Yipee its the school holidays!!!

 My crafting time has been practically zero over the past couple of weeks but,   yipee!!!! its the Easter holidays and I have two weeks off work!  I just thought I would share a card I made a few weeks ago and Haven't had time to post.  Its a similar design to this one, I love the look of the Fabric background stamped in Victorian Velvet distress ink.

The butterfly is stamped onto vellum that I have coloured with alcohol inks.

This week the lovely Jill has been featuring me on her "Inspired by " blog, if you have time please take a look, Jill makes the most amazing cards, her colouring is always stunning and I feel honoured that she wanted to feature me.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend.

Supplies used: Hero Arts Stamps CL383 Antique Engravings.CG245 Classic Fabric.S5507 Envelope Pattern. Victorian Velvet Distress ink.  Lace and Pearls. Hand rolled flowers.

Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge #50,

This is the inspiration photograph for the Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday challenge this week, its such a great photograph look at all those yummy colours!!

I had already cut out and pop dotted this flower a few weeks ago and it had been sitting in my basket waiting for the right card.  I have made this is for my best friends daughter's birthday, I know she will love the bright colours!!
I am looking forward to Friday as school breaks for Easter, that's two weeks off and loads of time to craft Yipee!!



supplies: Hero Arts stamps. S5482 Ruffled flower, CG269 Happy Definition. Various Patterned Papers.

Happy Mothers Day!!

 In Ireland and the UK its Mothering Sunday today, so Happy Mothers Day to you all,  hope you all have a relaxing day.

As you can see I don't have a Motthers Day card to show you, just two masculine cards that I have made for the current Hero Arts challenge. See here for this months challenges, Hero Arts are always very generous with their prizes so go on have a go this month!!

Both my cards are made using the new clear set  "Going" its a really useful set, as we all know mens cards are notoriously hard to make!!  For the top card I have used an old chipboard label from a pair of jeans, it was already distressed so I just scrapped of the price and stamped the car image in its place.

 For the second card I have cut up an old map for the border strip. The car is stamped and cut from blue paper and I have highlighted the areas that would be chrome with a silver gel pen.

Yesterday I went with my friend to a  fun  Adult Education course on quilting,  this is the cushion I made, I am really pleased with the end result and I am definately going to try something a little bigger next time!!

Look at this yummy ribbon, The Ribbon Girls are doing a little giveaway for Mothers Day, so visit their blog to be entered into the draw.

Hope you all enjoy your Sunday!



Supplies used for both cards. Hero Arts Stamps. CL478 Going.CG269 Happy Definition.Embossing folders from Cuttlebug.

Another colour challenge.

Note if you are here for the Lily Pad Blog Hop please go to the next post down!

 

Here is a card I made with the challenge over at CR84FN21, the inspiration photograph shows dark red green and cream and I was really pleased with my card till I tried to photograph it.  The weather has been quite dull lately and all my photos show the green looking really dark and muddy.

 In real life the Green is so different and I have also sprayed with perfect pearls so it has a really lovely shimmer to it. Never mind I will enter it anyway.

Just a short post tonight as my daughter needs some moral support.  She has just found out she has a big interview to go to next week and there is a lot of preparing to do.  I need to be on hand with cups of tea and snacks to help her through!!


Supplies: Hero Arts stampCG184 peacock. S4878 Old letter writing. Crushed Olive and Peeled paint distress inks. Cream ribbon, gems and button.

Lily Pad Cards and my First Blog Hop!!

Wecome to the Lily Pad Blog Hop!!!!

 Hi everyone, its Wednesday and another exciting day in this fabulous Blog Hopping week, you have now reached hop 3 of day 3  and you should have arrived here from the wonderful  Virginia's blog . If you missed any hops on the way please go to The Lily Pad Cards to start at the beginning.

This blog hop started on Monday and features seven blogs per day,  it culminates on Friday, April 1, with the grand opening of Lily Pad Cards. Lily Pad Cards is a new challenge blog that will feature interviews, articles, videos, challenges, great prizes, and more!

Although Lily Pad doesn’t officially bloom until April 1, 2011, you’ll be able to see a new sneak peek every day until then. And you’ll definitely want to drop by because there are three HUGE prize packages with a total retail value of over $800 - including a $100 gift certificate to a very popular online store! Go here for specific prize details and contest rules.

The hop’s theme is "Welcome" because not only are we welcoming Lily Pad Cards to the neighborhood, but we’re also welcoming all of you to come in and join in all the fun.

 I have decided to make two cards for the hop.

This is my first card and very much my style, I love pretty feminine cards with bling, butterflies and flowers!! I have made the background with a mixture of distress inks and perfect pearls for shimmer.  I then lightly stamped on the graph background stamp.  The butterflies are from Hero Arts and are stamped onto coloured vellum and embossed with white embossing powder, then layered up for texture. The handmade roses are made using a sizzix die cut (Thanks Suze)! I have generated the sentiment on the computer.

My second card is just a bit of fun to welcome all you hoppers to my blog!!! I wanted to make a card with a blue frog and a lily pad and as I didn't have the right stamps I just found the image on google and paper pieced it.  The jumping frogs in the background are made with a punch that I have had for years.

Please now hop to the next stop, which is over at Simon Says Stamps.  If you hit a bad link you can always go here to continue hopping.  Please report any bad links to webmaster@interlinkz.com.

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you enjoy the rest of your hop!!!!


 Supplies for top card: Hero Arts Stamps S5435 Graph background. CL383 Antique engravings. Distress inks in, Bundled Sage, Mustard Seed Yellow, Spiced Marmalade, Dusty Concord. Perfect Pearls, Lace, roses and gems.

Felt flowers and a new challenge blog!!

When I saw these pretty flowers that Kelly had created I was dying to have go myself, so this weekend I had a little play with some felt scraps that I had in my material basket.  I have made these into brooches as they are really popular in the UK at the moment. I haven't stamped on these as ink doesn't take well on felt but after seeing Heathers gorgeous creations I am going to have another go with material!

Just in case you've missed it, there's a new card challenge blog starting called "Lily Pad Cards "and it's launching with a week-long blog hop, starting today! Click here to start hopping- There are some fabulous prizes involved check here to see! The week ends on April 1st with the grand launch!

If you visit my blog on Wednesday you can see my contribution to this fun event.

March CCC

For this months Card Chain Challenge ( Organised by the super efficient Deborah) I was lucky enough to receive this fabulous card from Jane and this time my card only had to travel from Bracknell in the UK :0) so there was no worry about it getting lost in the post !! Love the bright and cheerful colours Jane has used! 

And this is the card I sent to by blogging friend Sanne in Denmark, I tried to follow Deborah's sketch this month.  Don't forget to visit Deborah's blog on Friday and sign up for Aprils CCC you won't regret it!

Please try and visit my blog on Wednesday as something special is happening and also before I go, a little reminder to check out Vicky's blog on Monday at 9:00 AM EST....you wouldn't want to miss this!!!

Wee Memories Challenge#49

Another week has flown by and its now my last week as Guest Designer at the Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge.   Challenge#49 is sponsored by my My Favourite Things and as you can see "Anything Goes"

This card is a CAS design for me (well as clean and simple as I can do, I love adding little extras like pearls and ribbons to my cards).  I have been playing around with distress inks alot lately and this image is stamped onto watercolour paper using distress inks sprayed with perfect pearls.  I love the shimmer it gives to a card.  The butterfly is paper pieced onto some text patterned paper.

 The Top Hoot as picked by the design team will win a $25 gift certificate to the My Favorite Things Store!!! And we've also added a random hoot as a thank you for playing that will win a Wee Memories prize pack!


So, ready to play along? I hope you will! Link up your finished creation to the Wee Memories blog. You have until midnight PST on Fri., April 1st to be eligible for the prize. Have Fun.

I have really enjoyed the last month, thaks Jenny for giving me this opportunity.

Supplies:Hero Arts StampCG187 Floral Brocade. Distress Inks Walnut Stain and Spiced Maramalade. Perfect Pearls. Spellbinders Lacey Circles.

Fresh Inspiration Friday

Its a Fresh Inspiration Friday challenge today on the Hero Arts Blog! The idea is to stamp something just for fun that’s based on the inspiration piece provided.

 My Hero Arts Hostess"sista" Anita  emailed us  a photograph of some gorgeous pictures she has hanging on her dining room wall. Here’s one of them! The challenge is to create a card using this photo as inspiration.

 This is my card , I am not really a blue person, I prefer pinks, reds and oranges but this has changed my mind about using blue.  The background is on watercolour paper and I have layered up the Classic Fabric stamp and the Envelope pattern stamp using broken china distress ink and some perfect pearls.  I have then stamped over with Chipped sapphire and the Garden Bouquet stamp and more perfect pearls for a real shimmer.

Here is a closeup, I am really pleased with the effect.  The butterfly is one that the lovely Brenda sent me, Thanks Brenda, I just distressed the edges a little for a vintage effect.

Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps. S5507 Envelope Pattern.  CG172 Garden Bouquet. CG245 Classic Fabric. Distress inks. Broken China and Chipped Sapphire. Perfect Pearls. Spekkbinders Lacey Circles.

Joy's and Linda's Challenges

 I have long been an admirer of Jacqueline's cards, she has her own shabby chic style and I love it, so when Joy set her first challenge "Create a project that honours someone in the crafty world that has inspired you", I had to choose Jacqueline.

The card I have chosen is this one, made by using up scraps of stamped paper that would otherwise be thrown in the bin.

 I also know that Jacqueline  loves to use butterflies cut from pretty patterned paper and she loves this Hydrangea stamp.  So a perfect tribute to a crafter with a unique style.

This second card was my entry in the 90minute challenge set by Linda yesterday in the Hero Arts flickr group, I followed Linda's sketch and created this card in the 90 minute time deadline.  Such fun, I was lucky enough to have my sewing machine already set up, as I had been sewing all afternoon. it meant I was able to add the zig zag very quickly to my card.  The background was really simple, I just stamped the classic fabric design with Bundled Sage Distress ink and spritzed with water, followed by the envelope pattern also in Bundled Sage.  The butterflies were stamped onto a piece of shimmery green paper from my scraps box.

I have had a really crafty weekend and  have had time to do a little gardening as well, so a productive time, always a bonus!!


Supplies for top card. Hero Arts Stamps CG187 Floral Brocade. CG 245 Classic Fabric. K5376 Hydrangea stamp.CL383 Antique Engravings. Artistic Outpost stamp. Bloom and Grow. Distress inks.
Bottom Card. CL383 Antique Engravings. CG245 Classic Fabric. SS507 Envelope pattern. Bundled sage Distress ink.