Monday, February 5, 2024

A Big Hello with Hero Arts

 Hi Crafty Friends,

Well, as I endure my third case of COVID (yes, third), I decided that an easy all occasion hello card was what I needed for my stash.  And thanks to latest Hero Arts Digital kit, called Mix & Match, I found a cool graphic that I quickly turned into a rainbow of "hellos" background and topped it with (what else?) a great big HELLO -- this time using the alphabet die that was part of the incredible My Monthly Hero December 2023 kit (and yes, that fabulous kit is still available).  

And honestly, that's my card--ready for almost any occasion (get well, happy birthday, miss you):


I hope you've had a chance to enjoy the rest of the hop, which celebrates the February release and brings us all tons of inspiration (while we wait for our February kits to come to our homes).  Here's the whole list so that you don't miss a single creation!

Thanks for dropping by!
Essie



Monday, January 8, 2024

Elegant Valentines with Hero Arts Digital Designs

 Hello Crafty Friends,

I had a bit of a lightbulb moment recently:  My children are no longer little kids.  My son (20) and daughter (17) still (claim to!) love to get cards from me--but cutesie critters from my stash are no longer great choices for either of them.  Time to change up my card-making for the kids. 

Fortunately,  the Swirl Valentine Digital Kit from Hero Arts is just what I need to create elegant cards for both of them.  

Here's the card for my son:

How to:  Using the burgundy background in the kit, the swirly big heart, and the Love You sentiment, I quickly built a card for my son--I printed the background on our family color printer and then over printed the heart and sentiment over the background using my laser jet printer.  I added silver toner foil to the design, ran it through my Minc foiling machine matted it with silver cardstock, and put it on an A2 card base.  Too. Easy!

Here's my daughter's card:

How to:  I created a background using the Leaf and Floral Stencil and pink inks.  I printed the same image and sentiment I used for my son's card--but this time I printed it onto vellum paper using my laser jet.  I added hot pink toner foil to the vellum, and ran it through my Minc.  I also blended pink inks onto the back of the heart image to help it stand out.  I placed the vellum design on the background and that was it!

Two elegant cards for my nearly adult kids (wow, time flies), ready in plenty of time for Valentine's Day. 

My post is part of the February Hero Arts blog hop -- and if you leave comments here and on other stops along the hop, you could win $50 gift card, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, January 14th at 11:59pm PT, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

Here's the entire hop list:

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie

Monday, December 4, 2023

Lucky Number Seven - with Hero Arts Digitals

 Hi Friends,

Welcome to the December My Monthly Hero (MMH) blog hop!  There's so much inspiration for you--I hope you're hopping all the way through.

My crafty friend Deborah is the kind of grandmother I hope I'll be someday--active, fun, crafty, and completely devoted to her grandson, who is about to be seven.  Today's card is inspired by her  grandson, who turns seven next month.  

Hero Arts has three fun and affordable digital kits to kick off the New Year--and this Whimsical Numbers Digital Kit, has numbers in a very cute script, that looked perfect for the occasion!

How To:  

1. This is a simple gatefold card, using a bright green cardstock base that is 5.5 X 8.25 inches, scored and folded on both sides, 2.25 from each end.  I've added a white panel to the inside, and it is the usual 4 X 5.25 inches.  

2. Setting aside the card base, I used the word seven image from the Whimsical Numbers kit to make a quick background by copying that "seven" word multiple times into a blank Google slide, and moving the images around to create a strip of sevens that marched in a line, two horizontal sevens intersected with a vertical seven.  I repeated it several times to ensure that the strip was longer than 4 inches --so it would be long enough to cover the A2 background I wanted.  I grouped this strip of sevens, and copied the grouping several times, arranging them one below the other on the slide.

3. In Google slides under tools recolor, I found both a bright green and teal recolor option, so I chose those two colors, creating a green and teal color scheme.  

4. After printing the slide onto lightweight cardstock (but you could also use plain old copy paper for this technique,) I cut two panels that fit just inside the "gates" of the gatefold:  2 X 5.25 inches--and mounted them on the gates.  

5.  I also took the word seven, blew it up, and did a shadow technique on a separate google slide, again using teal and bright green recoloring.  After printing this out, I die cut the shadowed word on the smallest of three larger stars from Hero Arts 5-Point Stars Infinity die set.   Using the green card base color and a teal that matched the background, I die cut two progressively bigger stars, and a few smaller stars in both colors.  

6.  The rest is kind of obvious:  Mount the 3 big stars on top of each other, and then glue down the left half (ONLY!) of the star onto the left "gate."  Add the random smaller stars in a way that pleases your eye and that's it.  Minimal supplies for a maximally happy birthday card for a very well-loved young man!

I'd love to see your results with this month's new Hero products--digital and physical--there's so much new fun on its way!

Here's the full blog hop list so that you can see everyone else's creations:


Hero Arts

As always, thanks so much for stopping by!

Essie



Sunday, November 5, 2023

Digital Merriment with Hero Arts

 Hello friends!

    This month Hero Arts has FOUR (yes, 4!!) new digital kits/printables to release with the November My Monthly Hero card kit and add ons--and I've kind of just "gone to town" with these and have made some gift tags, a card that features the too cute digital papers, and a whole lot of foiling with the printable owls and some backgrounds I created with the kits and foiled myself.  Instead of a lot of instruction, let me just "show the goods."  

    First up, using the adorable Christmas Icons Digital Papers and the teddy bear from the Vintage Toys Fancy Dies, I made this simple, graphic card.  

Next up:  Gift tags!  Here, I used the Festive borders and the Frosty Borders kits and made some eassy designs and holiday greetings.  I used the colors Hero provided (often I recolor them using the Google slide app) and printed them onto plain old copy paper.  I glued the paper to holiday colored card stock to  create quick little gift tags, which are always in short supply at my house this time of year!

    And finally:  Foiling!  I used the kits again to make two different snowy backgrounds and printed them on my laser printer in black (toner) ink.  You know that this lets me foil these designs with my Minc machine (or you can use a laminator) using toner reactive foil.  I made a couple of handfuls of designs using those snowy backgrounds and also foiling the Owl Tag Printables--so now I have a ton of sparkly owls and tags that will be perfect for holiday packages.  I used the negative foil piece from one of my snowy backgrounds and two little owls to put together a super quick --and super shiny!-- rainbow Christmas cards with two rainbow-foiled owls taking center stage as holiday ornaments.  My daughter says it's "too wild" for her. . . which is fine, I have plenty of wild & crafty friends who I think will love this one.  

    And that's it--plenty of fun with these four new digital products from Hero Arts--I'd love to see what you make with them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Penguin Pals from Gina K. and Thermoweb

 Hello friends,

I was so thrilled to win an early copy of the new Gina K./Thermoweb collaboration - The Penguin Pal Card Kit, and a huge bundle of Gina K. and Thermoweb foils. flock, glitter gel, and huge assortment of adhesives!  Thanks so much Thermoweb and Gina K!  If you follow me on IG or here on my blog, you might know that I am a foiling junkie!  (and you know I have my name on the list for Gina's new Fuse Foiling System.  

My box of goodies showed up yesterday afternoon, just in time for me to make a card and two tags using all the foil-y, flock-y goodness I could, some of the kit's stamps, the sweet penguin die, and the cool snowflake and starburst die.  Here's my card: 

And then, even though it was way past my bedtime, I made a couple of quick tags--because I really wanted to try out the light pink and blue flocking (see that pink penguin!) and the kit stencil, which I paired with the gold glitter glitz gel I received and the Christmas tree die.
And in case you're curious:  Two photos that show everything that came as my prize with the Penguin kit: 
These foils and Glitz gels are soooooo sparkly!  And LOOK at all these adhesives, and flock and the toner card fronts (which I totally hoard!)

So, Christmas has really come early for me!  Thanks again, Thermoweb and Gina K.--you've kicked my holiday making into sparkling high gear!

Thanks for stopping by,
Essie


Monday, October 2, 2023

Winter Homes - Digital pop up card with Hero Arts

 Hi friends,  

There are so many new digital images this month at Hero Arts, it was hard to decide what to focus on.  I've used the sweet houses as the focal point for today's card. 


The base of this semicircle pop-up card uses the Snowflake Digital Papers in light blue--a perfect scene setter for this homes and pine trees in the Winter Homes Printable.  I printed that page on lightweight cardstock and colored the homes and trees with Copic marker in a graphic cartoon-y style.  Very simple. 

Using Hero Arts white glitter cardstock, I cut two 4 3/4 strips, with 1/4 folds on each end.  I used extra strong adhesive on those folds and slotted them into the  1 1/4 inch "wings" of that 6 1/2 inch semi-circle. Those glittery strips make snowy hills on which I adhered the two homes and pine trees.  Again--the key here is using extra strong adhesive--to me, that's the key to success when working with glitter cardstock.

For a sentiment, I've used a rub-on transfer from the new Holiday Messages set.  I think the no-frills font really works well with this little scene.

And that's the card!  

I hope you'll give these digital images a try -- and I'd love to see what you make!

Thanks for dropping by!

Essie

Monday, September 4, 2023

Mushroom Hunting with Hero Arts

Hello Crafty Friends,

How about some fantasy mushroom hunting using the latest printable from Hero Arts -- are they not adorable?  Kind of Autumnal Alice in Wonderland goes wild, I think?

I drank my morning coffee while watching the AMAZING Kelly Taylor do some bokeh/Copic backgrounds--her video was so inspiring that I had to try it myself! 

I spent today recovering from jet lag and coloring the grouped mushrooms in this digital printable (while binge-watching Better Call Saul...how have I missed this show?).  My back ground did NOT come out smooth and dreamy (sigh...it is not like Kelly's...), but the streaky colors still made me smile and I carried on coloring my little mushroom patch.  

Following Kelly's lead, I used Hero Arts unicorn white pigment ink with the Large Sprinkled Dots stencil to add that bokeh effect (Kelly does that a little differently, but I think this stencil really gets the job done).  I added a sentiment from the printable that's appropriately punny, backed both the mushrooms and the sentiment in HA's woodland cardstock, mounted them on an A2 card base and BOOM!  presto-card-o, ready to mail.  

I'll have more digital-based cards later this month for you (there's also a tree printable and a leafy digital kit to play with).  Until then, enjoy the changing season and thanks for stopping by. 

Essie

A Big Hello with Hero Arts