Forever Yours and Days and Months with Heather H

We are so happy to welcome Heather Hoffman to the Pit Crew.  Here is a bit about her in her own words:

My name is Heather, and I blog over at Houses Built of Cards. Here is a little about me: I have been married for 13 years to the man of my dreams, and have two sweet daughters age 10 and 9 that I homeschool. I absolutely LOVE making cards – and also enjoy scrapbooking memories of my family. I lived my entire life up until about a year and a half ago in Northwestern Washington State, and now live in a very small town in Wyoming. While we are still adjusting -especially to the cold winters – it has been nothing short of an adventure for us all, with the normal ups and downs of missing our family and friends back home. If you aren’t familiar with my blog name, then let me explain a little! When I started card making, I quickly found that I was making WAY more cards than I could possibly use. Thanks in part to my young daughters and something they both cared deeply for, I decided to direct all the proceeds from the sales of my cards to the building of houses for widows and their children in Burundi, Africa, through a ministry called Sister Connection. Building one house is amazingly just $600!!! I just finished the money portion of my 4^th house, and am continuing to work toward a 5th. I’m so excited to be joining the Avocado Arts Pit Team!

Good morning! Heather here from Houses Built of Cards - super excited to be sharing my first post over here at Avocado Arts! First up, I made a couple cards with this months stamp set:

As soon as I saw this, I fell in LOVE with that adorable love bug! Isn't it the cutest?!?!? I stamped it on pattern paper, carefully fussy cut it out, then paper pieced a bit of white paper on it. I stamped that tiny "Just Married" sentiment - that conveniently fits just perfectly in the window - then added the little bow on the back.

I used some Heidi Swapp color shine in gold and peach on the background, a bit of embossing paste on a stencil, then attached the bug with foam adhesive, and stamped and embossed my sentiment on a black banner. Finished off with a bit of bling and some gold sequins.

Next up - I came OH so close to making a one layer card - but I ended up adding a bit of bling in the end! I inked up "Congratulations" one time, then stamped it off 3 times to give a bit of movement. The tiny hearts are from the little love birds - I just used some washi tape to mask off everything but the hearts.

I colored the glasses with my Copic markers, then added some Stickles over the surface to provide a bit of sparkle.

Then - I had to play with the add on set for this month:

This set has so many possibilities - I can't wait to use it for my scrapbooking! But first I decided to make a card with it. I lined up the days of the week on my stamp press, then added a tiny sentiment from an older stamp set, Wishes and Kind Thoughts. I inked them with Ranger Archival Ink, stamped on watercolor paper, then used a water brush and some basic watercolors to brush over each day of the week.

I sprayed some Smooch Spritz over the entire thing to magnify the watercolor effect and add a bit of sparkle. It doesn't show very well in the pictures, but maybe you can get a peek in this shot?

Finished off by matting in black card stock to make that panel pop before mounting on my card base.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have a wonderful day!