A Blog Named Hero

The official Hero Arts challenge blog!

November Winners!

Today we get to announce the ten winners from this month’s challenge!

To make it easier for winners to know it’s them, I’m going to include graphics with their comments.

Here we go!

From Linda’s post:

From Ilina’s post:

From Michelle’s post:

From Kristina’s post:

From Alisha’s post:

From Jess’s post:

From Michele’s post:

From Betty’s post:

From Kathy’s post:
And from the Challenge post itself:
Trina’s gorgeous entry!

Ladies, please email us at ablognamedhero at gmail dot com with your mailing address. Include “november winner” in the subject line please. We will get your prizes out to you right away.

Thank you so much!

 

Geometric Gift Tag

Happy almost November! Lisa here, and I’ve really enjoyed this geometric challenge. Might be because I’ve had these dies burning a hole in my stash and needed a reason to use them. 
I made a gift tag. Tis the season and I’m always making something as a gift and by the time I’m finished with a gift, I’d rather not have to make a card or tag to go with it, so I thought I’d build up a stockpile. I did some simple watercoloring and then once it was dry, used a small hexagon die to cut out some particularly interesting sections of the watercolor paper.
The tag itself is made from two sheets of cardstock adhered together, and die cut with the largest of the new Hero Arts infinity tag dies. That set may as well just stay on top of my desk, I know I’ll get so much use from it. And you’ll notice that I used one of the reinforcement dies to add some glitter cardstock to the top. 

I love the font for this “to” and “from”. It’s from the Color Layering Wreath set from Hero Arts and I love that it looks like it could be handwritten. If you had nice handwriting. So, not mine. 🙂
The background of the tag was stamped using the Branches Bold Prints stamp, and I wiped a bit of ink off of it before I stamped. I wanted to be able to write a message on the tag without too much interference.

You’ve got just a couple hours left to enter the challenge. Come back tomorrow to see who won!

Thank You Harlequin

Happy Sunday to you! Lisa here, with my take on this month’s geometric challenge. Let me start off by telling you that this month we are focusing on Hero Arts, because we love them, and that the winner of our challenge will receive the Hero Arts Color Layering Grateful Leaves set. It’s gorgeous!
My card is pretty simple, just labor intensive. I picked a rainbow of colored cardstock and spent a lot of time die cutting this diamond. Once I had enough cut out I started assembling onto a sheet of printer paper that I’d covered with adhesive.
Trimmed off the overhang, and adhered the entire piece to the front of a card. I was not trimming off any extra, as a lot of time went into this. I’d cut the sentiment die four times from cardstock and adhered them to each other to make a thicker embellishment. Did a light layer of glitter marker over that and then a layer of glossy accents to seal that in and add some shine.

Since this card is so “busy” with its background, I didn’t add any other embellishment. This was really fun to make, and I think I’ll make another or two. Check out your die stash to see if you have any dies that will work for this. I think you’ll enjoy making one.

Hello No Line Watercoloring

Have you tried no line watercoloring? Wow. It’s not for sissies. It’s strange, because it’s somewhat relaxing, and yet also stressful. At least for me. Yet, I absolutely love the result.

I stamped this using Spun Sugar distress ink, for the flowers, onto watercolor paper. Now, I suggest you stamp the ink off once onto scratch paper, and then onto your watercolor paper. I also suggest that you listen to that tip, and do the same when you stamp your leaves. Ahem. I did not do that. I went with it anyway. 🙂
I used a few shades of distress ink to paint the petals, always working on petals that were not touching each other, so they would dry without merging with another petal. Even though I felt like this was a hot mess when I was working on it last night, when I woke up this morning and went over to the desk, I might have gasped. In a good way. 
Now, since I loved this panel so much, I didn’t want to stamp a sentiment on it. I pondered many different sentiments, and found a few that would have fit into the white space, but… I was afraid to put ink on this panel, even with the MISTI. So, I decided to take advantage of our challenge theme this month, Texture, and die cut the word directly from the panel. This also induced fear, but it worked out just fine. I used the same paper as the card base to make three additional die cuts to add some depth to this sentiment.
I had die cut the panel using a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle for a little bit of a finish and then used a few sequins to add some bling. Now I can’t wait to send this to someone. Someone special, obviously. 
You’ve got one day left to join us for our challenge. Up for grabs is something from Ellen Hutson! How fun is that?

Pineapple Love

We are so excited to be collaborating with Ellen Hutson this month. Have you seen their new release? Have you seen their old releases? Have you shopped with them? The most excellent customer service, fast shipping, great selection. Just love them. And I am lucky enough to have met Ellen Hutson at CHA a few years ago. Wow. She’s even nicer in person than you can possibly imagine. 🙂
I wasn’t sure of my crafty plan when I sat down to create, I let the stamp set speak to me. Grabbed a sheet of heavyweight Neenah cardstock and just started stamping. Once I realized I was making a background, I decided to just make a full sheet, and hopefully get four cards out of it.
I stamped the pineapple itself randomly in small sections of the paper. I kept the crown in mind so I could stamp that later. I ended up gold embossing the crown, and I love that pop of glam that the embossing adds to the pattern. I filled in some white spaces with two of the smaller flowers from the same stamp set.

After the pattern was complete, I die cut the pineapple from some scrap paper. Then I used the negative as a mask so that I could color the pineapples with two shades of distress ink. I love the way they came out, sort of a retro funky wallpaper. 

I wanted to keep the rest of the cards simple, so I die cut them with a rectangle stitched die, just for a finished edge. I gathered some word dies from the Essentials by Ellen line and layered up three pieces of black cardstock for each. Then used versamark and clear embossing powder to make them sturdier.

Since I’d stamped the sentiments on vellum, I layered them on white cardstock to make them stand out a bit more. I wanted to use my sewing machine with gold thread, but realized too late that my gold thread isn’t meant for sewing machines. Ahem. I ended up using my tiny attacher to make this work, and to make it a bit more rustic. Now, here’s a hot tip for you.
You can see that where I stapled the die cuts to the vellum, the staple went into my many layers of clear embossing powder and cracked it. This did not make me happy. Then I had a lightbulb moment and thought “hey, run your heat gun over that and see if it goes away”. And it does! So, if you ever have that issue, you now have a solution.
Thank you so much Ellen, and Ellen Hutson for working with us this month. We are having so much fun, and my wallet is getting a workout. 
Be sure to join us in our challenge this month, the prize is sponsored by Ellen Hutson, and I know you’ll love it.