A Blog Named Hero

Watercolor Butterfly Birthday Card

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Hi Friends! Kristina here for my solo post of the month! I’ve created another card to go with out current Celebrate theme – You have a few more days to get your projects linked up! Here’s what I’ve come up with, it i’s Hero Art’s birthday after all…

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I fell in love with this butterfly set the moment I saw it. These images are drawl beautifully. While I have lots of colorful plans for them, I wanted to keep the coloring simple.

I used Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens for all of my watercoloring. I started by coloring my main butterfly, and once dried, I went around the white space fading it in from the edges of the card and the main butterfly.

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I glued this panel down to some fun foam for sturdy dimension, and then only an a2 sized card base. To finish I went over all of the black and white butterflies with a shimmer pen. Lastly, heat embossed my sentiment onto pink card stock with white embossing powder and adhered it onto the card with foam tape.

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Thank you for stopping by today, I hope I’ve giving you some inspiration to enter our challenge!

SignatureKristina

Supplies

Hero Arts New Day Butterflies
Hero Arts New Day Butterflies
Where to buy:
HA		 Hero Arts Greetings Occasions
Hero Arts Greetings Occasions
Where to buy:
HA		 Neenah Solar White
Neenah Solar White
Where to buy:
SSS		 Bristol Strathmore Smooth Paper
Bristol Strathmore Smooth Paper
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ
Hero Arts Azalea Cardstock
Hero Arts Azalea Cardstock
Where to buy:
HA		 Hero Arts Intense Black Ink
Hero Arts Intense Black Ink
Where to buy:
HA		 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ		 Wink of Stella Clear
Wink of Stella Clear
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ
Nuvo Crystal Drops White
Nuvo Crystal Drops White
Where to buy:
SSS		 Hero Arts White Embossing Powder
Hero Arts White Embossing Powder
Where to buy:
HA		 Art Institute Glitter Glue
Art Institute Glitter Glue
Where to buy:
AMZ		 SA 3L Foam Squares
SA 3L Foam Squares
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ
Hero Arts Acrylic Block Trio
Hero Arts Acrylic Block Trio
Where to buy:
HA		 Wagner Heat Gun
Wagner Heat Gun
Where to buy:
HA		 Scor Pal
Scor Pal
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ		 MISTI
MISTI
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ
Teflon Bone Folder
Teflon Bone Folder
Where to buy:
SSS | AMZ

A Clean and Simple Birthday!

A huge slice of birthday cake for Hero Arts 45th Anniversary!  Hero Arts started making stamps in the 1970s and is still going strong today.

Did you know that all of Hero Arts stamps are made at their factory in California and that the company has put many green practices in place?  All of that, as well as great stamps!

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For my post today I wanted to wish them a Happy Birthday/Anniversary with this modification of the layering cake stamp set inspired by some of those amazing rainbow cakes we all see on Instagram. I used the Color Layering Birthday set and the Snarky Mix and Match Messages for the Sentiment.  I really like the bold, and simple font and it has some funny second lines that go with it. To start the design, I stamped it out on scrap paper to see if I would be able to realistically layer all the rainbow colors.

Then I took an 8.5×11 piece of Dove white and  Pebble Hero Arts Cardstock and cut off 4 inches so that when I folded it in half, it would be 3.5 inches wide by 8.5 tall, your scrap can be a card layer for another card.

I inked up the cake portion of the stamp two colors at a time with my mini-ink cubes from MMH kits, so red on the bottom part and orange on the top, then the next two colors and the next, stamping two by two all the way to the top. You can use any inks you have in ROYBGIV ( red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) order. I wanted 8 layers so have two purples.

I then used Versamark to add the white embossing powder to the frosting area, and heat set it till it was smooth. For the frosting between the lower layers I used my Versamark pen to draw in the rest of the frosting lines between the colors and on the side of the cake. Then fussy cut it out after stamping the candle on top.

Pink-envelope-card

I wanted a clean look with the cake really emphasizing the tall format of the card so used the Happy Birthday, and gold embossed that and the sparkles behind the candle directly on the card base. I gold heat embossed the candle too but afterward made it three dimensional with some liquid pearls in gold and orange. I added the cake with some foam behind it and added a soft Copic shadow underneath it.

I love that you can make all your favorite flavors of cake and frosting and don’t have to stop at just two layers with this set. If you have any questions just ask. Enjoy!

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Dragonfly friend

Hello everyone. My name is Lise Mariann and let me tell you how excited I am to be on the new design team here at A Blog Named Hero. Beyond the moon, I tell you. First I would like to introduce myself and then tell you about my project.
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I live in Trondheim, Norway with my husband, two children and two cats, but I originally come from the cold and far north of Norway. I have been scrapbooking since 2004, but have been gravitating more and more to cardmaking the last couple of years. Today I am mostly making cards, but love creating pages for my scrapbooks as well. When I am not crafting I work as an archaeologist and museum educator and I also like reading, embroidering, drawing and singing as well as hanging out with my family of course. You can also find me at my blog and on Instagram.

For my first project on the team I made the dragonfly card below using the “Color layering dragonfly” stamp set.

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I decided to only use the image edge stamps to create the water lilies and the dragonfly since I wanted to color them using my Copic markers, so I stamped it using a Versamark stamp pad and embossed it using gold embossing powder. After stamping and coloring the images I cut them from the paper using the matching frame cuts.

For the background I used patterned papers from my stash to suggest water and sky and cut them to size with a stitched rectangle die. I attatched the water lilies in layers raising the top one up using foam tape. I also glued the dragonfly using foam tape. I wanted to have the dragonfly “flying” off the page to create some extra movement in the card.

I then stamped and embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set as the images.

When all of the images and sentiment was placed I found a piece of white embroidery thread and hand stitched a flying trail from the dragonfly through the sentiment and behind the flowers.

To finish the card I glued the panel on a white card base raising it up on foam tape.

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And before I leave you today I am hoping you will take a look at the A Blog Named Hero Facebook group where we also have lots of lovely makes by our Facebook design team. if you haven’t been there already I urge you to find it.

Make yourself a wonderful day.

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Hello – I Appreciate You

Hi friends – my very last post for A Blog Named Hero – what an INCREDIBLE journey this has been; thanks for having me!

As my last post, I wanted to combine a few of the companies that have allowed us to use their products this year:

And since I am forever asked to make ‘Thank You’ cards, that’s what I set off to make using 4 different stamp sets, 3 different companies. I was so inspired by THIS card but I don’t own any Dr. Ph Martins so I set about making the same sort of card using various distress ink markers sprayed with water. I even added some black details like Eunji has in her card, but mine are hand drawn.

 

 

I die cut the HELLO from water color paper, adhered to some white and black card stock for dimension, sponged with distress ink and coated with glossy accents. A black sentiment flag and some simple black/white graphic paper finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by; don’t forget, EACH team member is giving away a prize – that’s ten prizes up for grab. Leave some love for each and every blog post!

Hugs,

Hero Arts Geometric CAS You’re So Lovely

Hi friends – welcome back for another geometric card; have you joined our challenge this month?

I found a card on Pinterest which inspired this quick and totally CAS (clean and simple) card. I cut 3 squares from the Lawn Fawn designer paper, then 3 from chocolate paper and adhered down the side of the base card. I stamped the flower in chocolate ink on to more of the Lawn Fawn paper and coated with clear wink of stella. I die cut two leave stems from the Your’re So Lovely set from scrap vellum, adhered it all together, stamped the sentiment and there you have it!

It’s a wee little card, 3.75″ by 5″; but super quick and easy. Hope you’ll play along this month; we love seeing your creations!
Hugs,