Merry Christmas…in April?

…well why not I say!

I bought the Hero Arts “Magic of Christmas” stamp set last year, but it didn’t arrive until after Christmas and I haven’t had a chance to use it much….so I am getting in nice and early for this year! My inspiration for this card came from the very talented Joy Taylor and this was her card. I loved her layout!

I am entering this card into the new Challenge Blog, Lily Pad Cards, where Kathy Racoosin has laid down the following colour challenge.

Quite challenging considering the amount of colours! But alas, here is my Christmas creation.

And here is a close up of the stamp layering…I used a small width foam as I like the subtlety of this. You can’t see it in the photo, but I used perfect pearls on the card. I swiped the distress inks on my acrylic block and then spritzed with perfect pearls water before painting it on the bauble and the leaves with a paint brush. It is nice and shimmery in real life!

Supplies:

Stamps: Hero Arts ‘Magic of Christmas’ (CL462), Hero Arts ‘Holiday Messages’ (CL244)
Ink: VersaMark Watermark Ink, Versafine Ink – Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress ink – Dried Marigold, Scattered Straw, Tumbled Glass, Peeled Paint, Dusty Concord, Bundled Sage
Card: Regal Craft Card (textured white single fold), white card
Other Supplies: American Crafts black embossing powder, white ribbon – thin width, Kaisercraft pearls – snow, foam dimensionals, Gloss Accents, Perfect pearls, paint brush, mini mister, acrylic block, blending tool

Thanks for looking! (oh and Merry Christmas!)

Marion

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Inspired by….Jill (Flower gift set)

Hi everyone,

It is such a beautiful autumn day here today…and I have another gift set to share with you.
It is my very good friend’s birthday today and she just loves my gift sets, so I made an extra special one for her….it has taken me hours, but I am happy with the result! It uses the Hero Arts Stencils Flower cling stamp and the HA Envelope Pattern Woodblock stamp.
I am entering it into Joy Taylor’s inspired by challenge over at her blog, Less is More, where we have to create a project inspired by someone in the crafting world. Well I took my inspiration from the very talented Jill Foster. She is THE master at taking plain white card and turning it into a colourful masterpiece! This is her lovely card where my inspiration came from.

And here are my versions….yes there are quite a few photos!!

And one of them all together (sorry about the photo)

And to top it off I found a snazzy little box from my local Newsagent that they fit into perfectly!!

Phew….that’s it! As you can see I even tried Jill’s water splattering technique that she uses so often on her cards.

Supplies:

Stamps: Hero Arts Stencil Flower cling stamp (CG194), Hero Arts Envelope Pattern Woodblock stamp (S5507)
Ink: Versafine Ink – Vintage Sepia, Tim Holtz Distress inks – Barn Door, Fired Brick, Dried Marigold, Borken China, Scattered Straw, Peeled Paint, Tumbled Glass, Worn Lipstick and Old Paper
Card: Regal Craft Card (white square textured single fold), X-Press-It Blending Card, White card
Other Supplies: Uniball white gel pen, foam dimensionals, Kaisercraft and TLC Quick Words rubons, Kaisercraft pearls – pearl, TH foam blending tool

Thanks for taking the time to look and ploughing through my mammoth post!

Marion

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Cute as a button

Hi there,

Today I have a baby card to share with you using distress inks and some of Jane’s Doodles fabulous buttons! I love these buttons and they are highly prized treasures in my collection! The layout is the latest FTL #133.

I am entering this card into 2 challenges – Scrapbook Boutique’s button challenge (where at least 3 buttons are to be used) and JayGee Nook’s Challenge #5 where this is the inspiration photo. I was drawn to the beautiful turquoise, yellow and white.

And here it is…

and a close up of those lovely buttons and embossing…

I created the background by embossing a plain piece of white card with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and then using a blending tool and Broken China distress ink, I rubbed over the top and kept rubbing until I was happy with the coverage. I love how the inside of the flowers remained white.

Supplies:

Stamps: Hero Arts “Envelope pattern” woodblock stamp (S5507)
Ink: Tim Holtz distress ink – Broken China
Card: Regal Craft Card (white textured single fold), plain white card
Other Supplies: Cuttlebug embossing folder – Caramelo, Cuttlebug, Jane’s Doodle buttons – pastels, Kaisercraft pearls – snow, turquoise and white ribbon, kitchen twine, Fiskars scallop border punch, computer generated sentiment – “Tinkertoy” font, Tim Holtz blending tool, foam dimensionals, glossy accents (to glue the buttons on with).

Thanks for stopping by,

Marion

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Flower card set

Hi there,

I was meaning to post this last week, but I have returned to teaching (2 days a week) after having 13 months off…so I have been SUPER busy!

My Mum asked me to make a set of cards for her friend who is turning 50, so I made a set of this card I posted recently…I just had fun experimenting with different colours. I also bought a box to put them all in and covered it to match the set. (Originally the box had Disneyland princesses all over it!) I am really pleased with the finished product.

Sorry about all the photos, but I wanted to show you all the different colour combinations I came up with!

And finally the matching box…

Supplies:

Stamps: Hero Arts Stencil Flower cling stamp, Practicing Creativity – Just Dandy
Ink: Versafine Ink – Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress inks – Broken China,  Tumbled Glass, Worn Lipstick, Barn Door, Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint, Old Paper, Dried Marigold, Scattered Straw
Card: Regal Craft Card (white square single fold), X-press It blending card, white card
Other Supplies: Copic markers, uniball white gel pen, foam dimensionals, S.E.I buttons, Kitchen twine, glossy accents (to adhere the buttons), Fiskars cutting board and scoring stylus, box

Well there you have it. We are having a heat wave at the moment….it was 40 degrees here yesterday!!

Until next time,

Marion

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Thinking of you

Hi there,

This card is one that I made for a friend of mine who lost a close friend suddenly last week.

I totally cased this card that Jill Foster made on her blog a couple of weeks ago as I loved the layout so much….. I just added some more colour and a different background. Jill is one talented card maker and is the absolute queen of using distress inks….and because I got my first batch of distress inks for Christmas, I thought I had best put them to use.

I heavily apply distress ink over the top of my stamped images (Barn Door, Scattered Straw and Dried Marigold). I then used a uniball white gel pen and coloured in the tips of the petals and the middle of each flower. On the background I used Peeled Paint distress ink and tried to flick water on the card (as Jill Foster does so well on her cards….but I am needing a little more practise!!), then I stamped the Hero Arts Friend Definition stamp over the top with Scattered Straw to give a bit of texture. It is hard to see in the photo, but the flowers are raised slightly with foam to give some dimension.

Supplies:

Stamps: Hero Arts Stencil Flower cling stamp, Hero Arts Freind Definition Cling stamp
Ink: Versafine Ink – Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress inks – Barn Door, Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold, Peeled Paint
Card: Regal Craft Card (white horizontal single fold), White card
Other Supplies: Uniball white gel pen, foam dimensionals, Kaisercraft ‘Thinking of You’ rub-on, Kaisercraft pearls – snow, white ribbon

Thanks for taking the time to look.

Marion

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