Hero Arts + A Blog Named Hero Blog Hop

Hello and welcome! Today I'm hopping along with the team from A Blog Named Hero, as well as the Hero Arts creative team, to share a little Hero Arts holiday love! You should have arrived here by way of Linda Trace. If not, hop over to the Hero Arts blog and join us from the very beginning!

I was feeling a little creative block when I sat down to create a project for this hop, so I pulled out my art journal. It's my favorite way to get my creative juices flowing. I am also still heartbroken over Friday's events in Paris. If you've visited my blog in July the past few years, you know what an absolute francophile I am. So the fact that it happened in my dear Paris makes my heart hurt even more. So, I expressed it in watercolors...

I pulled out my QoR watercolors to create a base of watercolored background - after first treating my paper with Watercolor Ground, since I do not have watercolor paper in my art journal. I have to say - this was my first time using the QoR watercolors. Oh my WOW - it is so different and wonderful to actually use high quality paint. I admit what I usually play with it not nearly so nice. :)

I layered a bunch of different products to create my background. I added Snowflakes by Lia in both Soft Sky and Unicorn White inks. The woodblock stamp Peace is also stamped in Soft Sky. And there are few hearts from Build a Wreath by Lia stamped in Stone Wash floating around in the sky.

The bottom of the pages were stamped with Color Layering Fall Trees. I was inspired by this gorgeous card on the Hero Arts blog, created by sweet Clare Prezzia. I just love these trees in blue! I used the same Soft Sky and Stone Wash as above, and used the gray from Kelly's Urban Inks for the trunks.

The Eiffel Tower is a Hero Arts cut file found in the Silhouette Store, which I cut out on gray paper and coated with the absolutely fabulous Bo Bunny Glitter Paste. I used silver here, but I also have it in "sugar" - I am loving this stuff!! I used my fingertip to spread it around the edges of my pages as well. Finally, I added some stickers from my stash for the "may there be peace" message.

Alrighty, it's time to keep hopping! From here, please head over and visit my friend Lisa Stein! And be sure to add comments to every blog you visit, as Hero Arts is giving away three of the November My Monthly Hero kits to three lucky commenters, pulled from all of the comments across this entire hop!

Thanks for stopping by,

Believe it.

Today I needed to revive my creative juices a little, and nothing is better at that for me than pulling out my art journal! I love playing with my paints. I never know what I'm going to end up with, I just go wherever it leads me. But I did have one thing in mind from the start - I was inspired by Steve Cummings' awesome win for Team MTN-Qhubeka on Stage 14 of the Tour de France!

Here's how my page came together:

• white gesso base
• painter's tape stripes, painted with black gesso
• Hero Arts Old Letter Writing in black Archival ink
• Hero Arts Texture and Shape "stain stamps" in Unicorn White ink
• yellow acrylic paint splotched on with a paintbrush
• teal acrylic paint splotched on with bubble wrap
• quote spelled out using various letter stickers
• a Tim Holtz bicycle stamp added with black Archival ink
• fleur-de-lis added with red acrylic paint, to balance out the red a little

I am so thrilled that Team MTN-Qhubeka won today. This is their first Tour de France - and they are the first African-based team to ever ride in the Tour. I mentioned them at the start of the Tour - they support bringing bikes to villages in Africa, which is so wonderful. The team wears black and white striped jerseys, so that's where I started with my background.

Not only did they win today - but they won on Mandela Day!! How absolutely perfect is that? I wanted to use a Nelson Mandela quote on my page, so I did a quick Google search and found this one. It just seemed all-around perfect - for Mandela Day, for MTN-Qhubeka winning the stage on Mandela Day, and for the Tour de France in general.

. #MandelaDay victory for @TeamMTNQhubeka at @letour! *We cant believe it! ;)* Report: http://t.co/EH4ubhtTA4 pic.twitter.com/bNTv2yjD6z

— Team MTN-Qhubeka (@TeamMTNQhubeka) July 18, 2015

I loved today at the Tour.

With enough coffee...

So... wayyyy back on September 29, a bunch of my fellow crafty-types celebrated National Coffee Day with an awesome Coffee Lover's Bloghop. I *loved* the idea! I *love* coffee! I said to myself "woohoo I'm totally going to participate!!". I started an art journal page to celebrate my love of coffee. And then.... I didn't finish it until the weekend after the hop! Annnnnd now, here I am, actually blogging it nearly a MONTH after the hop. And yes, my friends, THIS is why I will never ever be a blogging superstar. *sigh* But at least I really really love what I made! :-D

I decided to use these pages below, that I had started ages ago. When I use a stencil, I often put it into random pages in my journal to remove whatever's left on it - in this case, gesso from this tutorial I did for Hero Arts. I later went and added some distress ink, and there it sat.

I chose a Hero Arts shape from the Silhouette store as my main-coffee-focal-point. I also love the coffee ring from Texture and Shape, and the word "coffee" from Need Caffeine. (That's aptly named, since I usually *do* NEED CAFFEINE!)

I used all kinds of goodies to layer on the texture to this page. I love the Wendy Vecchi metallic gold embossing paste!! The fun Mosaic Swirl stencil is from Dina Wakley. And oh my goodness, the glitter I found at my LSS!!! YOU GUYS!! It's so awesome. It's called Gold Lux Mix and it's a mixture of glitter and mica. It's so awesome!

I cut on the blue letters with my Silhouette, and the brown stickers are Thickers. I also added detail to the cup and some random dots with some awesome Faber-Castell gold pens.

When my page catches the light, oh my goodness the shimmer! I wish you could see it IRL. It makes me happy. Just like coffee.

Thanks for stopping by,

i love art

Yesterday I treated myself to a little art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The exhibit was Girl with a Pearl Earring - Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis. The art, of course, was gorgeous. Then I came home & watched Donna Downey's latest video. I couldn't resist all of this inspiration!! I had to play in my art journal.

I had a flier from the exhibit, so I cut out the girl to add to my page.

From Donna's video, I wanted to try adding text pages and letter stickers. The pages are in French and I loooove them, my friend Anna gave them to me. Unfortunately as I added layers of paint & gesso, I pretty much obliterated any trace of the fabulous French text. As for these letter stickers - they came in a kit at some point and I think they are super ugly, so, I was happy to cover them up!

If you look closely, you can actually see a teeny tiny trace of the text in this picture. :-) The hearts were die-cut from some fairly thin packaging chipboard I pulled from the recycling bin. I added lots of Claudine's paint, letter stickers and a bit of platinum Stickles here and there.

In this picture you can see a close-up of those painted-over letter stickers. I love the texture they add to the background. I added the Girl with a Pearl Earring with matte multi-medium and painted around her. Unfortunately it seems I covered her pearl earring - oopsie. The word "art" is stamped with the Hero Arts set My Words.

Still loving the art journaling, yay!

Happiness is...

Do you ever watch something online and feel so inspired by it that you have to immediately sit at your desk and create? That's how I felt yesterday after watching Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday video. It made me dig out my art journal and play!

I used lots of Claudine Hellmuth Studio products on this. I began by coating the pages with gesso. Then I attached some pieces of tissue paper with multi-medium. The wood veneer bike and chipboard hearts were also added with multi-medium, I added old letter stickers to the top (they were actually green glitter stickers from the dollar bin!) and then coated the entire page with more gesso. I used Claudine's paints with a little extra time mixed in to paint the pages - I'd add a bit of color then wipe it back off with my cloth. I love the muted look that gives!

This wood veneer bicycle was something Lisa gave me a while back - I finally used it! I painted it & coated it with Star Dust Stickles just for fun. I sorta have a thing for bling on my journal pages!

The "happy thoughts" is a Hero Arts stamp from the woodblock set of the same name - Happy Thoughts! I randomly stamped it with Dusty Concord distress ink & heat set it. You can see the texture from the tissue paper in this photo, too.

I love this Tweed Pattern stencil from Hero Arts - it's a fun detail in the background of the page.

I still have a lot to learn about mixed media techniques but it sure is fun to just go for it and play!

Thanks for stopping by,

Starry, Starry Night...

So how does one go about starting a blog post when it's been nearly a month since last one blogged? Does one apologize, or just jump right in and start sharing? I'm never quite sure. So hey, check this out:

I've been wanting to do this for ages, and I finally took the leap! I started my very own art journal. YAY!! Since my creative juices have been... uh... dried up lately (!) I decided to get out my beloved Studio Paints and just play. This isn't exactly being creative since it's a big ol' Van Gogh copy. But boy does it make me happy. I decided to add a little cobbled bike path at the bottom corner as well as a Studio Calico veneer bicycle on that path. The words are from a Dylusions set - I figure believing I will one day ride my bike under a Van Gogh-esque Starry Night sky is rather absurd. So why not believe it could happen? :-)

I think glitter and sequins make anything better so of course I had to add them too. The yummy royal blue sequins are from i {heart} papers.

I had this method for recreating a Van Gogh fresh in my brain because a couple weekends ago I went to one of those we'll give you step by step for painting a canvas, you bring your own wine places with a few friends. It was great fun, and the canvas that night was, you guessed it, Starry Night.

Have I mentioned this is my very favorite painting on the planet? Ah yes, I have. :-)

So now you've seen my very first foray into the world of art journaling. I plan to learn lots of fun ways to add texture and layer paints and inks and whatnot, but I am happy with this foot in the door...

Thanks for stopping by,