spent ages (and ages!) admiring all the wonderful projects in the magazine and am looking forward to going through the magazine again and again. Cards, home décor, gift wrap and tags - they're all in there.

I was so excited to see a project I had made in the magazine. The cute Snowy House stamp by Hero Arts is one I've used over and over again for cards and tags but this time I enlarged the image to 200% to make a little treat container.

Stamp (Hero Arts) - Snowy House

Paper Crafts has provided lots of downloadable patterns and templates here for projects in Holiday Cards & More, including the little box I made for the inside of the treat container.

Autumn Birthday

I wanted to make a card and wrap a gift for a friend using autumn colours and some natural elements.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Antique Engravings, Maple Leaf & It’s a Day for a Cupcake.

To make the wrapping paper and background for the card, I stamped the butterflies on a piece of parcel paper and kraft card, using walnut stain distress ink. I used a variety of distress inks (spiced marmalade, mustard seed, rusty hinge and barn door) on the leaves.



The maple leaf image was inked up and lightly spritzed with water before stamping. Then I cut out the leaves and applied some more ink as needed. Walnut stain was used again to stamp the sentiment on the card. To finish I just added raffia, wooden buttons and some twigs from the garden.



I’m submitting the card into the Focal Point Challenge in the Moxie Fab World, and the projects into the Paper Crafts September Gallery Challenge and the current Hero Arts Challenge (Fall Feast).

Autumn Leaves

I can certainly feel a change in the weather here, with a bit of a nip in the air in the mornings and evenings and suddenly the evenings seem to be closing in a lot earlier. Even so, I love autumn and for my card below included some of the colours we’ll get to enjoy on the trees over the next little while.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Maple Leaf & Birthday Messages

I remember as a kid having so much fun jumping into big piles of leaves in autumn and to this day I still love the rustling sound of leaves as I go on walks at this time of the year. So I thought I’d make my own little pile/path of fallen leaves on this card. To start with I inked pieces of scrap card with various distress inks (spiced marmalade, rusty hinge, mustard seed, tea dye, forest moss, barn door and walnut stain – not only do I love distress inks, I love their names too!). Then I applied the same inks to the leaf stamp and lightly spritzed with water before stamping. After cutting out the leaves I adhered them to a panel which I then trimmed. The sentiment is embossed and I just added some gems to finish.

I’m submitting this card into the Repetition Challenge in the Moxie Fab World, as I used the same leaf stamp for each of the leaves, and the current Hero Arts Challenge – Fall Feast.

Happy fingers, happy feet and a chance to win a trip to Ireland

My fingers are orange and green but, as always, I've had great fun playing with distress inks!

I made this card for the Focal Point Challenge in the Moxie Fab World, Paper Crafts September 2012 Gallery Challenge (natural elements) and the current Hero Arts Challenge (fall feast).



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Earth Flowers, Blossom Art, Designer Woodgrain & Everyday Sayings

On the card base I stamped the woodgrain using antique linen distress. Then I die cut a piece of fabric and stamped the Earth Flowers with tea dye distress ink. The flower and leaves were white embossed and I applied distress inks (spiced marmalade and forest moss). To add some more natural elements I added some raffia and a wooden button.

So you've heard about the happy fingers and now on to the happy feet with some photos from a recent hike in Glendalough. We started the walk from the far side of the lake you can see way down in the valley. You can probably tell from the photo our walking boots have enjoyed quite a few rambles!

On some parts of the trail these railway sleepers have been put down, mainly to protect the mountains but they also provide a good grip on what can sometimes be slippery slopes.

Wish I could capture in photos just how beautiful it is in the mountains,

especially on gorgeous sunny days.

The heather is in full bloom.

But it looks like we were a bit late to try the sweet, juicy fraughans (bilberries) that can be found there.

Coming down through the forest we can across foxgloves. A bee was hovering around them but in each photo I took he had disappeared into the flowers or ended up blurry.

Here we are back down at the lake again and up to the left is where we had been.

I just thought I'd mention a place where I came across a chance to win a trip to Ireland next year from the US. A year long event called The Gathering celebrating Ireland and all things Irish is being held next year. It sounds like it's going to be a brilliant fun filled year. Anyway on The Gathering's Facebook page there is a chance to win the holiday here. Good luck!:)

A Good Book and a Trip to London

Paper Crafts August Gallery Challenge is to make a British inspired project.

As I don't have any British themed stamps, I decide to go with something I love – books and in this case books by British authors. Sometimes I read curled up in a comfy chair with a squishy cushion, so to go a bit further with the British theme I made a tiny Union Jack cushion for my card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Wish You Were Here, Everyday Sayings and Designer Woodgrain

To start with I made the chair by stamping it twice, once on card and the other time on a scrap of suede upholstery fabric. Then I made the cushion with a scrap of denim from an old pair of jeans, wadding and thread\yarn.

To make the table I inked the stamp and kissed it with the woodgrain background using a slightly darker ink. There are so many wonderful British books to choose from but to save the table breaking, I just picked some on my favourites! The book titles were printed off using a variety of fonts and I tried to achieve a worn and well read look by using distress inks and rumpling the paper a bit. I curled the titles to form book spines and left them slightly bowed when I adhered them to a piece of backing card.

I'm also submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge, as one of the themes is make your own embellishment.

Since the card is British inspired I thought I'd share some photos of our trip earlier in the year.

Up, up and away in Legoland, Windsor

A peek into Gryffindor Common Room, Warner Brothers Studio Tour, London

Up close to Hagrid

Spotting Marilyn at Madam Tussauds, London

A view of Big Ben and Houses of Parliament from the London Eye

Back on firm ground again for lunch

A visit to Tower Bridge

and finally aboard the H.M.S. Belfast

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Bookmarks in Paper Crafts Magazine

Well it has been quite a while since I've posted anything, as somehow I ended up with sore hands and decided to take a little break from making and typing. Thank goodness the break seems to be doing the trick as I've been itching to make things for the past few weeks!

Stamp (Hero Arts) - Heart Owls

Since I haven't posted anything in August I thought I'd clear the cobwebs away from the blog and show photos of bookmarks which were published in the July/August digital issue of Paper Crafts Magazine.

Part of that particular issue of Paper Crafts Magazine included a back to school section, so I made bookmarks to cover various school subjects using the cute little owls stamp which I ink up over and over again.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

A Long Post!

I have to give a warning that this is a long and photo heavy post! I just wanted to share the cards I made for a class I gave in An Siopa Buí in Spiddal on Saturday.



Stamps (Penny Black) - Social Butterfly & Petal Party

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me so didn't get to take any photos in the class or of the spectacular scenery in Connemara. On the journey to and from Spiddal I saw three double rainbows, which just shows you the kind of weather we had that day - beautiful sunny spells with lots of downpours too!



Stamp (Penny Black) - Betsy Bluebell

Anyway we got to play with some of the fab new Penny Black stamps. Kerry, who owns the shop, was as hospitable and funny as always and I couldn't have asked for a lovelier group of ladies in the class. I hope they enjoyed the day as much as I did!



Stamps - Puzzle Parts (Penny Black) & Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

As you'll be able to tell, I couldn't resist doing one of my favourite techniques, emboss resist!



Stamps (Penny Black) - Petal Party & Puzzle Parts

Kerry asked me to show the class how to make a splattered butterfly trail like I had previously made on the first card in this post. So some went with the bold purple background....



Stamps - Social Butterfly (Penny Black) & Birthday Messages (Hero Arts)

...and some with the soft blue background.



Stamps - Social Butterfly (Penny Black) & Birthday Messages (Hero Arts)

Purple is a colour that I don't use very often but I just went for it on this card!



Stamps (Penny Black) - Delicate Pattern & Petal Party

As some of you may have noticed, I love to play with fabric, so at the end of class we made a fabric brooch. You can find a tutorial for making this type of fabric flower here and for the brooch it's just a matter of making a large and small flower and adding a pearl, button or jewel to the centre.



Well done if you've made it all the way through this extra long post! Thanks for visiting:)