Hero Arts Joy To You Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi you guys! Today Hero Arts is having a blog hop to celebrate the 2011 Joy To You holiday catalog going up in the online store. I’m so excited to be playing along!

I had a hard time deciding what stamps to use — there are so many great ones to chose from! Finally, I settled the cling Merriest Christmas Wishes set and the Pool Designer Papers! (You know how I love pool! Oh yah!)

And here’s what I came up with!

I love playing around with solid stamps like this because there’s so many things you can do with them. You could go ahead and stamp it in a nice blue color and you’d have a sweet, tweet scene in no time. Or you could try the kissing technique. But I didn’t want to do either of those! Nope, not me. Instead, I stamped it with VersaMark ink and embossed it in clear, then colored it with inks.

Here’s a closer look so that you can see the embossing better — you gotta tilt it to get it to really show up.

And, here’s a little step-by-step on how I did it! First, I stamped the bird on new Pool Designer paper  — just love this pattern because it goes with everything. (Each pack of paper includes 12 8.5 x 11″ sheets, 4 each of 3 designs.)

Then I grabbed my sponge daubers and distress inks and colored in the bird, then wiped it off with a dry paper towel. Love using sponge daubers for coloring things like this because their small size lets you put the ink right where you want it. (Full supplies at the end of the post.)

Then I kept going and colored the rest of the scene. The embossed parts made a resist and the ink easily wiped away. To finish off the card, I just trimmed it and added it to a Pool Notecard stamped with the Tree Trunks — in Soft Pool, of course!  A little teal gems, some ribbon, and the message and I was done! (Just love all the messages in this set — especially this one.)

(Supplies:  Hero Arts Merriest Christmas Wishes set Pool Designer Papers,  Tree Trunkssponge daubers, Pool Notecard, clear embossing powder, and VersaMark ink. EK Success border punch. Distress inks in barn door, broken china, vintage photo, and walnut stain all by Ranger. Grosgrain ribbon from my stash. The photo overlays are from Katrina at Pugly Pixel.)

Now, remember how I mentioned a giveaway? Yep, Hero Arts is giving away a great prize (including new Pool notecards + envelopes!)! The lucky winner will be chosen on August 5th from all the comments received on each stop in the hop, so be sure to comment + visit them all!

You can comment about anything you like, but I’d love to hear about something that gets you in the holiday mood. It was 104 when I was stamping this, whew! So I listened to music and pretended like those snowflakes weren’t melting. :)

Here’s the full hop in case you’re just joining in:

Your next stop on the hop is the super talented Tami Hartley’s blog — she made FOUR amazing cards! Go check ’em out!

Joyful hopping,

558 Replies to “Hero Arts Joy To You Blog Hop + Giveaway!”

  1. Gorgeous card. Thanks for the tutorial! To get in the mood for Christmas? …Christmas music will get me there…especially the old favorites – White Christmas and The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting in an open fire). But I’m not ready yet…Summer just arrived in Oregon!

  2. So many wonderful options. Very cute.

  3. I love this card and how you used the stamp! I can hardly wait to start making Christmas cards!

  4. Kimberli Sarsfield says:

    Love this card! What a fun stamp that can be used for more than just Christmas cards:)

  5. Hi Lisa!
    Really love the colors you used on the card. So cool and soothing. With the weather being so hot, will be using cool colors to keep me thinking of winter holidays.

  6. Bonnie Ditto says:

    Love the kissing technique. Will use it on Christmas Cards.

  7. Cheerful, colorful card. I’m a big fan of embossing and loved the way you used it here.
    Great card!

  8. A nice idea using the kissing technique to add a nice touch to the card.

  9. Great giveaway~great cards!!

  10. pretty cute, a great idea.

  11. LOVE this technique. Embossing is so cool…Your card is just fabulous!

  12. The red really makes the card stand out. Thanks for sharing.

  13. Karlee Barnes says:

    Hi there Lisa, I ventured onto your blog via way of the Hero Arts bloghop! You card is fantastically adorable – I think that red birdie is the cutest little thing! I’ve already pictured some fun things my kids will be able to do with a stamp like this one – they love doing arts and crafts with me while I do my thing!

    I had a giggle about your pretending its Christmas in the heat – because I’m from Australia, it’s always hot over Christmas!!! I get so excited when it’s coming up to Christmas – beginning of December the Christmas Carols go on, the Tree goes up, and my favourite thing to do to get ready for Christmas is to design the cards that I’m going to give to my family and friends!

    Mind you – I absolutely LOVE shopping for Christmas during the month of July – it’s cold here, I can pretend I’m going to have a white Christmas, and best of all I can have all of my shopping done well and truly before the Christmas rush.

  14. This card is so AMAZING! I love it so much, I pinned it on Pintrest. Beautiful! And thank you so much for the step by step technique! I would have never thought to use the daubbers!

  15. Well, I would never have thought of doing that – what a great technique! I think I’ll have to have a crack at that one, it looks great! :)

  16. Great card from a cute stamp. The clear red colour really snaps the card alive. Loved the use of embossing using a block stamp

  17. It truly is a joyful card.

  18. Great card! Thanks for inspiring me to think about using some non-traditional colours in my holiday cards. Although the ‘pool’ reminds me of the colour of winter ice here in Canada! ;-)

  19. Oh my…such a beautiful technique. I love it!

  20. Wow! Your card is stunning!
    Oh, how I need that stamp now!

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