Welcome to another week on the Hero Blog.  I just couldn’t wait for my week to get here.  I’ve been so excited to share my style of Holiday cards with you.  I’ve got plenty of goodies to give away in the next few days, more stamping ideas for cards, keepsakes and even some home decor. And then on Thursday it will be time for me to announce my pick for “A day on the Hero Blog”.

All week I’ll be making Shabby Chic style Holiday cards and projects.  Shabby Chic is a “YUMMY” method of design that focuses on distressed edges, lace, buttons, sewing and more. I consider it to be a clean vintage cottage look with soft touches.  Here’s an example of my interpretation.

A week of blogging just wouldn’t be right without a challenge right?  So to start things off, I’d like you to create a Holiday card, project or scrapbook page that uses an element of Shabby Chic design.  Just load them into Hero Arts Flickr group with the tag “shabby”  Be sure to use at least one Hero Arts stamp on your card and post them by September 21st 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

For today, I made three cards for your viewing pleasure.  Each one is similar in style all using pattern papers by Tinkering Ink, but to shake things up a bit, I used different stamps, techniques and card sizes.

Just For You

Supplies:

• Holiday Gift Tags
• Stunning Snowflakes
• VersaMark Ink
• Clear Embossing Powder
• Felt Snowflakes
• Antique Fasteners
• Button, String, Heart Punch (EK Success), Ribbon and Sewing Supplies

Season’s Greetings

Supplies:

• Good Cheer Messages
• Holly Flourish
• Pearls
• Poinsettia
• Fall Ink Queue
• Buttons
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Antique Linen) and edge distresser, Ribbon, Lace Sewing Supplies

Scrap-ling Tree

Supplies:

• Holiday Trees
• Pearls
• Pumpkin Patch Queue
• Jute string, sewing supplies

And finally, I’d like to extend the goodness that Jennifer started a couple weeks back.

Please check out what’s going on over at 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.”  Jennifer started talking to Sandy Allnock, the site’s generous and talented president, and 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.  Jennifer will be collecting a list of contacts for each country, so you can also email  her at jennifer@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

Thanks for hanging in on the long post. I can’t wait to see your creations as you join the fun with me this week!
Enjoy and create!

Filed under: shabby

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:01 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.