Hi everyone! I’m back to announce the winners of the Circle Challenge. The judges and I all said the same thing when we saw all of the fabulous entries — WOW! We went “round and round“ trying to pick our favorites. Finally, we each narrowed down our entries and I put them all in a hat and picked the winners at random.

And now….

Drumroll…

Third place — appropriately enough — goes to thecircleguru for her fun monkey card! I love how she stamped the circle in the lower left corner, and how the monkey is peeking out of the circle:

I love the inside, too. And see that circle tab? You use it to spin the monkey around in a circle! TOO CLEVER!

Second place goes to stampyng for her colorful coffee card! I love all the background circles, and how she stamped the “coffee” message on a curve! YAY!

And now…

Finally….

Another drumroll…

The winner of the Circle Challenge is 1scrappycat for her felted circle birdies! Love how the felt adds that extra special something to the circles.

Congratulations, one and all! Please email us at the address in the sidebar so that we can get your gift certificates right out to you and you can start shopping!

Don’t go away just yet, I have more winners to announce! I decided to judge the spinner cards seperately as they are in a class by themselves — thanks to everyone who tried one, you really made me smile! I put all of the judge’s favorite spinners in a hat and drew these to share with you.

Feast your eyes on this circular spinner by RubyLou

Love the background, too!

Next up is another take on a spinner by clmlcc — for this one, you turn the front circle like a dial to reveal messages. Beautiful!

The judges and I are “head over heels in love” with this fun spinner by Gigi001 — check out the paper flower tucked behind the sheep’s ear, too cute!

Last but certainly not least, we have this super duper spinner by mjphotos2007– the pink circle spins around too!

Spinner winners — ha ha, that rhymes! — please email the address in the sidebar as I have some goodies to send to you!

Don’t forget, you still have plenty of time to enter this week’s Gift Wrap Challenge. Click here for all the details.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Circle Challenge,

With so much going on here on the blog, I thought I’d do a little recap of all the contests that are still open!

First off is this week’s Circle Challenge. You have until Sunday 11:59 PST to post your entry here in the Hero Arts Flickr Group. (Check out the FAQ for help with Flickr.) Hope we got LOTS of entries for this. I just checked and I see some fabulous ones already!

The “Designer Swap” giveaway will be going on until Monday morning when I’ll randomly select the winner. Click HERE to enter! Don’t forget to click on over to the A Muse blog and leave a comment there, too.

And finally, Guest Artist Claudine Hellmuth has TWO Hero giveaways — click HERE and HERE to find out more!

And now for a little more circle inspiration…

Here’s a card I did that features both of the stamps from the “Designer Swap” giveaway

Click here for the full materials + instructions. I love that CardArt Write-In bird stamp — handwrite a note if you don’t want to use an alphabet set.

A few more cards + layouts to check out for circle inspiration:

• THIS awesome layout by Leslie — love the colors!
• Shari’s fun card with the Project of the Month set — gotta love those owls
• Jennifer’s elegant monogram card HERE!

Hope you have fun entering ALL the contests!

What happens when two friends who are designers for two different companies swap stamps + blogs?

Let’s find out!

I’m off to the A Muse blog, so take it awaaaaaay, Julie…!

Hello! It has been *so* much fun designing these special cards using Hero Arts stamps!

This fun “designer swap” between Hero Arts and A Muse sprouted over the idea of each of us guest designing for the other–I’ve been a tremendous Lisa Spangler groupie (I’m always teasing her that I’m a friendly “stalker”) for quite some time, so it has been a great thrill for me to work so closely with her on this!

Here’s a little background about me:

Rubber stamping caught my interest over 14 years ago, when a cousin would send beautiful hand-made cards to our family. Once I understood she “made it herself” using rubber stamps, I had to get in on the action, too–it’s been a happy addiction ever since!

For the past 11 years, I’ve had a blast demonstrating and teaching the art of rubber stamping, in addition to doing concept design work. Today, I work from my home on Whidbey Island, WA as A Muse Artstamps Creative Teams Director.

My husband of nearly 24 years has grown accustomed, with good humor, to my ever-growing collection of rubber stamps. We have a daughter, 18, headed for college next fall, and a son, 12, whose Little League schedule keeps us hoppin’!

Warmest thanks to Lisa, and to Hero Arts! Good times!

Thank YOU Julie! It was so fun doing this with you and A Muse!

Now, I’m back to tell you all about Julie’s cards. Just look at all these fabulous creations that Julie did featuring CIRCLES, starting with a monogram card using the Sparkle Clear Little Letter J — of course!

See how Julie put the Pearl Accents in the corners — brilliant!

Next up is a truly amazing card, featuring the Amazing and Layering Circles Design Accent stamps

I love how she used the new Mixed Summer Gemstones to underline “amazing” and the colors — gotta love the Summer Notecards! Aren’t the Layering Circles effective stamped in black?

Next we have one of my favorite message stamps, Seize the Cupcake, along with one of my favorite border sets, Clear Design Dots and Lines!

Look closely at the candle in the “seize the cupcake” and the frosting — is this girl good or what?

Next is another card featuring the Clear Design Dots and Lines and the Layering Circles — what yummy colors.

And, check out the Clear Card Button fits perfectly over the “happy wishes” from the Clear Design Thinking of You Messages set!

Next we have a card featuring the Sweet Bird. Love how Julie used the Sparkle Gem Heart – isn’t it sweet?

And now for a soft, gentle card using the Dandelion. Love the background created with those Layering Circles, too.

Next are two cards that both feature the Silhouette Corner that Shari used in her water mist video last week

Isn’t it great how you can get so many different looks with that stamp, just by changing the colors?

Now for a simple, dramatic “hi!” — love the Small Dot Line Border stamped down the side

And the Black Gemstones for flower centers

Finally, here’s yet another clever use of the Layering Circles Design Accents set — Julie used one of the circles to create a sun!

I love the little embossed flowers in the background and the border that Julie drew, too! The “you make me smile” message is from the Clear Design Thinking of You Messages set. The Summer Art Flowers and Summer Card Buttons really make it pop!

Julie, YOU and your happy cards make me smile! I had so much fun doing the “Designer Swap” with you!

Now I think it’s time we spread MORE smiles with a GIVEAWAY!

The giveaway includes the Layering Circles Design Accent set that Julie used, a Card Art Write-in Bird Kit (since it works so well with the Layering Circles!), a package of Summer Art Buttons and a package of Cantaloupe Notecards! YUM!

To win, just post a comment below with something that makes you SMILE! I’ll leave this open until Monday morning when the winner will be announced.

If you’d like to see the cards that I stamped, just click on over to the A Muse Blog HERE! Pssst, I hear there’s a giveaway there, too!

Don’t forget, you have until Sunday at 11:59 PM PST to submit your Circle Challenge entry to the Hero Arts Flicker Group. Hope we inspired you to create an entry!

Until tomorrow,

I’m so honored to have a very special guest today: Claudine Hellmuth! I’ve been a HUGE fan of Claudine’s for ages, her work is so colorful and FUN!

If you’re not familiar with her work, Claudine is a mixed-media collage artist whose work has been chosen for fine art poster designs, featured in numerous magazines, used as book illustrations and published as greeting cards, gift products and more. She has appeared on the Martha Stewart Show and has written two books and has three instructional DVD’s.

Just look at this amazing piece that she created — and look at all the clever uses of circles!

A Little Birdie Told Her

Hero Arts supplies:

• Clear Design Bird Branch Alphabet
• Special Edition Dot Trees
• Small Line Dot Border
• Clear Design Large Block
• Clear Design Tall Block
• Clear Design Dots and Lines
• Lime Notecards

Other products used:

• Ranger Adirondack Dye Ink Pads colors: Stream, Lettuce, Watermelon
• Ranger Archival Ink Pad in Jet Black
• Ranger Inkssentials Opaque White Pen
• Acrylic paints
• Gel medium
• Markers
• Photocopy of family photo
• Pencil
• Paper

To see more of Claudine’s work — and for SIX PRIZE DRAWINGS beginning at noon EST — visit her blog! EDIT: Claudine has posted the last winner on her blog — CLICK HERE to see if you won!

Here’s a little collage piece that I did that’s inspired by Claudine and using some of the techniques I learned from her books + DVDs — they are awesome!

I have it hanging right here by my computer as a reminder. Love that saying! The colors were chosen to go with the room, which is mainly lime and teal.

Hero Arts supplies:

• Special Edition Creative Trees
• Sparkle Clear Little Letter S (for the squirrel)
  
• Clear Design Anytime Messages
• Citron Gemstones
• Memories ArtPrint Brown

Other supplies:

• Medium texture canvas
• Acrylic paints, gel medium (Golden)
• Ribbon (Making Memories)
• Polka dot tissue paper (saved from a package)
• Cream patterned paper (Scenic Route), green patterned paper (A Muse)
• Wooden coffee stirrers (recycled, used to support the back)
• Embroidery floss
• Watercolor pencils (General’s), colored pencils (Prismacolor)
• Pop dots

Thanks so much Claudine!

There’s still time to enter this week’s Circle Challenge – just submit your entry to the Hero Arts Flickr Group by 11:59 PM PST on Sunday. Hope you enter, whether you create a card, scrapbook page, collage piece, or other project! Speaking of challenges, did you see the winner’s of Shari’s Flower Challenge? Congratulations to everyone who entered — you are ALL winners in my book!

Until tomorrow, when I have more FUN up my sleeve for Fun Friday…

Welcome back! It’s Watch it Wednesday, where we either have a video or step-by-step photos to share with you.

Today I have a video that shows how to get more from your clear stamps by mounting them on a curve. I’ll also show you how to make a summery “spinner card” — you’ll see why it’s called a spinner after watching the video…

Supplies:

• DesignBlock Thank You
• Clear Design Thank You Messages
• Clear Design Designer Butterflies
• Clear Design Thoughtful Messages
• Lemon, cantaloupe notecards
• Primary Elements, Chocolates & Blueberries and Sand Dunes Chalk Queues
• Neutral Art Flowers
• Smooth Clear Gemstones
• Other: pennies, washers, or other round metal items, pop dots, circle punches (EK Success). Note: You want the circle punch for the spinner channel to be large enough so that your pop dot will fit inside easily, but smaller than the pennies or whatever you use for the spinner part so that it doesn’t fall out. You really don’t have to use a circle punch for this — just make the edges straight with a craft knife.

Hope you enjoyed the video!

Here’s a simpler version of the spinner card so that you can see more of the Design Block Thank You image — love that stamp.

There’s still plenty of time to get rolling — ha ha! — on this week’s Circle Challenge. Hope you join in the fun.

Tomorrow I have a very special guest blogger — can’t wait for you to see!

Until then,

Welcome back! Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend. It’s Take Two Tuesday and I have a video for you that shows how to stamp using the “flip side” of clear stamps and create a “message in a box” — and of course, there are circles. I love making this kind of greeting, so fun. This one is for my friend Genny who graduated from the University of Texas — so that’s the reason for the “burnt orange” color!

Supplies:

• Sparkle Clear Little Letters W, O, H, N
• Sparkle Clear Love That (for the owl)
• Smooth Clear Gemstones
• Neutral Art Flowers
• Chocolate Notecards
• Memories Black Ink, Pumpkin Patch Chalk Queue
• Other: metal tin (Lee Valley) or a paper box (craft store), clear sticker (A Muse) or Glossy Accents (Ranger), ribbon (May Arts), 1 1/2 inch circle punch (EK Success)

WOO HOO Genny!!! Congratulations!

Here’s another take on stamping with the reverse side of a clear stamp and the Sparkle Clear Little Letters — although, this one’s not a circle so it wouldn’t qualify for the weekly challenge

Full supplies and instructions are here. I was thinking that it would be fun to attach a tag with the party info on it, and the place it in an evelope.

Hope you enjoyed the video — and hope you try to create a “message in a box”!

You can still enter Monday’s giveway — just click here to go to the post and leave a comment. The winner will be announced tomorrow.

See you tomorrow when I’ll have another video to share,

Hi everyone! Hope you’re having a great Memorial Day! The Hero office is closed today, but we’ll be open as usual on Tuesday.

Besides being a day of remembrance, Memorial Day has always meant the start of SUMMER to me — swimming holes are open, school is out, the weather is warm — well pretty hot here in Texas, actually — it’s supposed to get to 95 today, 100 with the heat index! So I thought I’d use our line of “summer” themed notecards and accessories for today’s cards, including Summer Notecards, Summer Mixed Gemstones, Summer Art Flowers and Summer Buttons! This color combo is not my usual thing — but once I got into it, I really love it. It really makes for some happy, cheerful — well yes, summery cards. Here are some samples!

Summery Circle Flowers

Here’s how to make the flowers — stamp the DesignBlock Flourish with orange chalk ink on Cantaloupe, then punch out two circles. Crumple up the circles, then unfold and scrape away some of the orange with your craft knife and use a paper distressor on the edges — mine is from Tonic. Hero Notecards (except for Kraft) are white inside, so when you distress them like this the white shows through.

Hello Birdie

For this one, I stamped the circle frames from some Sparkle Clear Little Letters in heliotrope pigment ink and embossed with clear Sparkle Embossing Powder on Wisteria. Each Sparkle Clear Little Letter comes with a unique frame — the ones shown here are from the I, N, J, A, P, and G. Those are the new Smooth Clear Gemstones — love them!

I stamped the bird once on a Clear Circle Tag with Black StazOn, and two times white cardstock, then I colored the cardstock birdies with pencils and cut out the body from one and the wing from another. I used a gluestick to adhere the body of the bird to the Clear Circle Tag, and then the wing with foam tape for a little extra dimension.

Hey, Summer!

I had some leftover of the stamped circle background so I went ahead and made this “half card”. The tag hanging off the side that you can’t really read says “a little birdie told me…”. I love using circle punches to create windows in cards.

From Our Home To Yours

Finally, here’s a fun card using punched circles outlined with Summer Mixed Gems, Summer Art Flowers and even a Summer Button!

And now to announce the theme of this week’s challenge — if you haven’t already guessed — it will be CIRCLES! Stamp up a card, scrapbook page, or other project using at least one circular element and at least one Hero Arts stamp. That’s it! Hope we get LOTS of entries for this challenge. Your circular element can be a button, punched image, and of course — a circle stamp! Post your entry to the Hero Arts Flickr Group by Sunday at 11:59 PM PST and tag it with the word “circles”. (See the FAQ for more info.) Here are the prizes:

1st place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

2nd place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

3rd place: $10 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

I’m going hiking with friends today, but I wanted to do a summery giveaway! One lucky winner will receive all the goodies you see here that were used in the sample cards, including: Sparkle Clear Hello Birdie, Sparkle Clear From Our Home, Summer Notecards, Summer Mixed Gemstones, Smooth Clear Gemstones, Summer Art Flowers and Summer Buttons! YUM.

Just leave me a comment and let me know what stamping supplies you take with you on summer vacations. AND for an extra bonus share: if you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would it be? This would be a hard choice for me, I have so many places I want to go and so many supplies I’d want to take, hmmmm….!

I’ll moderate the comments when I can, can’t wait to see them! This giveaway will be open until Tuesday since so many people are out and about today. (Winners to be announced on Wednesday.)

Happy Memorial Day + Happy Summer! (And a Happy Fall to those in the southern hemisphere…!)