A Blog Named Hero

Hi there!  Kate, here! 
The blah days of winter here in NJ have me longing for some happy spring colors.  And that means FLOWERS!!

Here I took the Friendship Blooms set from Hero Arts/Gina K. Designs (PR101) and heat embossed the roses on Arctic cardstock (PS314) with White Ultrafine Embossing powder (PW110).  Before adding any color to the panel, I cut the panel into a smaller rectangle using Nesting Rectangle Infinity Dies (D1798).  Then I took my paper trimmer and cut out 1/4 inch strip on the diagonal.   

I used some blender brushes and my Ink Cubes in Orange Soda, Butter Bar, Bubble Gum, Grape Slush and Splash to lightly blend on my color, making sure to wipe off the ink from the embossed roses, allowing the white embossing powder to show through. 

Next, I laid the panels onto my card front, using the 1/4 inch strip to keep the spacing.  I then CAREFULLY removed the strip and stamped my “Thinking of You” sentiment from the Color Layering Sea & Sky (CM317) stamp set.

Pop up those panels with foam tape (keeping the spacing even near your sentiment) and you have a bright and sunny card to send to someone who could use some happy thoughts! 

Don’t forget to enter this month’s challenge!  Tag me on Instagram @katedeignancards if I’ve inspired you!  Have a crafty day!

Hello there.

Kailash here with a card for this months floral challenge at A Blog Named Hero.

 I started off with a piece of dove white cardstock which I first masked to create an inked panel using splash reactive ink, spritzing with water to create droplets. I then die cut two sizes of Hero arts wood frame infinity dies from white cardstock. I also die cut the same dies using inexpensive white cardstock to adhere to each of the rectangles to add dimension.

I stamped the protea flowers with intensified black ink, colored with copic markers RV13, R32, RV04, YG45, YG41, G09, Y19 which was then die cut with the coordinating frame cuts.

Next I stamped the sentiment from sending love mail using versamark ink onto a piece of black cardstock, heat embossing with white embossing powder.

My card was assembled onto an A2 size panel finishing off with sequins from my stash.

Thanks so much for visiting! Hope you will join us in our challenge for a chance to win gift certificates from our wonderful sponsor Hero Arts!

Crafty hugs

I hope you’re doing well. If you didn’t have time to create and/or participate to our first challenge, I hope you will on this new one. This month’s theme is « Floral », I don’t have a lot of floral stamps but I found a gorgeous stamp set which could fit right in.    

I made 2 cards from this stamp, so you could have more inspiration from it.
Are you ready for the making process ?

Yes ? Let’s go ! 

So, for both cards, I used Tulip field Heroscape ( Layering stamps are my favourites 😊), you can totally change the look of the design just by changing the colors you use. I do love that.

For the first card, I stamped the first layer of grass with pool party reactive ink, then I stamped the detailed grass with blue raspberry reactive ink (love this combo) on Hero arts white cardstock.
For the flowers, I used Taffy reactive ink and then ultra pink mid-tone shadow ink.

To make the sky, I found my inspiration on Google image.
I began to ink the bottom part (just over the flowers’ field) with Taffy reactive ink using a Q-tip and added a little bit of to create some light.

After that, I ink blended the same colors that I used for the grass : pool party and blue raspberry reactive inks , leaving almost a blank space in the center left of the sky, and added some blue hawaii reactive ink and some intens-ified black ink all around and on some spots but I tried to leave the center of the card lighter than the outline of the sky.

I used the splatter technique 3 times with a brush on the sky, to make some stars:
1 – Using unicorn white pigment ink reinker mixed with white iridescent shimmer mist on the sky to make some shimmery stars.
2 – Again using unicorn pigment ink with just a little of water.
3 – For the last layer, I used a tiny bit of unicorn ink without mixing it, to create whiter stars.

That way this created 3 different star distances and some depth to the galaxy.

To finish this card I drew some scribbles to make the illusion of a cloudy effect on our lighter space with a white gel pen, and I added some intensi-fied black ink with a Q-tip (very lightly) and then I used a gelly roll pen to draw some silver stars all over the sky.

The best sentiment I found for this card was this «  If flowers were hugs, I would send you a thousand » from the same stamp set. I stamped it on the right center of the card using again intensi-fied black ink.

This is it for the first card. Now let me present the second one. 

For this sunny card, I used the same white cardstock and the same stamp set , which is the Tulip field Heroscape with (in the same stamps order of appareance than the first one 😊 ) : Key Lime fizz reactive ink, green apple reactive ink, thistle reactive ink and for the flowers details berry smoothie reactive ink.

To create that sunny sky, I used the sun background stencil and I inked the top portion of it with lemon drop reactive ink, leaving the bottom half as white as possible . Then I die cut the cloudy sky scene dies on some paper (you can use scrap paper for that). I used it as a stencil and placed it on top of the sun stencil, then I used a blending brush with soft sky shadow ink to make the clouds in the portion that we left white.
It looks like the rays of the sun hide the clouds.
I’m always looking for ideas to create more realistic looks, and I’m happy  I found this one.
I hope you’ll like it too !
As my brush wasn’t clean (it happens…) , I had to come back on my blue clouds with unicorn pigment ink to make it softer, and then I came back with the soft sky ink. So don’t forget to clean well your brush or if you can, it’s better to have one brush for each color type. 🙂

To finish this card, I heat embossed the sentiment « sending you fields of joy » with clear embossing and watermark ink and gold embossing powder from the same stamp set.
This sentiment was perfect for this card. To add more of a shiny look to the rays of the sun, I used a shimmery pen ( hard to see in the pictures but in real life, it’s beautiful) and : “voila, notre carte est terminée” (that’s it, our card is finished ). 😊

I wish you a ton of joy and I hope you’ll join us on this challenge.

Have a beautiful day !