Winning card

I've just heard that this card won a third prize in the X-cut section of Origin Publishing's Cardmaker of the Year contest. I won the title of Cardmaker of the Year two years ago, so it's good to find the magic still lingers!

Glitter tree

It's that time of year again - time to make Christmas cards! The tree was traced from a template, part of a set included with the latest issue of Simply Cards and Papercraft. I love filling in shapes with glue and covering them with glitter, so I used lots of blue and greens here. I added a peel-off greeting coloured green with marker pens, and some blue and purple sequins in the corner. I love making Christmas cards!

Visiting Hallmark

I was lucky enough to be one of the winners recently in a DOCrafts Creativity competition to create a Forever Friends card. Our prize was a visit to the Hallmark Studio in Yorkshire, and it was brilliant! We saw all round the Creative section, had a play with DoCrafts Forever Friends products, and came away with stacks of goodies. My favourite bit of the visit was the big notice in the foyer welcoming us! I made a very quick and simple layout for my scrapbook when I got back, using some of the stickers placed on white card and cut around to make die-cuts.

Funky Hand Challenge

This was made following a sketch on the new Funky Hand Challenge blog. In the end I didn't add a sentiment as I liked the card better without one, but I've followed the sketch apart from that. The pink, lime and orange papers are from my favourite CD of printable paper designs, Funky Seasons. I added some gem centres, coloured with Sharpie pens - a great way to get matching colours from a pack of clear gems!

Happy 360th birthday Fiskars

This card was made to help celebrate the 360th birthday of Fiskars, the scissors and tool company. I have a pair of Fiskars (then Wilkinson's) scissors which I've had for over 20 years and they are still the best ones I own. I used some Funkyhand.com paper for the background, and cut the cupcake from a scrapbook catalogue - the bits I needed were so tiny I could use the sample squares printed in the catalogue!

Mermaid card

I found some Lili of the Valley mermaid images I had stamped a while ago, and decided to make them into cards. I had cut round the shapes rather roughly and this one didn't have enough white space at the top to cut into a neat square - so I used a plate to draw a shallow arch at the top of the image, and cut it out as you see here. I was really rather pleased with the effect - it's amazing how being stuck with something that isn't quite right brings out a creative idea!

Birdy card - and an exciting website!

I made this card with some free papers and embellishments that came with the latest issue of 'Cardmaking and Papercraft' magazine. All the colours are so bright and cheerful, and the kit had everything except the pink ribbon on the right, and the greeting. I often pop over to the blog at www.heroarts.com - they're launching their new website this week and there's lots of fun and freebies to be had. Go and take a look - the colours of the cards are so inspiring!