More Hero Arts Favorites

I do love Hero Arts stamps.  I love the clear, the wood mounted, the rubber cling.  Several years back I took a class from Jennifer McGuire at a Creating Keepsakes University and was just amazed at this teensy little engineer turned paper crafter!  She taught us some different techniques with Hero Arts stamps and I was sold!

So I've been collecting for a few years now and I do seem to go back to my collection of Hero Arts stamps more than some of my other collections.

Here is a card I made with a stamp from the Greeting set.

The sentiment is one from a clear stamp set which I embossed with some white Zing embossing powder. The border was done with a Recollections border I got on CLEARANCE at Michael's.  I love CLEARANCE...don't you?  All papers are Paper Trey Ink...I do love the cardstock from PTI...so nice and MEATY!

This card was inspired by one made by...yep...Jennifer McGuire....in the latest issue of PaperCrafts.

Happy Crafting!

Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Blessed Easter!

We will be spending the day with the adorable grandkids and their parents and my just graduated from college but looking for a job please help (!) son eating Honey Baked Ham (thanks, Debbie!), German potato salad made by Omie, deviled eggs, more food than can be imagined and carrot cake!  And lots of chocolate!

I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends, too!!!

And if you get some time to craft...that will be a bonus!

(and Blogger is changing it's format and I'm all befuddled!)

Using Burlap and Favorite Hero Arts Stamps

I saw some cute sample cards with burlap as an embellishment or background recently so made a few cards with one of my favorite Hero Arts/Sizzix sets ....you know, this is the set which comes with the stamps and the corresponding dies.  Love them!
I colored with Copics (not (!)...I made a huge mess so need to do more research on inks to stamp with for Copics coloring) pencils and used Gamsol (odorless minerals spirits) for some simple blending.  The Happy Easter sentiment is from Close to My Heart.  I used some Core'dinations cardstock and ran it through my Cuttlebug for a little embossing and then sanded the cardstock a bit.
After I took these photos I added a little Rock Candy Stickles to the bees and the center of the large flower but didn't retake the photo so you will just have to imagine how cute that is!

Here they are:

And a little closeup:

Also...there is a new blog in town called A Blog Named Hero which is a blog devoted to all things Hero Arts.  I love Hero Arts....it's my all time favorite stamping company (and I have a lot of favorites!).  There is a challenge going on there now so check it out!

 Happy Crafting!

A New Technique

I love technique...and I love trying new ones.  It's just like any time you try something new...there may be a few misses!  This is my first time doing this...I need to work on it a little bit...just like I need to work on my coloring skills! But isn't it oh so fun to keep trying.

Here is my card:


So...what is this new technique you ask?  Inking on coffee filters!  I had seen this on Virginia Lu's blog (Yes, Viriginia) where she had decorated a little ice cream container with coffee filters and paint and repurposed it for her craft room. It was so cute and looked like fun...and let's face it...coffee filters are dirt cheap!

I inked my coffee filter with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink, stamped them with some older Hero Arts stamps I have, cut them out and spritzed them with some Glimmer Mist. 

I inked a plain piece of cardstock for a mat and also for the sentiment (which was also from a Hero Arts set I have).  Birds and Swirls Cuttlebug folder was used for a little embossing...and lastly, I added a few Teresa Collins pearls to the centers of the flowers. 

Very simple, very easy and kind of cool the way the flowers are a little peek a boo see through!

Happy Crafting!

Giveway at Shery K Designs!

Check out Shery K Designs here for a chance to win a Spellbinder Die!  Thanks for the chance to win, Shery K!

Scalloped Edged Shaped Card

Scalloped Edged Shaped Card...that's quite a mouthful! :)

I love watching youtube videos of card making and get some email feeds about some great videos.  I love Lily Pad videos...she speeds them up and just has this quirky music playing in the background and they are just fun to watch.  Anyway, she did one recently with a Spellbinder die and I thought it was very cute so decided to do my own with the same shape.  You can see hers HERE (as well as her video) and my versions here:

I inked the background with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and if you leave the paper in the die then you can get a cute little white border around it.  I used the Jillibean/Unity Gazpacho Soup stamp set (SO CUTE!) and cut the clothes hanging on the line out of brightly colored Paper Trey Ink papers.  Colors in this photo are not quite right...and I did not doing any adjustments so it is what it is! ;)

I used a little Glossy Accents on the teensy birds.  And that was about it.

Happy Crafting!

And a total non crafting aside....if you are a wildlife lover or a birder then you should check out the eagle cam in Decorah, IA.  It is a live feed...24 hours a day of a pair of eagles and now their 3 hatchlings (less than a week old).  It is just fascinating to watch and read about.  The parents are feeding the eaglets about every 2 hours so if you don't get a glimpse of the babies when you first log on (the mother or father sits on them) check back.  In a few more days they will not be under the parents quite so much.

Click HERE for eaglemania!

Coloring with Copics

As I mentioned in a previous post I had bought some Copic markers recently.  I swore I wouldn't get into buying them because of their price but then I just saw such cute things done with them on all of your blogs so they became a "have to have".  I bought a few...not many...I really wanted some do do faces with so I bought a set of skin colored markers...then I bought some others...and then a few others...and...and...
LOL!
Here is my first attempt at some blending. 

I watched a few tutorials (well, really only 1) and thought...well, what can be so tough about coloring?  I've been coloring as long as I can remember!  I've taken a few art classes so get the idea of highlights and shading so figured it would be about the same.  Well, it's not as easy as it looks!  HAHA...so now I will be watching more videos and tutorials!  
I used the cute little digital image from Whimsie Doodles and just colored away.
Since I had some "bleed" above her head I just ended up cutting the cute little girl out and mounting her on a frame cut out with a Spellbinder die which was inked with some Stampin' Up ink (can we say run on sentence?).  I used some pretty paper from K and Company for the card base and added a bit of seam binding for a bow which I tied with my great little handmade BOW MAKER seen HERE. I put a couple of little pearls on her hair bows and used a little white Signo pen work.

She's cute...I can live with her but will be trying to improve those coloring skills! :)

Happy Sunday and Happy Crafting!