Paper Crafts Magazine Publication and a Walk

Well after a little bump on the posting road, I’m back after a two week break!

I’m in the middle of making a lot of cards for a friend and as I’m definitely not a speedy card maker I don’t have a card I made recently to show, instead I have one I made way back in November, which was published in the May/June issue of Paper Crafts magazine.

One of the sections in the magazine is Found Objects for Mother’s Day. So we had to make a gift using found treasure as well as a matching card. Oh I had so much fun rummaging around looking for some hidden treasures! I made a brooch and card using some beads from a broken necklace, a piece of silk a friend had given me and my favourite bit - some fabric which my mum had hand dyed.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass & Celebrate Everyday

I was so thrilled to have had this project and also one for Father’s Day published in this issue. It really meant so much to me as when I was making my projects, I constantly had my dear mum and dad in mind and included what they love\loved and things that make me think of them.

Below are a few photos from a walk we did a couple of weeks ago up the Sugar Loaf Mountain. I love the walk and the views are spectacular (much better than the photos I took!) and it only takes 30 minutes to get to the top.

Setting out

At the top looking towards Wicklow Head

View of the Wicklow Mountains

View towards Killiney and Bray Head

Well I better get back to making those cards! Hope you all have a great weekend:)

Inspired by Anita - Hero Hostess Inspired By Challenge

As this is our last week as Hero Arts Hostesses (the time went by way to quickly:(), we have planned one final challenge – “Inspired By”.

I’ve been so inspired by all my hosti sisters and everyone in the Hero Arts Flickr group. So for our challenge each of the current Hostesses has made a card inspired another Hostess, in order of the Hostess announcements. That means I’ve made a card inspired by the super talented, super fun and super sweet Anita and my good friend Linda has made this amazing card inspired by me. For my card inspired by Anita I tried to make a masculine card for this month's Hero Arts Challenge.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass, Large Canvas Stripes, Flower Text and Birthday Messages.

I’ve noticed from Anita’s photostream that she seems to love a blue, green & brown colour combination, buttons and stripes so I tried to incorporate all of these into my card. For the top portion of the card I applied faded jeans distress ink to white card and spritzed with water. Then I applied shabby shutter distress ink to the Silhouette Grass stamp, spritzed lightly with water, stamped on the background and then over stamped with a brown chalk ink. I stamped the green patterned paper at the bottom of the card with the Large Canvas Stripe using shabby shutters distress ink. The butterflies were punched from a scrap left over from another project (the Flower Text stamp had been embossed on white card with shabby shutters applied). The sentiment is embossed and I just added some buttons, a crimped brown strip and some twine to finish.

Anyone who would like to take part in the challenge can create a card\project inspired by any member of the Hero Arts Flickr group - there are 3,627 members to choose from! Full details of the challenge are here. I hope you'll join in on the fun:)

I am submitting this card into the Simon Says Emboss It Challenge.

Butterflies and Flowers

I'm just posting photos of some cards I sent to friends which I didn't get around to putting on the blog before. I hadn't really thought about it until now but obviously I must love butterflies and flowers!

The Silhouette Grass is clear embossed on fabric and the butterflies are coloured with ProMarkers.
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Silhouette Grass & Messages.


A distress ink background with white embossed vellum flower. I just added some glitter to a button and diamond stickles to the petals for some sparkle.
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Flower & Tree, Bird and Messages.


The large flower again!
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Flower & Tree, Birds and Messages.


Vellum butterflies and the Fabulous Flourish is embossed in white on fabric.
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Fabulous Flourish & Antique Engravings


As you can see I love the Antique Engravings set!
Stamps (Hero Arts)- Antique Engravings & Tree, Birds and Messages.


The Wild Flowers are white embossed on fabric and the butterfly coloured with Promarkers.
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Wild Flowers & Tree, Birds and Messages.


I love using Crackle Accents!

Deborah's card drive and Yarrow Elfshimmer unmasked

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve blogged but between getting a couple of winter bugs and preparing for a craft fair which is on later this week I’ve been neglecting my blog a bit recently.

About a year ago Deborah (who always comes up with the best ideas!) organised a secret card drive for Ruth, a lovely lady from the Hero Arts Flickr group, who was ill. The plan was for a group of us to send cards to Ruth and her children to try to brighten their days.


Stamp (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass

Everyone who took part in the drive used an alias so Ruth wouldn’t know who we were. My one was Yarrow Elfshimmer. Deborah has told us that we can finally reveal our identities and share the cards we sent to Ruth and her children. In my haste to send Christmas cards to Ruth’s children I forgot to take photos of those but these are the cards I sent to Ruth.



It's brilliant to hear that Ruth is doing great now and that she was thrilled with all the cards she received. A great big thanks to Deborah for putting so much into organising this surprise for Ruth! Ruth, best wishes to you from Yarrow Elfshimmer and I'm delighted to hear you are doing so well!

90 Minute Scramble and giveaway winners

Tami from Hero Arts has organised a series of speedy card making challenges over at the HA Flickr group.

I had missed a few of these challenges but on Thursday finally got to take part in the great challenge hosted by Karen (froggietalks on Flickr). Karen's challenge was to use kraft, red and black on a card and the card had to be made and uploaded to the group in 90 minutes. The saying "more haste, less speed" is so true and I fumbled with everything - please don't look too closely at my wonky cutting! The card took about 30 minutes to make and it took nearly as long again to get an awful photograph outside at dusk (yuck colours inside from energy saving light bulbs). So I took this photo of it during the day.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Antique Engravings, Silhouette Grass & Messages

I hadn't got kraft card so ended up using some kraft coloured fabric. I clear embossed it with the Grass Silhouette stamp and cut it with the Labels 8 die. The butterflies are coloured with Promarkers and I added beads to the bodies and thread for the antennae.

These 90 minute scrambles are so much fun to take part in. So far two more have been organised, one on 23rd October and another one on 6th November. Full details are here . I'd highly recommend taking part in them!

Now on to the winners of the little giveaways. Thank you all for taking part and for your lovely comments. I really wish I had something to send to everyone. I picked the winners the old fashioned way by drawing the names out of a hat.

So this is going to to Linda (scrappin.bari)



and this is going to Dawn



Linda and Dawn, I hope you'll enjoy these and I'll email you for your addresses.

September CCC Cards

I love taking part in Deborah’s Card Chain Challenge and because of this month's challenge I received a wonderful card from Kelly in the U.S. and sent Corey, also in the U.S., a card. Deborah is currently taking names for her October Card Chain Challenge (wonderful choice of colours, template and themes) so if you’d like to take part, you can put your name down here to join in the fun!


Stamp (Hero Arts) - Flower Chick

Above is the fantastic card I was lucky enough to have received from the super talented Kelly, along with some lovely goodies - thanks again Kelly! I love the design, vibrant colours and of course the wonderfully coloured chick with Kelly's signature flower in the chick's hair.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Silhouette Grass, Outline Flowers, Scattered Leaves & Messages

The card above is the one I made for Corey. I had read somewhere that she likes chocolate brown so I used brown for the card base and followed Deborah’s colour palette (loosely!) and friendship theme. The Grass Silhouette is embossed in white and I decided to use one of the flowers from the Outline Flower background. I love this stamp but haven't used it recently so thought it was time to ink it up again.



I stamped the flower three times, coloured with watercolour pencils, layered and added dots of diamond stickles to the stamens. The leaves are stamped using a couple of chalk inks and the butterflies are punched from a scrap of card, left over from another project, which had been sponged with spiced marmalade distress inks.

I'm submitting the card into Hero Arts Everything Autumn challenge. I'm really going to have to think about getting a Pro account on Flickr - big difference between photos uploaded from Flickr and straight from the computer! I've had a mad, busy week this week so hopefully I'll do some catching up on blogs and everything over the weekend!

Butterflies, flowers and a teabag.

I keep seeing Lin creating wonderful cards like this and these for The Shabby Tea Room Challenges and keep thinking I must try the challenge. Although I love shabby chic style cards I find them very hard to make and never know if I’ve added too much or too little on my cards – maybe too much on this one! So here's is my first attempt at the challenge.

Butterflies, flowers and a teabag., originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps used (Hero Arts):- Antique Engravings & Silhouette Grass

The current Shabby Tea Room challenge is to use something old and something new. Since I only started making cards less than two years ago, I don’t have anything very old in my stash. So the things on the card that qualify as being old are the buttons which I’ve cut off old clothes over the years and the copper and diamond stickles which I bought when I first started making cards. The new things are the rhinestone flourishes, a technique which is new to me, the lace and a new teabag! Because of the faded flowers and the wheat in the background, I'm also submitting the card to the Everything Autumn Challenge at Hero Arts.



I just came across this brilliant video for making paper flowers and had to try it out. It’s great fun and I’ll definitely make lots of these in different colours and shapes. I made the two bigger flowers using this technique and the smaller flower is made up of two layers of Hero Arts flowers – thanks so much Vanessa and Linda for these!

I clear embossed the Silhouette Grass on a piece of silk and dyed the lace (originally white) with tea. The butterflies are stamped on paper which is cream and has green and copper swirls – thanks Paula and Dawn, I’m enjoying using the goodies you sent me. Sue (Stampersuzz) sent me these gorgeous rhinestone flourishes - thanks again Sue. I'm delighted to have used so many items on this card from blogging and non blogging (you need to start a blog Linda!) buddies in the U.S., Germany, Australia and New Zealand!



To finish I just added machine stitching, thread for the antennae, stickles and lots of buttons and beads.

Summer Fields

This is another entry into the June Challenge at Hero Arts. During the summer time as kids we used to spend hours and hours playing in the fields near home. The fields always seemed to be full of poppies, butterflies and ladybirds so that’s what I wanted to include in my summer card.

Summer Fields, originally uploaded by heather maria.

For the background I sponged distress inks (broken china, antique linen, shabby shutters and mustard seed) on white card. The wheat is stamped with antique linen and I embossed the seed heads with enchanted gold. I coloured the poppies with markers, added beads to the centres and used yarn (white yarn coloured with a green marker) for the stems. I applied glossy accents to the ladybirds.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Silhouette Grass, Scattered Leaves, Antique Engravings, Poppy Background, Birthday Messages

A little bit of resist - Stormy Skies

This week on the Hero Arts blog, Jennifer McGuire has been showing lots of gorgeous cards and great ideas using resist techniques. So I thought I’d do some resist on this card.

Stormy Skies, originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps (Hero Arts) Silhouette Grass, Antique Engravings, Raindrop Background, Birthday Messages

I wanted to make a kind of stormy summer sky for the background so I embossed the grass in white on watercolour paper. Then I dabbed distress inks (shabby shutters, broken china and faded jeans) onto a piece of tinfoil and spritzed with water. I placed the embossed image in the ink, and hoped for the best as this was my first time trying this technique! The first attempt turned into a blobby mess so this is the second attempt.

A while ago I had dabbed alcohol inks and blending solution on glossy paper. When they didn’t blend and looked awful, I realised that I had used photo paper which wouldn’t work. I saved the paper anyway and stamped these dragonflies on it. For the card itself I embossed the Raindrop Background in white and applied faded jeans distress ink. I did a little bit of stitching on this card so I’m entering it into Jenny's Challenge #10 (In Stitches) as well as the Hero Arts June Challenge.

It's really dull and overcast here today so the photo isn't great but I think there's good weather in store for the weekend so I'm looking forward to that!