Hi everyone!  It’s going to be another “lovely” week here on the blog, as we celebrate everything HEARTS!  But this week we have a twist — we’ll be showing the versatility of hearts by taking them beyond Valentine’s Day.  The sweet and simple shape of the heart is perfect for so many different occasions.

The Web Artists have put together some creative and heartfelt cards that can be used all year round.  I can’t wait to share their ideas with you this week, so let’s get started!  It’s heart show and tell time!

Here is an anniversary card I made using my favorite new heart stamp, the woodgrain heart from the Hugs and Hearts set.  Anniversaries and hearts naturally go hand in hand, but for some reason I’m often stumped when it comes to anniversary card ideas.  I plan to create several of this design to have on hand — maybe anniversaries will stop sneaking up on me that way!

Supplies:

• Clear Design: Hugs and Hearts
• Clear Design: Valentine Flourishes
• Clear Design: All Occasion Messages
• Heart Accent Pearls
• Small Accent Pearls
• Chocolate & Kraft Notecards
• Memories ArtPrint Brown Ink
• Soft Pool Shadow Ink
• VersaMark Ink
• White Embossing Powder
• Other: cardstock, patterned paper (Basic Grey’s Urban Prairie collection), scallop border punch (Martha Stewart Crafts), seam binding (Martha Stewart Crafts), pop dots

Tami’s Tips:

• Use white embossing powder and pop dots to make the heart really stand out.
• Stamp the sentiment and small heart from the All Occasion Messages set repeatedly.  Because the stamps are clear, alignment is easy.
• This card could be personalized with number stamps indicating which anniversary is being celebrated.

Next, Robyn Werlich is here to show how hearts can be perfect for “thinking of you” type cards.  Robyn shares, “A very dear friend of mine recently miscarried and I wanted to create a card for her telling her how much I love her and am thinking of her. Heart stamps were a natural place for me to start…and I loved this saying! The heart flourish and the two small hearts are embossed with white embossing powder. Lots of love on this card!”

Supplies:

• Clear Design: So Sweet
• Clear Design: All Occasion Messages
• Heart Flourish
• Woodgrain Circle
• Raindrop Background
• Kraft Notecards
• Heart Accent Pearls
• Assorted Crystal Gemstones
• Versamark Ink
• White Embossing Powder

Robyn’s Tip:  This card is so easy to create! Simply punch three hearts from cardstock and stamp them with various stamps. Then, stamp and emboss two small hearts and cut them out. By layering with some pop-dots, gems and your saying strip, it really comes together to create a beautiful card.

Finally, check out this amazing window card from Leslie Lightfoot.  Leslie says, “I think hearts on any card are appropriate and a welcomed special touch. Whenever we make a handmade card, a piece of our heart goes into it. For my card I used a hint of ‘hearts’ with the flourish stamp as well as the new delicious heart pearls!”

Supplies:

• ClearDesign: Valentine Flourishes
• DesignBlock: Four Leaf Grid
• Houndstooth Background
• Memories ArtPrint Brown Ink
• Soft Apricot Shadow Ink
• Pink & Sunshine Notecards
• Card Buttons Summer
• Orange Gemstones
• Heart Accent Pearls
• Other: circle punch, foam adhesive squares, corrugated paper

Leslie’s Tips:

• Play peek-a-boo with your stamped images by creating windows in the front of your card.
• For small punched butterflies, three Hero Arts gemstones work perfectly for the body and head. They are attached together for easy use.
• Make your card sentiment stand out by cutting out separate words and adding three-dimensional foam adhesive behind for pop.

Wonderful heart cards girls…thanks so much!

So…the challenge for this week is to create a non-Valentine project (card, scrapbook page, or other) featuring — you guessed it — hearts!  Anniversaries, birthdays, thank yous, thinking of you, sending a hug…the possibilities are endless! Get creative with those heart images this week and be sure to include at least one Hero Arts stamp on each of your projects.  Upload your creations to the Hero Arts Flickr group by 11:59pm PST on Sunday, February 1.  Please include the tag “heartfelt” on your submissions.  We have lots of prizes up for grabs this week!

• Fresh Face Winner (someone who has not yet won a contest): $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• Scrapbook Page Winner: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 1st Place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 2nd Place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• 3rd Place: $15 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2009 catalog
• And…a BONUS Winner: see prize package below!
  

We’ll award a special bonus prize for the most creative use of a heart stamp.  Take another look at your heart images…what could you turn them into?! The bonus prize includes a wood mounted Heart Flourish stamp, a package of assorted Blush notecards, and a package of Heart Accent Pearls.  I just noticed that Robyn, Leslie and I all used heart pearls on our cards today…they are yummy!

Can’t wait to see what you all come up with!  I’ll be back tomorrow with four more Web Artists and plenty of heartfelt cards…see you then!

Filed under: heartfelt

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 6:32 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.