A Blog Named Hero

The official Hero Arts challenge blog!

Archives for July 2013

Project Life Filler Cards

Hello from Switzerland! I’m so happy and honored to be guesting here this month – such a wonderful blog full of inspiration & talent. For my project today I thought I would share some Project Life filler cards I created using Hero Art stamps.

I recently started Project Life and I am so excited to make my album, but I am not a scrapbooker – I’m a card maker – things aren’t finished to me until I’ve stamped something. So, I have decided to add some of my own style to the ready made album kits by designing some filler cards to fit into the album (to read more about the Project Life ethos, visit here). Even if you don’t scrapbook, I hope these filler cards offer you some inspiration for your next card making project!

My album is gearing towards blues and yellows – probably a combination of the way I dress my son & the fact that I’m using a combo of the Seafoam and Midnight PL Core Kits. I decided to get out some basic supplies to get myself going. I chose stamp sets that work well for albums (see supply list below).

Supplies1
Supplies2
After getting my supplies organized, I went to town! I approached each filler card like I would a greeting card and that made things easier for me. Here are all the 3×4 filler cards:
All3x4
And here are the 4×6 cards:
All4x6
I wanted to keep things flat on these cards, so I used techniques like masking and stamp layering to create depth without adding bulk. Here are all the individual cards:
Youaremyhappy

Yes

GoodTimes1
GoodTimes2
Love
MyHappyPlace
LoveWins
Recorded
Phew, lots of stampy goodness! Thanks so much ABNH girls for the chance to guest post! If you’re interested in seeing how I put these cards to use in my album, check out my blog where I’ll be sharing them in the future. 

July Sketch

Hello there! Leslie here with this month’s sketch, created for us by the lovely and talented Chari Moss:

*If you plan to use this sketch, please use this image and not one of my hacked versions

Because of how my brain works, here is my hacked version that I plan to twist and turn for you:

For my first card, I followed the sketch pretty closely and made this:

I used the pencils for the top squiggly element, a die-cut piece of paper for the bottom horizontal scallop element, and three squares for … the three squares.

I actually struggled to do this sketch in its original orientation, so I thought I’d pause here and deconstruct the sketch to explain how I approached it. Check out my handsome red lines and blue numbers:

1. Instead of a curly thing at the top, I see it as a horizontal element (red line).
2. Same with the bottom scallop — it’s just a horizontal element (red line).
3. The three squares are just three (1 – 2 – 3) THINGS, and no one said they have to be square, or even the same three things.

Now I’ll show you how I took those elements and played around.  For my second card, I flipped the sketch 180 degrees (aka: I turned it upside down):

and I made this:

I wasn’t paying attention, and this card turned out 100% Basic Grey. 🙂 I used a piece of patterned paper for the top horizontal element, and three buttons from the Basic Grey Fact & Fiction Stitched Brads for the “three things” part. I stamped the bottom of the patterned paper with the Hero Arts/Basic Grey Curl Pattern stamp, and the sentiment was cut from a sheet of sentiments from the Basic Grey Fact & Fiction Snippets.

This next card uses the same sketch orientation, but mixes it up a little:

I HAD to break out my new Hero Arts Fresh Peach and Mint Julep inks. 🙂 The top horizontal element was stamped — and yes, I masked all three of those flowers with fussy-cut masks and stamped over them. The bottom horizontal element is another piece of paper from the Fiction 12×12 pack. I love it when the paper does the work for me.

Can you see the sketch in the card?

For my last trick, I flipped the sketch over:

and made this:

(The optical illusion going on here is totally free. I have no idea how that happened.)

I have to admit this one evolved. I had intended to use three hearts, but (1) they didn’t fit very well, (2) it was too much, (3) I liked it just like this as I was playing:

and (4) I wanted to show you an example of the three elements being different. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but I kinda like this:

I die-cut the heart from some Basic Grey Fact 12×12 paper, then fussy-cut the red layer to give it more contrast. I’d already decided that three hearts weren’t going to happen, and after some futzing, I ended up cutting the diamond/parallelogram shape (it’s all linked below) from some more of the red paper, then cut that in half. It was thin, so I cut some more out of a scrap of packaging and glued them all together for some dimension.

That’s it for this month’s sketch. I hope I’ve inspired you to give it a try.

Just a reminder: The sketch segment here at ABNH is not a separate challenge and there is no linky below. It’s just for added inspiration and to help jump-start your mojo. Please feel free to incorporate the sketch in your creations! If you do, please link back to ABNH and use the original sketch graphic instead of my hacked versions, and also leave a comment below with your link to your post so we can all come by and see what you’ve done with it. 🙂

Thanks!

Products for the first card: Basic Grey Fiction 12×12 paper, Neat & Tangled sequins, MFT Notebook Edge die, and the following:

Products for the second card: Basic Grey Fiction 12×12 paper, Curl Pattern Hero Arts/Basic Grey stamp, Fact & Fiction Snippets, Fact & Fiction Stitched Brads, and the following:

Products for the third card: Basic Grey Fiction 12×12 paper, Neat & Tangled sequins, miscellaneous twine, and the following:

Products for the last card: Basic Grey Fact 12×12 paper, miscellaneous twine, and the following:

summer travel journal

Cheiron here today with my monthly post. Today I will share a fun summer project with you. I have had this Collage Postcard set for a long time now and it has never seen ink. I thought the postcard would make a perfect cover for a mini travel journal that could be taken along on your next vacation or summer trip. This would also be a great project for the kids to take along as well!

For the cover of the book, I stamped the postcard onto card stock and layered it onto chipboard. The size I used was  4 x 5 1/2. To stamp the postcard stamp in multiple colors, I colored it in with a black marker very carefully around the edges, then colored the rest in with red and blue markers. 
To complete the inside pages, I stamped all of the pages with the Graph Background using soft sand ink. To keep the theme consistent throughout the book, I used Tide Pool, Pale Tomato and Soft Sand on all the pages, and added a few accents here and there. You could also add pages of little paper items from your trip and photos of your travels if you want to use it more as a scrapbook.
My book is ready to go and at this point I think I could get by on a trip with this book, a few of my favorite pens and a crop a dile. 
Here’s a peek at the inside: 

Hope you enjoyed this peek at my travel journal, and I’d love to hear your ideas for making one for yourself!
SUPPLIES:

Tag for Dad

Hi everyone, Sue here with a project using Basic Grey products from the Fact and Fiction Collection along with Hero Arts goodies.

I’m not one to use patterned paper and pre-made embellishments on my projects but I really wanted to go out of my comfort zone and incorporate a few items from the collection along with some stamping.

A Blog Named Hero meets Basic Grey

I came up with a masculine tag for Dad that uses 6, yup, I’m proud to say 6 items from the Fact and Fiction Collection.

With a bit of embossing using brown multi-coloured embossing powder on my HA star stamps  I’m pretty pleased with the end result and I think dad will be too.

Join us for our current challenge, Playing Favourites. You have until July 14th to submit your project.  As usual, one winner will win a gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!

Patterned paper – and lots of it!

I am terrible at matching patterned paper.  TERRIBLE, I TELL YOU! I find it really difficult, and the number of times I have finished a card with multiple patterned papers on it, and I’ve just looked at it dejectedly and sworn never to try to mix and match patterned papers again – well, you get the drift.

Anyway, I love a challenge, so I challenged myself to use at least 2 (but preferably more) patterned papers on a bunch of cards.  A Blog Named Hero is collaborating with Basic Grey at the moment, so I pulled out some new and some not-so-new paper pads and got to work.

I started with a discontinued collection, Fact and Fiction.

The edge puch that I punched the red paper from is meant to make an edge like on a roll of film, or on a ring bound pad – I decided to use the bit that is punched out by the edge punch, rather than what is left on the edge of the paper. 

Ok, so this next one, I went for a masculine card, and used the new 6×6 paper pad, Hipster.  I just punched a bunch of little squares and stuck them down. 

I cut the clear stamp of “happy birthday” in half – I’m doing that more and more these days, once I got over the horror of cutting a stamp in half!! (Seriously, people, it’s just a stamp. Cut it if you have to.)

And, before you say “that stitching line is crooked”, yes, I know – I should have got out the stamp of a stitched line from the HA set, “Sew Artsy”, but I didn’t.  I did it by hand.  Stupid me. Anyway, don’t you think that mustache is so cute!?!?

Next, I pulled out the 6×6 paper pad, Kneehighs – so cute for girly cards. 

I used the party streamer stamp from “celebrate all day”, along with 2 patterned papers, and a die cut “Happy” from Papertrey Ink.  The small red hearts are from a Simon Says Stamp die, and the larger pink hearts are from a Stampin’ Up/ EK success punch.

OK, so I didn’t know where to stop with challenging myself with patterned papers because I have a couple more Basic Grey paper packs, but I had to stop somewhere, so I thought “why not try to make a card using papers from ALL THREE PAPER PACKS!  Yes, from Fact and Fiction, Hipster and Kneehighs.  They’re not sets that jump out at you and say “we match!” – actually, they do the exact opposite!!  But what’s the fun of a challenge unless it’s challenging, hey!!

Here’s what I came up with (and, strangely, it’s my favourite of all 4 cards!) 

One thing you may notice – NO STAMPS!!!! Shock horror!! I used a little strip from the Fact & Fiction pins & tags embellishment set for the sentiment.  I was tempted to stamp the butterflies (I used the small butterfly die from HA/Sizzix Antique flowers and butterflies stamps and dies set), but I decided I liked them white and glittery.

Have you checked out our latest challenge?

There’s a Simon Says Stamp voucher up for grabs!

 Supplies used: