I’ve got a bright and fun card over at A Blog Named Hero. We’re collaborating with Avery Elle, and we love their products!
Instagram Hop
Today I am thrilled to be participating in an Instagram hop for my friend Jessica Frost-Ballas. She has more than 2,000 followers, and that’s a great milestone. Congratulations Jess!
If you happen to have come here on your own, be sure to check out Jessica’s instagram account, and her blog. I hear there’s a crafty package of stamps and dies from Concord & 9th to giveaway to blog readers. There will be a $35 Butterfly Reflections Ink gift certificate given away to someone who likes/comments on her instagram post and a $15 gift certificate to The Ton Stamps given away to someone who comments on one of the instagram hop posts. And there’s more, but I don’t want to give away all the secrets.
In case you don’t instagram, here’s the card I made to celebrate friendship. It’s funny, no matter what stage of life you’re in, you always have some friends to lean on, to help you through good times and bad, and just to chat with at 3am when you can’t sleep. So this is a card I hope to send to a friend that needs a little reminder of that.
This card was inspired by some wallpaper I saw recently. In the guest room bathrooms at the M Resort. It was so intriguing to me. I’m sure that it was just “stamped” by machine to get this texture, but I was determined to try to recreate it on a card.
Here are a few close-up shots for more details.
Background was simpler than it looks. I watercolored a piece of watercolor paper using the shimmery pearl paint from the watercolor palette. And then also dropped a few bits of the silver paint onto the watercolor paper. Once that dried I trimmed it into 3/8″ by 1 1/4″ strips.
To adhere to the background I used my ATG adhesive on just a bit of the strip, and pressed that down onto a piece of scrap cardstock. The reason it appears to be lifting is that I lifted it up a bit as I adhered down the other end. Didn’t curl it, or apply too much pressure, but just enough that it had some dimension. I adhered each row in a different direction, staggering alternate rows.
A few hours after I completed the card I realized that the wallpaper wasn’t staggered. Oops.
I let the dies decide on their own which pieces stayed and which pieces were discarded. I like the organic nature of that, especially on a flower and leaves. The top layer of the flower has some Wink of Stella applied, it’s just a bit hard to capture in the photographs.
Have you used Helmar Scrap Dots adhesive? I love this stuff. It’s liquid, comes in a tube, and is very thick. And will dry in whatever shape, or depth, you’ve applied it at, which you can better see in this picture.
Congratulations, Jess! Thank you so much for asking me to participate.
You Mean the World to Me
New card over at A Blog Named Hero today. It’s a good one.
Hero Arts Love Letter
Hero Arts Blog Hop
Today I am honored to be a part of the Hero Arts + A Blog Named Hero Holiday Blog Hop! You likely came here from the wonderful Libby Hickson’s blog. I’m so thankful that I got to meet Libby this year. She’s super sweet, and fun, and I wish we had had more time to spend together. Maybe next year. 🙂
This year’s Holiday Release from Hero Arts is just spectacular, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some (if not all) of the new goodies. Here’s a card I made using one of the new background stamps, Candy Stripe bold prints. It’s such a great stamp, and I know it will see lots of use from me, year round. Paired that with one of the Lia Griffith wood block stamps, Merry & Bright by Lia. I’m hoping that there are stamps in this format for every release that Hero Arts does going forward. They’re perfect for an elegant, simple sentiment, and I will use these for a very long time.
I stamped the sentiment with versamark onto some vellum cardstock, then used the new platinum embossing powder from Hero Arts. It’s just the perfect shade of metallic for my taste. The background was stamped onto some paper and also embossed with the same embossing powder. I then used two shades of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers to color the stripes. If you notice, the top left is a stronger, darker color, and it fades out to the bottom right. I did that by coloring with the markers in the top left, and then using a waterbrush to drag the color down.
So that you could see the sentiment on the vellum better, I hand stitched it onto a piece of white cardstock, and then popped that up onto the card front. I used metallic thread for that, to match the embossing powder.
Here’s a list of the blog hop participants, I hope you’ll stop by everyone’s blog. We have some amazing projects for you, and there’s a giveaway! Hero Arts has stashed away THREE of the November 2015 My Monthly Hero kits to giveaway to readers of this hop. The winners will be randomly chosen from all of the blog hop comments, across all blogs, received by 11:59pm PST on Sunday, November 22nd. Check the Hero Arts blog for the announcement of the winner on Tuesday, November 24th.
Next stop on the hop is Niki Garcia. I’ve had a peek at what she’s made, you’re going to love it.
Hero Arts
Linda Trace
Libby Hickson
Lisa Stein
Niki Garcia
Amy Tsuruta
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Mateja Povse
Suzanne Dahlberg
Michelle Lupton
Bhavana Kesarkar
Mariana Grigsby
Chitra Menon
Gayatri Murali
Isabel Rivera Ruiz
Clare Prezzia
If you happen to find a link that doesn’t work, you can hop back to the Hero Arts Blog for a list of direct links to all the blogs in today’s hop.
Thanks for hopping by!
Pretty Pink Posh Collaboration
Come check out a fun shaker card over at A Blog Named Hero.
Let’s Go!
We have a new collaboration staring over at A Blog Named Hero, and this is my first project. Come take a look.
New Challenge
The theme for this challenge at A Blog Named Hero is “new”. Which can be interpreted in many ways. For my card, it’s a new technique, a new stamp set, new die, and new cardstock. Lots of news.
The new technique for me was “no line watercoloring”. So much fun. This was my first time doing it, and I’m far from a watercolor genius, but I loved it, and can’t wait to do more of it. Soon!
Used the new WPlus9 Botanical Bunch stamp set for the images. What a great set. I know I’ll reach for it over and over. That amazing sentiment is from the WPlus9 Quite Like You sentiment set. All of the cardstock is WPlus9, as is that pinking die. I am so thrilled with all of their products. My wallet (and husband) should hide
Please be sure to check out all of the creations that our wonderful Design Team did for this challenge, and join us in the fun. Up for grabs is a $25 gift certificate from our wonderful sponsor, Simon Says Stamp. Wish I was eligible to win that prize, Simon has been sending me lots of mail lately…