A Gift on a Gift

Yesterday I started making some brooches for a craft fair and thought it might be nice to add one to a gift wrapped present, so that the recipient will end up with a gift on a gift.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Holiday Dolls (snowflakes) & Very Merry Christmas

To make the gift wrap I randomly embossed the snowflakes on a piece of inexpensive (€1.50 for 20m) parcel paper. After wrapping the box and tying with raffia, I added one of the brooches. The tag has the greeting one side and “to” & “from” on the other side. To finish I just added a scattering of gems to the gift wrap and tag. I’m submitting this project into the current Hero Arts Challenge.

I really enjoy making these flowers and making them has been a great fabric stash buster, though I think I’d need to make hundreds of them to make any real dent in my stash!

Barb's 90 Minute Scramble

There was great fun again over at the Hero Arts Flick group yesterday when Barb hosted her 90 minute card making scramble. Scramble is the perfect word for these challenges as it's a bit manic trying to get a card made, photographed and uploaded to the pool in 90 minutes. But it's so funny at the same time running around like a headless chicken and it's brilliant to see what everyone comes up with in such a short time period. Barb's challenge was to add a flower or flowers not normally associated with Christmas onto a Christmas card or project.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Large Flower & Holiday Dolls.

As soon as I saw the word flower, I knew I had to use my all time favourite stamp, the Large Flower. I white embossed the flower on vellum twice and using an embossing pen added some stardust embossing to parts of the flower. To the centre of the flower, I added a red foil snowflake and a button which I had covered in glossy accents and silver glitter. I had great fun with this as when I had the card upright to take a photo, the glossy accents and glitter started to slide down the button as it wasn't quite dry! Today I'm going to add glitter around the edges of the button - it would have been too messy to do that last night.

The sentiment is also white embossed on vellum and I white embossed around the edges of the tag too. The red card was clear embossed with the Holly Flourish and I just added some silver gems to finish.



A big thanks to Barb for hosting such a fun challenge and also to Hero Arts for the wonderful group which I love being in. There are always great things going on there and it's packed full of amazing inspiration from everyone in the group!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hero Arts 90 Minute Scramble

A little while ago Tami was looking for volunteers to host some 90 Minute Scramble Challenges on the Hero Arts Flickr group. Virginia hosted the first one, Karen the second and now I’m having a go today. It started at 3.00pm GMT and will finish at 4.30 GMT (4.00pm-5.30pm here in Ireland) – see here if you’d like to join in. Barb is hosting the next one on the 6th of November – more details are here.

The challenges are great fun and you really have to work quickly to make, photograph and upload a card within the 90 minute deadline. It’s a lot easier to do when you’re setting the challenge though! I thought it might be fun to go for a using something unexpected challenge (adding something that wasn’t bought specifically for card making) and ended up using washing powder on my card! There are flecks of pink, blue and green in the powder so that’s how I came up with the colour combination.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Starry Night, Snowy House & Holiday Dolls.

To start with I stamped the Starry Night (thanks Sue I love this stamp so much!) image in pale blue for the background. Then I coloured the house with ProMarkers, popped the dormer part for dimension and added diamond stickles to the snow. I stuck washing powder on the ground with glossy accents and added some diamond stickles for more sparkle. Because I was sticking to the 90 minute allocation, my “snow” hadn’t fully dried before I took the photo but sure I suppose it makes it a bit more realistic! The card itself was embossed with the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder. I don’t know how long it will last, but there is a lovely scent off the card because of the washing powder.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for the challenge. Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Edited - I'm just adding a link to all the brilliant cards that everyone came up using unexpected items. As usual the ladies in the Hero Arts Flick group amazed me with their creativity! You can find all the fantastic ideas here.

Snowed in for Christmas

The current challenge at The Play Date Cafe is to use green, white and melon on a card.



I didn’t think I had anything in a melon colour in my stash but this morning I came across pp which I think fits the bill.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Snowy House & Holiday Dolls

I love my new Snowy House stamp so much and couldn’t wait to ink it up! Parts of the house are coloured with watercolour pencils and I paper pieced the rest (chimneys, roof, door, wreath and melon coloured part of dormer). I added diamond stickles to the snow on the house. The house itself is on pop dots as is the dormer window section. For the background I white embossed the snowflakes on white card and lightly applied some broken china distress ink.



I wanted to give some texture and depth to the snow on the ground so I layered some silk over a piece of wadding (batting) and machine stitched some meandering lines to form snowdrifts or what I hope look a bit like snowdrifts!



Because of all the sparkle (hard to catch in a photo!) with the stickles snow and silk, I'm also submitted the card into My Partner in Crafting Crime Challenge #13 (Shine on you Crazy Diamond).

Cracker Gift Holder

I love Christmas and everything about it so I wanted to join in again on the All Wrapped Up Challenge at Moxie Fab World and submit a project to the Shine on you Crazy Diamond Challenge at My Partner in Crafting Crime.

When I give a gift of money at Christmas I like to make little crackers as gift containers. Inside the cracker I put the money, some punched out snowflakes, a little treat and a silly joke - couldn’t have a cracker without one of those!


Stamps (Hero Arts) Stunning Snowflakes & Holiday Dolls

I white embossed some white card with the Stunning Snowflakes and cut out the shape of a cracker using an old cracker as a template. Then I coloured the doll with markers, applied diamond stickles to the white edges on her hat\jacket and added a pompom to her hat. I tied the cracker with some twine and added a couple of gems – thanks Sue for these!

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!

Christmas Shaker Gift Bag

Yesterday, after making my first Christmas card for this year, I was feeling a bit Christmassy and decided to make a Christmas gift bag for the current Hero Arts challenge and the All Wrapped Up Challenge at Moxie Fab World. I absolutely love this shaker card that Sally made recently so I decided to make gift bag with a shaker on it.


Stamps (Hero Arts) Holiday Dolls & Three Trees

I recycled a bag like this one for my base. To cover up the name of the shop on the front of the bag I stitched the embossed snowflakes panel to pink card. For the sky inside the shaker I embossed various snowflakes in white and applied broken china distress ink. The doll is coloured with Promarkers and I added diamond stickles to the bobble on her hat. I stamped the sentiment on the acetate cover and added some punched snowflakes and beads to the shaker. To finish I just added a clear button which I had covered with glitter and tulle for the handles.



If anyone has any tips on taking photos of acetate, I’d love to hear them – I was nearly driven demented trying to get a photo without reflections!

Sparkling Snowflakes

This is a card I made for the Get Sketchy challenge #57 and the Jolly Holiday Greetings Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.



Unfortunately the photo isn’t great as I found it hard to photograph the glitter and the colour didn’t turn out true to life – it’s a bit paler than it looks in the photo.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Stunning Snowflakes & Holiday Dolls

I embossed the snowflakes, one of my favourite Christmas stamps from Hero Arts, in white on white card, applied broken china distress ink and spritzed with water. Then I machine stitched the piece of white card, which had been embossed in the Cuttlebug, onto the background. I added glitter and gems to the die cut snowflake (Cuttlebug ice crystal) and am still finding bits of glitter all over the place! I just embossed the sentiment in silver and added lots and lots of gems for some more sparkle. Thanks to Sue for all of the gems I used here!



This is my first Christmas card for 2010 and now I’m really in the mood for making some more!