Hero Arts Blog

Hello and welcome to another day of April My Monthly Hero ideas, leading up to the launch on Monday, April 4 at 1pm eastern/10am pacific! Today Lucy is joining us for another peek at the kit. Take it away, Lucy!

The Daniel Smith watercolour dot sheet in this month's kit contains a gorgeous selection of colors. For my card today, I chose Quinacridone Violet - a lovely soft pinky-purple tone. I stamped and white embossed the flower twice on some of the heavy cardstock included in the kit, then painted loosely with the violet paint. I die cut the centre of one of the flowers, then layered them up, curling the petals slightly for dimension.

I stamped the sentiment onto more of the heavy cardstock from the kit, splattered with the violet paint and stitched along one edge. I adhered the panel to a folded card, added my flower along with a twist of thread and embellished with pearls.

It's wonderful to have so many coordinating items included in the kit - it makes putting a card together so easy.

Lucy gave you a lot of hints as to kit contents, didn't she? Are you getting excited? We cannot wait for the launch on Monday, we know you're going to absolutely love this gorgeous kit. Remember to comment on all of the Countdown to Creativity posts this weekend - we'll be giving away one kit to one lucky blog reader, drawn from all the comments across all Countdown posts, on Monday morning before the kit launches!

Thanks for stopping by,

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We're back with a few more ideas for the April My Monthly Hero kit! The kit launches on Monday, April 4 at 1pm eastern/10am pacific. Judging by your comments left so far on our previous post, it sounds like you are already in love with this month's kit! Yay!

The next set of ideas come from our very own Sally Traidman. When you give new stamps to Sally, she goes to town and pumps out so many fabulous ideas! Here's a few of them...

I had the greatest time with this set!

AND, that’s what I needed more of…TIME. With one little set of stamps and a few watercolors, I painted a field of flowers.

I absolutely LOVE maximizing any set or kit to see how many ways you can use a stamp!

Do watercolors intimidate you? Then simply paint on the stamp instead of inking it, and stamp it out! Voila….another beautiful look!

Believe it or not, Sally had even MORE ideas with this kit! She'll be back again this weekend for another Countdown post, sharing more really creative and unique projects! Be sure to stop back by tomorrow and Sunday - other members of our team will be here sharing their talents with us, too. Comment on every blog post this weekend for more chances to win a kit before you can buy it!

Have a wonderful, inky weekend!

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It's time for another My Monthly Hero countdown! The April kit will launch on Monday, April 4 at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific. Continue to stop by our blog throughout the weekend for a bunch of fabulous ideas from our team for using our gorgeous new kit. And comment on each and every countdown post - we'll giveaway one kit before you can buy it to one lucky blog reader, pulled from the comments left on every Countdown to Creativity post! Now let's join Yana for the first look at this month's kit!

I always find watercolor to be very relaxing and calming and it is rather forgiving too, even if you make a mistake you can fix it with a bit of water or work your way around it. My favorite way to watercolor is wet watercolor. I like to lay a coat of clean clear water to the entire image and only after that come in with a bit of color. This allows me to achieve beautiful gradation of color and I can easily go from very dark to almost white.

Here's a card I created using Hero Arts April kit which is perfect to practice your water coloring skills.

I started by stamping the flower image from the kit several times onto Arches Cold Press Watercolor paper, added water and colored using Daniel Smith watercolors. I used Ultramarine Turquoise, Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue, Quinacridone Gold, Green Gold and Serpentine Genuine.

I cut the flower layers out, shaped the petals a bit with my fingers and foam mounted together for added dimension. I did the same for the laves. I believe that shaping petals and leaves with fingers really helps to add to the realistic look. I find its best to shape these while watercolor paper is still wet, it makes it much easier to manipulate the fibers.

I wanted to create a rather simple card on a white background, but when I added my flower onto a white cardbase I felt it looked plain so I stamped additional leaves and flower buds using [hero_product_link sku="AF236" text="Charcoal Ink"]. I also heat embossed the Thank You sentiment in [hero_product_link sku="PW110" text="White Embossing Powder"] over black cardstock for a contrasting effect. Lastly, I added several gems from the [hero_product_link sku="CH283" text="Pool Gem Set"].

Be sure to stop by later today for another look at this gorgeous kit!

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