Scrappy Happy Weekend

Over the weekend I continued with the plan to use up more of my card and fabric scraps to make some more cards. I got a bit carried away and made the following four cards plus blocks to go on future cards.

I forgot to take photos of my scraps before I started and I've completely used up some of the patterned paper scraps but I had a little bundle like this put together at the start of the weekend with fabric, card and even envelopes from bills.

My favourite die from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set is the star die and I used it and the inlaid die cut technique for all of my cards. For the first two cards I used some rainbow coloured fabric which I had left over from a quilt I made years ago.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders), Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Die - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9)
Stamp - It's Your Day (Hero Arts)

I love greens and blues so I have loads of scraps in these colours left over from other projects. In my stash of plain card scraps I have lots of kraft and white so used a combination of patterned and plain scraps to make the following cards.

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Scalloped Squares (Spellbinders) and Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

Dies - Quilt Cuts 2 (WPlus9), Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp) and Tags & Bookplates (Docrafts)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)

Whenever I can I like to use recycled materials on my cards and now, thanks to the blue and white patterned insides of envelopes which came with bills, I have some blocks lined up for another card. At least there's some upside to bills;)

Beauty Spot Bee

Over at the Hero Arts group on Flickr, Martha is hosting a fun 90 minute scramble over a 24 hour period. Her theme is to make a project in grey, black, white and use a small pop of one colour.

With this theme I decided to use a cute little bee image from Hero Arts, have yellow as my pop of colour and use hexagons wherever I could. To start with I clear embossed the hexagon background on a panel of grey pearlescent card. Then I die cut a hexagon from white card and die cut a black hexagon frame. After stamping the sentiment, I adhered the frame onto the white hexagon with foam pads and also use foam pads to attach the piece to the background.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Hexagon Background, Be Happy & Everyday Sayings

Then it was time to make the little bee. I black embossed the bee twice and coloured the images. After cutting out the bee and the bee's head from the second image, I used foam pads to layer the head for some extra dimension. In my haste to meet the scramble deadline, a stray speck of embossing powder ended up on the bee's face, so she's ended up with a beauty spot;) To finish I added some diamond stickles to the wings. I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes Challenge.

I'm happy to say we're having an Indian summer here this week and it's great to get out on walks and enjoy the pretty autumn colours that are starting to appear on the trees. Hope you're enjoying beautiful weather too wherever you are.

Bird Crazy Challenge with Linda

Recently my friend Linda and I ordered some Hero Arts goodies and as it turned out we both bought a lot of the same items. Linda came up with the great idea of challenging each other to use the same product on our next cards. To start with we both used the Color Layering Dimensional Bird from this set. I haven't seen what Linda has made yet but can't wait to see her creations on her blog.

I love the way this set works with stamping the bird outline initially and then stamping the patterns using separate stamps. It would be fun to use the outline for paper pieced birds too or even for straightforward colouring. Well let me tell you I went a bit bird crazy trying out different colour combinations and here are just some of the birds I stamped on a soggy Saturday afternoon.

Stamp (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird

I saved these birds for times when I need to make cards in a hurry but made three cards using other birds I had stamped. As I wanted to makeover this card

for the current Hero Arts challenge I went with neutrals and added white to the stamped image using a white watercolour pencil.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird, Everyday Sayings & Let the Angels

Next up I stamped the bird using Hero Arts mint to emerald ombré ink. The branch was stamped with Hero Arts cup o' joe shadow ink.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird, Everyday Sayings & Let the Angels

As I had used neutral and monochromatic birds on the first two cards, I thought for my last card I'd go with a blast of colour and used a mix of quiet morning and summer splash inks.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Color Layering Dimensional Bird & Everyday Messages

The little nest was made from scraps I had left over from making the first two cards.

I'm submitting these cards into Simon Says Stamp's Use a Stamp Challenge.

Just a Note

I haven't made a card in quite a while (lots of holiday gallivanting going on this month) but wanted to join in on the personal scramble that Linda organised over in the Hero Arts Flickr group.

As Scramble themes are only revealed at the start of the allotted 90 minute time frame, I decided to make the theme as much of a surprise for me as possible by jotting down various options on pieces of paper and drawing three of these out of a bag. I ended up with use a die, use only one colour as well as black, white or kraft, and add sparkle.

I started by stamping a Hero Arts mint to green ombré ink pad on white card. The pad was stamped twice with the second stamping a little lower than the original one. Oh I love this yummy ink - thanks again, Linda for sending to to me:)

After die cutting the butterfly I added some gems and diamond stickles. The butterfly is so sparkly in real life but I found it impossible to capture all the sparkle in a photo.

I embossed a panel of white card and stamped the sentiment. The panel was added to the card base with foam pads.

Die - Butterfly (Hero Arts), Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts), Ink - mint to green ombré ink (Hero Arts) and Embossing Folder - Floral Cuts (Docrafts)

Needless to say the stickles on the butterfly hadn't dried by the time it came to adding it to the card so I ended up with sparkly fingers and thumbs. Of course I should have added the stickles after I had stuck the butterfly on the card rather than when it was first die cut - oh well I can often be afflicted by brain scramble when I take part in a Scramble:) Thanks again for the fun Scramble, Linda!

I'm also submitting this card in Simon Says Stamps Sparkle and Shine Challenge.

Making Roses out of the Messy Bits

Recently I bought a beautiful set of Spellbinders dies called Tudor Rose and used a couple of the dies on a card, gift bag and set of cards for a friend's upcoming birthday.

I have lots of what you could charitably call experimental pieces but in reality they are messed up inked or painted backgrounds that didn't work out and could never use in solid pieces!

Anyway over the years I've found that these kind of yucky panels can look okay if used in smaller amounts rather than in big solid pieces. Because of this I never dump my inking disasters as they'll always get used up in some way.

For the flowers I used the die cut inlay technique which I always enjoy. This is the card I made for my friend

Die - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders)
Stamps (Hero Arts) - It's Your Day & Be Happy

and this is the matching gift bag.

Dies - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders) & Goodie Bag (Lawn Fawn)
Embossing Folder - Textile Texture (Cuttlebug)

Since I was enjoying making the flowers and clearing out some of my messy pieces, I continued making flowers and put together a little set of cards to include with my friend's birthday pressie.

Die - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders)
Stamp - Making the World a Better Place (Hero Arts)

Die - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders)
Stamp - It's Your Day (Hero Arts)

Die - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)
Embossing Folder - Butterfly Corner (Darice)

Die - Tudor Rose (Spellbinders)
Stamp - Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts)
Embossing Folder - Butterfly Corner (Darice)

It's hard to see in the photos above, but each flower is layered in the centre and I've applied Wink of Stella (love that stuff!) on the flowers for some lovely shimmer.

I'm submitting these cards and gift bag into Simon Says Stamp Friends or Superhero Challenge.

Mark's Monster and Messing with Paints

Earlier today I had fun messing with watercolour paints to make backgrounds. I squirted some watercolour paints from tubes onto my largest acrylic block and added only little splashes of water as I wanted to paint to remain thick and add texture to my panels. Then I squished panels of watercolour card onto the block and ended up with a batch of panels like the ones below.

Lol I haven't a clue what I'm going to do with some of them (the odder looking ones may end up being die cut into butterflies or sentiments!) but I used one of the orange panels to make the background for my card. I stamped Hero Arts Tiny Star Background on the panel in barn door distress ink and embossed the sentiment on a piece of black scrap card. As I don't have any monster stamps I asked my son Mark to draw a few for me. After seeing one of the bigger guys I thought he would be perfect for a sorry card.

Monster image by Mark
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Tiny Star Background & Everyday Sayings

I coloured the monster with ProMarkers and gave him a spotty look with the blender pen. To finish I just added some glossy accents to his horns, eye and tooth.

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

Stenciled One Layer Card

My goodness two posts in one day is highly unusual for me, but I did have great fun getting inky today! Recently Charlene sent me a couple of gorgeous Hero Arts stencils (thanks again Charlene:)) and for this card I used the Large Lotus Pattern.

Stencil (Hero Arts) - Large Lotus Pattern
Stamp set (Hero Arts) - Everyday Sayings

I applied distress inks (dried marigold, spiced marmalade, barn door, shabby shutters and mowed lawn) to a cream card and left the stencil in place. After the ink had dried I padded VersaMark on the image and then heat embossed using enchanted gold embossing powder.

The sentiment was also embossed, this time in gold. A while ago my friend Trinh sent me lots and lots of pretty sequins in a lovely mix of colours (thanks again, Trinh:) ) and because of the gold bits and pieces I had already used, I thought the gold sequins would be the ideal embellishment for this card.

I'm submitting this card into Hero Arts One Layer Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Emboss It Challenge.

One Layer Get Well Card

Because of Hero Arts One Layer Challenge I've gone from never really making one layer cards to thoroughly enjoying trying to come up with ideas for these type of cards.

I don't seem to be able to put the Large Petal Background away for very long before I want to ink it up again, so here I go with yet another card using this stamp!

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Petal Background and Everyday Sayings

For this one I die cut a square out of a piece of scrap paper and used the sheet of paper as a mask when I applied VersaMark to the card front. After embossing the image I again used the scrap paper as a mask and applied a variety of distress inks (barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed and peacock feathers) to the card. Once the mask was peeled away again, I drew a frame around the image with a fine tipped felt pen and then stamped the sentiments. When I make cards I usually end up adding bits and pieces but this time showed a little restraint and only added stickles to parts of the image. I find it really hard to take photos of anything glittery so the photo below doesn't really show the full shimmer on the card but gives a little idea of what it's like.



As I used a clear stamp and diamond stickles which is fairly clear, I'm also submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp Let's Be Clear Challenge.

Quilt Block Card Set

I wanted to make a set of cards to include with my Mum's birthday present so pulled out one of the dies from WPlus9's Quilt Cuts 2 set.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamps (Hero Arts) - Dolls, Everyday Sayings and It's Your Day, Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

Having dabbled in quilting in the past, I just LOVE this set and am looking forward to making lots more blocks in the future, using fabrics as well as paper. It will be a perfect way of using up some of my mountain of scraps.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts) - Dolls & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

Anyway I still had Studio Calico's Snippets paper out on my desk from making this card the other day so decided to use the same papers again.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts)- Everyday Sayings & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

After die cutting and putting together the quilt blocks I added little heart gems to the centres. Then using Nestabilities, I die cut scallop squares to use as a border around the blocks. The sentiments were stamped using Hero Arts Cup O' Joe shadow ink.

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts)- Everyday Sayings & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

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

Die (WPlus9) - Quilt Cuts 2, Stamp (Hero Arts) - It's Your Day & Paper (Studio Calico) - Snippets

The birthday girl should be here any minute so I'm off to get the cake ready!

Rainbow Hexagons

For the past number of weeks the country has been getting battered by one storm after another coming in mainly from the Atlantic. There have been some sunny and calm days in between the storms but they seem to have been very few and far between! We've been fortunate in that we've only had to deal with the strong winds and lots of rain, but I really feel sorry for the people around the country who have had to contend with flooding, storm damage and the loss of their electric supply. I'm looking forward to better weather ahead and hopefully it will be here very soon!

Because we had some sunny days mixed in with the rain, we've seen a lot of rainbows recently, so a card that I made way back in August seems appropriate to show now.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Hexagon Background & Everyday Sayings

It's a card that I was lucky to have picked up for Resist Stamping section in Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking's Stamp It! Techniques, Vol. 2. I have to say emboss resist is one of my favourite techniques and I love any excuse to get up to my eyes in distress inks. On this card I used barn door, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, mowed lawn, tumbled glass and dusty concord distress inks. By the time I finished the card I had a rainbow of colours on my fingers too:)

Hope you have a great and inky weekend:)

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!:)