Archives for October 2020

Holiday Joy

October 24, 2020

Hello, crafty friends! It’s Seeka here and today I have a shaker card to share. Shaker cards are a perfect fit for this month’s challenge theme, “A See-Through Element.”

I started off by heat embossing the Hand Drawn Snowflakes background stamp, with Ultra Fine clear embossing powder, onto an A2-sized panel of Lavender cardstock. Then, I used a http://ablognamedhero.com/2020/10/challenge-time-for-october/blending brush to blend a bit of Orchid ink over the corners of the panel.

Next, I used the Joy Ornament die to cut a circle out of the panel. I also used the die on a piece of white cardstock and set that piece aside while I worked on the shaker.

To create the shaker, I used double-sided tape to adhere a piece of acetate to the back of the lavender panel. Then I adhered a double-layer of foam tape around the back side of the round opening, to contain the sequins, and along the perimeter of the panel. With the panel facing down, I poured a bit of Icicle Sequins mix into the area behind the round opening and then I removed the release tape from the foam tape and adhered another panel of Lavender cardstock.

To finish the card, I added the ornament chain and then adhered the card front to a card base.

Thanks so much for visiting and don’t forget to visit the challenge to link up your project for a chance to win a Hero Arts gift card!

Autumn See Through Layers

October 21, 2020

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a lovely fall and I am not quite ready for winter cards yet so I wanted to focus on some beautiful fall colors but all with this month’s theme of a “see-through element”. For all three of this month’s cards, I created autumn-colored backgrounds with a Gelli plate and acrylic paint and then used my two favorite See-Through techniques using a raised frame (The Window Die) and a strip of vellum to hold a sentiment over a colorful, busy background. I love layers and using a very colorful textured print with stamping on top is wonderful but sometimes hard to add a sentiment on top.

The See-Through Vellum pairs beautifully with a die-cut on top like the Sunflower Fancy Die or the beautiful garden window both from Hero Arts. I stamped on top of the colorful backgrounds with complementary fall colors, dark brown shadow ink for the silhouetted images on top. I like to set a color palette when I start and for this, it was orange, olive green, and a butter yellow.

I also combined stamps from four Hero Arts stamp sets and three dies from my collection. It is so nice to get out all of your supplies from a season and mix them all up. I hope this inspires you to create some painted or stamped backgrounds and overlay them with some Vellum, Fancy die-cuts, and or windows.

Make sure that you link up your See-Through creations for a chance to win a $50 gift card from our wonderful sponsor Hero Arts.

We look forward to seeing your makes! Lee Ann

Challenge Time for October!

October 15, 2020

Hi there crafters!

How is it October already?! Jeesh this year feels like it’s flown by for me (although I know not everyone feels this way this year!)

This month we’re asking you to get your creative juices flowing by making projects that incorporate

That can mean clear panels, peep holes, portholes, cut away segments, shaker cards, anything you can think of!

Now if you join us, as always thanks to our amazing sponsors, Hero Arts, you can win one of two gift vouchers!

We look forward to seeing what you make!

Enter via the linky tool below before 10th November, at 5pm!

See you soon!
Linda & the team x

Challenge Winners

October 10, 2020

Hi there crafting friends!

I’m here to announce the winners of the last two challenges.

For August we asked you to go for

and boy did you all make some CUTE cards!! So hard to pick winners.

But pick we did, and here they are. A big big BIG thanks to our delightful sponsors, the beloved Hero Arts, who are offering up TWO gift vouchers to their store to two lucky winners.

The winner of the $25 gift voucher is Helen from Cards from Helen, a new blog but such a CUTE card!

and the winner of the $50 gift voucher is Anna with this card that’s so stinking cute I’d like to frame it!

Now for the September challenge, which was to keep it

The lucky winner of the $25 gift voucher is Ishani (from the blog Quillish) with this lovely CAS card

One layer Masculine card, Acrylic block stamping, Hero Arts lake card, Pier at the lake stamp set, Quillish, Clean and simple cards

and the winner of the $25 gift voucher is Jennifer from Crafting with Aloha!

Congratulations winners!! Please email us at ablognamedhero@gmail.com, specify which challenge you’re a winner of (just to make life easier!).

Thanks so much to everyone for playing, and our beloved Hero Arts for continuing to sponsor us.

See you in a couple of days for the next challenge!

Masking with a Halo

October 3, 2020

Hello there! Cha here with another card for the September challenge. Today I would like to share with you all a card with the Clean and Simple theme that’s why I wanted to create something easy to do with the Masking Technique, one of my cardmaking favorite techniques. This technique is very common to do when you want to create something quickly avoiding the fuzzy cutting in images. Remember that you can still join us in this challenge for a chance to win a gift certificate from our sponsor Hero Arts! We are waiting for your cards!

For this card, I first picked a piece of masking paper and die cut a circle in the middle of the card, using one of the dies from Nesting Circle Infinity Dies (H). Then, I used my Mini MISTI Stamping tool to do all the stamping. I picked a sheet of Hero Hues Premium Cardstock Dove White that I’d previously cut in 4,25 by 5,5 inches. I placed this piece in my Mini MISTI Stamping Tool. As I wanted to create a fall card, I decided to use a past My Monthly Hero kit that is not available anymore (My Monthly Hero September 2017) but there are many images with pumpkins and their coordinating dies in the market that are perfect to do this technique. I placed on top of the panel the masking piece with the circle so that I could know where my pumpkins were placed. So, I took one of the pumpkins and its layers that came with this set and was placing one by one in the Mini MISTI and stamping them with some Hero Arts inks. I used Orange Soda Shadow Ink, Tangerine Bold Ink, and Cup O’Joe Mid-Tone Shadow Ink to stamp the pumpkins and for the leaves, I used Moss Bold Ink and Green Apple Bold Ink.

Once that every image was stamped, I die cut the coordinating dies from the leaves and the pumpkins on Masking Paper. Then, I placed the masking pieces on top of each pumpkin and leaf. Notice that I still had the masking piece with the circle from the very beginning. So now I could color the background. For the background, I blended some Distress Oxide inks, Tumbled Glass ink at the top and, Twisted Citron ink to the bottom. To give a little bit of contrast to the background, I sprayed some water.

Later, I removed all the masking pieces and I could see the halo around each image. Then, I also removed the circle piece of masking and stamped the sentiment in black ink. I stamped with a black dye ink but I realized that it didn’t work on distress inks, so I changed to black pigment ink, Versafine Onyx Black Ink.

Finally, I trimmed a little bit the sides of the panel and glued it to a piece of Hero Hues Premium Cardstock Kiwi and, I adhered the whole piece to a Hero Hues Dove White Side Folded Cards. Also, I added some yellow confetti.

I hope you like this card and join us in this September 2020 challenge. Remember that you can upload the cards until the 10th of September. I hope you feel inspired by all the cards that we are showing you this month. Thank you so much!