Hello, all! We are continuing our fun “All-Star Paper Week” where each day we focus on a different company in the paper crafts industry. Today we are thrilled to have the always inspiring American Crafts! And, of course, we have a great giveaway.

American Crafts is one of the most innovative companies in the paper industry. Their papers and embellishments are always so colorful and fun to use with stamps! Here is a bit more about their company:  “Steve and Alma Mitchell founded American Crafts in 1995. Soon thereafter their sons Jeff and Wayne joined them. In 2001, after a successful tour of providing high quality products to the general craft market, American Crafts decided to focus on their passion for Scrapbooking and create innovative, high quality, well designed products specifically for the Scrapbooking industry. Since then, we have steadily expanded our product offering and elevated our position within the market. We attribute our success primarily to what we consider our greatest strengths: high quality products and superior customer service. We look forward to many more years of creating awesome tools to make preserving memories fun and easy.”

For our American Crafts day, we asked our friend and American Crafts Design Team member, Kelly Purkey to share her talents with us.  First she created this stunning layout, saying, “American Crafts and Hero Arts go together so well.  Both of the companies have such a fun, playful touch to their products.  For my NYC layout, I used two of the bigger stamps that Hero offers to create backgrounds on the backsides of American Crafts double-sided paper.  I love how the simple, classic designs of the papers work with the interesting details in the stamps.  So much fun to match together!”

Supplies:

• Hero Arts DesignBlock Flowers
• Hero Arts Clear Design Bold Caps Alphabet
• Hero Arts Clear Design Long Travel Borders
• Hero Arts Circular Designs
• Hero Arts Small Variety Alphabet
• Hero Arts Pale Pink Gemstones
• Hero Arts Smooth Clear Gemstones
• American Crafts papers and cardstock

Kelly also created this adorably fun card.  That American Crafts cloud paper is perfect for cards with trees and owls! An American Crafts Flair badge provides the cute greeting.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Clear Design Birds & Branches
• Hero Arts Four Bold Messages
• American Crafts papers, cardstock and Flair embellishments

Next we have a cheerful card from Hero Artist Lisa Spangler.  Lisa says, “I love American Crafts paper, ribbons and embellishments — so bright and cheery!  Just what I needed to create this card and matching envelope for my very special aunt who has been in the hospital.   I mixed Christmas paper with ‘everyday’ paper — who says you can only use Christmas paper at Christmastime?”

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Clear Design Tree, Birds & Messages
• Hero Arts DesignBlock Flourish
• Hero Arts Chocolate, Green Apple, Strawberry Notecards
• Memories Artprint Brown
• VersaMark
• Hero Arts Antique Round Fasteners
• Hero Arts Olive Gemstones
• American Crafts ribbon
• American Crafts patterned paper
  • Everyday - Hey There  (hearts)
  • Christmas - Bushels of Fun (stripes)
• American Crafts Fieldhouse foam flower
• Other: colored pencils (Prismacolor), paper edge distressor (Tonic for Tim Holtz)

Isn’t that foam flower cool?!  Lisa shares how she created it:  “Ink the DesignBlock Flourish with VersaMark ink and set it aside — this way you have it all ready to go. Use an embossing gun to heat the foam flower until it just begins to curl, then flip it over and heat the other side until it just barely begins to curl.  Quickly press the stamp into foam and lift off — ta dah!”   TIP: Make sure you ink the stamp first to prevent it from sticking to the foam.

The envelope liner is another great touch that adds so much to the overall presentation. Lisa says, “To create the envelope liner, trace the envelope flap on your patterned paper and cut out. Trim the sides a little so it will slide in, then use a glue stick to adhere in place.”

We have another fun card to share from Kandis Smith.  Isn’t it wonderful?

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Sketched Birds
• Hero Arts Clear Design Thoughtful Messages
• Hero Arts Clear Design Robots
• Hero Arts Teal Gemstones
• Hero Arts Gemstones
• American Crafts Moda Bella Tailored and Bohemian papers

Woohoo!  GIVEAWAY TIME!  Check out these fun products from American Crafts!  Just leave a comment here by Friday, October 17th at 11:59pm PST telling us about the card you mostly recently made and we will pick a random winner of these products:

And…how about some more?  Go over to designer Kelly Purkey’s blog today for a chance to win even more American Crafts products!  Just click HERE. [Edited Oct. 17 to reflect revised contest location.]

We have a lot going on here today — be sure to scroll down so you don’t miss Leslie’s announcement of the winners of last week’s masculine challenge as well as the winners of the Basic Grey giveaway!

One last reminder!  You still have until Sunday to enter our paper challenge.  For more information, click HERE.

Take care…

Filed under: paper

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 3:17 am and is filed under You're Talented Thursdays. 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.