Hero Arts 45 Year Anniversary – Amazing

Congrats to Hero Arts for 45 years of fun crafting supplies. They are really the stamp company that got me interested in stamping and card making. I joined the Hero Arts Flickr group and enjoyed seeing all the cards made with Hero Arts stamps and finally started participating in the Scrambles which were so much fun. Currently I am on a design team for a2z Scrapbooking which is mostly about Hero Arts stamps, supplies and digital stamps. They give their profits to 2 charities. I have enjoyed creating cards with Hero Arts stamps and digital images that are in the Etsy store and also working with the other folks on the team. It has been interesting working with the digital stamps which I rarely had done before. They are affordable and you can size them to fit any project.

I am not going to say in writing on the internet how many of their stamps I have. Ha! Let’s just say a whole bunch. I also really like them as a company. They operate in a green way, support the paper crafting stores, and also the other crafting companies which I love among other things. I also am lucky enough to live about 45 minutes from the factory and now a little store that is open some days. Surprisingly I have only been there once.

So here’s a little bit from me about a few of my older stamps and some cards I have made over many years.

This is my oldest stamp from Hero Arts that I remember having way back. It is from 1990.

Here are a couple cards I have made over the years with it.

I made this one in 2013

 

I also made this in 2013

 

This one is from early 2017

 

And one from April 2018

I was hoping to find a photo of a card from even further back but I have not yet. I did take photos of my cards way back but didn’t find any with Hero Arts stamping. Kind of interesting how the cards above look fairly similar but I don’t think I cased myself.

Here is a couple other older Hero Arts stamps I have. I have found a few at thrift stores in the last couple years.

This one is from 1993

This one is also from 1993 and it is a thrift store find

 

 

 

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Hero Arts Beautiful Day Agapanthus

Hello to you all! Today I am over at a2z Scrapbooking with a card using the delicate Hero Arts Beautiful Day Agapanthus stamp set. Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more.

May Flowers is the theme for the monthly challenge. I love to use my floral stamps so this is one of my favorite types of card to make.

To start the card I stamped one of the bunches of agapanthus along with the stem and leaves and heat embossed with gold powder. I used my Misti to get things lined up nice. I used Bristol paper for this because I was going to use Zig pens on it. I learned in a class that this is the best paper to use with the Zig pens and I find this to be true. So I colored the flowers, stem and leaves practicing some things from the class I took.

I cut out the flowers and mat using Hero Arts Oval dies. The mat is a purple color which might be hard to see in the photo.

For the background I decided to heat emboss with the same gold powder. I used the other flower bunch in the set to stamp and heat emboss on each corner.

Then comes the sentiment which was the tricky part. I first die cut the words. Then I turned them upside down on the Versamark ink pad. I sprinkled on the gold embossing powder then moved them to a piece of paper. I decided that leaving them on a piece of paper and heat embossing from underneath was the best so the words would not blow away when I was using the heat gun.

Then it was just adhering everything to the card.

 

 

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Beautiful Day Agapanthus stamp set
• Hero Arts Nesting Oval Infinity Dies
• Ranger Queen’s Gold Embossing Powder
• Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker
• Spellbinders Sentiments One die set

Almost Made It Coffee Cards

I’m back with one more post for the 2019 Spring/Summer Coffee Blog Hop. It may be over officially but I am not quite done. Ha. If you want tons of great inspiration you can see all the cards submitted during the hop here. So nice of Amy to have this more than once a year. I know it is a huge amount of work. Also very nice that tons of companies provided prizes.

So here are the other two cards I made. One almost made it for the link up. Missed by maybe 5 minutes or so. Don’t let your self get distracted towards the end of the time. One thing I got side tracked on is ordering a few things from Kat Scrappiness. Amy made a card using a background die from there and I just had to have it. Anyway… on to the cards.

Here we are with the final version! There were several versions with me thinking how about this, no maybe this, ok this will work.  Since this was a Spring/Summer coffee hop I was trying to go with the theme. But.. coffee just has such a fall feel to it. I drink coffee all year round, seven days a week. I had a lighter brown background at one point but I felt it needed to be lightened up for the theme.

For the background I used a TCW stencil to make all the coffee rings. This required me putting paper pieces on the stencil to only get the coffee rings and not the other things on the stencil and so I did not get ink on the card in the wrong place. The image was on the edge of the stencil.

Next we have the coffee cups. I was thinking rainbow when I picked the colors. I painted some watercolors on watercolor paper and let that dry. Then I stamped the coffee cups over the colors and die cut them out. I used the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero August 2018 coffee kit for all the cups.

Then I found this dark ribbon to ground the cups. It went on a bit crooked which bugs me but it was red line tape so there was no taking it back up without destroying the background.

I used another Hero Arts set for the flowers. I also put down some watercolors on watercolor paper for those, stamped, hand cut.

So the background was different at one point, the cups are redone, the ribbon was something different. You all know how it goes.

Entered in the Love Handmade Cards May Challenge. https://www.flickr.com/groups/2158384@N23/discuss/72157691207011693/

I had to pull this stamp out for this hop. In progress last night but not ready to submit. I won this guy and two other owls with coffee from Rubbernecker Stamps and they are so much fun. I happen to love owls and surprisingly coffee. Ha. This was a bit of a challenge at first also. How do you make an owl look more spring/summer instead of fall? I am really happy how it came out.

I stamped the cute owl and colored him with Copics. I cut around him using a Spellbinders die along with the mat behind him.

I used a couple of patterned papers from the same paper pad. The green is from a different paper pad.

I cut the greeting banner out with a Simon Says Stamp set. The sentiment is from the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero coffee set and it really fits with the image. The image and the greeting are both raised up with fun foam.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts My Monthly Hero August 2018 Kit
• Hero Arts Flowers for Coloring stamp set
• Rubbernecker Stamps Campbell
• TCW Stencil Mini Butterfly Collage
• Simon Says Stamp Sketchy Banners die set
• Copic Markers
• Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors
• Spellbinders Labels Nine Die Set
• Adirondack Latte dye ink
• Memento Rich Cocoa ink

 

 

 

 

Stamplorations Framed Roses and Coffee Digital Image

Hello again so soon! I have another coffee card that I created for the 2019 Spring | Summer Coffee Lover’s Blog Hop.  I worked with a digital image this time that Stamplorations was so nice to give away. You can check out this image here. It is part of a set called Love/Spring Themed A2 Card Front Digital Images. There are 2 other images in the set. They are also having a sale on the coffee/tea items.

Now for my card…

I got this image awhile back and I finally got to use it. I enlarged it just a bit before printing on bristol paper. I found out that inkjet printing and Zig Clean Color pens don’t work well together. Printing on bristol ok, coloring with Zigs on bristol ok, together not ok. So I switched over to my Copic markers. They worked just fine.

After coloring everything including the background I added a few things. I put clear orange Nuvo in the middle of some of the flowers which is hard to see. Then on the coffee I added some Hero Arts puff embossing powder to look like a bit of frothy milk. Note the color of the coffee and see that there is milk in it. Ha.

Then I tried several different colors to put behind the image and finally chose this one. The image is raised using a foam sheet cut to size.

 

 

 

Picket Fence Studios Need More Caffeine

Howdy, now that my head is slightly above water I can make a few cards for fun. I am participating in the 2019 Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. Tons of fun inspiration.  Such a nice graphic for the hop!

Now for my first card for the hop.

I had a card in progress with these fun mugs of coffee but decided it needed a more spring/summer look. I stamped with Versamark using the Picket Fence Studios Need More Caffeine stamp and some brown embossing powder. Then of course took the heat tool to it. Then I dug thru many stamp sets to come up with the tiniest stamps for stamping on the mugs. They rarely get used. I picked some Avery Elle pigment ink colors that were good for this time of year to stamp all the tiny images on the cups. I used a die to cut around all the mugs.

For the background and the sentiment I found two colors that I liked in a paper pad I had. I used a die to cut out the sentiment also. The sentiment itself is from a Hero Arts My Monthly Hero set from August 2018.

Supplies:

• Picket Fence Studios – Need More Caffeine
• Hero Arts My Monthly Hero Kit – August 2018
• Spellbinders Die – Marvelous Squares
• Spellbinders Die – Fancy Label Tags One
• Sparkle & Sprinkle Embossing Powder – Teddy Brown
• Avery Elle Pigment Ink
• Honey Bee, Hero Arts, Lawn Fawn sets with tiny stamps

Hero Arts Safari

Howdy! It’s time for a safari!

I am over at a2z Scrapbooking with a card for you today. I love the Hero Arts safari stamps and dies! You can get the Hero Arts Safari Wild About You stamp set at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more.

 

To start off my card I got out a couple of pieces of watercolor paper and a couple Ken Oliver Color Burst colors. For the sunset I used an orange and a yellow. The yellow has a bit of a blue here and there which I wanted in there. I mixed it with water and painted that on and did a little sprinkling of the powder which I blended in with a brush. After that panel dried I cut out the sunset with a die.

Next came the background. I also used a couple Ken Oliver Color Burst colors. I got it watered down and blended a darker blue and a purple on watercolor paper. I am learning different ways to work with them and about different looks.

For the animals and the hunter I stamped them with Versamark, sprinkled on some copper embossing powder and heat embossed them. On the giraffe I added a bit of a yellow/gold embossing powder to add a little different color. I then die cut them out. I got the idea early on in the planning that I wanted to do the animals in copper. The bird above the tree is stamped with a copper pigment ink.

The tree is cut out of a cool looking copper paper that has some shimmer to it. I’ve had the paper quite awhile. It’s one of those “I don’t want to cut that up” pieces I have.

The sentiment comes from another safari set. I really need a bunch of thank you cards so that is the sentiment I picked.

 

 

Please join us in this month’s “May Flowers” challenge!

 

 

 

Supplies:

• Safari Wild About You stamp set
• Safari Sunset die
• Thorn Tree and Grasses die set
• Safari Huge Thanks stamp set
• Ken Oliver Color Burst Powders

Hero Arts Pretty Blossoms Printable Digital Kit

Howdy, here we are and it is a new month. Over at a2z Scrapbooking our challenge for May is flowers. Join us for some flower fun!

For my card I used the Hero Arts Pretty Blossoms Printable Digital Kit. The pdf has 4 flowers. You print all 4 flowers at once. If you print them the original size one flower will fill a good portion of an A2 card.

I printed the flowers out in two different sizes smaller than the original size.  To print in different sizes you just tell the printer that you want to print on 4 X 6 paper or 3.5 X 3.5 paper. I can’t remember the exact ones that I chose but I selected 2 different sizes. The printer then shrinks the images to fit the size of the paper which makes the flowers smaller. You can still feed in a full size piece of paper. If you have any questions about this please don’t hesitate to ask. I use Neenah Solar White 8 1/2 X 11 paper. I printed out the larger size flowers twice.

I cut out most of the flowers and glued them on the white paper. The pink flower is one of the larger ones that I printed. I colored it with Copics as you can see. Underneath the pink flower is a black and white one glued down to the background. The pink flower has foam tape under it to add some dimension.

The sentiment is black paper die cut and white heat embossing.

 

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Pretty Blossoms Printable Digital Kit
• Copic Markers
• Simon Says Stamp More Sketchy Banner Greetings stamp set

Hero Arts Birthday Bash Digital Image

Howdy, I’m over at a2z Scrapbooking with a fun card for a birthday.

This card was really fun to make. I got on a roll and made several in this style. The other ones are Easter cards in another post here on my blog. The style is an image that looks like it’s floating. I got this idea from a couple of cards that Jennifer McGuire made in the OCC class Stamp Happy. Unfortunately I didn’t have to much extra time to really participate in the class each day. There are two things about the card that Jennifer did. The first is the background which is about a different way to use your background stamps. I used the Hero Arts Lattice background stamp and first stamped with white then I shifted the paper over slightly and stamped with a dark blue ink using my Misti.

I then sized, changed the color and printed out this fun birthday cake that is in the Hero Arts Digital Birthday Bash Kit in the a2z Etsy store. The blue color is what printed. I did a little coloring with Copics which are the teal parts of the cake and the candle flames. On the squiggly icing I added a little Nuvo drops.

Here comes the fun part and the second thing I got from Jennifer. In the front part of the base of the card you cut an oval. Then on the teal panel you also cut an oval. In between those two you glue a piece of tulle. You use a smaller oval die and cut around your image. You glue this to the tulle. This creates a look of a floating image. You then cut another, white in this case, smaller oval and glue it on the inside of the card also on the tulle to cover the back of the birthday cake image. Here is a photo so you can see the inside of the card.

The sentiment is die cut and glued on.

Feel free to use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more at the a2z Etsy store.

 

Join us in this month’s “Fun Folds” challenge.

 

 

 

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Digital Birthday Bash
• Hero Arts Lattice Background Stamp
• Hero Arts Unicorn Pigment Ink
• Hero Arts Nested Oval Infinity Dies 
• White Tulle
• Copic Markers
• Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Script Die Set
• Nuvo Crystal Drops Simply White

Easter Cards

Howdy, a very quick post of my Easter cards. A few of these cards were ones that I made during the Online Card Classes Stamp Happy class that I took very recently. They are great classes. This one featured Hero Arts stamps which is at the top of my list of favorites.

For this card I used a new Memory Box die set to die cut the eggs and the Easter basket circle. The bunny is a die from La-La Land Crafts which I decided on this one to cut out of some glitter paper. The background on the card is a fun idea I got from the Online Card Classes Stamp Happy. It is hard to see in the photo but I stamped the background pattern twice using white ink and green ink and slightly offset them. That is a Hero Arts background stamp.  I pulled out a bunch of colorful papers to die cut all the eggs. The sentiment is a stamp I have had around for quite some time.

On this card the bunny is cut out using a Memory Box die. The window on the card is a fun idea I got from the Online Card Classes Stamp Happy class. The background is a panel I had laying around. The sentiment is a stamp I have had around for quite some time. I am not sure how I like the purple background with that green circle.

Here is that cute bunny again. The window on the card and the background technique were fun ideas I got from the Online Card Classes Stamp Happy class. The background is a Hero Arts stamp.

For these two cards I used a new Memory Box die set to die cut the flower frame, eggs and the Easter basket circle. The bunny is cut out with a die from La-La Land Crafts. The purple background is a watercolor panel I had laying around. I pulled out a bunch of colorful papers to die cut all the eggs.

Supplies:

• Penny Black Bunny Rabbit die
• Memory Box Egg Basket Frame die set
• La-La Land Crafts Bunnies die set
• Hero Arts Cling Dots background stamp
• Hero Arts Lattice background stamp
• Spellbinders Circle dies

Hero Arts Beach Adventure

Hello! I am over at a2z Scrapbooking with a sun and sand card for you today. After all we are getting closer and closer to beach weather.  You can get the Beach Adventure Digital Kit at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more.

Lets start off with the background on my card. I blended Salty Ocean Oxide Distress ink on an oval die cut. Then I decided that it needed to be toned down a bit so I went over it with Picket Fence Distress ink. I put the ink directly on my craft mat so that I didn’t get the blue ink on the white ink and then used a blending tool. I then used a stamp at the bottom to stamp with Versamark and sprinkled on some Hero Arts sand embossing powder and heat embossed it. I was happy to finally use it. The stamp I used for the sand is actually a outdoor scenery background. It worked well because it was so solid to get good coverage of Versamark. Here is the image and the link to check it out if you want. Rubbernecker Stamps Open Range stamp set.

Then I cut out an oval smaller than the background oval from a 4 1/4 X 5 1/2 panel. I selected all of the fun images I wanted on the card. I sized them and printed them out. The umbrella prints with one set of the stripes and the starfish is colored in when printed. The rest of the images are black outlines. I colored all of the images with Copics. On some of the images I colored over the color that printed because it’s hard to get the “perfect” color sometimes. I added a bit of sparkle to the fish, the umbrella and the ball (which you can’t really see in the photo). I cut out all of the images. For the cute little crab it was kind of impossible to cut out the eyes. However it didn’t look right without them. So I dug in my stash and found some black wire and then I added little balls of black Nuvo to make the eyes and set that aside to dry. I glued them to the back of the crab using glue dots. Speaking of glue dots the fish has a thick one under it and the crab has a few thinner glue dots stacked to give a bit of dimension. It is hard to see that in the photo.

The sun is stamped and I also colored it in with Copics and hand cut it out.

The sentiment is stamped with a Hero Arts sentiment set.

Here is a look at all the different images in this kit. There are so many fun things to choose from. I really enjoyed working with it. Being on the a2z Scrapbooking team has really helped me to use digital images way more often. Using them gives you many more options of what you can do with your cardmaking.

 

Please join us in this month’s “Fun Folds” 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.

 

 

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Beach Adventure Digital Kit
• Hero Arts Sand Embossing Powder
• Hero Arts Many Birthday Messages Stamp Set
• Hero Arts Nesting Oval Infinity Dies
• Oxide Distress Ink
• Copic Markers
• Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen
• Lawn Fawn Sunny Skies Stamp Set
• Rubbernecker Stamps Open Range Stamp Set
• Nuvo Crystal Drops – Black