July My Monthly Hero Countdown: Idea #1 + Giveaway

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Hello and welcome as we begin the countdown to the release of the July My Monthly Hero Kit! Release day is Monday, July 1 at 1pm Eastern/10 am Pacific. Our Creative Team will be here all weekend, sharing inspiration leading up to the launch. Now let's join Jess for the first look at this fabulous kit!

Hello! Jess here and I am so excited about this kit! I'll admit I'm definitely more of a beach girl but I've watched movies about summer camps at lakes (and horror movies at lakes, ha) and building this scene was so much fun to put together!

To start I used several colored cardstocks to stamp my images and give them a more coordinated border. I stamped the layering pier from the kit onto Sand cardstock with Soft Brown and Cup O' Joe ink and die-cut it with the coordinating die. Next I stamped the bottom layer of the mountain on Dove White cardstock with Soft Granite ink. I dried it with my heat gun and then stamped the top layer with Unicorn White Pigment ink and heat-embossed it with White Puff Embossing Powder before die-cutting it with the coordinating die. I stamped the trees onto the Meadow cardstock included in the kit with Field Greens and Forever Green ink and die-cut them with the coordinating dies. I die-cut the rocks with Dove White cardstock and colored them with Copics. Then I stamped the cattails and grasses several times with Field Greens ink and added accents and shading with Copic markers.

Next I took a panel of the Lapis cardstock included in the kit, masked off the top third, and blended Navy, Stone Wash, and Cornflower ink across the bottom of the panel, keeping the darker shade at the top. Then I blended a little Cornflower and Stone Wash ink around the top corners of the panel. Then I stamped the ripples randomly across the panel using the same three inks. Next I die-cut a mask of the mountains and temporarily adhered it above the water. I used a small blending brush to add a little Unicorn White Pigment ink above the mask.  I removed the mask and dried it with my heat gun. Finally I stamped my birds with Charcoal ink.

To assemble my card I started by adhering the mountains and trees. Then I adhered the rocks with foam mounting tape. Across the bottom of the panel I adhered the cattails and grass and then used foam mounting tape to add my dock. I really love the look of the scene so I decided to create a removable sentiment that makes the scene almost look like a postcard! I stamped the bottom layer of the mountains and trees onto Dove White cardstock using Soft Granite and Field Greens ink. Then I stamped my sentiment with Intense Black ink. I die-cut it with the Nesting Postage Stamp Infinity Dies and then added two layers of Clear Embossing Powder to give it a shiny finish. Finally I adhered the sentiment with removable glue dots. You could keep the sentiment on the card or easily remove it and leave the scene as is! :) 

Win a kit before you can buy it! Just leave a comment on this (and every) Countdown to Creativity post. We’ll randomly draw one lucky winner from all the comments left across all countdown posts. The winner will be announced first thing Monday morning, July 1st, before the kit launches at 10am Pacific. The more you comment, the more chances to win!

Good luck!


  • kaenajo

    Love this pretty scenic card – looking forward to rest of kit !

  • Bonnie King

    I love this kit already!

  • Ellen Gilliam

    Wow. Summertime lakeside is my idea of bliss and this kit speaks right to that! Can’t wait to see it!

  • Rachel W

    Love this mountain lake scene! Can’t wait to see more of this months kit.

  • MILDRED G PEPE

    I would love to know exactly what’s included in the kit before the big reveal on the 1st. I am a subscriber and the anticipation of the next release makes me anxious. I’m sure the July Kit will be another winner. Would just like a look see.

492 Responses