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.
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!
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Love your cards
ReplyDeleteDear Libby - First, you do not look "rough." You always look beautiful. Second, WOW! "Mass production" is right! Third, your cards/samples turned out beautifully! Fourth, I LOVED this behind-the-scenes look at how HA works. BOWLED OVER by the fabulousness of this release!
ReplyDeleteLori S in PA
p.s. The video was EXCELLENT. Your reading / speaking skills are to be admired! I just made a video for something at school and it took me a few tries...
ReplyDeleteI really love the birds. The kitty is extra cute, too. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteLibby, What an amazing job you do! That kitten card is the sweetest.
ReplyDeleteAmazing!
ReplyDeleteThis was really cool! Always neat to get a sneak peek of “behind the scenes”! This is a dream job for me! -Amanda Bond @thatcraftgolden
ReplyDeleteThanks for the behind the scenes!
ReplyDeleteWOW! mass production beauty! I LOVE it
ReplyDeleteThis was awesome to see
ReplyDeleteThank you for this peek "behind the scenes" - I never realized how much work goes into a release, so I appreciate your sharing a little piece of what you do. Keep up the good work and thank you for all that you do!
ReplyDeleteLibby, it was so interesting to see your process of printing & such. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe process is interesting. The creations are wonderful. Coloring & more are great.
ReplyDeleteMelissa
"Sunshine HoneyBee"
Thanks for sharing a "behind the scenes" peek at what you've been up to! Oh my goodness, I sure hope you aren't having to mass produce intricate ink blended backgrounds or watercolor painted designs. Even so, I can only imagine the time it takes to cross all the must-do items off your to-do list.
ReplyDeleteStill, it sounds like a super fun job!
Libby this is awesome, I love reading all about your behind the scene post! My LSS shown some of the new products, and it was so much fun to see them.
ReplyDeleteThe video is wonderful and "mass" production is an understatement. Holy moly!
ReplyDeleteWOW... you are one very busy woman... I love this release. I cannot wait to try some... thank you for all your hard work.... :) tyfs
ReplyDeleteGoodness! Seeing all of those products makes my heart go pitter patter, but thinking of sending them out and organizing everything would give me a different palpitation! Love everything the DT puts together
ReplyDeleteLook at you! Loved seeing the behind-the-scenes and can fully appreciate all your hard work! Thank You 💕
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, Libby, you certainly do have your hands full, sending out all the new releases to your artists. That's quite a job! You must be a very organized person to accomplish all this; it's very impressive!
ReplyDeleteWow! You are incredibly productive! Your designs are incredible!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the video you made showcasing all these new products and it was fun having a look "behind the scenes" and seeing some of these beautiful samples! What a fabulous job you have!
ReplyDeleteWhew... that's a lot of production!
ReplyDeleteLove the beautiful cards you created! The snowflake corner card and the scene with the kitten are a couple of my favorites!
Loving this new Holiday Release and your cards. Thank you for sharing,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the behind scenes pics and story. My favorite card is with the Looking Glass Kitten. Darling!
ReplyDeleteWow! You’ve been busy! I had no idea what went into a big release like this! Thanks for the behind-the-scenes details! Your creativity is amazing!
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing to see all that you do, Libby. You work so hard and still manage to create beautiful cards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your hard work—Will not publish my name—Marie Walters
ReplyDeleteAmazing creations! I love it all. Hero Arts has given us another release of fabulous crafty goodness! Thanks fir sharing. -Linda Gorman
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching your video with a quick look at the items in your new release, My wishlist continues to grow,
ReplyDeleteThis was so cool to see a behind the book view! What a busy lady you are, but what a fun job! Thanks! Lisascreativeniche
ReplyDeleteWow!! Now that is production mode! Amazing new release, hard to choose what to pick!
ReplyDeleteSo much fun! This release is just WOW!!!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous cards, Libby! And so much hard work to prepare for launch! You are amazing!
ReplyDeleteMarisela Delgado said: So awesome! mariandmonsterd@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteThanks for the “behind the scenes” commentary. Love t.
ReplyDeleteWhile it does liik like a ton of hard work it also looks like soooo much fun! It must be so exciting to finally see all that work come to fruition. Y'all did good! It's a really great release, I'm so excited to see all the new hot foil plates!
ReplyDeleteSo much work so that I can have a lot of fun. Thank you Libby for all that you do to make it all happen for me/us! Love my Hero Arts team!
ReplyDeleteThanks for a look into your life at Hero Arts.
ReplyDeleteSounds fascinating - always something different.
And always beautiful product. thanks for sharing
txmlhl(at)yahoo(dot)com
Wow wow wow! You are a superhero! Wonderful work. Thanks for sharing your creativity!
ReplyDeleteTHANKS FOR SHARING THE BEHIND THE SCENES
ReplyDeleteWhat a job! Thank you for the behind the scenes look!
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed this behind the scenes post! thanks for sharing the process and thanks for sharing the lovely projects!
ReplyDeleteGreat live video on the new products! Love your gorgeous cards!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
You have been very busy creating!
ReplyDeleteLove all of your cards and look forward to seeing you live on the FB page.
Thanks for sharing your talent.
Wow! That looks like a ton of work making the sample cards! But the cards are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteWow, Libby - you are one busy lady! Thanks for all you do!
ReplyDeleteHow fun to see a bit behind the scenes!! And your cards are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThat is quite some job Libby, and seems to involve a little bit (or a lot!) of everything! Well done
ReplyDeleteBlessings
Maxine
How lucky to have a crafty friend close by! I love that mass production technique! Your cards are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteOh my! How FUN! Love the assembly line items for mass producing! Must be so fulfilling when completed! Love your dining room table--love to slip my address in there lol Merry Merry!
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ReplyDeleteLove this release! I am ready to get started with my CHRISTmas cards! Love your job! :) Thank you for the inspirations!
ReplyDeleteWOW - great job on the organization!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this behind the curtain peek. So interesting.
ReplyDeleteWow! So much work behind the scenes! Great cards!
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing the back stage scenes! You did great on todays live with Scrapbook and Card! Love your laugh and you look beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI loved the look behind the scenes at Hero Arts! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSuper duper cool Libby! I loved reading all about it. I was a product manager for a while (large telco company) and also managed catalog releases. Nothing near as fun as making card samples, but I understand the long process! Thanks for telling us about it!
ReplyDeleteThat is one busy desk.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the behind the scene look at preparing for the release in all aspects. Beautiful cards--I especially love the cards using Finch Greetings (one of my favorites from the release)!
ReplyDeleteFantastic thank you
ReplyDeleteThanks for the glimpse--love the kittens.
ReplyDeleteWow, Libby! You're certianly busy at release time (and I'm sue most of the time!) It's great to see how it all works. Well done to you and all the team as well as the amazing Design Team. Love this new release. Take care. ")
ReplyDeleteWow lots on your plate. Very nice sample cards! It is nice to see the behind the scenes leading up to the release.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, you lift mass producing to another level :) cool
ReplyDeleteAnd I though I did well in mass producing cards! Thanks for sharing all this info! Great job everyone!
ReplyDelete