Welcome to another fun week at Hero Arts!  This week we are going to start thinking about the holidays. I know a lot of stampers like to start early.  But I have a twist on this seasonal theme - a way for us to reach out to some folks who could use a smile.  So keep reading!  (Oh, and as a thanks for reading this long post, there will be a prize at the end!)

First, let’s start with a couple holiday card shares.  Both use stamping snowflakes on a clear card/tag.  The second is inspired by the fabulous Shari Carroll.

Supplies: (for a video with tips on stamping on clear cards, look HERE.)

• Clear Design Let It Snow
• Sparkle Clear Holiday Messages
• DesignBlock Stunning Snowflake
• Red Gemstones
• Acetate (clear) Cards and Tags
  
• White Staz-On Ink
• Black Memories Ink
  
• Felt Snowflakes
• Snowflake Gemstones
• Circle punch, colored pencils, black permanent pen, ribbon and glitter pens.

This week will be filled with holiday ideas, videos, giveaways and special guests. Such fun!  Now for the challenge…

The challenge for this week is to create a holiday card.  Just load them into Hero Arts Flickr group with the tag “holiday.”  Be sure to use at least one Hero Arts stamp on your card and post them by September 7th at 11:59pmPST.  From the entries we will pick winners for these prizes:

• 1st place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 2nd place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 3rd place: $10 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• and a few honorable mentions

And since this industry is full of such goodness, I thought we could “pay it forward.”  Here’s how…

I heard of a great website called Cards For Heroes.  This sites mission is “to support our nation’s armed forces by sending greeting cards on which deployed troops can write home, as well as cards full of gratitude sent to injured heroes recovering in hospitals.”  I started talking to Sandy Allnock, the site’s generous and talented president, and we thought that it would be fun to collect the holiday cards for this weeks Hero Arts Blog challenge.

If you would like to participate, you can send your card(s) to the address below.  (The cards can either have a message written in them for a soldier, or the cards can be blank so that the soldiers can write in them and send them home to their families.) We will collect them and send them via Cards For Heroes to soldiers overseas.  (For all of you stampers who aren’t in the USA, you are welcome to still send them in to us or pass them on to a program in your own country.  I am collecting a list of contacts for each country, so you can also email me at jennifer(a)heroarts.com if you would like that information.)  On September 30th, we will randomly pick three winners from the cards that were sent in and will send the winners a Hero Arts Let It Snow Clear Design stamp set (see image below)!  So, send those cards in.  Here is the address:

Jennifer McGuire
Heroes Card Drive
PO Box 428612
Cincinnati, OH 45242

I hope you all have fun creating holiday cards and/or cards for heroes!  In the meantime - as a big thank you for reading this long post - I have some stamps to giveaway.  Just leave a comment on this post by Wednesday at 11:59pm PST telling us your favorite holiday.  I will randomly pick a winner of this snowman stamp set!  [Thursday update:  The winner of the snowman set has been announced HERE.  There's still plenty of time to enter the other two challenges, tho!]

Lots of ways to win, huh?  Be sure to come back tomorrow for a how-to video and some really special holiday shares from a woman whose husband is a true hero. Happy Monday!

Filed under: holiday

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 5:29 am and is filed under Motivation Mondays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.