Good morning! I am so excited to be hopping along with the Hero Arts Creative team and other special guests for their Winter 2016 Release! There are SO many gorgeous and adorable stamps and products in this release! You should have arrived from Jenn Shurkus’ blog but if not, you can head to the Hero Arts blog to start at the beginning! I created two cards using some of my favorite Christmas stamps from this year and last year’s Winter releases! My first card uses the new Color Layering Cardinal with one of my favorite holiday background stamps from Hero Arts.
Isn’t that cardinal gorgeous!? It’s really easy to line up the stamps and you get that great layered look just by using different inks! I stamped the cardinal, branch, and pine sprigs and then die-cut them with the coordinating dies. Then I inked the background stamp with versamark and pressed a piece of kraft cardstock over the stamp. I heat-embossed it with white embossing powder and then trimmed it down to an A2 card base. I stamped the sentiment on vellum and heat-embossed it with white embossing powder. Next I trimmed it down to a fishtail banner and layered it over red cardstock. I adhered them to my kraft base and then tucked my cardinal and branch around the sentiment. I finished the card by adding a little spectrum noir clear sparkle to the vellum.
I decided to make a shaker for my second card using one of the tag dies from last winter’s release. I die-cut it from white cardstock and then added a layer of acetate and foam mounting tape behind the cardstock. I filled it with a mixture of silver and sparkling clear sequins and beads and then sealed it with a white cardstock backing.
Next I stamped the same snowflake background stamp onto white cardstock and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder. Then I blended Cracked Pistachio, Evergreen Bough, and Peacock Feathers distress ink over the background. I adhered the distress inked background to a white card base and then adhered the shaker over it. I am really becoming fond of nontraditional colors for Christmas cards and I love the sparkle and shimmer from the embossing powder and shaker!
To celebrate the release Hero Arts is giving away three $25 gift certificates to comments selected from all of the blogs in the hop so make sure you leave a comment at each hop stop for the most chances to win! Please comment by Sunday, August 28 at 11:59pm PT and we’ll announce the winner the following week. Your next stop on the hop is the wonderful Joan Bardee! Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost!
The Hero Arts Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Kathy Racoosin
Wanda Guess
Lydia Fiedler
Alice Wertz
Amy Tan
Cheiron Brandon
Debbie Olson
Laura Bassen
Debby Hughes
Heather Ruwe
Ilina Crouse
Isha Gupta
Jenn Shurkus
Jessica Frost-Ballas —> YOU ARE HERE!
Joan Bardee
Karin Akesdotter
Yana Smakula
Kelly Rasmussen
Amy Tsuruta
Clare Prezzia
Mariana Grigsby
May Sukyong Park
Libby Hickson
Thanks so much for visiting and have a wonderful day!
Your cardinal card is so pretty….Then we get your snowflake shaker card…That’s a WOW!
Your cards are beyond amazing, Jessica! You are immensely talented!
Fab shaker card – just love the effect you got on the background.
Beautiful! The silver and blue are so classy together!
I love your cardinal card and so enjoy three step stamping as it is so forgiving! Thank you for sharing
Love the backgrounds – lots of lovely sparkle! 🙂
Beautiful cards!!
Love these cards with your beautiful backgrounds! Stunning!! Thanks for sharing them on the blog hop.
Love the use of the snowflake background.
Gorgeous cards!! Thanks for the inspiration as always!!
Beautiful cards. I wasn’t inspired to start on Christmas cards until now!
Very beautiful cards. I love the bright red cardinal on the kraft paper. The cardinal really pops on the kraft paper. All the cards are so pretty~
I like the background stamps.
Stunning cardinal – just amazed at all the details in these stamps!
The cardinal is gorgeous and I love the snowflake background. The tag is nice and it would look great on packages during the holidays. Hero arts does not fail. My first stamps were Hero arts. Thank you for sharing your art.
BEAUTIFUL cards! Love this bird. Cant wait to get mine! TFS
Winter cheer is totally awesome!
Both cards are beautiful but the cardinal is fantastic…thanks for sharing.
Stunning cards! Love the shaker idea using those ornament dies.
Wow! I’m so loving the red, black and grey Cardinal background. Pure elegance. Thanks for the inspiration!
Beautiful snowflake background! I love what you’ve done with it. Thanks for the inspiration today! I look forward to playing with the HA Winter release!
So beautiful!
That cardinal card is so beautiful! I can’t believe that was made with stamps!
Fell in love with your cards.
I love your pretty cards! The colors are so soft and subtle and they look amazing!