Hero Hostess Reunion Blog Hop!

Welcome to Day 2 of our Hop, featuring stamps from the new 2016 release and Winter Catalog!  

From 2009 - 2012, Hero Arts put together classes of 4 to 8 "Hero Hostesses" for a 4-month term.  Our job was to make people feel welcome in the Hero Arts Flickr group, and to contribute our work using Hero Arts stamps.  There ended up being 36 of us before the program was discontinued, and as we were a kind of crafting sorority, we coined "sista" as the name we called each other.  I treasure these ladies, and have a soft spot in my heart for each of them and Hero Arts.  I am so excited to be reunited with my Hostess sisters again this year, and I thank Hero Arts for enabling this reunion!  

You should have arrived here from the amazing Kathy Racoosin's blog.  If you want to start from the beginning of today's hop, just visit the Hero Arts Blog to get our lineup. 

I love their birds this year, so I chose 2 bird sets, Vintage Christmas Post and Color Layering Cardinal, and made 2 cards with each set.

supplies: white and red cardstock, Hero Arts Vintage Christmas Post, Ombre Green, Wet Cement, old paper, and Onyx Black inks, Joy Stamp & Cut die and matching stamps

I love the faint script in this set and stamped it randomly all over my panel before adding my other elements.  I used my mini Misti and Jennifer McGuire's tutorial for mirror stamping to make a 2nd cardinal, and then colored them as a male and female.  We always see cardinal couples together at our feeders, and they add such lovely color to our dull winters!  

My 2nd card with this set is much more CAS in design.  I paired it with one of my all-time Hero Arts sentiment sets, which is sadly retired.  When you listen to cardinals outside, "Cheer, Cheer, Cheer" is one of their songs, so I thought this sentiment was a good one.

supplies: white and red cardstock, Vintage Christmas Post, (retired) Miracle of the Holidays sentiment, Punch ink, evergreen bough distress ink, snowflake stencil and modelling paste, Prisma glitter, adhesive foam squares

My next cards use the fabulous Color Layering Cardinal.

supplies: white and green cardstock, acetate panel, watercolor wash design paper, Hero Arts Color Layering Cardinal and Beauty of the Season woodblock stamp, schoolhouse red, fired brick, and aged mahogany inks, pine branch die, Winter Flurry snowflake embossing folder, sparkling clear sequins, adhesive foam squares

Isn't this multi-step stamp amazing?  And it's not hard at all to line everything up.  I used 3 different red inks and my misti to stamp him, then fussy-cut him and set him aside.  Starting with a white card folded at the top, I trimmed and added a blue watercolor wash design paper.  Next I embossed a piece of acetate with the snowflake folder, trimmed it, leaving about an inch at the top, scored it close to the design, and then secured it to the card with double-stick tape on the back.  To finish I cut the pine branches and stamped and trimmed my sentiment, and added them to the front of the card over the acetate.  And lastly the cardinal was popped above everything else, and I sprinkled on a few sequins for sparkle.  I think this sentiment would work for all seasons, not just for winter/Christmas!

I liked the way the snowflakes looked with him, so I made another card using the same embossing folder, and this time I used more of the accessory stamps in the set, and added a woodgrain panel. 

supplies: white cardstock, board dp, Hero Arts Color Layering Cardinal stamp set and Joy die, Pale Tomato, Red Royal, and Raspberry Jam red inks, Ombre green ink, Winter Flurry embossing folder, adhesive foam squares

Hero Arts is offering TWO $25.00 shopping sprees to our hop readers!  One will be chosen from those who comment on the blogs along yesterday's hop and one from those in today's hop, and there will also be a bonus prize chosen from comments left at the Hero Arts blog on each day!  The more commenting you do, the better your chances - deadline for commenting is Sunday, Oct. 30, by 11:59 pm Pacific time.

Now it's time to hop on over to my friend Linda Wetterlin's blog - I know you'll love what she's made for today!  

Here's the list for today's hop, in case you get lost:

Donna Mikasa

Cheiron Brandon

Kathy Wade

Anita Recksiedler

Barb Engler

Kathy Racoosin

Lin Brandyberry  - that's me!

Linda Wetterlin

Sally Sherfield

Deborah Nolan

Cathy Andronicou

Hero Arts Blog