A Blog Named Hero

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Archives for 2021

Bali High!

Hi Everyone!

We are mid-way on the Anniversary challenge and I have a fun inspiration for you today!

 

Early 2020, my husband and I were making plans to celebrate our 15th year wedding anniversary by going back to the place where we spent our honeymoon – the island of Bali. The plan was to spend at least two nights in a villa with a private pool and a butler service. It was a bit of a splurge but we wanted that once in a lifetime experience to celebrate the occasion. Then, of course, the rest of the nights, we would check into a more reasonably priced hotel. At least that was the plan but as it turned out, life had other things in store for us.

One of the things Bali is known for are the beautiful paintings of tropical foliage and wildlife found on the island. We bought one of these paintings while on our honeymoon and now it hangs in our room. This card is very much inspired by that painting.

For the background, I used the Jungle Bold Prints cling stamp, white heat embossed it on watercolor paper. Using Karin brush markers, I scribbled on the the pigment on the images concentrating on the inside areas.

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Then I took a spray bottle filled with water mixed with perfect pearls and sprayed the panel generously. I used a paintbrush to move the pigment around a little but mostly left it alone to dry. This is my go-to technique for coloring background images in the quickest way possible!

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While the background panel was drying, I stamped all the images from the Tropical Flowers stamp set with Intens-ified black Ink onto Bristol smooth cardstock and colored the images in with Zig Clean Color Brush markers and then fussy cut them out.

I cut down the background panel to 4″X5.25″ and then glued it on a 4.25″X5.5″ Hero Hues Meadow cardstock mat. I arranged the flower and leaves cluster from the Tropical Flowers stamp set on the left side on the panel using foam tape on some of the flowers at the front of the arrangement. But before I did that, I added two “wood” strips to anchor the images down.  Those strips were cut from real wood veneer paper from the My Monthly Hero April 2020 kit using the Wood Frame Infinity die set.

I added the sentiment “You Make my World Happy” from the same stamp set. I plan to give this to my husband on our anniversary, to let him know that although we were not able to go on our dream anniversary vacation last year, that wherever we are, will always be my happy place.

I hope this project inspired you! See you at the gallery!

Take care and stay safe!

 

LOVE YOU

Hi friends

Love is in the air with our current anniversary challenge at A Blog Named Hero.

For my card I stamped the script image repeatedly using black intensified ink onto teal cardstock. I die cut a heart from holographic paper and flowers coloring them with copic markers BG11, BG13, BG18, Y19 and YG45.

The sentiment was heat embossed with white embossing powder onto black cardstock. I did the same with the ‘you‘ word which was part of a sentiment  which I then carefully fussy cut.

I wanted to add some interest to the Love die before die cutting it so watercolored a panel first with peacock feathers distress ink and water which was smooshed together.  I love the look and texture of the watercolored die. 

I adhered all the elements as shown and lastly added some tiny hearts die cut from glitter cardstock.

 

I hope I inspired you to play along and have a chance at winning one of two gift certificates from our wonderful sponsors Hero Arts!

Happy Friyay !

The theme of the month is “Anniversary”, and I wanted to share something important and “joyful” or at least, not a sad anniversary.

I’m going to explain the story of this card quickly, so you know everything.
I began to think about the theme in the beginning of March, as I prefer to prepare everything early to not rush with my work, as I am getting anxious quite easily. Are you in the team “last minute” ( I was in that team when I was younger, I felt I was more inspired with pressure ) or in the team “in advance” or maybe in both team (depending of the event) ?



So, I found the perfect event for this card (all the others were very sad).
It’s very interesting and I knew I would find some products to use in my stash to represent it.
It’s the first recorded astronomical observation by Nicolaus Copernicus.

I was so happy, I made the card, and when I began to write this post, I wrote that the event took place on the 9th of March of 1497, as this was the date of this event, and realized we would be in April for this challenge.
As I prepared it really early, I made a mistake on the date.

So let’s say we are celebrating the 524th anniversary (and one month: haha) of it.

Another thing complicated my post, the computer I wrote all of this post died, so now I’m rewriting this post from my memories and a few notes of the products I wrote down on a paper.

Now that you know all the background story, let’s make this card !

I began to stamp the galaxy peek-a-boo stamp on a pitch black cardstock using clear embossing and watermark ink and gold glitter embossing powder.
Then I used a circle die from the nesting circle infinity dies to die cut my galaxy panel.

I die cut a white paper (it totally can be scrap paper for this) with the same circle die and then cut it again with a bigger circle from the infinity circle dies to make a ring that I heat embossed it with gold embossing powder.
Then, I die cut an acetate sheet with the bigger circle I used earlier, and glued the golden ring with it, using precision glue.
That represents the astronomical bezel. After that, I glued the galaxy behind it, to show what Nicolaus Copernicus saw on this night (more or less 😊)


To create the observatory, I first made some searches to find inspiration about ancient observatories.
I was so happy with one idea which came directly to my mind : use the ballroom window fancy die multiple times to mimic the inside with the big windows. I die cut it 6 times in a gold paper from my stash.
You can totally use the greenhouse fancy die or the Victorian greenhouse fancy die to create this effect with other designs.

For the background, I used Nautical blue cardstock and sprayed the white iridescent shimmer mist to create some small stars.

I glued 3 of the windows side by side with the precision glue, then I glued the top of the 3 others upside down to complete the space, as you can see in the picture bellow.

Someone is missing here, right ?
I can tell you that I laughed when I found how to represent Nicolaus, I needed a small stamp of a human, and I find the perfect match : the zombie from the Graveyard heroscape.
I used the small astronomical telescope from the galaxy peek-a-boo set which was perfect for Nicolaus size, and as his arms are in front of him, I needed a trick to make the illusion of him holding the tripod of his telescope.

So, I stamped and embossed Nicolaus with embossing ink and detail black embossing powder on a small piece of paper I had saved (just in case), and I stamped the telescope with black intens-ified ink in front of his face, to show that he was watching the sky, and then I drew the tripod feet longer, using a pen.
I fussy cut all of it in one piece.

I found a stair die in my stash (I have just this one) but you could totally use staircase fancy die.

I used my copics to color it.

I glued everything on my card and then used the sentiment from the galaxy peek-a-boo stamp set and stamped it ( I stamped it in 3 steps to make the sentence straight) with intens-ified black ink, and then used a gold shimmery pen to make it pop out.

To finish this card, I glued the panel on a gold paper and then I glued the piece on a white side folded card.

I wish you a good week-end and I hope you’ll join us on this festive challenge !

Take care of yourselves,

Happy Anniversary! (Honeymoon Memories)

Almost 25 years ago, my husband and I were married.  The wedding was in November, but because of our jobs and a mutual dislike of wintry weather, we delayed our honeymoon until summer.  Our two weeks in Europe were filled with adventures, and the memories are many and wonderful.  

So, in memory of the French portion of our honeymoon trip, I’ve made a little “homage” to the glorious lavender fields of France.  It’s a simple card (so simple that I made two), but it reminds me of the wonderful sights (and smells) of France in high summer.  

Here’s what I did:

  1. Stamped the Lavender Field HeroScape (I love HeroScapes!),
  2. Blended a soft sky above the field using my Ink Blending Brush, going for slightly uneven coverage to create the illusion of summer haze,
  3. Stamped, colored with Copics, and cut out two sets of the lavender images from the  Hero Florals Lavender Bunch,
  4. Gathered the lavender into a bouquet and wrapped it in a vellum and paper florist wrap (I used the Bouquet Accessories Fancy Die Set–hands down the most used Fancy Die I own), 
  5. Wrapped the bouquet in some thin purple twine and mounted it with dimensional foam bits, and 
  6. Finished the card by (carefully…holding my breath!) stamping the sentiment just above the field.  I used a retired sentiment set, but there are many anniversary sentiments–even the Hero Floral Lavender Bunch has one!

The second card is similar, without the floral wrap, and I’ve left that card blank.  As you’ll notice here and or if you find me on Instagram, I often make multiple cards of a single design.  That way there is usually something in my “craft lair” that feels right for unexpected occasions.

I hope you enjoyed this card, and I hope you’ll post your anniversary creation.  Can’t wait to see what you make! 

                                         Thanks for stopping by, 

Love Blooms

Hello everyone! This month’s challenge (April) is Anniversary. For the challenge announcement post, I created a more masculine card that featured an eclipse technique as well as a galaxy background. This card is pretty much the complete opposite! It features lots of flowers and bright colors.

I started with an A2 sized panel of Lavender cardstock and stamped the small print text in the Sending Love Mail stamp set with clear embossing ink. I used the Floral Love set to stamp, emboss and die cut the Love letters from the lavender panel. I also cut two additional layers of letters from white cardstock to add dimension.

I cut many flowers and greenery out of white cardstock from the Envelope Accessories Fancy dies and Bouquet Accessories Fancy dies. I used Copic markers to color all of the elements in various shades. After coloring, I inlaid one of the white love layers to enable me to place all the lovely flowers. I made sure to cut the flowers down so that they didn’t overlap under the letters. This would have given it a much more bulky look that I didn’t want. After all of my elements were placed on the panel, I glued the remaining Love letters together for the dimensional look that I wanted.

The “you with all my heart” sentiment was white heat embossed onto Amethyst cardstock and fussy cut. I adhered a few scrap pieces of white cardstock on the back to ensure that it would be the same level as the dimensional Love letters. And for one final touch, I used a white and gold Gelly Roll pen to add a little more detail to the flowers within the letters. I think that it makes them stand out just a bit more.

I hope that you find some inspiration in this card and I can’t wait to see what you design for our challenge!