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!

Here’s a better look at the front of the card with the handstamped QR code:

Find out how to make this card plus complete materials and instructions.

And here’s the QR code on the back! I tried scanning this photo right here on the screen and it actually worked if you’d like to see for yourself

And, you can even make your own QR codes! Makes it perfect when you’re giving a gift card, like this pocket card with a gift certificate to one of my favorite cupcake shops, Cupprimo! (It’s dangerously close by, ha ha!)

Find out how to make this card plus complete materials and instructions.

Having a QR code on here makes it super easy for the recipient to look up Cupprimo’s menu, hours and location. Here’s some other ideas for QR codes: link to a family video in your Project Life pages (I heard about this one from Libby!), link to your facebook page or instagram feed to connect with friends and stay in touch, or link to an online photo album — the sky’s the limit!

I use this QR code generator and this reader on my iPhone. Both are free! (You can search on google for other generators and readers.)

Hope this gives you some fun ideas for an interactive card for this month’s challenge! And! I have it on good authority that pocket cards are interactive too, so this post actually has two ideas in one.

Do you have any fun ideas for QR codes? Have you seen any clever uses for them? I’d love to hear!

Find out how to make this card — click for complete supplies and instructions.

I used just part of the background stamp and added a few simple touches to bring it to life:

• paper pieced lanterns
• bows and gems
• stitching (using the stamp lines as a guide makes it “sew” simple!)

Next I’d like to create an elegant version of this design with gold or silver embossed lanterns on a dark background. Or what about a rainbow of lanterns on a white card? So many possibilities with this one! What would you do with the Washi Lantern Background? I’d love to hear!

Thanks for stopping by today…I hope you have a wonderful day!

Find out how to make this card — click for complete supplies and instructions.

Not only is Washi Lantern Background part of the My Monthly Hero program, it also just happens to be our Stamp of the Week! You can purchase Washi Lantern Background at the Hero Arts Online Store for 25% off, this week only.

Before I go, I also have some happy news to share - the winner of our giveaway during last Thursday’s Social Club post! One lucky commenter wins the fun Life of the Party Birthday set, and that person is… drumroll please… commenter #11, ujjwal, who said: “Wonderful cards but what else is expected of the fabulous hostesses They have all done an amazing job!”

Thanks for stopping by today!

Find out how to make this card — click for complete supplies and instructions.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope that this card has inspired you to create a simple and clean designed birthday card…enjoy your weekend!!

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.

Find out how to make this card — click for complete supplies and instructions.

How ’bout them candles, eh?!

I love when I can re-purpose some of my favorite stamps, and hope this sparks some new ideas for you!

Thanks for sharing part of your day with me!

Find out how to make these cards — click for complete supplies and instructions.

You’ll want to race on over to the Hero Arts Online Store and get yourself the Stamp of the Week, Life of the Party Birthday, while it’s 25% off! Woohoo! But hurry, it’s only 25% off this week!

And speaking of shopping - we’re happy to share that the four new birthday stamp sets released this month as part of the My Monthly Hero program are now available here in the Hero Arts Online Store! And best of all, online orders at our store are fulfilled by local stamp stores participating in the program.

Thanks for stopping by - tomorrow Julie will be here with a video, which no doubt will be full of giggles and fun!

Thinking of you all on this joyous occasion and sending lots of love!

We are so excited to welcome Lila into the Hero Arts family. We can’t wait to meet her!

Love,

I’m here to bring you another birthday theme card idea using stamps from the My Monthly Hero program for May. This is a fun one, quick and easy, perfect for making in batches and even great for letting the kids help.

I stayed with the monthly challenge colors by using pool, orange, green and brown. I stamped my papers with the Zig Zag Background then used the Circle die to cut out my circles. Piece of cake!

Here’s a closer look.

Complete instructions and supplies can be found HERE.

Need to know where to get our new stamps for our My Monthly Hero Program? HERE is a complete list of participating stores. If you can’t find a local store near you, not to worry, tomorrow we will have all the stamps available in the Hero Arts Online Store. Orders placed in our online store are fulfilled by our retailers to support local business.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!

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