Hero Arts Holiday Release + Blog Hop!

Happy Launch Day!!! Today the incredible holiday release from Hero Arts is available, yay! The collection has clear stamps, cling backgrounds, dies, stencils, pastes, glitter, and something new and exciting coming from Hero Arts - hot foiling plates! There is so much goodness in this release, I love it all!

For my post today, I decided to give you a little behind the scenes look at some of the things that happen before we launch a catalog! I'm not sure if you all know this, but I'm an actual Hero Arts employee. One of my roles is managing our Creative Team of artists. For our catalog releases, all of the products are shipped to me, and I bundle them into boxes to send to our artists. This is what that looks like - a dining room table, covered with stacks of wonderful new products! It's pretty exciting, I'm not gonna lie!

One member of our Creative Team, Ilina, lives relatively close to me in Georgia, so she gets her products hand-delivered. Here she is, looking adorable, and me, looking tired and ROUGH. Ha!

This all happened months ago. It's a long process to get products from concept into your hands!

Some of you may know, for big catalog releases, we offer a subset of the products to our independent stores prior to launching them ourselves. Part of that process is creating a whole bunch of sample cards to send to those stores. I spend a ton of time in Mass Production Mode!

Some of the samples are made with printouts, but I like to add a little "by-hand" touch as well, to give them a little extra something-something.

It's all a huge amount of work, and sometimes I have to do it while I'm doing other work! Here I am, creating Looking Glass Holiday Kittens while on a Zoom call with my Hero Arts coworkers!

The cards eventually came together. This batch features Finch Greetings.

And after all that work, they end up in a "glamour shot" for our website! 🙂 

The products featured on these cards in the photo include: Holiday Candle Arrangement, Pumpkin Bunch, Looking Glass Holiday Kitten, Snowflake Corner Fancy Die, Season Words Fancy Die, Finch Greetings and Wishing You Tree.

Another thing I do is film overview videos! Here's a look at this entire release.

And I do LIVES! I'll be on the Hero Arts Facebook & YouTube pages today, walking through the new products. Tomorrow night (Thursday 8/25) at 7pm ET, I'll be live once again on the Hero Arts Facebook page for the Creative Team Crafty Hour, creating with new products. And on Friday 8/26 at noon ET, I'll be on the Scrapbook & Cards Today Facebook page!

And one more thing I do - I organize Stamp-Alongs! And, I hope you'll join us for this next one!

So that's a little glimpse at what I do!

Now let's see what the talented artists hopping along with us today are sharing! Make sure you comment along the way as you hop - Hero Arts will give away *THREE* $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Wednesday, August 31st at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

Hero Arts
Channin Pelletier
Daniel West
Emily Midgett
Ilina Crouse
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Kelly Taylor
Libby Hickson <-- you are here!
Lydia Fiedler
Michelle Short
Mindy Eggen
Pocono Pam
Seeka
Special Guests:
Alberto Gava
Laura Bassen
Nichol Spohr

Thanks for stopping by!

August My Monthly Hero Release!

Hello and welcome! Today I'm joining the launch of the August 2022 My Monthly Hero kit from Hero Arts! I am so in love with this kit. The team has shared so many GORGEOUS versions of it, using all kinds of brilliant ink combinations. For my card today, I went with the basics - for the most part, I only used the items included in the kit itself.

Here's a look at the full kit. It contains these four layering stencils, perfect for building the layered desert scene. The Core Ink cube colors are Sand, Caramel, Tangerine and Pine. There are dies, messages, and some PearlEx powder, which is so shimmery and gorgeous!

I used the four ink colors in the kit to build my scene. For the cacti, I did one lighter layer with the Pine, then came in a little heavier with the detailed stencil. The things I added which weren't in the kit are the black ink for the sentiment, and the Pumpkin card base. I distressed the edges of my stenciled panel, just for fun.

Let's talk for a minute about the PearlEx. It's extremely tough to photograph, but the shimmer is so pretty in person! I inked on the Caramel ink on the mountains, then with the stencil still in place, brushed on some PearlEx with a dry brush. It's so easy! The PearlEx sticks pretty well to the ink, but I also sealed it with a little hairspray to make sure it won't rub off. You can also use a spray sealing product. I found it fun to paint on PearlEx with a wet paintbrush as well.

I cannot wait to play a bit more with these stencils - I definitely want to create a night scene, perhaps in pretty shades of purple!

Now it's time to hop. Please visit the rest of the amazing team and see what they are sharing today!

Hero Arts
Channin Pelletier
Dana Joy
Daniel West
Emily Midgett
Ilina Crouse
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Kelly Taylor
Libby Hickson
Lydia Fiedler
Maria Willis
Michelle Short
Mindy Eggen
Pocono Pam
Seeka
Special Guests:
Jennifer Kotas
Meg Brooks
Nichol Spohr
Rebecca Keppel

Thanks for stopping by,

Here's a look at the products included in this release. I don't use affiliate links, this is only for information. If you're going to click to shop, please considering supporting one of the other artists in the blog hop.

August 2022 My Monthly Hero [ HA ] Get Them All August Add-ons [ HA ] CG891 Cactus Bold Prints [ HA ] CG892 Road Signs Bold Prints [ HA ] CM655 Seaside Highway HeroScape [ HA ] CM656 Roadside Messages [ HA ] SB339 Roadside Messages Bundle (D) [ HA ] CM657 Winding Road HeroScape [ HA ] SB340 Winding Road HeroScape Bundle (C) [ HA ] DF079 Luggage Fancy Dies (D) [ HA ] DF080 On The Road Window Fancy Die (F) [ HA ] DF081 Looking Glass Forest &... [ HA ] SA207 Desert Road Stencil [ HA ]

June My Monthly Hero Release!

Hello! Today I'm joining the release blog hop for the June My Monthly Hero kit from Hero Arts! I am so in love with this beautiful mermaid-themed kit. The images are large and fun to color, and the artwork is spectacular!

For my project, I created a mini flat-lay art journal! If you're interested to learn how I made the actual journal, leave a comment and let me know. Maybe I'll pull together a video - I've been wanting to get back into video making.

But for my project today, I'm sharing the art journal spread I created using the kit.

I used some old acrylic paints from my stash to create the background. Texture was layered on with Abstract Waves and Tile Pattern stencils using more paint and Glitter Hero Paste. White bubbles were adding by painting white paint onto bubble wrap and pressing it gently onto the page.

For the ocean floor, I added one of my very favorite things - Sand Embossing Powder!

The mermaid and seaweed were stamped onto Dina Wakley Collage Tissue Paper with Intens-ified Black Ink, colored lightly with Copics and added with matte medium. Once the glue was dry, I added Stabilo pencil - blue and green to the seaweed, and some black around the images. I used a water brush to smear it a bit.

To finish up the page, I added some White Hero Wax around the edges for some extra shine. The mermaid has a lot of texture under her, since I added her over top of my stenciling. If I were to redo it, I would probably add her first, and then add the stenciling. Live and learn. 🙂

Here's a look at this beautiful kit:

Now it's time to hop! Visit these amazing artists and see what they've created today. Every comment you leave along the way gets you in the running for a $50 gift card to the Hero Arts store, drawn randomly from the comments. You have until Sunday, June 12th at 11:59pm Pacific to enter, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

Hero Arts
Channin Pelletier
Dana Joy
Daniel West
Debi Adams
Emily Midgett
Ilina Crouse
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Libby Hickson
Lydia Fiedler
Maria Willis
Michelle Short
Mindy Eggen
Pocono Pam
Seeka
Special Guests:
Jennifer Kotas
Jenn Shurkus
Kelly Taylor
Meg Brooks
Nichol Spohr
Rebecca Keppel
And visit on Instagram:
Andrew Granick

Thanks for stopping by,

Here's a look at the products included in this release. I don't use affiliate links, this is only for information. If you're going to click to shop, please considering supporting one of the other artists in the blog hop.

June 2022 My Monthly Hero [ HA ] Get Them All June Add-ons [ HA ] CG883 Dark Sea Bold Prints [ HA ] CG884 Antique Hero Map Bold Prints [ HA ] CM625 Mermaid Wishes [ HA ] DF061 Mermaid Wishes Frame Cuts (D) [ HA ] SB318 Mermaid Wishes Bundle [ HA ] CM626 Jawsome Sharks [ HA ] DF062 Jawsome Sharks Frame Cuts (C) [ HA ] SB319 Jawsome Sharks Bundle [ HA ] CM627 Message in a Bottle [ HA ] DF065 Message in a Bottle Frame Cuts (D) [ HA ] SB320 Message in a Bottle Bundle [ HA ] CM630 Mermaid Cove [ HA ] DF063 Lighthouse & Sailboat Cover... [ HA ] DF064 Looking Glass Pearl (E) [ HA ] SA197 Tide Stencil [ HA ]