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!:)

Thanks Patricia & Same Stamp Challenge

Firstly, I'd like to say a great big thanks again to my friend Patricia for the wonderful new banner she sent me. She knows I love owls and this banner is so adorable and perfect for my blog!

Over at the Hero Arts Flick group we have a “use the same stamp” challenge going on. Linda, Anita, Sharon, Sally and I decided it would be fun for us all to make cards using the same stamp. We all love the Antiques Engravings set and decided to go with stamps from that set. We haven’t seen each other’s cards so each day this week we’ll get to see one of the cards. Linda started off yesterday with this gorgeous card here and it’s my turn to post today. You don’t need to have the Antique Engravings set to join in on the challenge - you can team up with someone who has a stamp in common with you. If you’d like to join in on the fun, full details are here.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Magical Background, Earth Flowers, Messages and Old Letter Writing

My card is (loosely!) based on one of the sketches for this month’s challenge at Hero Arts – the butterfly just fluttered away a little bit! For the bottom part of the background I applied faded jeans distress to white card and white embossed the Magical Background. On the upper part of the background the Earth Flowers were stamped using VersaMark. I had a scrap of card (white card with antique linen distress ink applied to it and stamped with Old Letter Writing) left over from another project and used this for the butterfly and sentiment. The sentiment is stamped using faded jeans distress ink. I love this pretty lace ribbon from Hero Arts and ended up using two strips of it on the card. The paper flowers have been in my flower drawer for ages so I’m glad to have finally found a home for them!

A Little Layering

This week on the Hero Art Blog, Shari shared some amazing cards and a brilliant video showing her technique for making layered stamped backgrounds. I don’t usually do a lot of layering of stamps on my cards so I thought I’d give her technique a try.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Exotic Bloom, Earth Flowers and Envelope Pattern

To start with I dabbed faded jeans and broken china distress inks here and there on a large acrylic block, spritzed with lots of water and stamped on watercolour paper. Then I stamped this background with the Envelope Pattern using antique linen distress ink and white embossed the Earth Flowers. Unlike Shari, I didn't walk and wiggle (you'll have to watch Shari's video to see what I'm talking about!) but applied dusty concord distress ink on the Exotic Bloom image, spritzed with water, stamped once on scrap paper and then stamped on the panel. I applied dusty concord distress ink to a scrap of white card, spritzed with water and once dry punched out a butterfly, added Crackle Accents and some gems. Unfortunately my photo of the card isn't great, in real life it doesn’t look so dull and the Envelope Pattern looks more subtle because of the texture of the watercolour paper which isn’t being picked up in the photo.

I'm submitting this card into the Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes.



Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been fairly busy with a few things so have become the worst in the world for visiting blogs. Hopefully from today on that will change and I can’t wait to catch up on what I’ve missed out on:)