A Blog Named Hero

A Beautiful Scene for the May Challenge

June 3, 2020

Hello there! It’s Cha here to show you my card for our monthly card challenge. You can still join us in this challenge until June 10 for having a chance to win some gift certificates. Use Hero Arts products and create a wonderful scene for sending hugs from a distance! This challenge is about this difficult time that the whole world is confronting. We want to see your cards! I hope you feel inspired by our cards and show us yours!

To make this card, I picked a piece of 4,25″ by 5,5″ Dove Premium Cardstock and die-cut the cover plate die with a facade of a house that came with one of the Hero Arts kits (My Monthly Hero kit November 2019). I die cut all my pieces with the Sizzix Big Shot Die-Cutting Machine although you could use the one that you have already. Once die-cut, I colored the front using alcohol-based markers (the Copic markers), apart from the Chrismas decoration that surrounds the top window from the front because I wanted to create a decorative arch to put on it. To cover this part, I aligned two of the circles from the HA Circle Infinity Nesting Dies and die cut both at the same time. Then, I cut the extremes with scissors and cut two tiny rectangles to embellish the ends of this arch. I also colored this arch with Copics markers.

The Copic Sketch markers that I used for coloring this card, were the followings:

The bricks: C-00, C-1

The door: B05, B16, B18

The door frame: C-1, C-4, C-7

The floor: 100

The carpet: R27, R46, R89

The lamps: C-1, C-4, C-7

The plants: C-1, C-4, C-7, YG03, YG17, YG67

The arch: C-1, C-4, C-7

At that moment, I thought I could remove the little triangle pieces from the window that is surrounded by the arch, and the lamps that are on each side of the door so that I could add a piece of acetate behind the panel to give some dimension to the card.

Later, I blended some yellow ink. I went for the Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide ink to color the front part of a White Folded Card base. I put the panel with the facade of the house over the card base and traced the door opening with a pencil. Then, I stamped the sentiment with HA Intense Black ink inside that opening and over the yellowish background. Once stamped, I erased the pencil lines.

I added adhesive foam tape and foam strips behind the card panel and adhered it to the card base later. I decided to stamp the word ‘Welcome‘ on top of the carpet with HA Intense Black ink.

To embellish this card, I decided to glue some envelopes to the door mailbox and in the opening door. I also added the knob of the door with some dimensional glue pen as it is the Hero Arts Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen and also, I added some dimension to the arch. Finally, I added some shimmer to some of the elements of the card, the pavement, and the arch with the NUVO Aqua Shimmer pen.

And this is all! I hope you like this card as I do and see your cards joining us in this challenge that will come to an end soon. Thank you so much and see you the next time!

It’s Been Too Long

May 27, 2020

Hi everyone, it’s Caren here today bringing you a clean and simple card.

ABNH_05272020

Anyone else feel like it’s been too long since you saw your friends, ate out at restaurant, or went to a store? It’s been weeks for me!

Anyway, I used one of my all time favorite stamps sets to create this card – Safari Wild About You. I used three different shades of yellow/orange distress inks to create my background. I then stamped the animals, tree, and sentiment in black ink. I layered this onto a black panel with dimensional foam adhesive and added the panel directly to my white card base.

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget about this months challenge – Hugs from a Distance.

MAY Hugs from a distance

Sig_Caren

Beautiful World

May 24, 2020

Hi there, Seeka here and today I’m sharing a card using the Beautiful World stamp set. I love this globe wrapped in flowers and it felt perfect for this month’s challenge theme: Hugs From a Distance.

I started by stamping the globe onto Neenah Solar White using Intense Black ink. Then I colored the image using a collection of Copic markers. I used YG03, YG25, and YG17 for the continents and leaves, and B11 and B12 for the oceans. For the large pink/red flowers, I used R21, R22, and R27, and for the yellow/orange flowers I used Y08, Y17, Y38, and YR07. I cut out the image and set it aside.

Next I used Clear Embossing & Watermark ink and white embossing powder to heat emboss the sentiment near the bottom left of a 4.25″ x 5.5″ inch piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock.

Then, using foam blending tools, I blended four colors of Distress Oxide Inks onto the panel to create the background. I started with a loose circle of Wild Honey and then, around that circle, I added some Ripe Persimmon, taking time to work back and forth between the colors to blend them. Next I added a ring of Festive Berries, blending that in with Ripe Persimmon. And last, I added Seedless Preserves, mostly to the bottom corners of the panel and with a touch to each of the upper corners. I used a clean paper towel to gently buff away any ink that was sitting on top of the heat embossing.

To assemble the card, I backed the globe with foam tape and then adhered it to the background. Then I adhered the card front to an A2-sized card base.

Thanks for coming by! Don’t forget to visit this month’s challenge post for more inspiration and to link up your project for a chance to win one of two Hero Arts gift cards!

May Cards are hugs from a distance.

May 21, 2020

It’s May 2020 and we are still Sheltering in Place or SIP as we have now even abbreviated it. It started out as almost a dream- a month or so staying home and reading and crafting, crocheting, and cooking, just hanging out. Well, now we are almost three months in and we all miss our friends, and going out and about. Doing fun things together and a change of scene. and definitely missing a big squeeze from a friend or relative. I do believe that we are all doing the right thing though and we have to do this or a lot of people could die from this virus so onward we go. In keeping with the current situation this month’s theme is “Hugs from Afar” and so for the challenge group post I chose the sweet little mouse and in this post an old favorite paired with a fun technique.

Orchid Overstamping

I started with a piece of Hero Sand Cardstock and arranged the Orchid flowers first in my Misti and stamped them with Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink I then stamped the branch and the leaves. This is a very important note…. Make sure you give your pigment ink some time to dry or the colored ink that you are going to stamp over it will not pop off the white.

Now line up your layering stamp with the white but before you stamp shift your card front over slightly in one direction so that the colored ink does not line up perfectly, it stamps one color over craft colored cardstock but also created a neat shadow effect where it is stamped, not over the white ink. You can do this a little bit more or less, and play around with adjusting your layers as well for different effects. You can see that the flowers have a more minimal shadow around the light edge, while the leaves at the bottom are shifted a bit further so it almost looks like a highlight on the leaves on one side and a shadow on the other.

I added all of the other layers for this set and then trimmed and mounted the panel on a cream card base and ran a very slim piece of gold thread along the side, I added a few enamel dots and Voila, a Hello and a hug in a single layer card that will travel well in the mail.

You can try this with many stamps in your stash as long as the first layers are solid, it also works great on colored cardstock! Enjoy and make sure to show us your Hugs from Afar cards in the Link up below for the chance to win a $50 Hero Arts gift card. Hugs, Lee Ann