Hello! It’s time to announce our first round winners for this month’s contest, and we’ve had lots of fabulous entries. Our monthly theme seemed to get your creative juices flowing, and we have some gorgeous winning cards to share with you today. So… drumroll please…

This month’s Fresh Face is Tracy Ercole. Her striking monochromatic birthday card packs a real punch with its simple combination of stamps, die cuts and ribbon. A truly beautiful card.

Our digital winner is momi0314 with this fun card featuring REAL chocolate!! She used ‘A Sweet Birthday‘ digikit for the background, cake and sentiment, making this a true hybrid card which we LOVE!

And now our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

First, we have another card featuring real food… noonuh created this amazing interactive card with the Have a Donut set, adding crushed peanut pieces to her delicious looking donut. So clever!

This interactive birthday card from clmlcc (Cindy C.) is simply delightful with its colorful paper pieced balloons and hidden message. Cindy even created a video showing how the interactive element works — you can check it out HERE. Talk about clever and fun!

lodynski created this sweet friendship card using our challenge colors. We love the texture added by the feather and seam binding, and her beautifully embossed silhouette.

ima dz2 (Daria) has made this gorgeous birthday card using the May challenge colors and our Luscious Bold Flowers set. Her embossed and inked layered flower is simply spectacular.

And finally, swanlady21 * Janet with this clean and simple masterpiece. Her use of Distress markers on the butterfly, Distress inks for the polka dots, and Distress stains on the ribbon make for a beautifully coordinated card.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, May 31st. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “May2012A Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

If you too would like to win a Hero Arts shopping spree, our May contest is still going! Tag your entries with May2012B and upload them to our flickr pool before the deadline of May 31st. Best of luck!

And finally, before we go, let’s see what our talented hostesses have been creating this month… click on the circle to be taken to the full card. And remember to leave them some love while you’re there.

Cards by Cheiron, Marcy, Kathy, and Emily

Happy stamping!

Hello and welcome to a special edition of Social Club. Today we have a selection of stunning cards to share with you made by our wonderful and talented Hero Hostesses…with a treat at the end! So let’s get straight to it…

First, we have a birthday card created by Cheiron. She says:  I made this fun party themed card as a tribute to my hostess sisters…each cotton candy is the color of one of our aprons! This card also fits in with this month’s challenge colors and birthday theme. To make this card, I used a piece of Mocha Layering Paper, since I wanted to make a longer card that would fit all of my images. I stamped the Life of the Party Dots in Cup O’Joe mid tone shadow twice to create a festive background. Then, I stamped the cotton candy onto watercolor paper using archival ink and colored the images in by using a waterbrush along with my distress inks. For the party strip, I stamped party across the strip and added stars stamped in the same colors of distress inks I used for the cotton card. This card would be a great birthday card to give from a group!

Next, Kathy. Here is what she has to say about her card:  I paired the Alphabet Pattern background stamp in Soft Pool shadow ink with the Wish Big balloons in several colors including the new mid-tone Pool ink for the balloons in the back. I love the way the shadow inks and mid-tone inks go so well together. I used markers to color the other balloons and paper-pieced them onto the card. I often use this greeting for birthday cards. Oh, and don’t you just love those happy, little, party people from the Basic Grey Life of the Party 6×6 paper pack? They make me smile every time I see them.

Our next card is from Emily. She shares:  I have a friend who is going through some difficult times and I thought he could use some support so I designed this card for him. It’s a one-layer which is easy to mail. I started by stamping the Etched Flower directly on to the card base. Then I stamped it again on masking paper and fussy cut it. I applied the mask to the card and then stamped the Graph Background. The sentiment was stamped twice, once slightly off centre, to create a bolder look. This card could easily be customized by changing the colors, sentiment or both.

And finally, Marcy. Here is what she said about her card:  Talking about TRENDS over in the Hero Arts Flickr Group forums, I decided to use a few of my favorites – Large Sentiments, Background Stamps , Rosettes, Distress Markers, Digi Paper.  I wanted to showcase my new favorite background stamp, Flower Table Cloth, from the Basic Grey PB&J Collection.

Thanks to our fabulous hostesses for sharing their work with us. We love all four cards, and hope they inspire you as much as they inspire us!

And as this is a special Social Club, how about a giveaway? For a chance to win our Stamp of the Week, Life of the Party Birthday, the same set Cheiron used for her fun party card, just leave a comment on this post.

Please leave comments by 11:59pm PST on Saturday, May 19, and we will announce the lucky winner on Monday.  Good luck!

Thanks again to our Hostesses - aren’t they brilliant!

Oh, and P.S. - A quick reminder that entries for Round 1 of our May contest are due tonight at 11:59pm PST. After this time, please tag entries with May2012B. Good luck, and happy stamping.

Here at Hero Arts we just love seeing the ways you use ink with our stamps. And one of our favorite techniques is heat embossing. So today, we have chosen three beautiful cards from our Flickr pool that feature this fab technique.

Our first card is by Anna-Karin (A-K). She stamped our Alphabet Pattern stamp on watercolor paper and embossed with clear embossing powder before applying distress inks and misting with Perfect Pearls and water.  Gorgeous.

This fabulous creation is by Anneke De Clerck. She stamped the Large Open Flowers in Versamark, adding white embossing powder before heat setting and painting with distress stains. A simple white box frame makes the perfect home for this beautiful work of art.

And finally, this beautiful tag card by CreationsBy(Martha). Our Classic Tea Flower stamp has been embossed in white, and highlighted with Copic markers. What an original technique.

Ladies, your creations are stunning, and as a thank you, we would like to offer the three of you our Lace Star digikit. We hope you enjoy playing with it.

Winners, send us an email using our address on the sidebar and we’ll get your digikit to you. And if you’d like a Social Club blinkie, let us know.

And finally for today, just a reminder that our May contest is underway. This month we are working on birthday cards and interactive cards and we also have a fun color challenge. You have until May 17th to create for Round 1. We can’t wait to see what you make.

Happy Stamping,

Hello everyone! It’s the second of our April winners’ posts and we have lots of lovely cards to share today, chosen from all the stunning April contest entries in our Flickr pool. We were blown away by all the amazing creations and want to thank each of you who submitted last month!

First, our Fresh Face is AmyAgain, who used one of our sketches to create this wonderful Bon Voyage card. We love the way she’s stamped the International Skyline stamp on patterned papers to create her silhouettes.

Our Digital winner is dahlhousedesigns, who used our Silhouette download ‘Birds‘ to create this beautiful shaped anniversary card.

And now our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

Firstly, limedoodle with this gorgeous shaped card. Her beautiful butterfly layered over the sweet stitched circle makes this card a real stand out.

Next, Joe Shien Shien with her sunshine inspired cards made using our Garden Flowers and Bold Pop Design Stamp and Die Cut sets. We love the summery colors on this beautiful pair of cards.

And how about this incredibly stylish interpretation of our sketch by rockwell designs. The cherries pop off the card, and all the different patterns make a feast for the eyes. Fabulous.

This bold and colorful shaped card by madsen.lisette really stood out. The combination of die cut shapes with her hand cut Lotus Flower is total perfection!

And finally, Glenda J who has also used one of our sketches. This fun travel themed card is a great way to send a hug to a friend and we love the way she’s combined stamps from our Airmail set.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, May 10th. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “April2012B Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

Finally for today, we have some cards to share from our new team of wonderful Hostesses! Click on the circle snippet to see their stunning cards in all their glory.

Cards by Emily, Kathy, Marcy and Cheiron

Thanks for stopping by today. We’ll see you tomorrow for another sneak peek of one of our new My Monthly Hero stamp sets for May!

Hello, and welcome to Social Club! Today we’re looking at some gorgeous cards from the Hero Arts Flickr Group made with our Dot Flower Pattern stamp. This is such a fun and versatile background stamp, as you are about to see…

Our first card today is created by anikaberlin. Her fabulous distressed background is the perfect backdrop for her beautifully colored flowers. Such a delicious combination.

Next, donna mikasa, who stamped on kraft, creating a beautiful soft, fabric effect. Her sweet butterfly was created using a free template we provided on the blog a while ago. You can find it here.

And finally, Kelly Booth, who shows that the stamp is fun when used with bold and bright colors too. We love the way she’s used it both for the background, and to create the body of the butterfly. It really ties the card design together.

What a fabulous selection of cards! Our prize for today’s three ladies is our Patterns - Brocade digikit. We’d love to see how they use this floral background too.

Winning ladies, send us an email using our address on the sidebar and we’ll get your digikit to you. And if you’d like a Social Club blinkie, let us know.

And here’s a handy “did you know…?” Flickr tip! If there’s a stamp you want inspiration for, simply go to our Flickr pool, type the product number into the search box and voila… instant inspiration. Many thanks to the group members for tagging projects with the product numbers and providing this valuable resource! It’s so nice to be able to enter a tag into the search area and come up with loads of ideas using a particular stamp!

Happy Stamping,

Welcome to the first of our April winners’ posts! What a sunny and happy Flickr pool we’ve had over the last 2 weeks - we loved judging the entries this month, and are excited to share seven gorgeous projects with you today. So on to the winners…

Our Fresh Face is Forgettable27(Sandra) with her stunning flower pot card. She used Bold Pop Design stamps and dies to create this fun and colorful card. We especially adore her floating butterfly - what a clever idea!

Our Digital winner is Jocelyn Olson, who used our new Jumbled Type digikit to create this fun interpretation of sketch 2.

And now our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

Our first winner is ivgupta(Isha). She combined our theme of Sunshine and Showers with sketch 3, using our Starburst Lace stamp to create her stunning sun. Her hand stitching is utter perfection.

Next up, wteresa15, who created a rainbow of “inchies” with a stamped image from our Butterflies and Wildflowers set. What a lovely piece of art.

lostinpaper made this delicious card, using sketch 2. We love her background which uses our Circle and Envelope Pattern stamps. And her color scheme is perfection.

This bright and cheery shaped card by Chris Millar certainly matches our Sunshine theme. There’s lots of stamping here! What a colorful creation!

And finally, mimipipi craft (ayu) designed this sweet set of tags which match our 2nd sketch. She used our Untitled Postmarks set, adding fabulous texture with ribbon and feathers.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, April 26th. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “April2012A Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

And our April contest continues! To be in with a chance of winning the next round, upload your entries to our Flickr pool by next Thursday, April 26th, tagged with April2012B. Good luck and happy stamping!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Social Club. Today we thought we’d take a look at different ways to add texture to your cards. We looked through our Flickr pool and chose some lovely cards to highlight.

First up, this beauty by Pia Overgaard. She chose to add texture with lace and twine, which enhances the fabric effect of the stunning Leaf and Floral background.

Next, Creationsby(Martha), who chose to use teal seam binding to add a bold pop of color to her card. We also love the single pearl she added to the center of her Etched Flower.

And finally, Tamara_77. Her trio of buttons, and rich red ribbon really tie together this bold and beautiful card. Her lovely combination of patterns and textures draw the eye to the single stamped doll. Perfect.

Our prize for these three talented ladies is our Whimsy Digikit, a lovely combination of patterns and designs, great for mixing with ribbons, lace and other vintage textures. We hope they have fun with it.

Winning ladies, send us an email using our address on the sidebar and we’ll get your digikit to you. And if you’d like a Social Club blinkie, let us know.

We hope we’ve inspired you to play with different textures, and a big thank you to today’s featured stampers for sharing their creations!

Happy Stamping,

It’s time for our second March winners’ post, and as always, judging was tough. But we’ve been through all the amazing entries and here are today’s wonderful winners…

Our Fresh Face winner is smalltcreations, who used Shari’s Velveteen Stamping technique to create this beauty. She stamped the woodgrain circle from Hello Circles in white, then stamped over the top with the Thanks stamp from Untitled Word Shadow in Cup O’ Joe shadow ink. Lovely.

In the Digital category, our winner this week is ctprezzia (Clare). She used our Matryoshka digikit to create these adorable doll shaped cards which fit into our fabulous flowers theme. We love the little button embellishments. So cute!

And now our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

Firstly, we have AnitaRex. She created a number of gorgeous entries for this month’s contest, and we chose this one to feature today. We love the way she’s paper pieced these flowers from Floral Blossoms. And she’s used many of our color challenge colors too.

luv2scrapnat (Natalie) has stamped our Classic Bloom on fabric to create the beautiful flower on her card. She also added glitter and white paint too - and the effect is simply stunning.

This beauty by touch of creation uses a stamp from Pattern Hearts and Flowers. We love the layering effect, and the gorgeous Spring colors. Such a visual treat!

The combination of stamps and patterns on this card by Melania Deasy simply floored us. And the execution of her card is incredible. We love everything about it.

And finally, a sweet card with a fab message from franziska2010. The card reads ‘Think Positive’ - a perfect sentiment for such a pretty creation.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, April 12th. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “March2012B Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

Our April contest has started… this month the theme is Sunshine and Showers, and we also have a sketch challenge. Our featured technique is shaped cards, so we are looking for projects under any of these three categories.

Upload first round entries to our Flickr pool by next Thursday, April 12th, tagged with April2012A. Full details can be found here.

Happy Stamping!

Hello and welcome to Social Club. Today, we thought we’d highlight some cards featuring a wonderful Spring color - yellow.  So we searched through our fabulous Flickr pool, and found some real beauties to share with you.

Firstly, this stunning creation by Chez Parmentier. She used our Silhouette Vines stamp and emboss set, but replaced the little butterfly with one from the Antique Flowers and Butterflies set. So clever.

Anette Hjerpaasen used our Print and Flower Pattern stamp to create a stylish background against which her yellow butterfly pops. Such a stand out card.

And finally, Nerina’s Cards. Her yellow butterfly looks gorgeous stamped in silver against the clean white background.

Continuing with the yellow theme, our prize for these three talented ladies this week is our Sunshine Patterned Papers Digikit!

Winners, send us an email using our address on the sidebar and we’ll send you your kit and a Social Club blinkie too if you would like one.

Finally for today, we thought we’d remind you that Our March contest ends tonight. Upload any last minute cards to our Flickr pool by 11:59pm PST tonight tagged with March2012B.

We’ll have a new contest starting next week and we can’t wait to share the details with you all. Until next time, happy stamping!

Welcome to the first winners’ post of March! We’ve gazed at each and every one of the stunning cards that have been entered and chosen our favorites to highlight today. So, without further ado, onto the winners…

Our Fresh Face this week is tasnim0078 with this beautiful floral creation made with our Large Blossom stamp. She did all the intricate cutting by hand… amazing work!

NinaB (HR) is our Digital winner this week. She combined our Hydrangea stamp with sweet little butterflies from our very popular Winged Friends digikit. We love everything about this lovely, Spring-y card.

And now our Fab Five, five of our favorite projects, presented in no particular order. Just like our Fresh Face and Digital winners, every member of the Fab Five will receive a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree.

First up is Gayatri Murali with this beautiful floral masterpiece. She used the Velveteen Stamping technique, stamping Lotus Leaves stamps over her Zig Zag. We think it looks FABULOUS.

Skermit12 (Stephanie) made this pretty card with stamps from our Butterflies and Wildflowers set.  Her framed image stands out beautifully against the script background.

This beautiful card by sarahjane4kids (Sarah M) features the velveteen stamping technique with a twist. She used our Damask Background digital download as a mask then stamped over it with stamps from Block Prints and Untitled Love.

Next, clmlcc (Cindy C.) with a card inspired by Shari’s fun shaped flower card. She ‘kissed’ the Leaf and Floral Background with the Envelope Pattern stamps to create her background… such a lovely effect.

And finally, Nicky Hsu who created a number of cards using the Velveteen Stamping technique. This one features the Vine Background and flowers from the Sweet Threads set.

Congratulations winners! Please contact us at winner@heroarts.com with your address and phone number, and also include your list of $50 worth of product by Thursday, March 29th. You can look through our online store to create your list. Please include “March2012A Winner” in the subject line. There are also blog blinkies available for all the winners - if you’d like one, please let us know in your email and we’ll send it along as well!

And keep submitting!  Round 2 entries are due by March 29th. Upload all entries to our Flickr pool tagged with March2012B and you too could be the lucky winner of  a $50 Hero Arts shopping spree! Read all the contest details here.

Happy Stamping!