We are thrilled to have Milagros Rivera joining us today for another installment of From the Mind of Milagros! Milagros' mind works in ways we never would have expected with our products. We love to see what she comes up with!

I fell in love with the Floral Tile Stencil and started figuring out what to do with it. I’ve always loved the illuminated manuscripts of medieval times and thought it would be a good experiment. The Gold Hero Wax provides that perfect gold accent to an illuminate manuscript. I used the Girl With Kite cover plate die numerous times to complete my storybook. I also used a couple of my favorite Looking Glass dies - Girl with Balloon and Flying Girl. Combined with Liquid Watercolors and Hero Waxes, I was able to create a little story in my illuminated manuscript. I kept my color palette to primary colors, substituting the yellow with Gold Hero Wax. I also used the White Hero Wax!

The size of the watercolor paper I used for the book is 9”x 6”, that you will score in the middle. Being that watercolor paper is harder than regular cardstock your insert page should be just a smidge shorter than 9”, that way it doesn’t show when you close your book.

Every page was aged by diluting Cocoa Liquid Watercolor to give it an old paper feel. You can squirt water to your paper and then drop the watercolor, that way the color will glow easily to cover the width of the paper.

I also used a pencil to fill the areas of the page that would enhance, or in this case illuminate my manuscript. I left the border width of the stencil to paint with the Hero Wax. It goes on incredibly smooth with a flat brush. And it cleans easily with water so you don’t have to worry that your brush may get damaged, and it will give you more control to use in many areas like the centers of the flowers!

I love taking liberties with dies, I think it helps extend the use with new possibilities. I used two cuts from Girl with Kite, and flipped one of them for a mirror image to mimic friends finding each other to play. This can be done with two girls but why not bring a boy into it, right!? I did a small cut to straighten his hair and did a blunt paint job on him. I also cut a bit from the bottom of where her shorts would be to make a narrower hip and gave him boots.

I also flipped her to take the measurements for a skirt, being medieval times and all! I then glued it on top so that it would have movement on the grass. By the time I put them on the frame I decided to overlap the grasses from both of them to give it a sense of depth.

Here’s another way to extend the use of your dies - by using a cloud, I created a pond behind her. I then used another cloud painted in green for a deeper valley behind her. I actually used the three clouds of the cut on her little scene!

And my last fun recommendation is to see your dies as stencils. The birds from Looking Glass Flying Girl go perfectly with the scale of these trees, and the White Hero Wax covers the green completely.

I hope this storybook gives you joy and opens your mind to fun ways to use your Hero Arts dies and stencils!

What a wonderful, unique way to use these products! Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us, Milagros.

Click on products to shop:
SA166 Floral Tile Stencil | Hero Arts
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DF019 Girl with Kite (F) | Hero Arts
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DI912 Looking Glass Girl with Balloon...
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DF040 Looking Glass Flying Girl (E) |...
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DF036 Dream Accessories Fancy Dies...
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PD111 Liquid Watercolors Strawberry
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PD114 Liquid Watercolors Indigo
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PD116 Liquid Watercolors Moss
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PD128 Coffee Liquid Watercolor | Hero...
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PD123 Cocoa Liquid Watercolor
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NK452 Gold Hero Wax | Hero Arts
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NK450 White Hero Wax | Hero Arts
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  • Neva

    Such cute fun. Your ideas expand the way to use Hero Arts products.

  • Barbara-Jean Kubik

    Spectacular!