Hi everyone, Lisa here!  This week Sally, Jennifer, Nancy, Shari and I will be featuring the winners of the first ever Win-a-Day on the Hero Club Blog Contest starting with my pick, Ashley Marcu.  Welcome Ashley!

So that you could better get to know all of the winners, we asked them each the same five questions:

Q1: What is your favorite stamping technique?  (Simple stamping, embossing, collage, etc.)

Ashley: I love basic stamping with chalk ink. It’s easy and the colors are brilliant. I also often use colored pencils.

Q2:  What is your “go-to” color combination?

Ashley: Blue, green and brown.

Q3: What are your favorite Hero Arts embellishments?  (Gems, pearls, buttons, etc.)

Ashley: Buttons! I have a hard time making a card without at least one button.

Q4: What inspires you?

Ashley: Seasons, home decorating magazines, other artists, nature and patterned paper.

Q5: What is your favorite dessert?  (Yum!)

Ashley: Chocolate chip cookies and all varieties of them including cookie dough and ice cream!

Mmmmmm, I love chocolate chip cookies too.  Actually, I’ll eat anything with chocolate, ha ha!

As part of their prize, the winners selected stamps from the current catalogs to use on their blog day.   We also sent them along a few extra goodies like notecards and embellishments.   Then we asked each of them to create some cards.

I couldn’t wait to see what Ashley came up with — I just love her clean, fun style. Check out her super snowman snow globe card featuring the Clear Design Let It Snow set — LOVE it!

Ashley inspired me to make a shaped card too:

Featured Supplies:

• Clear Design Let It Snow
• Sparkle Gem Hearts
• Felt Snowflakes
• Felt Poinsettias and Leaves
• Snowflake Gemstones
• Silver Embossing Powder
• Other: polka dot papers (Bo Bunny), velvet ribbon (May Arts), polka dot ribbon (American Crafts), scallop die (Nestabilities), die cut machine (Cuttlebug)

Tips on Ashley’s Snow Globe Card: To make a globe shaped card, first create a template by cutting out a circle and a rectangle.  Round the top left and right corners of the rectangle, then glue to the circle.  Trace the template on two pieces of cardstock.  Decorate the front piece as you like.  For the back piece, score it about 1/2 inch from the top and glue it to the front, adding the glue just along the edge. Here’s another tip:  silver embossing a message on a dark color really makes it pop!

Tips on Lisa’s Scalloped Circle Card:  Use a die to cut out two 4″ scallop circles.  To create the card, score one of the scallops about 1/2″ from the top and glue it to the other.  The scallop with the score will form the back of the card.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s one!

Here’s another tip — you can never have too much sparkle on a Christmas card!  Add glitter to felt snowflakes + use it to create snow drifts.  Don’t forget the gems.  And one last tip:  If you stamp the hat and the snowman both in black, you can stamp the hat right on the snowman’s head — no need for cutting.

Next, Ashley made this joyful card featuring the Special Edition Creative Trees set, the Tiny Owl, and buttons — of course!

And here’s my card using the same stamps:

Featured Supplies:

• Special Edition Creative Trees
• Tiny Owl
• Clear Design Anytime Messages (for “find joy everyday”)
• Clear Design Happy Thanksgiving (for “many blessings to you”)
• Summer Buttons
• Neutral Buttons
• Black Gemstones
• Smooth Gemstones
• Fall Chalk Queue
• Other: polka dot paper (Bo Bunny), flower + leaf paper (Basic Grey),  embossing folder (Cuttlebug, Swiss Dots), brown permanent marker (Bic), white pen

Tips on Ashley’s card:  The “find joy everyday” message is actually one long message, but you can cut up the stamp — and then since the stamp is clear — you can easily reposition it and stamp it as shown!  Another tip is to color the owl’s eyes with a white pen, then add black gemstones — too cute.   One more tip:  Pick inks and embellishments in the same colors and mix them around in your design.  It’s a fun way to play with color!

Tips on Lisa’s card:  Try using the same tree stamped in different colors — oranges and browns from the new Fall Queue are used here.   Another tip is to change the color of a gemstone with a permanent marker.

Next, here are two cards featuring Ashley’s “go-to” color combo of blue, green and brown.  First is Ashley’s clean + simple thank you card:

And here’s my take — I used more green and less blue.  I just love this color combo! I also emphasized the blue by stamping a flower on felt.

Featured Supplies:

• DesignBlock Floating Leaf Pattern
• Flower Circle
• Clear Design Anytime Messages (for “thanks”)
• Clear Design Tree, Birds & Messages (for “hello!”)
• Blue Gemstones
• Smooth Gemstones
• VersaMark Ink
• Clear Sparkle Embossing Powder
• Other: blue polka dot paper (Bo Bunny), green raised dot paper (Bazzill), felt, ribbon (May Arts)

Tips on Ashley’s thanks card: DesignBlock stamps aren’t just for backgrounds — punch or cut out pieces to use as focal points!  And don’t forget to finish off your card with a button.

Tips on Lisa’s hello card:   To stamp on felt, chose a stamp with a bold pattern such as the Circle Flower.  Ink up your stamp as you normally would and stamp it on the felt, pressing firmly for 30 seconds or so to give the ink time to transfer to the felt.  Then set aside to dry.  I used Blue Memories Dye ink here.  Chalk inks also work well.  Note:  Don’t try to speed up the drying process by heating the felt with a heat gun — you’ll melt the felt!  One more tip:  Try embossing stamped images with clear sparkle powder — it adds that extra “little something”.

Enabling alert!  ALL of the stamps used in today’s cards are HERE in the Hero Arts Online Store — WOO HOO!

Now for this week’s challenge.  Using at least one Hero Arts stamp, create a card inspired by one of the Win-a-Day Contest winners.  Upload it to the Hero Arts Flickr Group by 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, November 9th, then tag it with the code word “inspiredby“.  Please indicate in the description which winner inspired you and how.   So that you can get started early on the contests, here are links to each of the winner’s photostreams:

• Ashley Marcu
• Kelly Rasmussen
• Donna Mikasa
• Lisa Carroll
• Julie Dudley
  

Want to win a day on the Hero Club Blog?  We have another contest going on now!  Click HERE for full details.

Now, how about a giveaway?  Each day this week we’re going to celebrate the winners with a fun giveaway!   For today’s prize, three lucky winners will each get a Flower Circle,  plus Ashley’s favorite embellishments — buttons — with one package each of Summer and Neutral Buttons!

To enter, just leave a comment for Ashley here on THIS POST.  The three random winners will be announced Tuesday morning.  [Tuesday update:  The winners have been announced HERE.  You can keep leaving comments for Ashley tho!]

Ashley,  I had so much fun stamping with  you and getting to know you better — you are so sweet.  I  love your style and your cards are truly inspiring.  Thanks so very much + congratulations again on winning a day on the Hero Club Blog!  YAY! Want to see more of Ashley’s work? Visit her blog HERE!

And here’s a little note from Ashley:  

Thank you to Lisa and Hero Arts for such an amazing opportunity! Creating for this special Hero Arts contest has been beyond my expectations and I feel so lucky to have been a part of it! These cards were so much fun to put together and I can’t wait to see what you all come up with this week!

Until tomorrow,

Filed under: inspiredby

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 4:04 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.