Hero Arts

Hillside Holiday Wishes

| ullycatdesigns

One Christmas I got to experience Christmas in San Francisco with its hillside houses. Another Christmas I was driving through up-state New York on snowy streets where the houses are all on hillsides. This card evokes these memories for me.

It took several tries experimenting with the three dies in this Hero Arts die set. I finally figured out the positioning on an 11-inches by 5 3/8 inches card. The card is folded at 3 5/8 inches and 7 5/16 inches. I used a bone folder to burnish my folds.

The card sat on my desk for a few weeks until I found the right sentiment stamps. When my copy of Creative Stamping, issue 101 arrived with Lou Collins’ Text{ures} brand Seasonal Sentiments stamps, I knew they would be perfect when heat embossed in gold on the all-white card.

I remembered to wipe the card with an anti-static bag the first time I stamped and heat embossed the card, but I forgot to wipe the last panel before I stamped and there are a few tiny stray gold specks. (Moral of the story – always wipe the space that you will be applying embossing powder to before you stamp.)

To finish this clean and simple card, I chose a cream A2 size envelope and stamped the flap with the words “Happy Wishes” and heat embossed in gold. The stamps are from the same stamp set as the card.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊

Dies

  • Hero Arts – Fancy Dies – Tri-fold Edge, Village

Stamps

  • Text{ures} by Lou Collins – Seasonal Sentiments from Creative Stamping, issue 101, November 2021

Ink & Embossing Powder

  • VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad
  • Cosmic Shimmer – Detail Embossing Powder – Bright Gold

Papers

  • Heavy weight 8 ½ inches x 11 inches white cardstock
  • A2 envelope

Additional Supplies:

Ship-In-A-Bottle II

| ullycatdesigns

This card can be for a birthday or another special day for a nautical person.

Ship -in-the-Bottle:  Using the Tutti Designs Ship in A Bottle die, cut four times from light blue, brown, white, and oatmeal. Only cut the whole die from blue. The other colors cut the sections needed from scraps. Using distress inks, color the various die-cut sections of the bottle and paper piece as needed. Glue bottle outline to a piece of acetate on the front side. Cut out the bottle shape. Glue rope to outside of bottle neck.

Background:  Die cut the rope background from oatmeal cardstock making such al the chads are removed from the image. Glue to a dark piece of wood grained cardstock cut to 4 inches x 5 ¼ inches.

Assembly of Card:  Position sentiment strip, ship and then the bottle on to rope background. Glue ship down followed by bottle. Adhere sentiment strip with foam squares. Attached front panel to bard base with foam squares.

Sentiments:  The foiled sentiment strip was one I had made during a batch foiling session using up scraps. It was die-cut into a ribbon. The inside stamp sentiment is from a favorite nautical stamp set by Sara Davies.

As is my style, I stamped the back of the envelope with the lighthouse image from the Sara Davies stamp set to hint as to what is inside.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave a comment. 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Ink

Papers

Foiling Plates

Miscellaneous

You’re Absolutely Fabulous

| ullycatdesigns

Isn’t it nice to hear “You’re absolutely fabulous!” We all need to hear this statement every now and then.

A wonderful way to say this, is to use the Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Dress Up set which includes this sentiment. This set is also fun for the crafter because you get to dress the figures using the skirt dies and you can stamp the bodice top onto patterned paper and fussy cut it out.

These two cards show the two different hairstyles and tops as well as two of the three skirts. The set come with two sets of legs (walking and close together) and four different facial expressions.

I colored the hair and shoes with watercolor pencils.

The sentiments are heat embossed in a shiny black with a red stamped heart on one of the cards.

I stamped the back of one envelope and heat embossed the other envelope with a shooting star.

Thank you for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed seeing these cards. Please like or comment on this post at the bottom of this post.

SUPPLIES

Dies:

Stamps:

Inks:

Embossing:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

Driving into a Spooky Sunset

| ullycatdesigns

Halloween in the USA often means corn mazes and pumpkin patches as well as dressing up on Halloween evening and going to a party. I have tried to combine these things into a single slimline sliding bridge-fold card.

This card was a second prototype for trying new methods and materials for me. This was my second attempt at ink blending a setting sun sky using Distress Inks and blending sponges, so not as spotty as my first attempt, but not as smoothly blended as I would like. I made a stencil for the sun using scrap card.

The base of the card is 8 1/2 inches (21.6 cm) tall by 9 inches (22.7 cm) wide and scored at 4.5 cm, 8 cm, 15 cm and 18.5 cm. I cut the top corners diagonally from 9 cm down to the 8 cm scoring and the 15 cm scoring.

The small ghosts and bats lurking on the inside panel are die-cut pieces – the bats from the Halloween Sunday Drive and the “Squeaker Ghosts” by Poppy Stamps.

I used the Hero Arts September 2020 My Monthly Hero Kit to stamp the layered image of a field of pumpkins with a corn filed in the background. The kit includes five mini cubes of ink needed to stamp each layer as well as the layered stamps and sentiment stamps. Dies to cut out a few of the images and several sheets of glitter paper round out the kits. (You need to order early the monthly kits as they sell out fast. Hero Arts is one of the few companies that lets you order a single kit without taking out a subscription.)

I stamped four of the images on white copy paper and layered the pumpkin field to create a taller background image. I knew I wanted a road going down the middle of the card, and I cut a road from brown cardstock.

The sliding bridge is a mechanism under the car that involves a capital I piece and two folded rings.

The rings are glued to the folded edges of the card base around the I piece. The end stops of the I piece were adhered behind the car’s wheel wells and tires with foam pads.

The car driven by a white glitter paper skeleton with a glow-in-the-dark pink haired witch with glow-the-the-dark green skin, is die cut suing Spellbinder’s Sunday Drive car die set with the Halloween Sunday Drive add-on set. The car body was cut from white cardstock and then covered with Black Soot Distress ink. The taillights are Nuvo Glow Drops Neon – Shocking Pink and silver matt cardstock. Two glitter cardstock die cut skulls are in the car’s luggage rack. The brown folded down roof is colored cardstock heat embossed with clear embossing powder to get a faux leather look. The shiny hat bands on the two hats are made with Nuvo Glow Drops Neon – Blue Crush.

The sentiment and stamps used on the envelope flap are all from the Hero Arts kit stamped in Memento tuxedo Black and the wheel in the Hero Arts brown ink cube.

For another Halloween slimline card using the same supplies see Being Spooky.

Other Sunday Drive cards:

Sunday Drive Celebration

A Snowy Sunday Drive with Santa

Santa Bauble

Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Being Spooky

Driving into a Spooky Sunset

The Best is Yet to Come

Hoppy Spring!

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

SUPPLIES

Dies:

Stamps:

Inks/Embossing Powder:

Nuvo Drops:

Miscellaneous:

  • Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue
  • White computer paper
  • White cardstock
  • Colored cardstock scraps from stash
  • Foam pads
  • American Crafts – Metallic Marker – M – Silver -62212

Being Spooky

| ullycatdesigns

Halloween in the USA often means corn mazes and pumpkin patches as well as dressing up on Halloween evening and going to a party. I have tried to combine these things into a single slimline z-fold card.

This card was my prototype for trying new methods and materials for me. I had never ink blended a setting sun sky using Distress Inks and blending sponges, so my sky is a bit “spotty.” I experimented with using Nuvo drops to cover an entire surface (car, witch’s hair and neck.) I like the effect that Nuvo drop spread thin has on small die cut pieces but getting an even coating on large pieces was difficult. I think using a glow in the dark embossing powder would work better for the car.

I used the Hero Arts September 2020 My Monthly Hero Kit to stamp the layered image of a field of pumpkins with a corn filed in the background. The kit includes five mini cubes of ink needed to stamp each layer as well as the layered stamps and sentiment stamps. Dies to cut out a few of the images and several sheets of glitter paper round out the kits. (You need to order early the monthly kits as they sell out fast. Hero Arts is one of the few companies that lets you order a single kit without taking out a subscription.)

I stamped four of the images and layered the pumpkin field to create a taller background image. I knew I wanted a road going down the middle of the card, but in hindsight, I have the perspective all off for the angle of the road. The road is made of three pieces of black cardstock. The design of the car is for the card to be standing open in a z-fold position, so you can read the “Happy Halloween.”

The base of the card is 8 5/8 inches tall by 7 5/8 inches wide and folded at 1 7/8 inches and 3 ¾ inches.

The car driven by a white glitter paper skeleton with a glow-in-the-dark pink haired witch with glow-the-the-dark green skin, is die cut suing Spellbinder’s Sunday Drive car die set with the Halloween Sunday Drive add-on set. The car body was cut from white cardstock and then covered with the Nuvo Glow Drops Neon – Sour Apple. The taillights are Nuvo Glow Drops Neon – Shocking Pink and silver matt cardstock. Two glitter cardstock die cut skulls are in the car’s luggage rack. The brown folded down roof is colored cardstock heat embossed with clear embossing powder to get a faux leather look. The shiny hat bands on the two hats are made with Nuvo Glow Drops Neon – Blue Crush.

The small ghosts and bats lurking on the inside panel are die-cut pieces – the bats from the Halloween Sunday Drive and the “Squeaker Ghosts” by Poppy Stamps.

The sentiment and stamps used on the envelope flap are all from the Hearo Arts kit stamped in Memento tuxedo Black and the wheel in the Hero Arts brown ink cube.

For another interactive Halloween slimline card using the same supplies see Driving into a Spooky Sunset (Set to be released on September 25).

Other Sunday Drive cards:

Sunday Drive Celebration

A Snowy Sunday Drive with Santa

Santa Bauble

Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Being Spooky

Driving into a Spooky Sunset

The Best is Yet to Come

Hoppy Spring!

SUPPLIES

Dies:

Stamps:

Inks/Embossing Powder:

Nuvo Drops:

Miscellaneous:

  • Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue
  • White computer paper
  • White cardstock
  • Colored cardstock scraps from stash
  • American Crafts – Metallic Marker – M – Silver -62212

Be Adventurous!

| ullycatdesigns

IMG_5828Say yes to adventure. Chase your dreams.  Who knows where it will lead you?  This is a card that tries to capture all these sentiments and to celebrate achievement.

The inspiration for this card comes a desire to use all of my bicycle dies, but morphed into a card trying to only use one paper set (Chasing Dreams by Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper). The bicycle die set is by Simon Says Stamp and has the wheel as a separate die so you can cut the perfect tire from a separate color and has a separate basket die as well. The balloons, string of lights and banner flags are from one of my favorite die sets by Sizzix and Courtney Chilson. A fine tipped black marker was used to color the bike’s handles, pedals and balloon strings. A white gel pen was used to color in the balloons’ highlights.

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While the outside of the card is to suggest the current moment, the inside is to suggest how pleasant the future will be if you chase your dreams and say yes to adventure.

All of the pop-up, stamped, watercolored and die cut images come from the Hero Arts January 2019 My Monthly Hero kit. I had to cut off the top awning of the flower stand and lower it to fit inside the card.  I reinforced the back side of the stand with strips of scrap paper before attaching with double-sided tape.

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The tiered stand was inspired by a tiered pop up cake by Karen Burniston for Elizabeth Craft Designs. Since the die is no longer available, I had to improvise to create the right proportional shelves.

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The outside sentiments come from the paper stack while the inside sentiments are from two separate sets.  The “you’re wonderful” is stamped and embossed from the Hero Arts set and the ”Celebrate” is die-cut from Momenta Firefly’s Celebrate Happy Birthday die set.

 

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

 

Stamps:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

Lots of Love

| ullycatdesigns

IMG_3744

You can never send enough love.  This card was created to send to family far away.  The recipient is very musical so the musical score embossing folder was the basis for this z-fold card. I took the rest of my inspiration from the magazine that the dies came from Papercraft inspirations issue 176.

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I used the pink and red cardstock from my January 2019 Hero Arts kit and a white piece of cardstock cut diagonally from one corner to a point about 2 inches from the opposing corner. The pink hearts were cut from cardstock I had embossed with the folder from the Cardmaking & Papercraft issue 178 “Make an Impression” set. I used the “lots of love” stamp from the same set to stamp and then heat emboss with white embossing powder on to a brown craft paper. The heart stamps were from a  rubber Lil’ Stamps of hearts by Inque Boutique (c)2007. Cards from a Tea Room Memories & More Card Pack were also used for the inside sentiment.

Other Supplies:

  • Scotch Foam Tape
  • Tombow Mono Aqua Liquid Glue
  • Colorbok Glitter Craft Papers
  • Recollections Detail Embossing Powder – Snow
  • Hampton Arts pigment inks of red and silver

Flowers for the Pretty Lady

| ullycatdesigns

I love creating buildings and 3-dimentional cards. This being said, when I saw the Hero Arts January 2019 My Monthly Hero kit I knew I had to have it.  I looked at all the videos and blogs using the kit while waiting for the kit to arrive. Then I developed an idea for a stand-alone flower booth card.

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I ended up using a fan-fold of about 1.25 inches wide to made the sides of the booth. I used 1/8 inch wide double sided tape to adhere the three brown shelves to the inside of the folds. (See YouTube video from Crafter’s Companion that shows how to do the fan-fold sides and attach shelves.) I cut the striped awning about 1 inch taller than the stamp so I could color it and glue it to the inside back to give the booth a roof.

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Coloring the entire card with watercolor pencils and using a waterbrush to spread the color was a lot of fun.  The “Valentine’s” was stamped and embossed with black sparkle powder and fussy cut. All the flowers and cans where shaped around a fat marker pen to add some dimension. I used foam squares and tape to add more layers and depth.

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The back sentiment was computer generated and cut to look like a poster on the back of the booth. (If I had to choose the adhesive I used to adhere the poster again, I would use glue rather than the doubled-sided tape which shows through the thin copier paper I printed the sentiment on, but I was afraid the ink would run if I used water-based glue. I also could have repositioned the poster more squarely on the back.)

Supplies used:

  • Hero Arts January 2019 My Monthly Hero kit
  • White and green premium cardstock from Darice
  • VersaMark Watermark Stamp Pad
  • Ranger Black Sparkle Embossing Powder
  • Scotch White Foam Squares and Tape
  • Prima Marketing Inc. Watercolor Pencils -The Basics
  • Tim Holtz-Ranger Waterbrush -Detailer Tip
  • Stampabilities Black Dye Ink Pad
  • Poster cut from Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box Pop-Up Die