Hi everyone, I’m back to announce the winners of the May Flowers challenge.  Beautiful flowers really popped up in the gallery so let’s get to it.

To start off, I want to share the winner of the Fresh Face category. This prize goes to Lucille K for her adorable dress with birds card. This totally reminded my of Cinderella in her Spring dress!

Next up in the Scrapbook category is this wonderful layout by 1Scrappycat .  I love her layout design and flowers placed around the edges of her photos.  Well Done!

And this first place winner for the May Flowers challenge goes to kath in westhill for this wonderful card. Kath’s colors seem to just pop of the page. So pretty!!!

Coming in with second place is Stampersuzz for her montage of flowery delight, love all the multi layer stamping done on this.

The third place award goes to crazyforstamps-kathy for her wonderful April Showers bring May Flowers. This is sooo cute!

But hold the boat….I’ve got more to share.  I couldn’t pass up these other great cards, so here are a couple Honorable Mentions.

This first card is from phiyandame’s, I love the fresh Spring colors just in time for Mother’s Day! Pretty!!

And this final one is from Fenway Wrigley Gibby’s, it’s so cute with her little frame and handmade flower.  Yummy!

Congratulations, everyone! Please email us at the address in the blog sidebar with your information and we will send your prizes.  Thanks!

The Hero Hostesses provided some gorgeous floral inspiration last week too.  Aren’t these wonderful? (Click on thumbnails for larger views.)

Thanks everyone for joining my May Flowers challenge.  I hope you’re seeing blossoms in your garden as well!

Thanks everyone for joining me for My April Showers bring May flowers. We had a bunch of rain around here, now I’m waiting to see all the flowers in full bloom.

Let’s recap of our week of flowers!  Click on any of the days below for more details.

• Monday: I made two cards using the same stamp set but with completely different styles.
• Tuesday: Was all about flower shaped cards, so fun!
• Wednesday: I made a white on white canvas which was finished off with a stamped flower and ribbon.
• Friday: I brought in May Day with a couple gift flower basket arrangements and an adorable card from Lisa Spangler highlighting Hero’s new paper.

The Hero Arts Flickr group pool has bloomed with a bunch of beautiful flowers.  Remember you still have time to submit your Mayflower entry.  Just post it to the Flickr pool by 11:59PST Sunday evening.  For more information just click on the link HERE.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

I had such a great time sharing my creations with you.  I’ll be seeing you soon!

Today is May Day, around here we call it May Basket Day. I checked it out on Wikipedia and this is what came up:

“May Day was also celebrated by some early European settlers of the American continent. In some parts of the United States, May Baskets are made. These baskets are small and usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone’s doorstep. The basket giver would ring the bell and run away. The person receiving the basket would try to catch the fleeing giver. If they caught the person, a kiss was to be exchanged.”

As a treat for YOU my friends, I’ve made a couple May Baskets. Since I can’t do the secret door bell ring and dash, I’ll share them as a visual gift to celebrate the beginning of May!!!

This first one uses a template from my Silhouette, very quick project to make, simple stamping and filled with real flowers.

Here’s a close up of the tag. I stamped the flower with the DesignBlock Raindrop background, and the paper basket was stamped with the DesignBlock Flourish. I cut one of my clear stamps to use just the word “Friend”.

Basket By Shari Carroll
Supplies:

• DesignBlock Flourish
• DesignBlock Raindrop
• ClearDesign: Friends
• Soft Leaf Shadow Ink
• Walnut Stain Distress Ink
• Art Flowers Meadow
• Card Button Neutral
• Other: Silhouette, white cardstock, ribbon, string and fresh cut flowers

Here’s another one.  This one uses a little glassine bag with a White StazOn stamped background image.

And a close-up of the flower and pearl accents.

Basket By Shari Carroll
Supplies:

• Dots and Flowers
  
• Summer Felt Flowers
  
• Art Flowers Spring
  
• Art Flowers Summer
• Pink Accent Pearls
  
• Card Buttons Spring
• White StazOn
• Other: Glassine bag, ribbon, string and fresh cut flowers

And finally, I invited Lisa to come play with some flowers today, and here’s her fantastic card.  Lisa is so talented when it comes to working with these Asian dolls, I wish I could make a card like this.  As a tip Lisa says,  “You can emboss in clear even over text!”   Thanks Lisa,  I love it!

Here’s a close-up showing the fine details, including Hero Arts’ gorgeous new Spring Blossom Paper:

Card By Lisa Spangler
Supplies:

• Spring Blossom Paper
• Asian Dolls
• ClearDesign: Friends
• Clear Embossing Powder
• Memories Black
• VersaMark
• White Notecards
• Sparkle Gems Small Blossom

Just for being such good sports and hanging in there with me, I’m going to finish my week off by offering a great GIVEAWAY.  I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’ve used this set on most of my projects this week.  I’ll give out three sets by choosing random comments from today’s post, the cut off time will be tonight at 11:59 PST.  Good Luck and have fun.  I’ll announce the winners Saturday afternoon.

EDITED TO SAY: This giveaway is now closed, thank you!

We will be back tomorrow to celebrate National Scrapbook Day, please come on and join us.  Jennifer has gathered up her multi-talented scrapping friends and will share some of their wonderful layouts for the event.

Remember, you have until Sunday evening at 11:59 PST to get your Mayflower entries loaded into the flickr group pool.

Be sure to join us next week when we announce the five winners of the latest “Win a Day on the Blog Contest!”

Thanks everyone for the fantastic week.  Enjoy the Spring blossoms!

Welcome back!

I’ve been wanting to do a white on white project for sometime now.  I’m intrigued with texture and muted tones.  This combination reminds me of carved stone or seashells.  I love doing  these blog entries because they give me a chance to explore and have fun with my stamps.

Today’s project is a small 4″x4″ canvas using Claudine Helmuth’s Studio Line multi-medium matte from Ranger.  It’s absolutely fantastic to use with papers on canvas or even for altered books.  Here’s a quick video of my mini “flower” masterpiece:

Shhhhh, I’m giving this to my sister for Mothers Day, she’s going to just love it!

Add here’s a close up of the tiny details, I’ve added a punched butterfly and lifted the petals of the flowers up to created a little more depth.

Canvas by Shari Carroll

Supplies

• Heart Flourish
• Clear Design: Printed Flowers
• ClearDesign: Friends
• VersaMark
• Walnut Stain Distress ink
• White Embossing Powder
• Long Notecards Kraft
• Clear Card Buttons
• Card Buttons Neutral
• Art Flowers White and Cream
• Accent Pearls
• Other: Studio Line multi-medium matte, 4″x4″ Canvas, corrugated; The Paper Company, Bo Bunny and 7Gypsies papers, ribbon, string and butterfly punch

Now it’s time to announce the winner of the Flower stamp set from Monday, are you ready? I ran the numbers through Random.org and post #282 came up.

Maeghan said:

April 27th, 2009 at 9:57 am

I’m always using flowers on my cards! They (along with bling) are my favorite embellishments to use!!!

[282]

Congratulations Meaghan, please leave us an email so we can get your mailing information.

Let’s recap what we’ve got going on right now.  There’s still time to enter the Win-A-Day on the blog contest! You have until Thursday, April 30th to submit your entries.  Click HERE for all the details!

The “MAYFLOWERS” challenge entries need to be loaded to the flickr group pool by 11:59PST, Sunday May 3rd.  Click HERE for more details.

Oh and let’s not forget National Scrapbook Day is this Saturday and Mothers Day is May 10th!

I’ll see you Friday.

Welcome back!

I thought it would be fun to play with some flower shapes.  I’ve created today’s cards using my QuicKutz Silhouette.  If you don’t happen to have one, try sketching simple outlines to create your own original flower shapes.

This first card uses a large flower shaped scallop.  I stamped the “I Love You Mom” onto white cardstock and punched into a circle.  The rest was cut out from my Silhouette, I just made two pieces and affixed them together at the side.  What fun!  I used a little Glossy Accents to highlight the flower centers and hearts.

Supplies:

• I love You Mom
• Memories Black Dye Ink
• Other: Bazzil Carstock (Brown), Bo Bunny (Yellow) Ribbon, QuicKutz Silouette, color pencils, sewing machine

This next card uses a daintier cut out design.  I just had to use the new Cloud background from the Spring Supplement to make a scene in the center of the flower.  I stamped my flowers using the Outline Flowers background stamp and I used watercolor pencils for coloring.  I used two cut out flower shapes and affixed them at the top.

I used ribbon for the stems and leaves of my flowers.

Supplies:

• Clouds
• ClearDesign: Friends
• DesignBlock Outline Flowers
• Soft Pool Ink
• Memories Black Dye Ink
• Card Buttons Spring
• Other: Ribbon, sewing machine, QuicKutz Silhouette, Bazzill cardstock, Ranger Glossy Accents, watercolor pencils

And finally, this last card uses the Outline Flower image embossed with white onto a cut out flower.  I also embossed the message onto the circle tag and used a bit of Glossy Accents on the background image to darken areas of the flowers.  This is a quick card that can be replicated in a pinch, just change out the message.

Supplies:

• ClearDesign Friends
• DesignBlock Outline Flowers
• Kraft Cardstock
• Clear Circles
• Summer Felt Flowers
• Pink Accent Pearls
• VersaMark
• White Embossing Powder
• Other: QuicKutz Silhouette, Bazzill cardstock, Bo Bunny cardstock, Ranger Glossy Accents

Tomorrow I’ll be showing you a video of something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time, See you then!

Hi Everyone, Shari Carroll here. I’m so thrilled that it’s finally Spring, I can’t wait to get outdoors to start my garden.

This week I’ve decided to play with the theme of April Showers Bring May Flowers.  My week will end with the beginning of May, so it fits in nicely! For the next few days I’ll be making projects that are all about those beautiful blooms we all enjoy.

To start the day off, I’ve created this card using simple stamping but added a twist to the background by using an embossing folder. I wanted focus on texture and contrast with this project. The bright pattern paper really pops against the black ink, lifting the flowers up with foam squares adds more dimension, then a bit of Glossy Accents gives some shine here and there.  For the background, just stamp and color the stem first then run the paper through the Cuttlebug with a leaf type pattern. So fun!

I’ve used Glossy Accents to highlight the dots on the paper and portions of the leaves.

Supplies:

• Artistic Borders
• Kraft Notecards
• Memories Black Dye Ink
• Other: Pattern Paper (My Minds Eye), Cuttlebug, Ranger Glossy Accents and foam squares

This next card uses the same stamps but has a completely different feel, more of a soft shabby look because of the soft tone papers and cardstock.  This one is for my wonderful mom.  :o)

Here’s a close-up with the added details, I sunk some pearls into the glossy accents in the center of the flower.

Supplies:

• Artistic Borders
• Happy Mom’s Day
• Fancy Designer Flourish
• Cream Notecards
• Walnut Stain Distress Ink
• Soft Sand Shadow Ink
• Neutral Buttons
• Art Flowers Meadow
• Accent Pearls
• Other: Pattern Papers (Prima), Blue Tag (K&Co), Ranger Glossy Accents, book text, sewing machine, foam squares and string

Now it is time for the challenge details. This week’s challenge is to create a project with some sort of Flower. You can make cards or pages with stamped flowers, create a shaped card, use paper flowers, make your own blooms with cut papers, etc. All you have to do is use at least one Hero Arts stamp. Easy! Upload your projects to the Hero Arts Flickr Group by Sunday, May 3rd at 11:59 PM PST and tag them with the code word “mayflowers” (”May” and “flowers” with no space between the words).

We will then award the following prizes:

• Fresh Face Winner (someone who has not yet won a contest): $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• Scrapbook Page Winner: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 1st Place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 2nd Place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 3rd Place: $15 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog

And, speaking of contests, there’s still time to enter the Win-A-Day on the blog contest! You have until April 30th to submit your entries.  Click HERE for all the details!

I’m flying home right now from Houston, I taught a fantastic all day class for our retailers there.  Tami’s sitting in for me moderating comments until I get in, Thanks Tami!  Are you ready for a quick little giveaway? How about the stamp set featured in today’s cards!  I’ll give out one set for a lucky random comment left here by 11:59 PM PST tonight.  I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday.  Good Luck!

EDITED to say: This Contest is Closed.  Thanks!

Have a great day!