Hey everybody! It's time for your My Monthly Hero Countdown and this month's kit is so much fun! I've used just two stamps from the kit to make this simple but sweet card.
I started out by stamping the house and sentiment at the same time in versa mark ink. Then I heat embossed it all in clear embossing powder.
Next, I masked off the sentiment at the bottom as well as the little house. This allowed me to ink blend the background with my reactive inks (Splash, Blue Hawaii and Grape Slush). I sprayed the background with shimmer spray and then splattered it with silver metallic paint to complete the wintery look. The last details were to remove the masking paper and color in the house and glue on some star sequins and clear enamel dots.
Ok, you guys, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this little sneak peek of the November My Monthly Hero kit. If you want to win a kit before you can buy it then head over to the Hero Arts Blog and leave a comment so that you can enter to win!
I'll see you all back here on Monday for the full kit reveal!
Hey everybody! It's that wonderful time of month again when the countdown to the new My Monthly Hero kit is on and we get to share some sneak peeks! If you aren't familiar with the MMH kits from Hero Arts then here's the scoop... On the first Monday of every month Hero Arts releases a new kit full of all kinds of amazing supplies. These kits are hugely discounted! The value can be as much as $70 or $80 and they only cost $34.99. There are only a limited number of kits available so your choices are to subscribe and never miss a kit, or, to try your luck at getting a kit before they sell out. If you'd like to subscribe to future kits just click here.
For my sneak peek at the October kit I'm giving you a look at two stamps (image and sentiment) and the sweet little tree dies. I started off by watercoloring my background with liquid watercolors in Pink and Indigo. Then I splattered the background with white metallic paint to give it a wintery look.
Next, I heat embossed the silhouette stamp in black embossing powder. I love how bold it looks against the background. Before stamping I did make sure that the stamp was placed in the center of the square I cut from a piece of white cardstock.
I stamped my sentiment using my Misti in black ink onto the card face. Then I added foam adhesive to the back of the panel and adhered it to the watercolored background. I die cut some little Christmas trees from white sparkle paper and added them to the bottom of my winter scene. I finished my card off by adding a few clear sequins and attaching the whole thing to a top-folding card base.
Now for some super exciting news! The Hero Arts My Monthly Kits come at a huge value every month and have never before gone on sale... until now! For the month of October only many of the kits are being sold at $5 off! If you're interested in checking out what's on sale just click here. There are some really good kits so I hope you find one you love.
If you're interested in winning a kit before you can buy one make sure you head over to the Hero Arts Blog and leave some comments to get yourself entered to win!
Ok you guys, that is it for today! I'll be back tomorrow to share more of the fun I've had with this kit. See you all then!
Hey Everybody! Happy Wednesday and welcome to the release of the Hero Arts Winter Catalog! If you haven't had a chance to browse through the catalog yet then this is the hop for you because it is jam packed with inspiration from so many talented crafters.
For today's card I decided to use a new set called Gift Peek-a-Boo Infinity Parts. It coordinates with the Square Peek-a-Boo Doors dies and sets you up to make an easy, interactive card (it cuts a square that swings open like a door). I stamped one of the larger gift boxes onto a piece of white cardstock in my Hero Arts Intense-ified Black ink. This is one of my go-to inks because it works well with both copic markers and watercolors. I also stamped this fun sentiment from Snarky Christmas Messages.
I colored the image in with my copic markers and then die cut it to create a door around the gift box.
So, today my card is a little bit of lie... but a good lie, right? How could I not put an adorable puppy inside of the gift box after a sentiment like that?!
To add the puppy I stamped the image from the new Fawn and Friends stamp set onto a separate piece of white cardstock. To line it up perfectly I placed the clean stamp on top of the gift box in my Original sized, Black Misti. When it was in the right place I picked the stamp up with my Misti door and then stamped it onto the white paper.
I colored the cute puppy with my copic markers and then adhered that piece of cardstock behind the gift box. After that, when I opened the gift box door I had a cute puppy inside! I glued this whole piece onto a piece of black cardstock so that I would have that black strip at the side. Then, that whole deal got added to a top-folding A2 sized, white card base.
Ok, you all, that is it for today! I'm so glad you stopped by and I hope you'll keep cruising along on this blog hop with us. Next up on the hop is the incredibly talented Michelle Short. You can head on over to her blog or you can use the list below to navigate the hop. Before you go, I want to make sure you know we're having a giveaway (details below) and all you need to do to enter is leave me a comment below.
Have an amazing day and enjoy the hop! I'll be back tomorrow with another Hero Arts hop featuring the new Unity stamp sets. See you then!
Maria.
GIVEAWAY:
Hero Arts will give away three $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by leaving a comment between now and Sunday, September 6th at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.
Hi Everybody! I am so glad to be here today because I've got a fun card to share with you.
This snowman family from Tonic Studio's Snowman Snuggles stamp set is so adorable and I hadn't used it yet so I decided it would be the focus of my card. Nuvo Aquaflow pens were the perfect medium to watercolor the image.
I used Moonstone shimmer paste to stencil some small snowflakes onto the background. Then, I was able to highlight the snowmen in the center of the card by ink blending Royal Plum and Siren Blue at the edges of the card. I ink blended right on top of the glimmer paste which gave it a cool effect.
I finished the card off by adding splatters of white gesso, Dream Drops in Cloud Nine and accents of Glitter Gloss.
I'm so happy to have one more Christmas card finished as I am so far behind on mine. Are any of you as far behind as I am? Let me know in the comments below if you're done with your holiday cards or still working on them.
Hi everybody! I hope you had a great week and are planning to have a little fun this weekend! I'm hoping that some of my crafty friends and I can help get your weekend off to a great start. Some of us have decided to come together to bring you the Crafty Festival of Christmas Blog Hop. We will feature holiday projects every Friday from now until Christmas. Of course, each week we will be working off of a theme and this week's theme is: Snowy or Snarky!
I decided to go with "snowy" since I've been dying to play with this adorable Rooftop Reindeer set I just got from Hello Bluebird. I started by stamping the reindeer in Black Shadow Hybrid ink from Tonic Studios. I love this ink because it is a bold black and works well with both water and alcohol based medium. Next, I stamped the chimney and extended the roof line on either side so that it filled the width of the card.
I colored the entire scene with my Copic Markers. Then I heat embossed the snowflakes onto the background using Hero Arts Sparkle Embossing Powder. I added a little extra color to the background with my blending brushes and some Distress Oxide ink in Salty Ocean.
To finish off the card I added a bunch of fun details and a lot of sparkle! I added a glossy nose on the reindeer, gave him white spots with a gel pen, and added gold to his bells. I added Nuvo Dream Drops in Cloud 9 to the sky for extra snow and texture. Finally, and this is what makes the card stand out in real life... I added Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone to the snow on the chimney and rooftop to make the snow look glittery. It picks up on the blue and violet ink tones that I had used to color the snow.
This stamp set has three other adorable deer in it as well as some really sweet sentiments. I'm looking forward to using it again and making something completely different.
Ok, that is it for today unless you all have some questions? If so, please feel free to leave me a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Now you can head over to my talented friend Jenny Hall to see what she has cooked up for you today. If you want to check out the whole list of talented crafters participating in today's hop please see the list I've added below. I'm also adding a list of products that I've used today just in case you'd like to check them out.
Hey everybody! I'm swinging by to share a quick and easy card with you today. I've been busy lately. I'm talking getting four hours of sleep a night for a little too long, kind of busy. So, when I sat down to make this card I knew that I needed to be quick, and so, I decided to stencil a fun background and put a brightly colored Christmas cutie in front of it.
I ink blended using Laguna Bay and Siren Blue inks.
If you need a circle stencil you can create one using your Tonic Circle Dies.
Next I used the Winter Wonderland Stencil and Moonstone Glimmer Paste over the ink.
I love that the Moonstone paste picks up the color of the ink below.
I colored the reindeer from Celebrate Success with my Nuvo Alcohol Markers.
Next, I gave him a holiday sweater from the recent free downloadable stamp set.
I popped the reindeer up on top of the heat embossed sentiment and adhered it with foam adhesive.
I added sequins, a blue card base, and called it a night!
Thank you for stopping by. If you're interested in checking out the products I've used on today's post I've got them listed down below.
Have an awesome day!
Maria
Hi Everybody! It's Maria here from Cardbomb. I hope you are all having a great day! Before I forget, I've got a 10% Discount for you all on your entire purchases at either Tonic Studios UK or USA!
TONIC UK 10% OFF TONIC USA 10%OFF
And, that even includes new releases like the new Tim Holtz Travel Media Mat!! In case you haven't seen it yet here's a quick look. It's got all the goodness of the original Media Mat but in a convenient travel size and it comes with neoprene case to protect when you're on the move!
Today I wanted to share with you a way to stretch your stamps to get the most out of them. Whenever I buy a stamp set I love to look at all of the individual stamps and sentiments with a critical eye to see if I can use them for more than just the intended purpose. If I can use my stamps in a variety of ways than they are instantly more valuable to me. I'm happy to tell you that the Warm Cocoa Wishes stamp set from Tonic's recent release passes the test with flying colors!
This set has so many kind and loving sentiments in it and I knew I could make a really fun non-holiday card with them. I started out by arranging many of the sentiments linearly on my stamping platform. Then I inked them up in rainbow colors (Tonic Hybrid inks) and stamped repeatedly until I had rainbow background full of "love" and "cuddles." Tonic keeps expanding their color range for these hybrid inks and they truly are vibrant and gorgeous. Even better, you can use every color with both water and alcohol based products and they won't smear!
Next, I stamped the adorable little mouse holding a mug of something steamy and comforting. I colored him in using my Nuvo alcohol markers. I used a knife to cut the mouse's hands free. Then, I stamped a bunch of hearts and colored them with Nuvo alcohol markers. I gave them a coat of Nuvo Crystal Glaze to give them some thick, glossy, shine. I also Crystal Glazed the mouse's glasses.
After that I heat embossed the sentiments in white on black cardstock and assembled the card. The final touch was adding some white gel pen to the mouse and his heart.
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I had a ton of fun making this card and I hope it might inspire you to take a second look at some of your stamp sets to see how you can stretch them to get even more out of them.
Hey Everybody! Thanks for stopping by today! I'm so glad you did because Tonic Studios has a new stamp release coming out today and it is awesome! They are celebrating by having a party over on their blog. There will be demonstrations, videos and giveaways so be sure to head over there and join the fun when you have a chance. Just CLICK HERE to head over to the Tonic Studios Blog.
DISCOUNT: If you're interested in doing a little shopping at Tonic Studios over the next month I've got a discount link for you. You can get 10% off of your order just by clicking this link-no code necessary.
Now, on to my projects! This first thing I've made is not a card... When I saw the stamp release I immediately knew that I had to use the deer from the Garden Party release with the new, FREE printable stamp set called, Christmas Outfits. I paired those up with the mug from Jolly Marshmallow Snowman to make a scene for some hot tubbing reindeer... and yes, of course they are skinny dipping!
I colored the deer, mug, outfits and trees with my Nuvo Alcohol Markers.The sky in the background was watercolored with Nuvo Aqua Flow Pens and then splattered with Glitter Gloss. The snowy, purple ground is watercolored with Lilac Waterfall Nuvo Shimmer Powders.
I love the way this scene came together so easily using a combination of new and recently released stamp sets.
Now, my favorite part of this first project was using this scene to create a funny little video. It's short and funny. I hope you'll like it.
For my next project I made a card using the big marshmallow snowman from the Jolly Marshmallow Snowman set. That big, beautiful tree is from the FREE printable called, Christmas Outfits. If you'd like to download it, you can find it over on the Tonic Studios Blog.
I started out with a watercolor wash on my background (Nuvo Aqua Flows). Then I splattered it with Glitter Gloss. I love that it gives it some texture and also looks like shimmery snow. The marshmallow snowman is also watercolored with Nuvo Aqua Flows.
The Christmas tree was colored with three colors of Nuvo Alcohol markers. I am planning to share a video on this soon as I've had some requests asking how to best color with the Nuvo markers. I made a frame for the background using my rectangle dies and I think that scalloped edge is a nice detail.
My last card is a little bit more subtle but it's still really sweet. I did a watercolor wash with my Aqua Flow pens on some watercolor paper. Then I applied some glimmer paste in Moonstone over the Snowflake stencil. It looks so beautiful and sparkly in real life. Then I used the reindeer from Celebrate Success along with a sweater from Christmas Outfits to make a cute, little Christmas reindeer.
The sweater and gift are colored with Nuvo Alcohol Markers. The reindeer stamp has arms that stick up in the air. Check out my first project again to see what the original arms look like. I really wanted the deer to wear a different outfit and it was so easy to make it happen. I just cut his cute little arms right off and put the sweater on his stubby little torso. Voila! He has arms again!
The cool thing about this Christmas outfit stamp set is that you can make the outfits work with the animals from all three of the critter sets from the last release. That means you've got a whole farm load of animals to dress up in holiday attire.
I used my rectangle dies again to cut out a sparkly piece of snowflake background. I added that to my ink blended card base and put the reindeer on top. He's popped up on foam adhesive. The sentiment was stamped in Tonic's Nuvo Black Shadow ink. This is one of my favorite inks because of how useful it is. It works with both watercolor and alcohol inks so you can use jus the one ink and never worry about your project smearing. To finish the project off I added some red confetti glitter using my Nuvo Precision Glue Pen.
Ok! That's it for my projects but I want to remind you that there is a release party over at the Tonic Studios blog. I'm participating in that party and I wanted to share my video clip with you...
Remember to use my discount links to save yourself some money if you decide to shop at Tonic Studios. The code is good on everything in the shop including this new release.
Ok, you all. I'm outta here. As always I will add links to the products that I've used below. If you have any questions about anything I've used or done today please leave me a comment and below and I'll be happy to help with anything that I can.
Hi Everybody! It's the 20th of the month and you know what that means, right?! Crafty Friends Blog Hop day where we do our best to bring you a 20% discount to our featured company on the 20th of every month-otherwise know as Twenty on Twenty! This month our featured company is one of my favorite companies ever- Hero Arts! Yes, we have a discount code for you!
I love Hero Arts for so many reasons! The stamps are high quality, the company makes extraordinary efforts to be a green company, they support their local community and they are a top company in this industry! Aside from that, the people are what makes this company truly special. I've had multiple opportunities to meet and chat with Aaron Leventhal, owner of Hero Arts. He is so dang likable, down-to-earth and knowledgeable. I was at the Hero Arts warehouse for an event at the end of last month and took some video of Aaron while he was giving us a tour. I thought I'd share a little clip of it...
I've also got a video for the cards I'm making today so before I get too far into my post, here's that video too...
And, now onto the cards I've made today... All of the cards that I'm sharing today feature the Naughty Elves stamp set which I think is hilarious! There are quite a few fun images but I was instantly drawn to this little guy with his tongue out. I just had to stick him to a flag pole...
I started this card out by foiling my white cardstock with the Snowflake Pattern Cover Plate. I love the way it looks foiled but it's quite a bit different from the equally gorgeous look you get when you die cut it. I share the die cut in my video so please check that out if you'd like to see it.
Next I used the Layering Snow Globe Fancy Dies to cut the snow globe out and build a scene for this naughty little elf. I also stamped the elf and the flag pole in the new INTENS-ified black ink (great for both copic markers and watercoloring) and colored everything with copic markers.
The background of my scene is ink blended with the Hero Hues Reactive Inks in Splash and Hawaii Blue. These inks blend so easily with a blending brush and if you haven't tried them yet, I highly recommend them. I adhered the scene to the background and filled my card with shaker guts (Hero Arts sequins). After putting acetate behind the front card panel I popped the whole front up on foam making sure to seal all of the sequins inside. I love the sentiment, "Naughty is the New Nice" and thought it fit this card perfectly.
My second card was inspired by the first card. When I built the scene I thought it was so pretty and almost didn't want to turn it into a shaker card... So, I decided to make a second card with a snowy, wintery background.
Again I blended Splash and Blue Hawaii reactive inks. Then, I spritzed them with Hero Arts shimmer spray. I let it sit to dry for a second then used a paper towel to dab up the wet spots. This lifted some of the blue ink leaving me with a blizzardy look to my card. I added more sparkly snow with the White Glimmer Metallic Ink and then added even more with a white gel pen.
I'm not really sure that this elf can explain to Santa how he ended up in this predicament but I still think the sentiment suits the card well. I finished the card off with some of the new enamel dots from both the blues and neutrals collections.
For my third card I went a little rogue... I wanted to find another way to use this naughty elf and just as I was about to cut his tongue off I realized he might want to use that tongue to catch some snowflakes. A while back I picked these snowflake sequins at Target for one dollar and they are the perfect size for this.
Of course, catching snowflakes isn't naughty, so I had to have this elf push his buddy head first off of the sign into the snow. Speaking of snow-did you know that Hero Arts has puffy white embossing powder that looks like snow? They do! They also have a snow and frothing kit to make snow and things like lattes (I linked to it at the bottom of the post so you can check it out).
Oh! Did you notice that beautiful background stamp? That's the Handrawn Snowflakes Boldprints and I've stamped it in Soft Sky ink. It's such a subtle and beautiful winter color.
Here's another look at my two non-shaker cards. These were really easy and really fun to make. If you have any questions please let me know in the comments below.
Here's a last look at all three of my cards...
Thank you so much for joining me today you guys! I hope you've enjoyed the video and cards I've shared. I want to remind you that for today and tomorrow only you can receive 20% Off of one order from Hero Arts by clicking this link to Hero Arts and adding the code: Craftyfriends20 There are some restrictions that apply to the discount (My Monthly Hero, Partner Stamps and Stamping Village Stamps) but the rest of the store is wide open for pillaging! I've added links to all of the products I've used today in the table below so please check them out if you are interested.
Have an amazing day you all! You can continue on this hop by heading over to see what Becky has made to share with us today! You can also check out the full blog hop below.
