Tag: hero arts

Hawaii layout with Hero Arts stencil & stamp

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Today I’ve got a quick & easy layout tutorial featuring a Hero Arts stamp, ink pads, and a brand new stencil too. This tropical stencil is the perfect size for a card background – but I think if I use it twice (so it goes across my layout) it will make the ideal scrapbook page background too!

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First up, I taped down my stencil and applied paste to it. I did this twice so that the stencil design would stretch across the middle of my layout. Note that there was about a 1″ gap in the middle – but that is ok! It doesn’t matter because there will be a photo covering that part.

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Once I had that done, I used a paintbrush and a bit of water to smooth out a few edges to make the edges of the stencil a bit more gradual. Love this design!

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The hardest part: I let this dry totally, and then let it dry overnight underneath some heavy (wood mounted stamp) blocks. Next up: I took my ink pad and rubbed it lightly over the stencil, as well as along the edges. Once that was done, I also stitched along the edges of the design.

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Ready for more inky goodness, I broke out my mint ombre ink pad and stamped some leaves!

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Note that the big leaf isn’t a Hero Arts stamp… I don’t know whose it is! It is on an unmarked block. I really am enjoying these ombre ink pads and you can see (above) the slight change in color that makes for a blended look so easily. I will be doing more projects and a video on these new ink pads next week.

Back to the layout – just a few embellishments added and bam! Look how those stamps, stencil, and ink pads got me into a fun layout in no time at all.

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I hope you enjoyed this quick layout tutorial and that I’ve encouraged you to bust out some stencils, stamps, and ink and get crafty today!

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CHA 2015: Hero Arts

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Hero Arts usually starts the year with a HUGE catalogue and release. This year? Mixing it up they will release four (quarterly) catalogs and space things out more. I’m all for this – just like I’m all for many of the fantastic products they have in this initial offering.

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I love the animals and their big heads (above) – not sure how much I’d be using them but oh they are cute. The two stamp sets that caught my eye and had me really excited? See below.

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The amore stamp is exactly the kind of thing I want to see more of. Not just the word, but the inspired styling that reminds me of paper banners from Mexico. I wish we saw more Spanish inspiration (also Polynesian, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Greek….) to freshen up designs and just add new ideas to our usual mix. Below is a screen shot of the Hero catalog so you can see these two stamps (one a clear set, the other wood mounted)

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Hero hit upon an up and coming trend – succulents. Is it Jennifer McGuire’s known love of these plants? An attempt to mix up the usual flowers and leaves offerings? I’m not sure – but Hero Arts and several others all have an offering that involves these plants.

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The cactus you see there? A stamp + a two part die that allows you to build that dimensional beauty. Brilliant! Not pictured here – Hero Arts also has several new stencil designs, and a new range of ombre ink pads I need to try out.

The new products begin shipping to stores February 2 – I can hardly wait!

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Also shipping net month, Hero has partnered with Kelly Purkey with a new “clearly Kelly” signature line.

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From stamps for your planner to project life, the offerings are what you’d expect from Kelly. Lots of fun sayings, little details like geo tags, and plenty of good food mentions.

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I will probably be passing on the clear stamps – when looking at my existing stash of older stamps by Kelly, I already have some food/travel sets that while not exactly the same, are fairly similar so I can’t really justify new ones.

What does have me excited are these 4×6 cling background stamps! Yes that’s right. 4×6 size so if you’re a scrapbooker there is no more “1/2 inch too short” issue! Fun designs that would be great in many ways.

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The Kelly Purkey line will also ship next month – so watch for it in stores soon. If you’d like to see the full Hero Arts catalogue visit their website – it’s full of lovely goodies!

Challenge: Got Ink?

Use any ink in some way?! Oh the possibilities!

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I decided to marry two of my favorites: Distress Ink and Hero Arts Shadow Ink pads. All this card took was those inks, paper, and stamps. (and a smidgen of thread) to make this card. LOVE making cards like this!

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Steps:

1. Use Hero Shadow Inks to stamp the background (grey text), set aside. Then use shadow inks on white cardstock for the seal, leaves, and acorn. Cut these all out.

2. Stamp with distress ink the woodgrain stamp onto white paper.

3. Keep those distress inks out – and get a foam blending tool. Use brown to ink all over the background with text, flick with water and dry, then tear edges and dot with gold paint.

4. Assemble card! Background + cardstock strip + woodgrain background adhered together then mist with perfect pearls mist. Add a circle (hand cut) from cardstock and set n place.

5. Add the circle (hand cut, in my case) sentiment using foam adhesive. Also – if you’re so inclined rough those edges up with your scissors for a distressed look. Then attach the leaves and acorn, and stitch things into place. Once all of this is done adhere onto a standard (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) card!

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and boom! One card ready to go.

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Well… ok. Maybe it was less “boom” and more “3 episodes of New Girl later… it was done!” but you get the idea.

Supplies used:


50dollar_voucher_600px Simon is, as always, offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. For your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

Hero Arts: Stamp Your Story blog hop

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Hero Arts is having a blog hop today (start here) to celebrate their newest stamp collection, and I’m honored to be taking part in it! The Stamp Your Story collection is one that I’m really loving, and have already used a number of times. You can see a card I made here with stencils + stamps, a layout with the stamps + neon daubers here, and a super quick card here. Today I’ll be sharing two new layouts that I made, with the help of these stamps to really tell my story.

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The arrow stamp is absolutely a favorite because it can be used as an arrow, or as you see in my layout below as a banner as well!

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I always love documenting my daughter’s fashion choices and pointing out things that are favorites in this moment for them to later reflect on and remember. They love looking back and remembering favorite outfits.  Before I share my second layout – let me take a moment and share some of my favorite stamps from this line…

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What I’m loving is that the fonts and sayings will be great on a wide variety of layouts, but they’re also fun for cards and mixed media projects as well. The splatter and the arrow are my most used already – but truly I could happily collect every stamp in this collection! Here’s another layout using many of my stamp favorites-

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On this one I layered stamps, and got a bit messy too which is always fun.
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LOVING that checklist stamp for short journaling, and of course “best time ever” is going to be a favorite.

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Supplies used in these layouts:

The entire Hero Arts Stamp Your Story line can be viewed in the digital version of the catalog here and is available in stores now. Also, I want to mention that there will be a giveaway for this hop, with the winner drawn randomly from the pool of comments left on ALL of the blog hop stops… so you might want to be commenting!

For more details, and to start from the beginning of the hop start at the Hero Arts blog. Here’s a list of the other participants in today’s hop.

http://michellewooderson.blogspot.com
http://sideoatsandscribbles.wumple.com
http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog
http://www.layoutaday.com
http://www.kellypurkey.com
http://www.jennifermcguireink.com
http://krcreations.blogspot.com
http://papertrufflez.com

Thanks to Hero Arts for inviting me to join in the fun – you’ll definitely be seeing more of these awesome stamps from me right here on my blog in the future!

Neon + Grey

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Yes, you’re reading my blog and yes, I’m saying in moderation and in the right circumstance I like a little neon. It’s growing on me. So much so, that today’s post is inspired by neon + grey. I’ve noted a disturbing amount of neon sneaking onto my grey clothes lately… and you know what? I think it works. I told my friend Melissa this, and she thought that we ought to coordinate a neon crafty day on our blogs. Fun!

First – let me mention the Hero Arts neon daubers… oh my. LOVE these! I will have to do a video soon but basically it is inky goodness you can use neatly, or with a bit of pressure make a big SPLAT! like I did here.

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I had a tiny bit of fun with this… aaaand there are splats all over the desk now. All the neon is pretty much contained to those splats, and I countered it with a white cardstock base and lots of stamping with my beloved shadow ink pad.

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I seriously love Hero Arts – but truly this new release is just MADE for my kind of scrapbooking. That splatter/stain stamp might be my favorite all time! Oh and all the great arrows and words… trust me you’ll be seeing more from me soon with all this goodness! But back to today’s layout.
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The texture/pattern you see faintly is because I did this on a white cardstock that is embossed (that wasn’t intentional) – but I like the look! You will also note this has kind of an art journal feel and that there are no embellishments! That’s because for whatever reason… when I do my pages for my “about me” album they tend to get messy/artsy and not need much embellishing.

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As for the story… well I *finally* earned new gym shoes and these grey ones with hints of neon pink were just perfect. Today I type this about 15lbs lighter than when I was typing this day last year… and THAT is something to celebrate indeed!! It might not be a huge or impressive or fast transformation – but I’m just a little healthier every day and that is all that really matters. For this kind of story and of course because it matched the shoes – neon + grey was the perfect choice.

I challenge you to try grey + neon and see how you like it! Oh yeah, and you’ll also want to go visit www.scrappyjedi.com because Melissa is also rockin’ the neon today!!