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!
I really like the look of the snowflake background stamp. It really set off the card nicely!
Love the cardinal card and the shaker card.
The winter cheer is so pretty.
Love the cardinal card and the shaker card. Thanks for sharing.
Love that cardinal and your frosty, silver card is just gorgeous!
Your snowflake background is so eye catching with the pop of red for the cardinal. It is a lovely card. I love the shaker card and the embossed silver background.
Who doesn’t love a shaker card? Loved both your cards.
Great cards. Love the background on the winter cheer card. Thank you for sharing your designs and being part of this new winter release blog hop giveaway.
I love the shaker card!
Thanks for sharing your wonderful cards 🙂
Gorgeous cards! I love the snowflake backgrounds! Beautiful shaker card with that lovely die… so glad I bought that one! The ombre snowflake background looks fantastic behind it!
The snow flake shaker card is lovely. Love that cardinal more with every card I see.
Beautiful cards, Jessica!!
If these cards were a woman I am sure that Clark Kent would leave Lois Lane in a heartbeat!!! Absolutely magnificent creations!! I adore the shaker card and am sure that the recipient’s of these will be smiling for days!! TFS!
Love all the snowflakes on your cards, beautiful.
Lovely snowflake cards. Love the cardinal too.
This is beautiful!
Beautiful embossing with the snowflake pattern. The shaker card is beautiful.
These are wonderful, I especially love the second one. Perfect inking and the shaker element is just gorgeous!
That snowflake background is so pretty and couples so nice with the other sets on this release. Great pairing with the tags set! Love the cards
WOW!! Stunning cards!!
Stunning cards!! WOW!!
Beautiful cards – love the backgrounds!
I really enjoyed all your cards. I love how you used the snowflake background on three different styles of cards. Makes me want to buy it when I see different ways to use one stamp that I would want to try. Awesome!
:Love the stunning cardinal card
Love the cardinal and the backgrounds of the cards. Thanks for sharing.