Hero Florals Nasturtium Hello

Hello hello,

Cindy here to share a floral card created using only one stamp set.

I first stamped the main image in Soft Grey Shadow ink multiple times on a white card panel. Then on separate white card stock I stamped the same images in Antique Linen Distress ink and did some no-line watercolors and hand cut.

To make the background more interesting without over powering the focal images, I painted the blooms with Perfect Pearl solution and added sentiment in black. I die cut the bottom edge of the panel with a border cutting die. Then it’s adhered to a wine color card base. Then the hand cut blooms and leaves are adhered with glue and foam dots.

Oh almost forgot, the center of the blooms are dotted with a gold gel pen. 🙂

I hope you enjoy my project today. Although I used the clear Nasturtium set, the Flowering Nasturtium Woodmount stamp offer the same image. There’s plenty time to play along our January challenge – Anything Goes. Scroll down to get the challenge info and my promote code for shopping at the a2z Store. Remember you can Request Custom Order if you don’t see the item in the store.

Are you on social media? We are! Please join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? so you don’t miss any fun promotions or new challenge announcements!

      Please join us in this month’s “Anything Goes” challenge for your chance at a free digital stamp set AND, if you used Hero Arts or Sugartree Stamps, a $20 gift card to our etsy store. Our current monthly challenge can always be found in the menu bar, and runs from the 1st to last day of the month 

 

 

 
      The a2z scrapbooking store carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products as well as a nice selection of digital stamps! Get discounted new releases, sales, grab bags & more. Proceeds from our store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations. Use my discount code Cindy15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in store, use the Request Custom Order button from with-in the shop. 

• Hero Arts Hero Florals Nasturtium Clear Stamp
• Shadow Ink (Soft Grey)
• Ranger Distress Ink (Antique Linen)
• Memento Dye Ink (Tuxedo Black)
• Penny Black Cut Out Borders Cutting Die
• Altenew Watercolors 36 Pan Set
• Ranger Perfect Pearl Powder

 

Valentine

Hello hello hello! Hope everyone is doing well and ready start the second month of 2017. I can’t believe January is already almost over. I’m working on Valentine’s Day cards since it’s a few short weeks away.

I used some distress inks to color my background and then made a stencil using the die. I placed is randomly on the watercolor base and used some distress glaze to create a barrier. I then sprayed the panel heavily with water and took it paper towels to soak up the water to lighten up the color.

I used my scraps from the the original panel to die cut some smaller heart to scatter on the card. I heat embossed part of my sentiment and die cut the other with black card stock. Once all my elements were on the panel, I adhered it to a glittered cardbase and added Wink of Stella to the die cut word.

If you are in need of any items from the a2z Scrapbooking store you can use code Monica15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. (before tax and shipping)  And don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

Supplies:

Hero Arts- DI179, PW120, DC132

Distress ink- Worn Lipstick, Festive Berries and Seedless Preserves

Black Wink of Stella

All-In-One Card and Gift

Hi, crafty friends, it’s Chark here today with Sunday’s post. I love the flexibility of the Flower Garden stamp set, because they are small stamps that go together in any configuration.The new Flower Stamp & Cut has some of the same flowers plus it comes with dies!

I used a tiny Stampbord piece (little clay surface on wood that’s fun to stamp on) to stamp the flowers and leaves (using Tombow markers and then using a waterbrush to soften) and then added a magnet to the back. I attached it to the inside of my card and now it’s a removable little gift too. 

The background stamp is the Waves cling stamp which I embossed in gold and then watercolored with Distress Inks. I did a lot of watercoloring without using watercolors. That’s kind of odd…but it’s handy that my other materials work like paints, so I don’t have to get them out too!

Remember, a2z is having a monthly contest that you can enter using any Hero Arts products to become eligible to win a $25 gift certificate to the store. The theme this month is Anything Goes—so as long as you use Hero Arts, you can enter any project!

Did you know that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook?   If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on these different social media outlets!!  You don’t want to miss out on any fun promotions!!

Hope you have a lovely Sunday!

Hero Arts Flower Garden OR

Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Flowers

Basic Grey/Hero Arts Waves Background

Stampbord

Tombow Markers

Gold Embossing Powder

Distress Inks Sailboat Blue and Mowed Lawn

Spellbinders Dies

Stenciled Birthday

For today’s card I used two types of embossing to create a cheery birthday card.

I started by dry embossing Hero Arts Tile Works Stencil onto watercolor paper.  I left my stencil attached to the paper and then applied two colors of orange watercolor paint to the raised areas.  I used a paper towel to dab away the excess paint before drying with my heat gun.

I painted a scrap of watercolor paper using the same orange watercolor paint (but did not dab it this time for a more vibrant hue).  After it dried, I stamped Hero Arts Messages with Flourish in Black Ink, which I then heat embossed with Clear Embossing Powder, so it would have more pop against the watercolored background.  I attached the banner with adhesive foam for dimension

To decorate my background, I added the tiny flour from Messages with Flourish (flowers are perfect for the Nature Challenge at the Hero Arts Blog), as well as three sizes of Sunshine Hero Arts Pearls.

I hope you’ll join us for our Embossing Challenge this month … and remember, you can use Coupon Code STEPH15 for 15% off your order of $25.00 or more (before tax and shipping) in the a2z Store … and the a2z Store has all of the 2015 Hero Arts release in stock (I can’t wait to play with those fun stamps).

Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!.

Supplies Used:

• Hero Arts Tile Works Stencil
• Hero Arts Watercolor Wheel
• Ranger Watercolor Paper
• Hero Arts Messages with Flourish
• Hero Arts Sunshine Pearls & Gems
• Hero Arts Black Die Ink
• Kool Tak Adhesive Foam Pads

Sending Love

Good morning everyone – Jennifer here with another fun watercolor card for you! Gotta keep that mojo going for our monthly challenge…just 2 more days to enter to win that $25 store gift card!

I love keeping stacks of colored watercolor paper on my desk and flipping through them like patterned paper when I need a background for a card. The one I used today was simply painted with some watercolor paints (nothing special, just ones I picked up at the local craft store) that ‘spoke’ to me. To add some interest, I grabbed the Large Lotus Pattern stencil, some Pool ink, and a sponge dauber and went to town.

While that dried slightly, I grabbed…you’ll never guess…the Under the Mistletoe stamp set that was still on my desk for the sentiment. A Christmas stamp set on a non-holiday card! Talk about extending the use of your holiday stamps…anyway, I stamped that in the bottom corner with some VersaMark ink and heat embossed it using the HA White Embossing Powder. The lotus needed something extra, so I added Wink of Stella over it for the right amount of bling. A little Mocha layering paper behind the watercoloring, a bit of foam tape to attach it to the card base, and I was all done! Wouldn’t you want to get this in the mail to break up the winter monotony?

Be sure to stop on by the store to treat yourself to all the crafty goodies Santa neglected to bring you, and use coupon code JENNIFER15 while you’re there to save 15% off your order of $25 or more.

Our Design Team Call ends at midnight tonight! If you would like to be part of a fun, creative team this is your chance to apply. Just click here and link up a favorite card that contains Hero Arts Stamps from your Flickr stream or blog.

Supplies used:
Hero Arts Under the Mistletoe
Hero Arts White Embossing Powder
VersaMark Ink
Hero Arts Pool Mid-Tone Shadow Ink
Wink of Stella – Clear
Hero Arts Mocha Layering Paper
Hero Arts Large Lotus Pattern Stencil

Happy Crafting, and have a Happy New Year!

Water Colored Background

Hi everyone,

It’s Barb here today sharing a card using our challenge theme for this month, ‘Water Coloring’! A few weeks ago, I shared a card where I water colored a butterfly but this time, I wanted to create a background with an ombre effect using my water colors.Here is my card:

 

Hero Arts Water Color Wheel has several shades of each color, so it was easy to start with light red, then orange and yellow. Then, I perused the Silhouette Store for a Hero Arts pattern to highlight the background that I had created. I used gold embossing powder for the sentiment, added a few gold sequins, and that was it!

I hope my card inspires you to take out your water colors and try something new with your stamps! And, if you do, please feel free to enter your card in this month’s challenge by clicking on the link on the right hand side bar, or go HERE! You may enter up to five times to be eligible to win a $25.00 Gift Certificate to the a2z Scrapbooking Store with each entry.

As always, you are welcome to use Coupon Code BARB15 for 15% off your order of $25.00 or more (before tax and shipping) in the a2z Store! I am also including an “Inlinkz” product list at the bottom of this post to link you to all these supplies!

Have a wonderful day ~

InLinkz.com

Seasons Greetings

Hello everyone.  Greta here with a Christmas card that won’t need extra postage. Our challenge this month is to use watercoloring on your project.  I began by stamping & heat embossing the background in gold on watercolor paper.  Then I used a dark red watercolor paint with a wet brush using more paint at the top & more water moving down to create an ombre look.  I added a piece of vellum down the center with a stamped sentiment at the bottom.  The tree was also heat embossed in gold on another piece of watercolor paper brushed with the same paint.  I trimmed it very close, eliminating the stars.  The dots were colored with the paint nearly full strength & I added Stickles to the stars.  When everything dried I mounted it with foam tape & added gold dots at the top. Hope I’ve inspired you to join our challenge. You can use my discount code, GRETA15, to get 15% off a minimum $25 purchase in The Store.

 

Supply List:
Highline Geometric Background
Designer Star Tree or you could use Sparkling Holidays ON SALE!
Merriest Christmas Wishes
Watercolor Paint or you could use Watercolor Wheel
Star Dust Stickles
Gold Metallic Decor or other gold embellishments like Enamel Gold Dots (the stickers I used are no longer available)
Versafine Onyx Black
Heavyweight Cardstock
Vellum
Watercolor paper

Watercolor Arrows

The December Challenge is all about Watercolors … so I decided to play with my Hero Arts Watercolor Wheel and the BasicGrey Two Way Arrows Stencil.  I started by cutting a piece of Watercolor Paper in half, and taped down my stencil on all four sides (I tape it to my work surface as well to minimize movement).  Look at all of the colors you get in the Watercolor Wheel.

For my first attempt (on the right), I used two shades of blue paint and as little water as possible (to try to minimize the paint running under the stencil).  It worked better to get the paint on the end of the paint brush and sort of *pounce* it into the paper.  For my second piece (on the left), I alternated between blue and red paint to produce a more gradient color effect.  One trick for getting the stencil image possible is to use your heat gun to dry the paint before removing the stencil from your paper..  You can also dab any remaining wet spots with a paper towel.

Since the lines on my blue stenciled design were a bit more crisp, I went with an over-all graphic design inspired by this Spring Outfit by Balmain at the Runway Inspired Challenge.

I used lots of straight lines and a bold straight-font sentiment from Hero Arts Yay!

 

Did you notice that the corner on the top right of my second attempt got a bit messy? … I call that an *embellishment opportunity*.

I lined-up scraps of purple paper with the the lines in the stencil, and then trimmed the edges into triangles.  Since this stenciled watercolor had a softer feel, I used a more flowy font from Messages with Flourishes.

Remember how fun playing with watercolors was in grade school? … well it’s still just as much fun as an adult.  I can’t wait to see what you create for our December Challenge.

As always, you can use Coupon Code STEPH15 for 15% off your order of $25.00 or more (before tax and shipping) in the a2z Store.

Products used:

• Hero Arts BasicGrey Two Way Arrows Stencil
• Hero Arts Watercolor Wheel
• Hero Arts Yay! Clear Stamps
• Hero Arts Messages with Flourish Clear Stamps
• Ranger Watercolor Paper
• Hero Arts Milwaukee Embossing Gun
• Star Punch
• Black Dye Ink
• Memento Luxe Danube Blue Ink
• Clear Embossing Powder

 

 

 

Decorate Your Holidays

Hello Crafters!

Happy Monday to you! I’m so excited to kick off your week with a little watercoloring!!

Last week the super talented Dawn posted a video showing how she watercolored some Christmas ornaments. Her ornaments are nothing short of spectacular and tons of people have been CASEing her card. I couldn’t help but give it a try too 🙂 I also created my background using another technique I learned from Dawn. That video is here. I new the Hero Arts set Decorate Your holidays would be perfect to take on this challenge!

Before we get started on the card I wanted to share with you a little lesson I learned early on. See . . . I thought watercolor projects were beautiful but I didn’t want to spend the extra money to buy watercolor paper. I figured I had paper why couldn’t I use that?! Well . . .you can use it. It’s just not nearly as pretty and requires A LOT more work to blend. This is because watercolor paper is design to allow the water to sit on top an blend itself beautifully while regular paper immediately absorbs the water and pigment. This means you have to do all the blending.

Here is an example of what watercoloring on regular paper looks like

See how it bleeds out. You can’t stop it because it’s absorbing into the fibers. I also had to use tons more ink to get any shading.

This is watercolor paper

You can get better blending because the ink will only go where the paper is wet. The water did wipe out the design on the two smaller ornaments because they were lighter inks. I just re stamped over top of them once the paper was dry. Thank goodness these gorgeous ornaments are clear stamps!

Here is the whole card put together

 

I wanted a light green background with the bokeh effect so it would look like there was a tree in the background. I’m not exactly sure I achieved that but I like the background anyway. ha! I outlined my ornaments with clean water to get a defined edge and no color mixing. I then washed the whole background in various colors of green. Dabbing and swirly until I was happy with it. I set it aside to dry while I cut several circles out of some spare acetate. Once the background was dry I added my white circles. I actually used Picket Fence Distress Stain but you could just as easily use Hero Arts Unicorn White and a make sponge. You know what . . .they have all those Unicorn pastel colors . . .I bet would look amazing. Ha! Just thought of that as I was typing this. Guess what is going on my Christmas list?! I trimmed down my panel and adhered it to a white card base. The sentiment is from the same set and was heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I couldn’t resist adding some detail with a silver and white gel pen 🙂

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Don’t forget our current challenge is Anything Goes. how easy is that?! you could win a $25.00 to the store!! I also wanted to tell you if you love the set I used to create this card it’s currently on sale for just $8.00! The link is in the supplies 🙂

XoXo

Supplies:

Decorate Your Holidays

Ranger Watercolor Paper

Distress Ink: Peacock Feathers, Pine Needles, Festive Berries, Fired Brick, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss, Black Soot

Distress Stain Picket Fence

Hero Arts Silver Embossing Powder

Sakura White and Silver Gel Pen

Friendship Card

Hello Crafters!

This is Zoey , your new Italian bff! Today I am here to show you how I created a card for a friend.

The theme of this card goes along with our monthly challange – that if you haven’t read about it yet, it is about Encouragement.

For the base of my card I used Hero Arts Watercolor Paper PS626. I just love the textured of this paper – and it is perfect for the watercolor technique I am about to show you! (I know many of you might know this technique already! lol!)

So I cut my front panel of the card…and then I cut few pieces of an old book page, I adhered the pieces to the paper and then I distressed it a bit.

And now to the fun part!

I grabbed my Hero Arts Purple Neon Spray WM108 and also my Hero Arts Butter Bar Spray WM112 – as you know these two are usually used as Spray, but today we will use them to create a watercolor effect for our background! Just simply mist the spray over a craft Sheet (or anything that will not stick !) , I then added some more water and I simply placed the card over the colors, I let it sit for few seconds and then I picked the piece up.

That was the result…and I loved it at the first try!

When it was COMPLETELY dry (and really, make sure it is very well dried!!) I added some Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste through this wonderful Hero Arts Large Lotus Pattern Stencil SA001

I let the paste dry alone, but in case you want to speed up the process you can use the heat tool — just make sure to move the heat tool around to prevent bubbles!

Last thing I did was stamping the sentiment with Hero Arts India Ink Black AF248 and adding some lines with a black gel pen to border my background.

And that is the final result – what do you think about it?

 

I hope you will give it a try and use your spray mist in a different way!

If you want to purchase the products I used to create this card just click over the links and use ZOEY15 to get a 15% discount (the code will work for any other products too!)

Stay Happy, Stay Inspired!

Till next time , CIAO!

 

 

 

 

InLinkz.com