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

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

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

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

New Adventures with Hero Arts Digitals

 Hello Crafty Friends!  

My son's return to college is on my mind (we'll be road-tripping to Ohio soon in my minivan to help him move into his very first apartment), so I've made a couple of cards that nod to his future in a positive way. 

These cards are two-fer, because they use a single design and a single sheet of foil to create two different card fronts--one using the positive design, and the other using the "waste material" or negative space  that the design left behind on my piece of toner foil.  

Note:  To foil digital designs you need:  a laser printer, a laminator or Minc machine, toner foil, and, for the black background card, either specialty toner paper, or very glossy black card stock.  

Here's my how-to for the design and the white background card:  Using the minivan image I discovered among the over 20 images in the Roadtrip Adventure Digital Kit, I created a line of minivans and copied that line o' vans again and again, until it covered a space about the size of an A2 card front on a Google slide in a design that was pleasing to my eye.  

Another note:  I've never taken a design class, and never had a lesson in Google docs/slides or anything else, this is just me playing around until I have something that looks right.  Google slide software is free, which is what I love most about it. 

I printed that slide/page on my Laser Jet printer onto lightweight card stock (yes, the cheap stuff I do NOT use for card bases), added summer-y rainbow toner foil, and ran it through my Minc machine/laminator.  After cutting the Google page to an A2 size, I cut a star shape  from the upper right corner of the foiled background using the 5-point infinity star dies and cut another star, one size larger, from Hero Arts pitch black card stock.  I also cut out 5 of the smallest-sized star from the pitch black card stock.  Using foam tape, I added the black star over the star cut out, and then adhered the smaller star cutout on top of the black star, making sure to align the smaller star's minivans with the background.  I like this semi-eclipse design--it's slightly subtle, but adds texture and interest.  I adhered the panel to an A2 card base, again made from pitch black card stock, scattered around the 5 smaller stars and added a sentiment I like from the Encouragement Sentiment Strip set which I'd pre-cut using the Sentiment Strip Fancy Die -- I love having these sentiments ready to go. 

To make the second card--the one with a black background, I used the leftover/negative space toner foil.  I've found that shiny black card stock, or specialty black toner card stock take toner foil perfectly.  

I just placed the minivan "leftover" foil piece over an A2 piece of glossy black card stock.  I made a quick video of the reveal as I remove the foil backer from the card, just click the arrow below. 

 

For the sentiment tag, I used the Travel Tag & Notes Printable--I printed the tags in black onto black card stock, cut out the tag I wanted (you can see the ink on the card stock--if you're looking for it!--and ran it through my Minc machine/laminator with gold toner foil.   Eureka!  The tag came to life in gold on black.  I gold heat-embossed a sentiment from the Seaside Highway HeroScape onto the tag and added a gold bow to complete the tag.  I mounted the panel onto a white A2 card base, and used foam tape to pop up the black tag.  

(Final Note:  Hubby says both cards are  "somber."  I say they are modern and urban cool and good masculine cards for my son.  We have agreed to disagree.)

Thanks so much for stopping by--I love that you took the time to drop in (and your comments always make my day!

Essie

Flower Arranging with Hero Arts Digitals

 Hello friends!

I had such fun working with the July digital kit from Hero Arts called "Real Flowers."  They are really gorgeous and ready for arranging.  Using (as ever) free software from Google, I made a set of 4 different cards, and added a surprise inside each one. 

There are 16 (yes, 16!) different flowers in the digital kit.  Each is presented in a bright color and also in black.  

For each card, I simply arranged flowers into a small bouquet--3 different flowers, sending the taller ones to the back of the arrangement, the smaller ones in the front, and tilting the flowers so that the stems overlap near the bottom.  I turned each arrangement into a grouping and added a green drop shadow to the arrangement --the shadow adds so much dimension. I placed this image into the left lower corner of the page.

Using sentiments from the new Park Scene Printable, I added a sentiment to the bottom right of each bouquet.  

I used Hero Arts peony card stock for card bases and, to create sparkle and a little something extra, I blended a piece of Hero Arts silver glitter card stock with pinks on the top and dark green on the bottom, creating a sort of ombre using Hero's inks in pine, azalea, cotton candy, and peony.   I cut this glitzy ombre paper into  1/4 inch strips and placed a strip on the left side of each card--again weighting the design to the left.  

 

And so that's the card set--clean and simple--for me!

Well, that's almost it. The flowers were so easy to work with that I created an interior panel for each card using a single bloom from the card's bouquet, sized large, and with a lot of transparency (I moved the "opacity" to about 25% for those interior blooms.)  It was such a quick and easy addition, and sweetly completes the cards.  To show you these special interiors, I added a teeny tiny video to my teeny tiny YouTube channel--here's the link:  Essie's Flower Cards on YT 

Thanks so much for stopping by--I'm excited to see what you create with these latest Hero Arts digital designs.

Essie 

Totally "shellfish" weekend with Hero Arts Digitals

 Hello Crafty Friends,

Hero Arts Printables always make me happy -- and this month there is lots to smile about:  Great sentiments, and sweet ocean images that were perfect to remind myself that I still love Copic coloring.  After making a couple of cards using the Printables for June early last week, I thought I was done with digitals for a while.  I do love the two cards I made using the dolphins and sea turtle images:

 

But late Friday night, I popped open the new digital kit called "She Sells Seashells," and decided I wasn't done after all--and the seashell images were so cool that I had to use them all!   So I pulled each image into a single google slide, positioned them in a pattern that was pleasing to me, changed the colorway to a "delft blue" image (I'm stuck on blue...always!). I also made a second colorway using more of a pool blue color.  I printed them onto lightweight cardstock, die cut some shells using my Seashells Fancy Dies, some "hello there" sentiments using the Hello There Stamp & Cut, and, for the pool blue card, I also die cut the Swirling Tide Border Fancy Die with Frame and ink blended  that border in pool shades.  With all those bits & pieces in hand I quickly put together my two seaside greeting cards--ready to send to my friends and kick my summer crafting into high gear.  

I'd love to see what you're making this summer!  If you have a blog or IG page, just pop it into the comments below -- I'd love to drop by and see what you're up to!

Thanks for visiting!

Essie