Hopping into Spring with Laura's Loft

Welcome to March with Laura's Loft...finally we are hopping into spring.

Spring is one of my favourite times of year. 

Flowers blooming, nice balmy temperatures....and bunnies! Lots and lots of bunnies.... (also...chocolate :))

So I decided to make a nice bright cheery card to celebrate it.

Firstly I designed my Easter eggs. I cut them using my Silhouette Cameo, but you could use dies, a Cricut or cut them by hand from white cardstock. One egg must be big enough to conceal your bunny!

Then using Tim Holtz's mini blending foam I sponged on Distress Inks. I used Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry and Shaded Lilac. Spritz with water and blot.

Over stamp using My Favourite Things Party Patterns stamp set to give the eggs pretty patterns. Cut (or have precut) one egg. Sponge a backing panel with Distress Ink in Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Tumbled Glass. Leave the centre whiter. Spritz and blot. Cut two layers of grass in two different shades of green card using a Silhouette Cameo, Cricut, dies or by hand. Stamp the bunny from Avery Elle's More Stories on Tim Holtz's Distress Watercolour cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black, or any other waterproof black stamping ink and colour with Zig Clean colour pens and a water pen. Fussy cut.  Mock up a rough arrangement. 

Stick the largest eggs to the big back panel, then the first layer of grass. Measure the width of your bunny. It's a triangle shape, so you want the pop up slit in the card to be smaller than the largest width of it (across the bottom/ tail), else your bunny will pop right out of the card!. Hold your broken egg in place, lift the top slightly and make a small mark with a pencil in the middle where you want to make your slit. Adhere the blue panel to a larger green panel. Stick the top of the broken egg to the bunnies ears. If you wish, reinforce it by sticking another top part behind so it's a double layer with the ears stuck between. Make sure that when the egg is closed the bunny will not stick out over the bottom of the card. Then using a ruler as a guide cut a slit through the blue and first green panel using a craft knife. Check the bunny fits through nicely. The line up your base broken egg and stick onto the card, being careful not to stick over the slit area. Wiggle your bunny through the slit (if you find this difficult, cut slit wider (but not wider than the egg), push bunny through and adhere a small strip of card across his bottom forming an upside down T).

Adhere other egg, then another layer of grass and final eggs. Stick onto background card and stamp an Easter greeting. 

Here's an extra quick card to make for you! Cut some bunny shaped holes from a greeting card. Back the card with stamped patterns using My Favourite Things Abstract Art set. Stick on tails made from pom poms, or for a post friendly version as here, white card covered with a Marvy Snow Marker and heated.

The fabulous prize this month is:

Distress Ink pack, a Stamping Bella Stamp and some pretty sequins.

TO ENTER AND WIN THIS WONDERFUL PRIZE:

There are several ways to enter and the more comments you make in the different social media outlets, the more entries you earn! It is required that you comment on each blog in the Hop.  After that, you are encouraged to like, and comment on our Facebook page, tag on our Instagram post and pin on Pinterest, as well as share on your own pages. The participant with the most entries wins the fabulous prize package!

There are some great special offers for you in store too...

Because March is national craft month there will be 15% off store wide till April 3rd as well as the $10 off if you spend $75 (and the store prices are already below RRP...wowza!)

While you are there please check out the new additions to the store...fabulous products by Stamping Bella, Hero Arts and Tim Holtz have joined our ranks. 

Please hop on over to Sue next by clicking below:

Complete hop in case you are lost

1. Laura

2. Deana Benson 

3. Jasmine Burgess

4. Robbie Rubala

5. Heart of Craft  ← you are here

6. Sue T

7. Lisa 

Watercolour challenge with Laura's Loft

CHALLENGE TIME

This months challenge theme has to be one of my favourite techniques, watercolouring! It's so accessible these days with traditional watercolours in tubes and pans, the brusho powders, Distress inks, Zig clean colour pens, watercolour pencils and more available.

Without further ado, here is my card!

I smooshed Distress Inks in Mowed Lawn, Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Blueprint Sketch onto a Teflon craft sheet, then spritzed them lightly with water. Drag Tim Holtz Distress Ink Watercolour card through it. Dry naturally or use a hairdryer or embossing tool. Spritz once with water and blot to get "bleached" areas. I then dragged/ dabbed some of the edges through again to get the spatters.  Over stamp with brush strokes from My Favorite Things' Abstract Art set in the same colours. On separate Distress watercolour card stock stamp the adorable fox from Avery Elle's More Stories set using Memento Ink.  Colour using Zig Clean Colour Brush markers and a watercolour brush. Fussy cut the fox.
On separate cardstock print, scan and copy the just for you sentiment and foil it using a Minc machine or laminator (if you don't have one you could emboss it in silver instead!). (sadly it's very hard to pick up the foiled effect on the photograph). Gently apply Distress Ink round the edges using a Tim Holtz mini blending foam applicator. Stick the greeting and fox to your card in a pleasing manner.  Mat onto green and blue card , the adhere to purple greetings card.

The prizes are fabulous as always.

First prize is a $25 certificate to Laura's store!

Second prize is generously donated by Newton's Nook and is a $20 certificate.

Who wouldn't want to win those!

As always, the challenge runs for two weeks and the winner will be announced two days after that.
You can enter on Laura's blog here.
If you need some more inspiration please check out the following links:

1. Laura
2. Deana
3. Jasmine
4. Noe
Debbie
Valentina 
Lisa

Calling All Sistah's with Laura's Loft and CAS-ual Fridays

Please click above for the beginning of the hop.

Calling All Sistahs!

1 in 8 women in the U.S. will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime.

On August 17th, 2015  an awesome friend of ours became 1 in 8

Calling All Sistahs was started by Michele Gross, owner of CAS-ual Fridays Stamps, shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It is her hope to create awareness for breast cancer beyond just the month of October by reminding you to do your self breast exams on the 17th of each month, and encouraging us all to remind all the great women in our lives to do the same. You can read more about her story HERE 

The Calling All Sistahs Collection was created by Michele with the specific intent of donating 50% of her profits from this collection to Breast Cancer Research and Awareness programs in honor of all who have been affected by breast cancer.

Laura's Loft are thrilled to be one of the first stores in the country to offer this special collection of stamps and dies. It's important to us to be able to remind all of our sistahs to check yourself and we are proud to continue Michele's effort by donating 50% of our own profits from this collection to breast cancer research in VA. 

Join us here on the blog on the 17th of each month for CAS-ual Fridays projects dedicated to the fight against Breast Cancer and in support of our sistahs suffering through it along with a personal reminder to get yourself checked. 

I am so happy to support this cause, I lost a friend a university to breast cancer, and know several woman who have suffered from this horrible disease. Catching it early is a life saver! 

 ***This is your reminder to do your breast self-exam!***

and remind your sistahs too! 

If you're not exactly sure how to do a self exam, you can click here to get the information you need, and then follow up with your doctor at your next appointment.

Don't forget to go for your mammograms!

Saturate a piece of Tim Holtz's Distress Watercolour paper with water and the brush on some Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick and Victorian Velvet until it blends. Let dry. Spritz lightly with water and blot. Overstamp with the hope stamp from the hope ribbon set in the same colours and the specks from Tim Holtz's cracks and specks set. Rip up some coloured and translucent papers and adhere. Spray with some perfect pearls in pearl white. Apply some Picked Raspberry Distress Paint round the corners and some Judikins Metallic Fuchsia glass beads.
Stamp the ribbon from the set in black and emboss in clear on pink card. Cut using the Ribbon Fri-die. Colour the hearts and pick out some flower centres using gelly roll pens. Then cover the hearts in Ranger's glossy accents. Let dry. Stick onto some white card and fussy cut a slightly larger ribbon. Accent edges with Picked Raspberry pad. Mount to backing card with foam tape, then adhere assemblage to bright pink mount and a baby pink card.

There are no less than 5 amazing prizes to win! Cas-ual Fridays is kindly giving away 3 $25 vouchers to their store. The winners will be pulled randomly from comments on ANY of the blog stops...the more you comment on, the more you might win! Laura's Loft is generously giving away 2 $25 vouchers and all you need to do is comment on ALL the blog hop stops.

For More information on Breast Cancer Awareness just click here. 

Please do your self exams!

I'll be back next month to remind you again :)

Click here to hop onto Lisa's blog

A different colour

I made this card in response to the colour challenge on MFT's blog
Of course I didn't have exact colours, but I used it as a starting point (and realise I have no peach anything and need to get some!)

My card nearly got abandoned as I couldn't get the elements to work together, but in the end I was glad I persisted! It's always good to work out of your comfort zone.

Products used:

MFT Abstract Art
Altenew Hennah Elements

Distress Ink Pads in: Squeezed Lemonade, Scattered Straw, Seedless Preserves, Abandoned Coral.

Perfect Pearls Spray in silver
Memento Ink in Tuxedo Black
Kuretake Clean Colour Pens

Tim Holtz Distress Watercolour Paper
Translucent Paper

Sending Love

I've been working on some Valentine's projects this week for my beloved husband. I was inspired when I came across some special Tic Tac's in the stores called "Be Mine Mix". they even have love messages printed on them :)

I had seen some really cute Tic Tac holders at Christmas so I decided I wanted to make a Valentine's version!

Here is the end result:

Ok, so I got carried away, they were so much fun! 

I created the patterns from scratch using my Silhouette Cameo.

Stamps by My Favourite Things, Hero Arts, Stampabilities, Finnabair and Kaisercraft.

Sprays used: Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer in Gold (on central pink one), Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Gold (left red) and Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Sweet Cherry (far right).

Other supplies: Prills, Crackle Paint (white and clear), printed papers, netting, Minc machine and gold foil, Distress Inks, ranger texture medium clear, stencils, Memento inks, Distress Paint, glossy accents, glitter, red gelly roll pen, velcro.

Entered in the 

Lawnscaping Sending Love Challenge 

and

Simon Says Monday Challenge -Spritz and Spray

Laura's Loft Shop and Hop....Somebunnies Luck!

Hop back to Robbie's post here!

Welcome to my monthly post for Laura's shop and hop. I hope the winter is treating you kindly and you are snuggled up inside with some crafting supplies of your own.

This month I had fun using Avery Elle's More Stories, which is a very versatile set, since it has options for every season and more. It also has matching dies. It doesn't hurt that it's absolutely adorable too!

I stamped the bunny from the set using Memento black ink on some Tim Holtz watercolour distress card stock. Once dry it was then coloured using Zig Clean Colour pens and a water brush. I then fussy cut it out. The background is stitched square cut using my Silhouette Cameo but you could also use a Cricut or any stitched dies. It was cut from Neenah 80llbs cardstock and sponged using Ranger's mini round blending foam and Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Evergreen Bough, Crushed Olive, Mowed Lawn and Vintage Photo. Spritz with a little water and blot immediately. Grass from the set was then overstamped. Mount on some white card 2/16th" of an inch larger. Mount two panels of coloured papers and white card and mount to a white card. I felt the back green wasn't quite right so I sponged with the Distress Inks and overstamped with Kaisercraft's crackle stamp. Cut balloons from cardstock. You can use dies, a die cutting machine or stamp them out. Sponge and grunge as desired so they blend with the feel of the rest of your card. Assemble all elements and draw on balloon strings using a black gelly roll pen. 

And here is my extra project for this month. I used a kraft tag from Hero Arts. Stamp the More Stories bunny and butterfly in Black Memento ink. The flowers and stitching are from Stampendous's hand of friendship set. Colour with Prismacolour pencils.

This month you could win the following amazing goodies!

That's a fuse tool, basic enamel dots, jewel box exclusive sequins and Wow embossing powder white opaque ultra high!

TO ENTER:

There are several ways to enter and the more comments you make in the different social media outlets, the more entries you earn! It is required that you comment on each blog in the Hop.  After that, you are encouraged to like, and comment on our Facebook page, tag on our Instagram post and pin on Pinterest, as well as share on your own pages. The participant with the most entries wins the fabulous prize package! How cool is that!?!

Looks out for some cool new products coming this month including this gorgeous collection of sequins, just in time for St Patrick's day :), exclusive to Laura's Loft!

Now hop on over to Lisa's gorgeous creations....

Here is the complete hop:

1. Laura's Loft

2. Deana 

3. Jasmine

4. Robbie

5. Heart of Craft ← you are here!

6. Lisa

7. Linda

8. Sue

9. Kim

This months guest designer:

10. Noe

                                                                   Small print! For competition T&C's please see Laura's website.

Challenge time with Laura's Loft- "Resist Technique"

CHALLENGE TIME

Welcome to my project inspiration for this month's challenge. The theme was a technique based one, "Resist".

I decided to go with using the way embossing powder resists watercolours.

This is what I came up with:

Cut an A7 card (5" x 7" ) from blue cardstock (or use a premade one). Stamp using random combinations from My Favourite Things (MFT) Party Patterns set and a Paris Dusk blue Memento Ink pad.  Using some Strathmore cold press watercolour paper (I tried on normal card and it doesn't look as nice) stamp and emboss some more of the set using a clear embossing pad and white embossing powder such as Wow's Opaque White Superfine. You'll also need an embossing tool. 

Let it cool a little, then dampen the paper with a brush or mister. Then drop in some watercolours. I used some Cotman pans and tubes, but you could also use Brusho powders or Distress Inks. Let dry. Cut into rectangles and mount onto white card rectangle cut slightly bigger. Stamp a sentiment in the blue Memento ink (I used on by Papertrey Ink). Mount some of the same blue you used for the back ground and adhere to the card using foam pads.

So now it's YOUR turn. Yes, you! Right there! Your turn to join in and have some fun, maybe try something new.

The challenge runs for TWO weeks and you can enter on Laura's blog HERE. The winner will be announced two days later.

You could win the 1st prize

 and kindly donated by Avery Elle the 2nd prize

to spend on goodies all for yourself (well, you can share them with me if you really really want to :))

Here are some more of the compadre's pages if you would like some more inspiration!

Deana

Jasmine

Debbie

Noe

Lisa

Dawn

Valentina

Linda

Robbie