Happy Friday everyone, and welcome to my final post for this week. Today I am sharing a flowery ‘Hello’ card that fits in with this month’s contest. I absolutely love the butterfly image from the new Greetings stamp set. And when I saw it was also featured slightly smaller in the new Just Because set too, I knew I had to pair them up.

Card by Lucy Abrams. Full supplies and instructions here.

I used beautiful patterned papers from BasicGrey’s Picadilly line, stamping the butterflies on pale aqua paper, then layering them up with foam adhesive beneath the wings.

I hope this inspires you to get creating, hopefully something for our current contest.

Speaking of contests, we have some blinkie contest winners to let you know about today. We love seeing so many blinking hearts and sweet squirrels out there in blogland! Thank you for displaying the blinkies and badges and sharing a little Hero Arts love with your blog readers! Now, the three randomly selected winners of a $20 Hero Arts shopping spree are…

• Dori (comment #28)
• Melinda Abrahamson (comment #43)
• Jennifer Harrison (comment #159)

Congratulations! Winners, please contact us at the winner’s email address listed over in the sidebar and we’ll arrange for your prizes to be sent out.

Have a fun and inky weekend,

Hello friends! Today we’re sharing the second batch of winners from our January contest. And I know you’ve heard us say this so many times in the past - how extremely difficult it is to choose just seven winners from so many incredible entries - and this month was the same.  Only worse!!  There were about 350 entries uploaded to the Hero Arts Flickr site for the second half of the contest. And 200+ entries in the first half. Wow!!  You all clearly enjoy making Valentines.

Our first winner is our Fresh Face, and it goes to Chriss Blagrave. We just loved her extremely original use of our Fox. Paper pieced with maps!! So much fun. And her handwritten sentiment is just perfect.

Our Digital category winner is this sweet, happy card from stripey fish! She combined the Flourish Background and Birds & Patterns digikits perfectly. And her fun, bright colors tie it all together!

And now onto our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

Our first Fab Five winner, Disp6194, has such a wonderfully unique design! We love her use of color blocking, and the random placement of hearts from our new Sweet Hearts set is a whimsical delight!

There were several lovely entries from lavender&roses - Susanne, all combining the Simple Frame, La Lettre and Untitled Heart stamps with birds. They were all beautiful, making it difficult to decide which one to highlight! So head on over to Flickr and check out the others here and here.

We were blown away by Melania Deasy’s sweet ensemble! Our Newspaper Owl looks fabulous among all the treats. And Melania did a wonderful job with the color challenge! There are detailed photos of all the items in her photostream, go on in for a closer look!

Next is a clean and simple masterpiece from Our Change of Art! The big red heart is such a fabulous pop of color combined with the simply black and white stamped Bicycle.

And we wrap up with another black and white, clean and simple beauty, this time from Simone Naoum. We love how she layered the Etched Medallion. And her addition of the love sentiment from Live Life finishes off this elegant card.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, February 9th. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “January2012B Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

Our February contest is underway, and first round entries are due in our Flickr pool by next Thursday, February 9 at 11:59pm PST.

We hope you’ll play along, there are a lot of great prizes up for grabs! View all of the details on our contest page.

Thanks for stopping by! Lucy will be back tomorrow to finish up the week!

It’s Wednesday, and it’s the first of the month, which means it’s time to announce our new February contest!

This month we want to see all sorts of creative Friendship and Hello cards! We also have three great sketches for you to try, and our featured technique is die cutting. Projects created for the sketch and die cutting portions of the challenge can be of ANY theme. You’ll want to pop over to our contest information page to find all the details. As you’ll notice on the calendar, the deadline for the first round of entries is quickly approaching — next Thursday, February 9th, in fact. So break out those stamps and have fun! We can’t wait to see what you all create this month!

Now, we have a new die cutting technique article and video from our fabulous Shari Carroll. Check out what she’s done with our new Frame Cuts dies in the video below…

Card by Shari Carroll. Full supplies and instructions here.

Finally, I thought I’d create a card featuring die cutting. I chose the Hero Arts-Sizzix Frames with Sprigs set, and combined it with some gorgeous patterned paper from the Basic Grey Picadilly line. Yum!

Card by Lucy Abrams. Full supplies and instructions here.

Tomorrow, it’s time to announce our February contest winners. So join us then for some fabulous eye candy!

Bye for now,

Hi again, I’m back today to share a French-themed thank you card. The new Untitled Heart set is simply gorgeous, and I just love the way it matches up with the Newspaper Eiffel Tower background stamp. I chose the sweet hugs and kisses heart from the set for my card, and stamped it in Punch chalk ink on Carnation paper. I do love mixing and matching with Hero Hues colors.

Card by Lucy Abrams. Find full supplies and instructions here.

And the great news is, the Newspaper Eiffel Tower is our Stamp of the Week, meaning it is 25% off in the Hero Arts Online Store this week. Yay!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a new contest, a new technique video and a new card! Lots of fun!!

Bye,

Hello, and welcome to a new week on the Hero Arts blog. It’s Lucy here, and I have a week of very different cards to share with you this week. Plus, later in the week I will be announcing the February contest details… so stay tuned!

For today, I have created a fun and simple Valentine card using the new Sweet Hearts stamps. Aren’t they just too cute! And I just LOVE the new Newspaper Background stamp - I am pretty sure this will go with any card! Such a versatile stamp - definitely a new favorite.

Card by Lucy Abrams.  Find complete supplies and instructions here.

I stamped the hearts on some Blush Designer Paper then had fun masking and mixing up the sentiments and inking the edges with Distress Ink.

On Friday’s post we asked you all to confess how much ribbon you own for a chance to win more from May Arts.  The responses had us smiling all weekend long!  No matter how much you have, there was one common consensus - it’s impossible to ever have too much ribbon, and there’s always room for more!

And the randomly chosen winner is comment #39, Karen Lee, who said:  “I have 82 rolls of ribbon plus a lot of scraps and coils of it in two jars. YIKES!”

Congratulations Karen, send us an email at winner@heroarts.com and we’ll get you hooked up with the ribbon!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a card featuring our new stamp of the week. See you then,

Hello and TGIF! Or as we like to say today on the blog, TGFR… thank goodness for RIBBON! We’ve had so much fun playing with May Arts ribbon this week, and hope we’ve inspired you to try something new on your own projects. But we’re not done yet! Two more of our artists have combined Hero Arts stamps with May Arts ribbon for your viewing pleasure!

First up, Sally Traidman:

“My first card features our new Wet Cement ink pad and the giant True Friends background. I did that fancy fold and glued some BasicGrey Kissing Booth paper on the front fold.  Next I used our new Frame Cuts Heart Frame to cut through felt and tulle. The May Arts metallic ribbon (397-14-05) and a scrap of sparkly tulle make a great embellishment on the heart!”

Card by Sally Traidman.  Find complete supplies and instructions here.

“My second card uses the giant red rick rack (330-14) from May Arts as an edge. Again I added BasicGrey Kissing Booth paper for some contrast. The red on red  heart is from Four Hearts and is die cut with the same Frame Cuts die.  The little flower is made from bunched up rick rack held together with a needle and thread. I added glitter for a center and a touch of bling.  I love the texture of watercolor paper, so I cut a squarish card from that for the base card.”

Card by Sally Traidman. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

And one last Valentine before you head into the weekend, created by our own Tami Hartley. Tami worked with some adorable dotted grosgrain (DD-14) and some wonderful May Arts burlap string (SM-10) to create this happy little card. Take it away, Tami!

“This card started with a couple of hearts that I stamped and die cut using our new Frame Cuts (Heart Frame and Cupcake Frame sets.) After choosing a neutral kraft background, the card seemed like it needed a punch of color and pattern so I added some cute May Arts red grosgrain polka dot ribbon — first a flat piece adhered to the card with double sided tape, then a loop of it layered on top for some extra dimension. I love the playful touch it added! A bit of May Arts twine finishes off the clear button and ties in with the kraft paper.”

Card by Tami Hartley. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

Good news!  We have one more ribbon giveaway for you this week!  Just leave a comment here on this post and let us know how much ribbon you have!!  C’mon, fess up!  You have all weekend to let us know - comment by Sunday night at 9pm EST, and we’ll announce the winner on Monday!

We also promised to announce a winner today - are you ready?

We asked you to leave a comment on Monday’s post for a chance to win three rolls of May Arts ribbon.  Congratulations to commenter #352, Gloria, who said:

“Always love the card ideas! That ribbon looks fabulous.”

Gloria please send your mailing address to the winner email account, which you’ll find over on the sidebar!

There will also be a winner announced on our Facebook page today, so if you commented over there this week, be sure to check if you’re the lucky winner!

Thank you for joining us this week. We’ve had so much fun working with May Arts ribbon, and we hope you’ve enjoyed it too!  Head on over the May Arts blog as they wrap up our week together, too! And a heartfelt thank you to May Arts for sharing their fabulous ribbon with us!

We wish you a wonderful weekend! We’ll see you back here on Monday, when Lucy will be sharing her creativity with us!

Hello and welcome to Social Club!  Since this week has been all about ribbon here on the blog, we decided to search through the lovely creations you’ve shared in the Hero Arts Flickr pool and highlight some wonderful uses of ribbon!

Our first fabulous ribbon find was this beauty from MyPinkMexico.  We just love how she wrapped her seam binding ribbon around so many times before tying it off with a big, jaunty bow.  The lace peeking out at the top is pretty fabulous too, as is her lightly stamped Friend Definition background!

Next is a spectacularly fun use of ribbon from crisbj82!  The way she stacked the ribbon on the card is great, but get this - she also dyed the ribbon herself with Distress Inks!  This is a great way to customize plain white ribbon to go with whatever color scheme you’re working with!  We also love to see one of our favorite background stamps, Envelope Pattern, peeking out at the back of the card as well!

And finally, a terrific idea from stampingmathilda!  Storing ribbon on clothespins is an idea we’ve seen before - but stamping on the clothespins first?? SUCH a great idea!!  Godelieve used Thank You Definition on the clothespins - yet another fantastically versatile background stamp.  She created these as little bundles of goodness as gifts.  For the record, I would LOVE to receive this gift!! 

Thank you for sharing these wonderful ideas in the Hero Arts Flickr group!  Mary Dawn, Cristina and Godelieve, as part of being featured here on Social Club, we’d love to give you the Lace digikit, to use in conjunction with your ribbon collections!

Please send an email to the winner’s address located on the sidebar and we’ll get that right out to you.  We also have a Social Club blinkie available if you’d like to add it to your blog to announce you’ve been featured - just let us know!

And last but not least…

We have two $50 Wish List Shopping Spree winners to announce from December! The lucky winners are Judith Blau with her comment on December 14th and Pamela Haskin with her comment on December 27th. Congratulations, Judith and Pamela! Please email us at the winner’s address located over in the sidebar and we’ll get you all set up to shop. For a chance to win one of next month’s shopping sprees, simply join the Hero Club (it’s free!), then comment here on the blog throughout the month. Each comment you leave gives you a chance at the prize!

Don’t forget - our second round of the January contest ends tonight at 11:59PST.  Check out the contest page for all of the details!

We’ll be back with more May Arts inspiration tomorrow, see you then!

Welcome to Day 3 of our week of teaming up with May Arts, makers of some of the most fantastic ribbon on the planet!  We’ve been enjoying all of the wonderful creations using our stamps created by the May Arts team this week - be sure to visit the May Arts blog to check them out for yourself, and leave comments while you’re there for a chance to win some of our stamps! Yay!

We have a couple more fabulous designers combining Hero Arts stamps and May Arts ribbon here on our very own blog today, too!  First up, Lisa Spangler!  Lisa was happy to get an opportunity to try out one of our new Add Your Message stamp + preprinted card sets.  She chose Eiffel Tower Cards with Messages and combined it with a delightful garland made with May Arts ribbon!  What fun!

Card by Lisa Spangler. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

Next is a gorgeous card from Kandis Smith. She used the flower from Sweet Threads Thank You for her elegantly stamped background.  And we just love how she used the ribbon to create the borders on her message panel.

Card by Kandis Smith.  Find complete supplies and instructions here.

Kandis also created a helpful video to show the creation of this card from start to finish.  For those of you who are coming back to view it, we think you’ll agree it was worth the wait! 

So now that Lisa and Kandis have thoroughly inspired you to create with ribbon, how about another chance to win some for yourself?  Head on over to Facebook and “like” our Hero Arts page - then stay tuned to Facebook today for giveaway details! May Arts will be having a fabulous giveaway over on their Facebook page as well, so be sure to stop by and tell them Hero Arts sent you!

Tomorrow is Social Club, we’ll see you there!

Welcome to Day 2 of our week of teaming up with May Arts!  Today we have two wonderful designers with similar names - Shari and Sheri - and would you believe they both made cards featuring ribbon flowers??  This was not planned.  It was just a delightful, beautiful, glorious coincidence!

First is Shari Carroll’s pretty treat bag.  Here’s what she has to say about her creative process:

“I knew I wanted to create a flower with ribbon, the hard part was choosing which one to use!  I went with my comfort zone and picked muted colors as in this GORGEOUS Organic stripes (385-58-11).  To add texture and a cool border, I used the 1″ velvet ric rac (396-1-01).  For a splash of color I used the Blue Suede string  (395-18-34).  All these ribbons are almost as yummy as the treats in my goody bag!”

Card by Shari Carroll. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

And next, Sheri Reguly’s gorgeous card featuring a rolled ribbon flower. Love it so much!

“Create a thank you card for a friend using wonderful earth tones combined with a splash of sunshine yellow. A homemade flower accent created using May Arts Sheer Box Pleat ribbon (392-58-01) adds a beautiful finishing touch.”

Card by Sheri Reguly. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

If you missed yesterday’s post, be sure to check it out for a chance to win some yummy ribbon!  And be sure and stop by the May Arts blog all week to see what they’re up to!

We also have a Stamp of the Week to share with you!  This week’s stamp is our K5574 Big Eyes, and it’s available this week only for 25% off in the Hero Arts Online Store.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more inspiration and a video!

Hello, friends!  This week we are doing something fun here on the blog.  We’re playing with ribbon!  And of course not just any ribbon - we’re sharing cards made with glorious, yummy May Arts ribbon! And that’s not all, over on the May Arts blog, their designers are working with our stamps! What fun!  Oh, gee, and did I mention there will be giveaways, too??  But more on that in a bit, first let’s look at today’s cards!

The first card comes from the sweet and talented Kelly Rasmussen.  She combined two wonderful ribbons - Lace (390-38-09) and Brown Satin Pleats (379-58-33) - to make a super sweet Valentine.  Here’s a little more about the card from Kelly:

“I couldn’t decide whether to use the brown pleated satin ribbon or the white lace on this card…so I used them both! :)  I love the layered look of the two ribbons together and they seemed perfect for a love themed card. The sentiment from the You and Me clear stamp set was also fun to create…with all the different words and ampersands, the possibilities are endless!”

Card by Kelly Rasmussen.  Find complete supplies and instructions here.

Next up is a bright and cheerful card from Jennifer McGuire.  We just love how she used the May Arts jute ribbon (408-05-10) to create the background for her stamped and die-cut Garden Flower.  More from Jennifer:

“I adore May Arts ribbons. They are all very high quality and unique! One great way to use them on a project without adding too much bulk is to create a background or background piece with them as I have done here. You can do this with any ribbon - just line them up and trim the edges.”

Card by Jennifer McGuire. Find complete supplies and instructions here.

And now, how about the scoop on that giveaway we promised at the beginning of this post?  Just leave us a comment and we will draw one random winner.  May Arts has generously offered up three spools of ribbon of the winner’s choice!  We’ll be announcing this winner on Friday morning, so please leave your comment by Thursday, January 26 at 9pm EST.

There will more giveaways throughout this week, so you’ll need to stay tuned!  And be sure to head on over to the May Arts blog as well, for lots of great ideas and more goodies up for grabs!

We’ll be back tomorrow with more designs featuring May Arts ribbon, see you then!