3 cards and entry for Hero Arts monthly challenge!!

PHEW!!! WHAT A WEEK!!

Hope all of your weeks have been much less stressful than mine, I've had two sick little kids and then when they finally got over it...my youngest got it again!! Darn cold and flu season!!

Anyhoo, I've got three cards to show you tonight. I've been crafting away busily all week and I'm halfway through a mini album and I've even kicked out the sewing machine (gosh I'm a terrible seamstress...I hate to even use that word in regard to my ...ahem...'talent' but sewer just sounds awful...though sewer is about where my sewing skills are!! lol

anyhow, the first two are just playing ones.

This first pretty little thing is a result of me playing with my new PTI shipment that arrived two days ago. The colours...*sigh* I could just drown in them. All colours are Berry Sorbet. I just used the Hero Arts High Heels Collection for the stamped shoe and sentiment. I coloured the shoe in with coloured pencils too and added a little prima e-line pink bling to the toe...what's a gorgeous pair of high-heels without some bling?! I also used my new nestabilities labels die for the centre white and the sentiment pieces. Sentiment was stamped in black archival ink (of course!( and the white circles were using white VersaMagic ink. Oh...the dots are PTI too. I'm no Dawn McVey but I'm trying :)



The second card is MUCH more my usual style (despite it being the first of its kind on this blog!) and more leaning towards Kristina Werner's style. All paper cutting and colour. I used the GORGEOUS Kaisercraft 6x6 "Made with Love" collection pack. So beautiful. The 'sentiment' letters are ...*hiding from me on my desk...WHERE ARE THEY!?!?...oh, here...American Crafts Thickers in Patchwork. My goooooooooosh they're so cute, they're fabric!!! *squee*
I outlined the card with faux-stitching with my white uni-glo pen and rounded edges with my corner chomper...


Ok, and now to my piece-du-resistance (how DO you spell that?!) ...Hero Arts blog has a new challenge up for the month and the moment I saw "4th of July" I thought of fireworks and my mind (bizarrely!) went immediately to the gorgeous Hero Arts Dandelion and Silhouette Spray stamps and I thought...hmmm they kinda look like fireworks....*let the creating begin!*

so after a couple of trials getting the look right and playing around, this is what I came up with for this months' Hero Arts challenge...




Do you like it!!?? I stamped the Dandelion and Silhouette Spray stamps with white Versamagic ink, avoiding the stems and stamped around the top of the card. Then I used Fired Brick, Mustard Seed and Broken China Distress ink in a soft circular motion around the 'bursts'. The white versamagic ink was still a little too pale so I went back over the stamens (??) with my white uni-glo pen to highlight the fireworks bursts.
I inked the card with Pumice Stone, a touch of Dusty Concord and Black Soot Distress inks for the night sky and then did the tiniest spritz of water, waving the card through it to bring a look of stars in the sky.
NOW came the really hard part. I wanted to get the look of the land below with a row of houses but I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in my stash that looks remotely like houses...until I found my Cricut cartridges. Using Paper Pups and Stretch your imagination, I was able to cut out the little house, trees and dog house (plus the cute little puppy looking up at the fireworks--isn't he adorable!!) all out of black card stock and I adhered them to the bottom of the card. To make them look like they're in shadow, I re-inked the base of the card in Black Soot Distress Ink, slowly moving up the card pressing lighter and lighter with my (homemade) inking tool.

On the inside of the card is a gorgeous little plane and banner saying "happy 4th July!!"...too cute. I'm guessing there are little planes with banners and such on 4th July in the USA...I've heard there's fireworks so here's hoping I heard right!!

Anyhoo, its almost midnight and I'm pooped!!!

I really hope you enjoyed the cards today...please comment!!

thanks for looking and visiting me in bloggy land :)

L xx