Trick or Treat

I know it might be a bit early to be making Halloween bits and pieces but when I was out shopping earlier I noticed that some Christmas items are already creeping onto the shelves, so maybe I'm not too early for Halloween after all!

Anyway there are a couple of challenges I wanted to play along with - Teri's Fabulous Friday Challenge over at Moxie Fab World and Simon Says Stamp's Stamp It Challenge

The photo above is the one to be used for inspiration for the Moxie Fab World Challenge. It inspired me to make a garland, use yellow, orange and black, and also to use chevrons and triangles. For the Simon Says Stamp Challenge you have to stamp - lol I love nothing better:)

So first up is the little garland. I die cut circles from plain paper and patterned paper. On the orange ones I stamped Hero Arts' Tiny Flags using spiced marmalade distress ink and on the black circle I embossed the Lawn Fawn sentiment from the Trick or Treat set.



Stamps - Trick or Treat (Lawn Fawn) & Tiny Flags (Hero Arts)

The cute candy corns which are from the same set were stamped, coloured with ProMarkers and covered with glossy accents.



Next up are a couple of cupcake toppers, again using the same dies and stamps. At Halloween they will be stuck in cupcakes that are spookier than the mini chocolate chip ones I have here:)



Stamp set - Trick or Treat (Lawn Fawn)

Well since Halloween wouldn't be Halloween without treats, I had to make up a little bag of treats and a tag.




Stamps - A Little (Hero Arts) & Trick or Treat (Lawn Fawn)

The tag was embossed and pieced and I again added candy corns that had been coloured and glossed. I used baker's twine from a Halloween assortment pack from Doodlebug Design. Only a little over eight weeks to Halloween now but I think these treats might be eaten a little before then;)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! It has been such a long time since I blogged, but between being busy with other things and wonderful weather which I've been sure to made the most of (never know when the rain will be back again!), I haven't been stamping much recently.

Anyway yesterday my friend Linda hosted a fun scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. At the mention of the word scramble, I seem to turn into a complete butterfingers but had a great time with Linda's paper piecing theme. A little earlier in the day I had made some chocolate and cornflake Easter nests and added mini eggs, so I thought I'd bag a few and add a paper pieced tag.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - CL758 A Little & B3837 Bunny Basket

I pulled out some card in spring\Easter colours and embossed and paper pieced the various parts of the tag. Then I added a little bunny on foam pads and after punching a hole in the top of the tag added some fibres. I don't know what the fibres are but they feel similar to raffia and are in the shape of twine. I'm submitting this card into A Blog Named Hero Layer Cake Challenge and Simon Says Stamp's Animal Antics Challenge.

I'm not the only one enjoying the glorious sunshine here. The garden seems to be full of ladybirds this year



and the flowers and shrubs are showing signs of soaking up all the lovely sunshine too!







Hope you're enjoying lovely weather wherever you are:)

A Couple of Rainbows

It's unusual for me to post two days in a row but I just had the urge and the time to stamp this morning so made the most of it!

There are a couple of rainbow themed challenges going on at the moment and as I love using a rainbow of colours on my cards sometimes, I thought I'd give it a whirl. As part of Hero Arts' birthday challenge there is a category called rainbow of colour and A Blog Named Hero has a challenge called Roy G. Biv. I have to say I've never heard of that expression before, in school we learned the colours of the rainbow by using the term Richard of York gave battle in vain - did anyone else use this one?



Stamps (Hero Arts) - A Little, Tiny Flags Background, Fantastic Birthday and It's Your Day

My first card is the birthday card. To make the background I stamped the Tiny Flags Background on coloured card using distress inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn and broken china). I left out violet as I only have a very dark purple in my collection of distress inks. After cutting out the strips in various colours I matched them up to make the background. I embossed the frame for the A Little set and also the birthday sentiment, substituting a little candle for the "i". The "happy" sentiment was also stamped with distress inks and they are popped up on foam pads.



I'm not sure which Hero Arts set the little star came from as it has become separated from the original packaging, but the stars were embossed too and I added some star dust stickles to them and the candle flame.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Tiny Flags Background & A Little

The second card was made in the same way except this time I used the complete image from the A Little set. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. We had another storm blow through last night but thankfully no damage here!

Birthday Bling Gift Holder Card

I'm trying a few more ideas with Hero Arts' new A Little set and this time decided to make a little pocket to hold a little blingy gift on the front of a birthday card.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - A Little, It's Your Day & Leopard Print

I started by clear embossing the Leopard Print background on a die cut panel of hot pink card. I added this to a die cut card base and then went on to make the little pocket. As this time I didn't want to use the full sentiment on the main A Little image, I covered the words I didn't want to use with post its before inking up the image with VersaMark. Then I removed the post its and white embossed the panel adding the sentiments I wanted to use for this particular card. After embossing the "a little" banner on pink card, I cut it out and adhered it to the panel using foam pads. To finish the panel I just added a few clear rhinestones.



I wanted to have enough space in the little pocket for a necklace so I put three layers of foam strips around the two edges and at the bottom of the panel. Then it was time to add the necklace and to ensure it was covered and held in place added some tissue paper.

I'm submitting this card into the Die Cut Divas Girls Night Out Challenge and the current Hero Arts Challenge (Anything Goes Birthday Card).

Hero Arts Hostess Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to your next stop on the Hero Arts Hostess Hop, featuring fabulous stamps from the new 2014 release!

You should have arrived here from the blog of my friend, the super talented Sally Sherfield. If you come across a broken link, you can find a master list of the hop links at the Hero Club Blog. Also, please report broken links to blog@heroarts.com.

Don’t forget to leave comments as you hop. Hero Arts will be awarding prizes from randomly drawn comments. For a chance to win, simply comment on ANY of the stops along the hop on ANY day, including each day’s starting post at the Hero Club Blog. The more comments you leave, the better your chance of winning. I know Hero Arts prizes are always fantastic, so best of luck! I have comment moderator switched on, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear immediately.

Every year I look forward with great anticipation to Hero Arts’ new releases and the 2014 catalogue is packed full of so many wonderful products! Thanks to the generosity of Hero Arts, I’ve had a chance to play with some of the new stamps and oh my goodness what fun I’ve had getting inky with them since they arrived!

For my first card I started off by using the cute owls and a sentiment from the Lil Hoot set. I think the Lil Hoot set is so adorable, with super cute images and a lovely range of sentiments. This set also happens to be one of Hero Arts Operation Write Home stamps. Hero Arts donates 25% of the profits from the sale of its OWH stamps to the Operation Write Home organisation. The frame for the owl was made from the outer part of the main image from the A Little set. On this card I also used the Tiny Flags and Tiny Star backgrounds which are such great background stamps and are ones I know I will use over and over again.

Supplies: Stamps (Hero Arts Lil Hoot, Hero Arts Tiny Flags, Hero Arts A Little and Hero Arts Tiny Star Background), card (white, kraft, blue & pink), VersaMark, white embossing powder, black ink, distress inks (antique linen & faded jeans), ProMarkers and glossy accents.

For the next card I again used the A Little stamp set. Although I've only had this set a little over a week, I have already lost track of the amount of times I’ve inked it up – I LOVE it so much. The other day I used it to make a wrap for a chocolate bar and I’ve also made numerous gift tags, using a variety of the sentiments, for use at a later date. This time I made another card and went on a bit of a pink rampage as you can see!

Supplies: Hero Arts A Little stamp set, pink & white card, pink Core'dinations card, Hero Arts pale tomato mid-tone shadow ink, VersaMark, white embossing powder, Sizzix dotted lattice embossing folder and heart rhinestones.

As I mentioned, there are lots of fun sentiments included in the A Little set, but I decided to add a different one to the little tag below:)

Stamp: Hero Arts A Little

Coming up to my birthday and Christmas, I may just have to strategically place the catalogue and tag somewhere in my house as a subtle, or maybe not so subtle, hint;)

Because I love all of the critters in the Lil Hoot set so much, I couldn’t stop at making one card and ended up making a little set of cards. It's hard to tell from the photos but parts of the images are layered on foam pads for some extra dimension. This was a really quick and easy process because of the way that the critters are drawn. I pulled the Tiny Flags background back out again for a bit of embossing on the backgrounds.

Supplies: Stamps (Hero Arts Lil Hoot, Hero Arts Tiny Flags and Hero Arts Be Happy), card (white, kraft, yellow, orange, green, blue and pink), black ink, VersaMark, clear embossing powder, glossy accents, ProMarkers, Nestabilities (circles and inverted scalloped circles), sewing machine and threads.

I just want to say thanks a million to Hero Arts for their generosity and yet another release packed full of must haves. A great big thanks to you too for visiting and to my hosti sisters who are so much fun and so inspiring! Now it’s time for you to hop to your next stop where the sweet and very talented Arlene McClung awaits your visit.

A Little Chocolate Makes Everything Better

I can’t believe it’s a little over three weeks since I last posted - I nearly had to dust the cobwebs away from the blog!

I was so excited the other morning when the A Little stamp set by Hero Arts arrived! Since then I've had a great time making little tags and cards using it. To say I'm smitten by this set would be an understatement! Besides using all the great sentiments that come with the set, it will also be fun to add other sentiments to the main image either using stamps I already have or sentiments from the pc.



For this project I used the "chocolate" sentiment. I started by embossing the main image and added sentiment on brown and kraft card. To make the wrap for the chocolate bar, I embossed a piece of pool card, added punched scallops to the edges and adhered it to the cellophane wrapped bar. Then I adhered the chocolate panel to the wrap using foam pads. I'm submitting this project into the Simon Says Stamp Emboss It Challenge and the A Blog Named Hero New Year, New Stash Challenge.

I just want to let you know that the Hero Arts Hostess Blog Hop will start at the Hero Arts blog next Monday.

From Monday to Friday next week, the Hostesses will be showing projects made using new stamps from Hero Arts’ 2014 catalogue. Each day next week the hop will start at the Hero Arts blog. I know we are all having a brilliant time playing with the new stamps. I can't wait to go hopping with my Hosti friends next week and see what everyone has come up with! I hope you'll come along and join in on the hopping fun!

Now I'm off to test the theory on the bar of chocolate - I'm sure it must be right, but I better check just to make sure ;-)