desperatehousewifecraft

January 15, 2019
by desperatehousewifecraft 2 Comments

Hero Arts Fairy baby card

Hi everyone! Its Gwendolyn and I’m back today to inspire you to join us in our “Anything Goes” challenge for January. You get a chance to win a free digital stamp set from the a2z Scrapbooking store and if you use any Hero Arts or Sugartree products, you get a $20 gift voucher to spend at the store! If you need to get any of those products, make sure you use my personal code Gwendolyn15 to get a 15% discount on any of your orders $25 and above.

Now onto my card. I just got the Hero Arts December monthly kit, the first time for me but I just loved all the fairy images, perfect for kids birthday cards or as I made here, baby cards. I made this card for a friend who’s sending it to a new mum of a baby girl called Sophie. I first stamped all the images using Hero Arts inks, then coloured them with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens. They glide on like watercolour and blend really easily and boy do they sparkle and shine!

I didn’t use this fairy in the end as the coordinating die slipped while I was cutting it on my Big Shot Plus…I’m terrible at diecutting, even when I add tape, it doesn’t come out perfectly centred, I end up fussy cutting to finish it properly!🙄 To know where to add my images, I used the rectangle from Sue Wilson’s infinity double stitched rectangle dies in the middle of the card, as a guide.

Once all my stamps were coloured and diecut, I cut the rectangle and got my daughter Ines to write the name of the baby as she writes so well! I flicked on some blue and pink paint onto my card by wetting (a little) my Zig clean color brush marker tips and tapping it against the side of a pen.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I inspired you enough to join us in our Anything Goes challenge. I look forward to seeing your projects. Have a great week!

Hugs,

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements! You can find me at desperatehousewifecraft.

Please join us in this month’s “Anything Goes” challenge for your chance at a free digital stamp set AND, if you used Hero Arts or Sugartree Stamps, a $20 gift card to our etsy store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month

The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products as well as a nice selection of digital stamps! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Gwendolyn15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from with-in the shop.

Hero Arts December monthly kit
Sue Wilson Noble collection double stitched rectangle dies
Spectrum Noir sparkle pens
Sizzix Big Shot Plus diecutting machine

December 25, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 4 Comments

Hero Arts Paper Layering Neighbourhood die

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!!! Its Gwendolyn here and I hope you’re all having a nice time with your family or loved ones. I’m taking a little time off from my family and friends who are at our house this year, to share my last Christmas card of the year, with those of you who are doing the same and reading my post!

I’m using my Hero Arts Paper Layering Neighbourhood die again which I got from the a2z Scrapbooking store. Remember, if they don’t have it in stock, you can custom order it! Use my code Gwendolyn15% to get 15% off any of your purchases of $25 and above.

To make this card, I first painted the background using Hero Arts Watercolor dot palette for the night sky. There is so much paint on just one dot, its incredible! The lights in the windows were coloured with Prima Marketing gold metallic Watercolor. Once it was dry I sprinkled white acrylic paint all over the sky. I always use Clairefontaine 250g multi technique paper for my cards, but any watercolour paper will do in this case.

I then posed the diecut onto my painted panel and added Nuvo crystal drops onto the roofs to give an impression of snow. The sentiment comes from the Hero Arts Holiday Houses digital kit which I printed on a blue card stock and cut with my craft scissors. I flicked some white paint on it too to coordinate with the sky.

Well, I better get back to my house guests, but I was happy to share a little of my Christmas time with all of you!

Happy Holidays everyone and a great start to 2019!!!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

Please join us in this month’s “Winter Wonderland” challenge for your chance at a free digital stamp AND, if you used Hero Arts or Sugartree Stamps, a $20 gift card to our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month

The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Gwendolyn15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from with-in the shop

December 15, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 3 Comments

Hero Arts Holiday Houses Digital stamps

Happy Saturday all! It’s Gwendolyn and I’m here to share a Christmas card I made using Hero Arts Holiday Houses digital stamps. I’m also here to remind you to join our challenge where the theme is “Winter Wonderland” and I look forward to seeing your cards in the line up. Don’t forget to use my personal code Gwendolyn15% to get 15% off all your purchases $25 and above.

To create my card, I first embossed the background with a Darice Snowflakes embossing folder and then printed the three houses in black (they also come pre-coloured) and 2 trees in green. I coloured them with Prima marketing watercolours, fussy cut them and adhered them onto my card, raising the centre tree and house on foam tape, to give my card some dimension.

The sentiment, (which came in green or black options) was printed in green onto a water-coloured panel I had created shortly before, and the edges cut with my craft scissors. To finish I added Nuvo Ivory Seashells crystal drops on the “snow” areas to give a fun added interest to the houses!

Well I hope you liked my card and that it inspired you to use this wonderful digi stamp! Have a great creative weekend!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

November 25, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 6 Comments

Thankful for you

Hi all, its Gwendolyn and I’m back this Sunday to share a very simple to make card with a technique that’s apparently all the rage at the moment – ombre ink blending on coloured card stock to leave a spotlight for your main image, which in my case is the cute baby polar bear sitting on an iceberg, from Hero Arts Polar Greetings stamp set, which you can get from the a2z scrapbooking store.

I first saw this done by Kensija (Sweetkobylkin) and loved what she did with her cards so I decided to try it. I started with a blank card base from the Hero Arts Pool Mixed Folded cards set, using the lightest pool colour card, which is like a very light teal colour. I started blending Mermaid lagoon distress oxide all around the card, with a very light blend in the centre of the card just so there were no blend marks, I then added Faded Jeans around the borders and a little black on the edges. I went over everything with Mermaid Lagoon again so that everything was nice and blended. The idea is to have a very light centre and it gets darker as you move towards the edges of the card.

I stamped the iceberg directly on the card, coloured it with my Prismacolor pencils & finished with a brush of my Spectrum Noir Illustrator clear sparkle pen to make it appear as the ice is glistening. The little polar bear was stamped on another card stock, coloured with my coloured pencils too and fussy cut. Before adhering this to my card, I flicked some white paint on the top part of the card to resemble snow and a little water on the bottom part of the card to resemble water bubbles.

I then stuck on my baby bear and stamped the sentiment, which comes from Hero Arts “Thank You” messages set with black ink from the Hero Arts Swan layering ink set. So a very simple clean and simple card to make but with great effect don’t you think?

Thanks for stopping by and have a great creative day!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

Please join us in this month’s “Give Thanks” challenge. As you know, we’ve changed our rules a bit and participants are no longer required to use Hero Arts products to enter our challenges. Each month we feature a ‘Digi of the Month’ which will be the prize offered to our randomly-chosen challenge winner from our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month

November 15, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 6 Comments

Thanks a Latte

Hi everyone, its Gwendolyn here, back to remind you to join us in this month’s challenge where the theme is “Give Thanks”. Link up your cards here and maybe win a $15 voucher to the a2z Scrapbooking store, AND if you use any Hero Arts or Sugartree products, there is a bonus prize!

I made a very simple card today, using a digital stamp from Sugartree Stamps called “Hug in a Mug”, which you can immediately download as soon as you purchase it at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. It has 5 different coffee cup images and 8 sentiments! Don’t forget to use my code Gwendolyn15 to get a 15% discount on all purchases $25 and over!

I first water-coloured my background on 300g watercolour paper using Ecoline liquid watercolours as I wanted a very vibrant look. I wet the paper thoroughly and just dropped in the colours of paints I wanted. While it was drying, I prepared my print file on my computer by inserting the image I wanted and duplicated it all over my page. I also prepared the sentiment I needed by just printing it on a white piece of paper and die-cutting it with Sue Wilson’s stitched rectangle dies. I then printed my coffee file on the dried water-coloured panel.

I cut it into size with Sue Wilson’s stitched rectangle die and adhered it onto one side of a white card base and added the sentiment. So, very simple and easy to recreate! I hope you’ve been inspired by my card to join us in this months “Give Thanks” challenge and I look forward to seeing your cards in the line up!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great creative day!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

October 25, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 4 Comments

Spooky Neighbourhood Hero Arts

Hi everyone, its Gwendolyn back today to share a spooky Halloween Party invitation card I made to inspire you to join our current challenge “Frightfully Fun” here. For today’s card, I’m using Hero Arts Paper Layering Neighbourhood die again, which you can find in the a2z Scrapbooking store. The paper layering dies allow you to cut normally, giving a pop-up style of cut, and then, after folding or curling the cut edges, the image reveals itself, giving a 3-D dimensional look to your paper.

In my last post here, I gave a very colourful look to this diecut, but in today’s card, I’m going to show you how you can give a textured spooky look to it in a very simple way. I first water-coloured a piece of 300g watercolour paper, using Brusho’s black paint powders. When the paint was still wet, I pressed a piece of cling wrap, which I had crumpled up beforehand, on the water-coloured panel. Once it dried completely, I removed the cling wrap and there you have a wonderfully textured card base.

I then used this to cut my Hero Arts Neighbourhood die and added the diecut onto an orange card base from the Hero Arts Sunshine Mix folded cards set. I coloured in the moon with my Derwent Graphik acrylic ink pens and on top of that, added some red watercolour to create a bloody moon. My sentiment strip was also water-coloured with Hero Arts Watercolor dot palette by Daniel Smith and I wrote in “You’re Invited” with my yellow Derwent pens again, as its the only pens I have that really stand out against any dark water-colouring.

Well I hope you enjoyed the way I created my card and that you’ll be inspired to make a Frightfully Fun card for our challenge! And if you’re anywhere near Ulm, in Germany on the 31st of October, you’re invited to our Halloween party… if you dare!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great creative day!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

Please join us in this month’s “Frightfully Fun” challenge. As you know, we’ve changed our rules a bit and participants are no longer required to use Hero Arts products to enter our challenges. Each month we feature a ‘Digi of the Month’ which will be the prize offered to our randomly-chosen challenge winner from our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month

October 23, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 4 Comments

Hero Arts Paper Layering die

Hi all, its Gwendolyn here on the a2z Scrapbooking blog today to share a card I made using the Hero Arts Paper Layering Neighbourhood die, which you can find in the a2z Scrapbooking store. The paper layering dies allow you to cut normally, giving a pop-up style of cut, and then, after folding or curling the cut edges, the image reveals itself, giving a 3-D dimensional look to your paper. So for this die, once cut, you have a choice to leave it flat or bend the edges of each building so that they would be vertical, which is really cool!

Today’s card would have been really quick and easy to make as I used a scrap of a watercolour exercise to colour my diecu. But I decided to cut each individual building and mount some of them on foam adhesive to give some dimension, instead of having the buildings stand straight as it’s not so convenient for mailing. So that took abit of time but I love the result!

For the sentiments, I used 2 different ones from the Hero Arts Color Layering Poppy stamp set and I stamped them with Hero Arts Charcoal ink, writing in the “&” by hand. I added a blue border & added some acrylic ink splatters with my Derwent graphic line painters to finish the card.

Well I hope you liked how I used the Hero Arts Paper Layering Neighbourhood die and that it will inspire you to play with them too! You can get them at the a2z Scrapbooking store. Thanks for stopping by and have a great creative day!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

October 15, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 6 Comments

Hero Arts Winter Forest Halloween card

Hi all! I’m back after a month long forced break as I went back to France for a week to work but had to stay for a month! I didn’t have any of my craft supplies with me and my withdrawal systems were so severe I had to drink quite alot to compensate… LoL! I’m joking! (well not really…)

Anyway, all that just to say that I’m SOOOO happy to be back and making card and today’s card uses Hero Arts Winter Forest Digi stamp from the a2z Scrapbooking store which I decided to transform in to a Halloween card! This is my first Halloween card as we don’t send Halloween cards in Europe but as our current challenge is to make “Frightfully Fun” cards, I thought I’d challenge myself.

I first prepared my background by blending in Ranger’s distress inks and went over it all with Hero Arts Black ink. This is the first time I’ve used their inks to blend and they go on really well! I then flicked on some water. I formatted & printed the rows of trees from the digi stamp set which contains 8 stamps around the main image and 12 extras, like paper and other Christmas digi images.

I used just the row of trees and once they were printed on my background, I drew in the tree branches, with any black marker, to make them look even spookier! To draw in the spooky wolves eyes, I used my Derwent line painter which are pens that contain acrylic paint, so they’re great to colour over distress inks. The white specks are also from a white Derwent pen. I wanted to use a Hero Arts stamp for the sentiment and found this from their Color layering hydrangeas set which I stamped in white and went over with my yellow Derwent pen.. I thought it quite funny to suggest that it’s the wolves that are here for you… just waiting for you… or it could also mean that I’m here to keep all those bad things away.

Well I hope you liked how I transformed this Christmas digi stamp into a Halloween card. Thanks for stopping by and have a great Creative week!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

September 15, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 7 Comments

Hero Arts Cowboy Adventure

Hi all, it’s Gwendolyn here and I’m back to showcase the Hero Arts “Cowboy Adventure” stamp set which you can find from the a2z Scrapbooking store. I love this stamp set as I can make masculine cards for graduation, farewell, retirement… or even a birthday card for someone who loves travelling!

The idea for this card came from our visit to the Grand Canyon afew years ago when we were doing a family road trip on the Route 66 & I will always remember the sunsets during that trip as they were spectacular!

I started out by blending in Abandoned Coral, Spiced Marmelade & Mustard seed distress inks to create my sunset background. I then stamped in the mountains with Hero Arts Caramel hybrid ink & coloured them in with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator alcohol markers. The cowboy was stamped in with Hero Arts black ink and to make the large arched rock, I stamped the arch image twice, fussy cut them, and used the underside of one to create the opposite rock formation. I then trimmed them down so they would fit snugly over the cowboy and adhered them on foam tape so it would give the illusion that the cowboy was behind this rock formation.

The sentiment from the same stamp set was stamped with Versamark clear ink on black card stock and heat embossed with Hero Arts White detail embossing powder. I cut the sentiment strip so that it would resemble mountains too and mounted it on foam tape too.

Well I hope you liked my card and if you would like this stamp set, you can custom order it from the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. Don’t forget to use my personal code, which you can find below, for a 15% discount for every order over $25!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope YOU never stop exploring!

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

Please join us in this month’s “Clean and Simple” challenge. As you know, we’ve changed our rules a bit and participants are no longer required to use Hero Arts products to enter our challenges. Each month we feature a ‘Digi of the Month’ which will be the prize offered to our randomly-chosen challenge winner from our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month

August 25, 2018
by desperatehousewifecraft 3 Comments

The Perfect Blend

Hi all! Its Gwendolyn and I’m back today to share a perfect blend I discovered when I mixed Sugartree & Hero Arts digital stamps! In my last two posts I showed you how you could use the Hero Arts “Painted Petals” digi stamp, and then the Sugartree “Hug In A Mug” digi stamp.

Well today, I’m going to show you how to use both of them together!

I created a little video of how I edited the digi files to add the sunflowers and sentiment on the mug and you can find it at the end of the post. Please forgive me if its a little shaky as its the first time I did a video of my screenshot. Once they were edited to create a sunflower mug, I printed them on Nina Solar White paper and coloured them in with my Derwent Graphik line painters. These are acrylic paints in a pen and create a very thick layer of ink. I doodled in the leaves & coloured the handle green with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator marker.

To finish, I added a little Nuvo Crystal drops in the middle of each flower and used the tip of the applicator to create the bumpy texture to add more interest. This was a very simple card to make and I hope you like it! As promised here is the video I made to show you how I digitally assembled the images using the Pages app as I have an iMac it should be the same method with Word or Powerpoint.

Thanks for stopping by and I wish you an amazing crafting weekend!

Hugs,

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook?so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

Please join us in this month’s “Anything Goes” challenge. As you know, we’ve changed our rules a bit and participants are no longer required to use Hero Arts products to enter our challenges. Each month we feature a ‘Digi of the Month’ which will be the prize offered to our randomly-chosen challenge winner from our Hero Arts store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month