Hero Arts 2018 Catalog Release Blog Hop + Giveaway!

(This is my second post today - please click HERE or scroll down to see a fun post about making Christmas card throughout the year!)

 Hello and welcome! Today is an exciting day over at Hero Arts! The new 2018 Catalog products are launching in the Hero Arts store! I'm part of a giant blog hop to celebrate - you should have arrived here from Kelly Latevola's blog (and I'm sure if you did, you are still swooning - can't wait to see what she colored today!). If this is your first stop, go ahead and head back to the Hero Arts blog to start from the beginning!

Today I'm sharing a few of the cards I made for the printed catalog. I had so much fun playing with these products!

For my first card, I created a little scene by combining the Make a Fountain set with the Trellis Fancy Die. First, I stamped the parts of the fountain and colored it with my Copics. The path leading up the fountain was drawn by hand and colored. The little bushes along the path are another new set, Layered Topiary - I stamped them without worrying about lining them up perfectly. When I added the trellis to the card, I only partially adhered it, so the doors can open. Another detail that you can't really see in my photos - I added some of the new Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen to the water of the fountain, to make it look "wet".

The next card was a little bit of a labor of love, but I really do love it! There are several fun new Color Layering sets in this release, which I love. But one thing I especially love is that with most of them, the final layer is an outline image, so you can use that line image for coloring! Here I used the Color Layering Elephant set.

I stamped and masked the elephant several times to create my "herd". To give the gray elephants some variation, I colored them with three different "families" of gray Copics - toners (T1, T3, T5), neutrals (N0, N3, N5) and cools (C1, C3, C5). For my stand out ellie, I went with violets (V04-06). I had to add a little pink (R20) to their cheeks, because that's what I do!

The message I used is from a set called Weird and Wonderful. There are so many great messages in this set - I love all the weirdness!

For my next card, I used another favorite from this release - Support Prayers Love. This stamp set was developed as we were all reeling from the natural disasters that struck last fall - the multiple hurricanes, the fires in California, the earthquake in Mexico. Hero Arts has a long tradition of giving back - it's one of the many reasons I am proud to work with this company. You can learn more about their efforts on their Giving Page. All profits from this stamp set are donated to charity. There are four new Destination woodblock stamps for fundraising as well - Destination Puerto Rico, Destination Napa Valley, Destination Mexico and Destination Florida. They go along with the Destination Texas stamp, which already existed but was designated as a giving stamp last fall.

For the card above, I used a combination of Copic markers and Bold Inks. A great thing about the Bold Inks - they are Copic-friendly, so I can color and not worry about bleeding. The hands are a solid image, so I stamped them in Caramel, using second generation inking, the added E00 Copic coloring right over them. The Earth images in the background were stamped in Moss ink, and then colored with BG11, while the heart-shaped Earth was stamped in Intense Black and colored with G24 and BG13.

And finally, my last card - for this one I played with a GORGEOUS new woodblock stamp called Flowering Nasturtium. I heat embossed it in gold on black cardstock, then colored with my colored pencils. I love the vibrant look you can achieve when doing this! I added a few sequins from the Champagne mix to finish the card. The gold matting was done by painting with Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry Colors gold paint on Kraft paper. It's so shimmery and pretty in real life. The gold embossed message is also from the Weird and Wonderful set that I used above. The Flowering Nasturtium stamp also has a matching die available, which is super handy!

Alrighty! That was a lot of card info! Now it's time to hop. The hop is both huge and AMAZING - I'm so honored to even be associated with this talented list of stampers! Be sure to visit everyone along the hop and leave comments - Hero Arts will be giving away THREE $50 gift certificates to lucky winners drawn from the blog comments across the hop. You have until Thursday, February 22 at 11:59 pacific to leave those comments!

The Hero Arts Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Kristina Werner
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Yana Smakula
Cathy Zielske
May Sukyong Park
Nichol Spohr
Michelle Short
Wanda Guess
Amy Tsuruta
Lydia Fiedler
Heather Ruwe
Laurie Willison
Clare Prezzia
Iliana Myska
Emily Midgett
Janette Kausen
Jenn Shurkus
Sean Fetterman
Simon Hurley
Joan Bardee
Megan Hoeppner
Lisa Stein
Ilina Crouse
Amy Kolling
Rubeena Ianigro
Kelly Latevola
Libby Hickson (you are here!)
Lucy Abrams

Be sure to visit Lucy Abrams next - she is a longtime friend of Hero Arts and is so sweet and so completely amazing - we're absolutely thrilled she's part of our hop today!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Affiliate links are used on this blog, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting me, and clicking on my links to shop!

Hero Arts Make a Fountain Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Trellis Fancy Die Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Layered Topiary Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen Shop at: Hero
Hero Arts Color Layering Elephant Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Weird and Wonderful Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Support Prayers Love Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Destination Napa Valley Shop at: Hero
Hero Arts Destination Puerto Rico Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Destination Mexico Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Destination Florida Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Destination Texas Shop at: Hero
Hero Arts Flowering Nasturtium Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Flowering Nasturtium Frame Cuts Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Caramel Bold Ink Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Moss Bold Ink Shop at: Hero
Hero Arts Intense Black Ink Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Champagne Sequins Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Make a Fountain Frame Cuts Shop at: Hero
Hero Arts Layered Topiary Frame Cuts Shop at: Hero	Hero Arts Color Layering Elephant Frame Cuts Shop at: Hero