Tag Archives: Hero Arts

Busy, busy, busy!

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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This week is already getting away from me! I spent yesterday writing instructions, getting together class supply lists, and doing my day job too! Last night was kitting classes and finishing up the Neon Card Class (I’ve updated that post with all 4 cards!).

Tonight I’m teaching and this weekend is the big Holiday Hoopla at The Paperie. I’m teaching the December Album featuring Bazzill Lickety Slippers and Simple Stories Handmade Holiday paper and stickers:

And on Saturday each of the Creative Team members will be teaching a mini class where you’ll end up going home with 6 completed gifts/home decor pieces and lots of additional ideas! I’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with a picture of the felt brooch I’m teaching – it’s made with the same poinsettia die from Tim Holtz that’s on the album cover above!

The album class is sold out but there are a couple of spots left in the Saturday classes – it’s well worth the time and money, trust me!

All that being said, I’m going to be pretty quiet around here this week, lots on my plate!

Hope to see some of you at the classes this week and remember, we can always do a kit if you can’t make it in person!

S.

Bring on a Neon Christmas!

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Cards, Classes

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I’m teaching a new class next Tuesday night at The Paperie and it’s going to be a fun and bright one!

In the class you’ll receive this Hero Arts stamp set:

Miracle of the Holidays

credit: Hero Arts

and we’ll be playing with pieces from this one too:

credit: Hero Arts

And to go along with those, we’ll be using the new Neon Inks!

credit: Hero Arts

It’s going to be a bright night, my friends! 🙂

Now, I’ll be honest, I lived through the 80’s and when these inks were released I said, “Never, no way, not gonna happen. Been there, done that!” However (and this is a big however) I played with them and have learned ways to tone them down so they’re just gorgeous colours, not in your face, need-to-wear-your-sunglasses bright! Yay!

RJ

Meet RJ, Rudolph’s boy. When I gave him a red nose, it was brought to my attention that Rudolph does not wear a sweater (cough, cough, Liz, cough). Picky, picky. So this is Rudolph Junior and he gets cold up there in the North Pole, a sweater is a necessity!

The colours are brighter when stamped on white instead of kraft…

Ornaments

…but are not totally in your face when in a small dose like this!

Now, most of us have teens, or preteens, or even littler ones in our lives and they didn’t live through the 80’s. And that means they actually like the neon colours – true fact, my friends! So for those on your Christmas list, I made this card, loosely based on one I made in Orlando at the Collins Rep Show:

Patchwork

Trust me, those kids in your lives will love this one! And, be honest now, it is kind of fun instead of traditional red and green, hey?!?

Finally, subway art is really big right now and it’s so easy to make your own. Here’s my neon twist on it!

Subway Art

On top of the 4 cards, you go home with the stamp set, and you get to play with the neon inks (which will also go home with one lucky person!) – it’s going to be a fun night!

Call or email The Paperie to sign up and hopefully, I’ll see you next week!

Do you ever wonder where the Creative Team gets their class ideas? Well, I can tell you that this class was inspired by a card I submitted for publication – the theme was non-traditional Christmas card colours. After using the neon inks in Orlando, I decided that would be the direction I would take this class. And that card I submitted? Check out page 47 of Create: Christmas Cards to see it – it’s also a Hero Arts card! 🙂

S.

Things on Thursday

04 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Techniques, Things on Thursday..., Tutorials

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1. As you’re reading this I”m flying to Orlando! Yay! I’m headed off for four days of classes and workshop with the best in the industry at the Collins Rep show. I’m excited – the show in Houston last year was fabulous so I know what to anticipate this year and it makes me even more eager to be there!

2. Aussie Scrap Source has a great tutorial on altering pictures with paint. I definitely have to try out the first technique, the sample looks amazing!

credit: Aussie Scrap Source

3. I love this card by Shari Carroll. It looks fabulous and is so easy! I took a Hero Arts class from her in Houston last year and she and Jennifer McGuire were amazing! Unfortunately, neither are there this year but I’m sure the HA teachers will live up to my expectations!

credit: Shari Carroll

4. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is up to her creative genius again! She has an awesome  tutorial on how to make your own vellum leaves – a must try!

5. There’s a few videos here on the new Ranger Metallic Distress Stains. I don’t think I need to tell you that I’m excited to be trying those this weekend with Tim Holtz! 🙂

credit: Ranger

I’ll be away from blog land until late next week but look for a full post then about the Collins Rep Show!

S.

Index Card A Day – #42 & #43

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in ICAD2

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I’m very behind on posting my index cards and am very, very behind on the number of cards I should have – vacation pushed me back and I have a class this weekend to prep for so it will be a bit before I can catch up. I do have a couple of posts for you this week of the ones that are completed.

The two I’m showing you today were made the night before I left on vacation at a crafty night with Tina and Marg. Technically, since my flight was 6am, I should have been in bed, not making index cards! 🙂

#42 – Being happy…

This one has a lot going on. I first rubbed purple ink through a floral stencil and didn’t like how it looked – flowers and purple are not really me! Then I used molding paste through the Zinnia stencil and once it dried, misted and inked through some punchinella stencils, a nice little gift from my friend Marg!

I stamped the sentiment on another pre-made background – that seems to be my favourite thing to do lately – and cut it out before adhering to the card.

I love the mix of colours and texture, even the hints of purple flowers that show through!

#43 – let’s go for a ride

This is a flat one but with enough other interesting things going on that I felt leaving off the dimension was ok – strange for me!

I used my blending tool to cover the background with Distress Ink and then I flicked it with water to get the lighter spots. I used Metallic Paint Dabbers and ink with the punchinella templates, then stamped the bike, sentiment, and leaves with Archival Ink. I used a water brush on the interior of the leaves to lighten the colour and added accents with my Sakura Stardust pen.

I love the little bit of shine the pen and the metallic paint gives the card!

See you tomorrow for some more cards and maybe a sneak peek of this weekend’s Yearlong Album class!

S.

Index Card A Day – #35

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in ICAD2

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I had totally planned to use my new wood veneer stars for this card but then I got an idea in my head for my new stamp and went with it.

I first painted my card with Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paint in Mars Black. Once that dried I stamped the background and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I knocked off a  lot of powder before heating to get an orange peel type of texture.

Finally, I simply coloured in the open flower spaces with my Koh-i-noor watercolour pencils and misted with water to blend a little.

Love how it turned out and I decided to leave it alone – no quote or sentiment this time! And the shiny texture is great!

I’m determined to use those stars tonight….. 🙂

S.

Index Card A Day – #11

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in ICAD2

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Good morning everyone! Are you all shocked at my early morning post? 🙂 There’s a good reason for it – I’m today’s hostess for the Index Card A Day challenge at Daisy Yellow!

For those of you who frequent here to read my ramblings – welcome back, I love to have you here everyday! For those of you who are hopping over from Tammy’s blog – welcome! I hope you find this crazy insight into my process entertaining if nothing else, and that you find something here that inspires you a little!

Onto the card…

My prompt was alphabet stamps, can you tell? Yeah, me neither – it was a journey to get here, let me tell you!

When Tammy asked me to host a day and I chose alphabet stamps as my prompt, I was super excited! I love my alpha stamps, easy peasy…. or not. Pressure people, I felt pressure, and my mojo ran away, tail between its legs. Seriously, it was a bad scene – I won’t subject you to the initial reject cards, you might never come back and that would make me sad. 😦

Finally yesterday I said, “Enough! Pull up your big girl panties, Sara, and just do it already!” Ok, then.

And here’s how it started:

See, a great base of letters – awesome! And then a thin layer of gesso, smooshed around and scraped a bit for texture:

So far, so good! A bit of dimension, letters happening, I have a great quote in mind to stamp out, on a roll people, I was on a roll! I misted:

And tried a ghosting technique:

Hmmmmm….

Let’s do away with that! Mist and wipe:

OK, I’ll make it work. Add some more mist:

And blot:

Ok, I like the colours, you can still see the letters; better. Now, to add the quote:

My teeny, tiny alphas, then my favourite Lawn Fawn alphas:

Finish with my well-used $1.50 set:

Now the fun stuff – Twinkling H2O’s!

Paint the edges:

Still not working for me. Argh.

Tissue paper and multimedium to the rescue!

As you can tell, at this point I was determined to make this thing work, even if it ended up with 37 layers of stuff!

More twinkling H2O’s – lots of it! I love that shimmer!

Add some shimmery painted hearts:

We’re getting somewhere, and I can still see the alpha stamps under all those layers! This is good, my friends!

And then, I got “help”:

AKA: no more pictures!

I simply added the last line of the quote to my card, adhered the hearts and called it done! I love the texture:

…and in real life, you can see all the layers peeking through, including all those alpha stamps!

The moral of this story, the alphabet stamps were a prompt – and they prompted me to layer. Without them, I wouldn’t have the depth or texture I have on the finished card and so, I’m happy. The shimmer is a.maz.ing. And the colours are incredible – I couldn’t take a picture that did them justice. They are so vibrant it’s ridiculous!

And that quote? It’s Audrey Hepburn:

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m Possible!'”

Meet me here tomorrow (at a more reasonable hour of the day!)  for the next instalment of the Tuesday Techniques – Stencil series. We’re playing with paint – yay!

S.

Tuesday Techniques – Dry Embossing: Faux Letterpress

22 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Tuesday Techniques

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One of my favourite ways to play with dry embossing is to do something called Faux Letterpress. All you need besides the regular supplies is ink!

supplies

Now, you all know my love of Distress Ink and how they are my go to ink for all things crafty, right? Well, I don’t normally use them for this technique… :0 I know, I know, it’s shocking but I do have my reasons!

Usually I will use an embossing folder for this that has a lot of white, or open, space and Distress Ink just doesn’t play nicely with that much area on a plastic folder. However, the Hero Arts Shadow Inks are a dye ink that are formulated to work well with stamps that require a large amount of coverage. They look a little splotchy a first but as they dry and soak into your paper they smooth out to a perfect finish. And they are awesome for Faux Letterpress!

I also like the Hero Arts/Sizzix Stamp&Emboss line for this since you get a coordinating stamp and embossing folder.

First, ink up your stamp and stamp away! (I used markers and a mist of water to do my impression and make it look like watercolour.)

Then, you do the Faux Letterpress. Ink up the solid side of your embossing folder, the side that has the most raised area. Another reason the Shadow Inks work well with this is because they have a firm, felt ink pad so the ink doesn’t press into the recessed areas of your embossing folder like it would with a foam ink pad.

Now, place your stamped piece in the folder, carefully lining up the image, then run it through your machine. All the inked areas on the folder will be pressed into your surface while the raised areas remain uncoloured.

Here’s a more basic example:

I just inked up my folder, stamped an image over the inked area, then embossed. The fun thing here is that it looks as though the stamped image is under the embossed area!

Finally, I did one tag with Distress Ink so you could see the difference in the inks.

It turns out really splotchy but I do like the Distress Ink look here because I’m using a less open design and the design lends itself to a grungier feel anyway. This would be perfect on the front of one of those always hard to do male cards!

And, so you can compare easily, the three tags together:

I finished off my original  tag with some twine, a stamped and embossed mini tag, and some Tim Holtz doodads.

Hope you enjoyed! I’ll have one more tutorial on embossing next week and then I’ll have to rack my brains for something new! If you have seen anything or have questions about a certain technique, let me know – maybe I can take that on some Tuesday!

As always, leave me a link in the comments if you try this out – I’d love to see your creations too!

S.

Love Cards that I Love!

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Cards, ScrapBook, Techniques

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And I love them because they are made with the brand spanking new Spring Seasonal Distress Ink Colours – Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade, and Shaded Lilac. Seriously though, don’t they sound awesome, even before you know what the colours are? Yup. They do!

I wanted to give the inks a test run, see how the colours dried and blended, so I made two super simple cards using the Hero Arts Lotus Background (one of my faves!) and an Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday set – Love Always Wins.

For the first one, I simply added ink randomly to the stamp, misted with water to allow the inks to blend, and stamped onto watercolour paper. Once it was dry, I added the sentiment and some twine:

For the second, I wanted to see more of the true colour so I swiped each ink pad over the stamp to make three lines of colour. I lightly misted with water to get some slight blending and again stamped onto watercolour paper. Another awesome sentiment from Ali Edwards and some twine and I called it done:

So…. simple, but I love the colours and the texture of the watercolour paper added just enough interest!

Have a great weekend, see some of you at The Paperie tomorrow for the sale and Taffety’s baked goodies!

S.

Let’s go!! (Deep breath)

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Classes, Week in the Life 2012

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Ok, today is the day – Week in the Life starts.

I have my album ready, the daily sheets printed, a folder set up on my computer, camera batteries charged and memory cards cleared.

Now, I just have to keep up with what’s happening every second then remember to take a picture of it all and write it all down! Yikes!

I’ve tried to do the December Daily before and, although I was really good at the picture thing, I was terrible at writing down the details so the albums (2 of them!) never got finished. I’m counting on you guys to keep me going this time and to hold me accountable to finishing the project!

I’m looking forward to it because we have a big week ahead – eye recheck for M and her kinderstart day for the month, G’s birthday and birthday picture session, L’s birthday party, a night out for D and I, G starting regular gymnastics – he’s too old for the parent and tot session now – plus all the other regular stuff that happens around here. Lots of photo taking opportunities mixed in with pics of my breakfast!

On another note, I’m teaching a Hero Arts card class tomorrow night at The Paperie. We’re doing 3 cards with three different techniques and using the Hero Arts/Studio Calico Calico Borders stamp set, which everyone gets to take home! Call The Paperie if you’re interested in going, there’s always room for one more and we’ll be playing with alcohol inks:

alcohol inks

masking:

one layer card

and watercolour paper:

stains and watercolour paper

It should be fun!

I’m not guaranteeing a Tuesday Techniques post tomorrow since I have to kit for this class and organize today’s pictures but I’m hoping to get it done. You’ll have to stop back and see how productive I will be tonight – think I can fit it all in?

S.

Creative Chemistry 101

28 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Classes, ScrapBook, Techniques

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I’ve written here and I’ve tweeted about how much I am loving the Tim Holtz class – Creative Chemistry 101 through Online Card Classes. I’ve done quite a few online classes, and this may just be the best! Though, the Inspiration Showcase class with Jennifer McGuire is up there too. Let’s just call it a tie!

I’m having a blast learning about the chemistry behind paints, inks, stains, markers. And just hearing Tim talk about how he got started in the business, why he doesn’t clean stamps, how Distress Inks came to be, and more is worth the money, forget the other stuff!

Here are a few tags I’ve made – pretty basic, I really just wanted the technique on these, but I’ll also show you a card for an upcoming class that combines a couple of different techniques.

From left to right, top row:

Blended Spritz & Flick

Wrinkle-Free Distress

Layered Misting

Bottom row, left to right:

Stamping with Stains

Marbled Stains

I’ve tried a few other as well, but they’re not complete – I’m waiting on tags (black and kraft) and markers! And, before someone asks, the reason I’m waiting for those specific tags is that they are coated and so are a better surface to work on – I’ve tried office tags and they’re just no good!

My favourite is the Stamping with Stains tag – love the bright colours, the white stamping and the black images, which is why I use the white stamping technique on this card, along with the Alcohol Ink Agates technique:

This is just a prototype, but the techniques are very cool! The card class will be the end of April, we’ll make 3 cards, and this stamp set is included! Pretty awesome!

You can join the Creative Chemistry class anytime, the content is available forever, it’s fantastic even for those few scrapbookers who aren’t Tim fanatics, and Tim does a minimum of 2 videos a day – worth every penny and more! Go sign up! Now! You’ll thank me, I promise!

S.