Owl Love You

I wanted to try to make a masculine Valentine, so instead of the usual pinks and reds, went with kraft, black and white with some touches of red.



To make the base, I embossed the Looped Circle Pattern (I'm officially addicted to that stamp!!) on the back and front of the card and cut out some of the stamped areas to make a scalloped outline. Then keeping it fairly plain and simple I just embossed the branch and owls. I coloured the leaves with a gel pen and added little dots of white to the flower centres. The hearts were also embossed and covered in a layer of Glossy Accents for some extra sheen.

I'm submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Have a Heart Challenge

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!

Lily Pad Cards’ First Birthday Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to the Lily Pad Cards’ First Birthday Blog Hop!



You should have arrived here from Karin’s blog. I’m so delighted to be celebrating the 1st Birthday of Lily Pad Cards and to be part of this Blog Hop – congratulations and thanks Deborah and Vicky!

There are three prize packages with a total retail value of over $300 to be won! These prizes will be awarded by random draw. To be eligible, you need to “like” Lily Pad Cards on Facebook. To increase your chances of winning, you can leave a comment on each of the blogs participating in this hop (including the Lily Pad). Your name is entered in the draw each time you comment on a blog (but only one comment per blog, please). To be in with a chance to win one of these wonderful prizes, comments should be left by 12:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, April 8. Good luck!


The Dream Team!

Well for my cards today, I wanted to use colours inspired by lily pads and a certain fabulous frog – yes Frederick duPonde you know that’s you, and honestly, George Clooney isn’t a patch on you! In honour of the equally fabulous Vicky and Deborah, I also made sure I included the colours of the Greek and U.S. flags.

So below is my first card.



Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Friends Definition, Wild Flowers and Birthday Messages), faded jeans distress ink, VersaMark, white embossing powder, card (cream & navy), upholstery fabric, baker’s twine and gems.

Of course I had to make a card especially for Frederick....



...and here it is



Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Froggy, Be Happy, Write Your Message,Friendly Flags and Heart Owls), card (white, blue, green & red), inks (black, green & blue), Happy Birthday embossing folder, blue ProMarker, Glossy Accents, white pen, baker’s twine and gems.

Since it’s a day of celebration, I have some brownies and baklava at the ready and am now ready to enjoy lots of hopping! The next stop on the hop is Lidiya’s blog. If you hit a bad link, you can always go back to Lily Pad. to view the master list of blog links. Please report any bad links to aris@inlinkz.com. Thanks for visiting and have fun hopping:)

Hanging Out on the Lily Pad

I was absolutely delighted when I received an invitation from Deborah and Vicky asking me to be a guest designer over at Lily Pad Cards. I said yes straight away as I love Lily Pad Cards!! There are always fun challenges going on over there and the blog is full of inspirational and fun posts. Lol, my Sunday morning wouldn’t be complete without taking a break to watch Vicky’s latest video with my cuppa and maybe a bickie (edited. Lin, bickie is slang for what we call a biscuit here but you'd call it a cookie) in hand!

So here is one of the cards I made for today using a few of my favourite stamps.



If you’d like to see two more of my cards and the supply list\instructions for the above card, hop over to the Lily Pad where you will find them.

Thanks again Deborah and Vicky for having me over at the Lily Pad, I had a splashing great time there!

Owl book gift card holder and bookmark

Something my friends and I do more often in the autumn is read. So I made this little gift card holder which has a pocket inside for a book gift card and bookmark.

To start with, I white embossed some white card with the Friend Definition stamp and applied spiced marmalade distress ink. For the woodgrain pieces I applied walnut stain distress ink to white card and stamped the Woodgrain Background using the same ink.


Stamps (Hero Arts ) - Friend Definition, Heart Owls, Designer Woodgrain and Flourish Background

The green background started as white card and this was white embossed with the Flourish Background and some shabby shutters distress ink applied. The little owls were coloured with colouring pencils. I just added some googly eyes, leaves (May Arts ribbon) and glossy hearts to finish.

I'm submitting these into this month's Hero Arts Challenge and the Resist Challenge at Lily Pad Cards. Now I'm off to tackle a mountain of ironing which I should have been doing this morning instead of getting inky!

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!

Critters in Love ATCs

I had so much fun making my last set of ATCs and couldn’t resist making more for the current Hero Arts challenge. This time it’s critters in love. I’ve uploaded the photos from a laptop (pc in for repairs:( ) and it’s a really cloudy day here, so sorry if the photo is terrible!


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Adorable Baby Girl, Heart Owls, Designer Woodgrain, Be Happy, Envelope Pattern, Woodland Creatures & Clouds Background.

Ladybirds card
For the sky I applied tumbled glass distress ink to white card and spritzed lightly with water. Shabby shutters distress ink was applied to white card and one of the hills was stamped with the Envelope Pattern. The tree was coloured with watercolours pencils and the hearts coloured with a ProMarker and covered with Glossy Accents.

Owls card
I applied distress inks (pumice stone & walnut stain) to white card and stamped the woodgrain using walnut stain distress ink. The owls were coloured with watercolour pencils. I stamped the leaves on patterned paper and the hearts were coloured with a ProMarker and Glossy Accents applied. For the background I applied shabby shutters distress in to white card and stamped with the Envelope Pattern.

Raccoons card
The grass was stamped on patterned paper and the clouds stamped on white card. I coloured the raccoons with watercolours pencils. The hearts were coloured with a ProMarker and I applied Glossy Accents to them.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

Birthday Owl

Stamps (Hero Arts)- Clouds, Tree Trunk, Heart Owls, Be Happy, Birthday Messages, Envelope Pattern & Adorable Baby Girl

For a while I’ve been intending to quilt a cloudy sky using the Clouds background stamp and finally got around to it. I stamped white fabric (which has a white pattern) with faded jeans distress ink, placed it on 2 layers of wadding & 1 layer of backing fabric and machine stitched around the clouds. A piece of green paper was stamped with the Envelope Pattern and the grass from the Be Happy set. I paper pieced the leaves and owl, who has a slightly startled expression due to my lack of smaller googly eyes!



I have a couple of busy days ahead and hopefully after that my computer problems will be finally sorted out and I’ll be able to go visiting blogs again - I'm having withdrawal symptoms:(

Hero Hostess Good Friends

Over at the Hero Arts Flickr group all the new Hostesses have happily donned their new colourful aprons – Linda (purple), me (green), Anita (hot pink), Sharon (aqua) and Sally (pink).

Sarah came up with the brilliant idea of a colour combination challenge based on the apron colours. Here’s a quick card I made this morning to celebrate becoming a Hostess with these wonderful ladies. I'd love if we could all meet in real life as we did on this card, well just not on a tree branch!



Stamps (Hero Arts) – Clouds, Heart Owls, Tree Bird and Messages

I ran out of the smaller size googly eyes so my little owl has the same surprised and excited look as I did when I received Tami's email about becoming a hostess!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Surrounded by Love

As soon as I saw Lisa’s post on the Hero Arts blog this morning I wanted to make a card. Lisa created an adorable card inspired by her super cute card on page 74 of the catalogue. I love these cards and decided to use them to come up with an idea for my hubby’s Valentine.

Lucy is sharing a sketch and card every day this week on her blog so I decided to use her sketch from Day 2. I may have strayed a bit too far off the sketch though!


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Heart Owls, Designer Woodgrain, Buttons, Flourish Background, Tree Birds & Messages.

The card came together pretty quickly. Most of the pieces on the card were in my pile of scraps - I really have to use more of them! The owls were coloured with watercolour pencils and I perched them on a twig which came from an old Christmas decoration. I made the heart wreath using the cute little heart shaped button from the Buttons set. The buttons were covered with a layer of Glossy Accents and some yarn threaded through the buttonholes. Thanks to Sue for the brown twine I used for the loop on the wreath. One of the scraps I used for the background had been clear embossed with the woodgrain stamp. On the other one I had applied walnut stain distress ink to white card and stamped, spritzed and spattered with water.

Happy World Card Making Day & little giveaways

Happy World Card Making Day everyone! I’m so glad I had a bit of time this morning to make a card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Heart Owls, Holiday Dolls & Three Trees

To start with I clear embossed the Holly Flourish on green card and added some gems and dots of red glitter glue. Then I added some twine which the lovely Sue had sent me a while ago - thanks again Sue! The owls are coloured with watercolour pencils. I coloured the little Santa hats (from the Holiday Dolls set)with Promarkers and added some diamond stickles to the rims and a little pompom to the top of each. The sentiment is embossed in white. I'm submitting the card into the current challenge at Hero Arts and the Jolly Holiday Greetings Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.

Given the day that’s in it, I thought I’d have a couple of little giveaway. I really wish I had some Hero Arts products (my absolute favourite!) to offer but I had to make do with picking items from what a local shop had in stock yesterday. So there are stamps, stickers, buttons, chocolate and a couple of things that I knitted.





I had fallen in love with a little crochet owlet that I had seen on Lisa Spangler’s blog and as I still haven't learned how to crochet, I was delighted to come across a knitted version of the same owlet here. So this was my first attempt at knitting a little owlet. I’m trying to track down owl eyes here and if I get them there will be proper eyes on the owl when I send it out!

So to enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and next Saturday I will pick two names out of a hat. Hope you all have a great weekend and are enjoying World Card Making Day!

Hero Arts' Virtual Cardmaking Party

Over the weekend Hero Arts held a Virtual Cardmaking Party in celebration of Operation Write Home’s birthday. There were lots of great challenges and fun games to take part in. Amazingly, over 600 cards were created by members of the HA Flickr group during the weekend to donate to Operation Write Home. These are the cards I made over the weekend.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Froggy, Clouds Background, Write Your Message and Flourish Background.



Stamp (Hero Arts) Birthday Messages.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Froggy & You’re the Best.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Heart Owls, Flourish Background & Branch Background.



Stamps (Hero Arts) Antique Engravings & Birthday Messages.

A big thanks to Hero Arts and everyone in the HA Flickr group for making it such a brilliant, fun weekend!



As you can see I had fun getting inky!

End of the Honeymoon

It’s finally time for the sun to set on the raccoons' honeymoon. I've had great fun this month making this series of cards and hope I haven’t bored you all to tears with them! But I just wanted to make one last card because of a couple of requests to have them visit Asia.

End of the Honeymoon, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps used (Hero Arts):- Woodland Creatures, Flourish Background & Heart Owls

Using a punched circle as a mask for the setting sun, I inked the white background with spiced marmalade distress ink. Then I splattered water on it to try and give the impression of fireworks in the sky. The raccoons are coloured with colouring pencils and clothed with scraps of paper. I clear embossed the black card base with the Flourish Background.

I'm submitting the card into the Card Style Fun and Cute Challenge at Moxie Fab World as well as Hero Arts' July challenge (Food and Travel).

What was I thinking? The Honeymooners – Part 3

Just catching up with the honeymooners again and today they are visiting a favourite place of mine, scenic Glendalough here in Ireland. For the sky I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks to white card. Then I made the mountains using various scraps of green fabric. The raccoons are coloured with watercolour pencils. Someone asked me why the raccoons had clothes on in the Paris card and none in the Pisa card, so I thought I’d give them some clothes here again using paper and some fabric!

The Honeymooners – Part 3, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps used:- Hero Arts Woodland Creatures and Heart Owls

I don't know what I was thinking but then I decided to machine stitch a Celtic pattern from a book I have to the card base. As you can see from the mess in the photos above there was a lot of fiddling around, stripping away the pattern and getting all the threads to the back of the card. Because of the nature of the pattern and using card, some stitches are doubled which wouldn’t have been the case on fabric so I'm not totally happy with the stitching. Next time I'll use a fabric base, though it might be a while before you see a stitched Celtic pattern on one of my cards again!

I'm submitting the card into the Card Style Fun and Cute Challenge at Moxie Fab World as well as Hero Arts' July challenge.

Some photos from the honeymooners' trip to Ireland:-

Blarney Castle

Cliffs of Moher

Aughnanure Castle, Co Galway

Neolithic monuments, Knowth



Some photos from Co Wicklow

The Honeymoon Continues....

I had so much fun making the raccoons’ honeymoon card the other day that I just couldn’t resist making another one!

Today the happy couple are enjoying a bowl of pasta in another well known city. I decided to borrow an idea from Walt Disney’s “The Lady and the Tramp” where Lady and Tramp start eating opposite ends of a single strand of spaghetti until they meet in the middle. The “spaghetti” started off as white yarn and I coloured it with antique linen distress ink. The ink must have been a little damp when I threaded the yarn so by accident the raccoons ended up with sauce stains around their mouths! I liked it so just left it.

The Honeymoon Continues...., originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts):- Woodland Creatures, Woodgrain Circle, What’s Cooking, Ancient Motif, Heart Owls.

I used the Ancient Motif stamp for the floor (antique linen distress ink) and the tiles surrounding the scene (clear embossed). Last year Vanessa sent me a gorgeous range of papers as a blog candy prize and I used a piece of one of the papers for the wall in the restaurant. I used the woodgrain circle stamp for the skirting board and window frame. For the sky I applied broken china and faded jeans distress inks to white card and spritzed with water. The racoons and bowl are coloured with watercolour pencils and I added Glossy Accents to the bowl. A scrap of fabric was used for the tablecloth.

The card is for the July challenge at Hero Arts.

I'm so glad it's Friday. Hope you all have a great weekend!

A Honeymoon in Paris

The challenge this month at Hero Arts is Food and Travel. Yesterday on the Hero Arts blog, Lisa had the cutest cupcake card with a French connection. So I just had to have some fun with the templates that were provided.

The Honeymoon, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps used (Hero Arts):- Clouds, Woodland Creatures, Lace Background, Heart Owls.

A while ago I made a card with a romantic raccoon couple (last card on this post). So the story goes that the guy raccoon proposed in the hot air balloon and they are now on their honeymoon - I really need to get out more often! Robin got me hooked on her brilliant saga last year about a mouse couple. So I have to thank her for the inspiration! Part 1 of her saga starts here.

The raccoons are coloured with colouring pencils and I used a scrap of frayed upholstery fabric for the hill. I used Mon’s templates for the moustache and berets and also made the raccoon's little t-shirts from the border surrounding the templates. I gave the girl a little silk skirt and yarn necktie. The Lace Background is clear embossed.

I'm also submitting this card to Jenny's Challenge #13 (Free for All).