Laura Griffin Designs

Just playing around with a fun background pattern on my Silhouette machine…and trying out a different color combo. Fun to experiment. Hope you’re having a great week!

Based on all the sneak peeks I’ve seen of the summer CHA show in Orlando, cherries are all the rage right now! Here’s a cheerful lil’ birthday card I whipped up using a small sparkle clear set from Hero Arts (CL320). The polka dot background was stamped with cotton white Stazon ink.

Helpful hint: Use a white gel pen to ink any spots that did not stamp fully on your background.

Hero Arts recently sponsored a monochromatic week on their blog. It inspired me to play with a few different monochromatic colors including one of favs…purple!

Stamps, ink, & felt flowers are Hero Arts.

Supply List:
PS533 Summer Notecards
CH177 Summer Felt Flowers
CH137 Medium Accent Pearls
CH136 Small Accent Pearls
S5101 Raindrop Background
AF134 Soft Lilac Shadow Ink
VS197 Boysenberry Versacolor cube
Sponge for inking base of card and edges
Doodlebug paper frill border

Tips:
Add contrast to the base of your card using a sponge and ink a shade darker than your notecard for a nice gradient finish.

Turn white pearls into lavender ones (or the color of your choice!) by coloring them with permanent markers.

When I heard about the I {heart} Hero Arts blog hop, I had to join in the fun! Thanks goes out to Ashley M. for organizing.

The challenge was to create a thank you card in honor of Hero Arts that uses your fav HA stamps. I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite to work with – so I just selected two that have been seeing a lot of ink lately… S5208 Designer Woodgrain & an owl from the LP131 Four Stylish Owls.

Other supplies: Chocolate notecards, White staz-on, & acetate notecard (all Hero Arts), ribbon (Hobby Lobby), stapler, Mega/Giga scallop punches (Marvy), Vanilla/Caramel cardstock (SU!), Corner Rounder (Fiskars), Copic Markers, google eyes, Versamark, white embossing powder

Ashley gave all the hoppers two questions to answer:

The first is to tell your Hero Arts story and how you got started using Hero Arts products.

I still remember the first time I saw the real flower line in a local stamp store when I first started stamping about 5 years ago. Wow – what gorgeous flower images! I just had to have them all.

I also fell in love with the font used in their sentiment stamps at the time…and I still love those stamps today:

The second question is to tell why we are thankful for Hero Arts. Wow! There are so many reasons.

* Hero produces a wonderful, quality product and have brilliant designs in both wood-mount & clear stamp sets

* Hero is a “green” company and have taken conscious steps to minimize their carbon footprint

* The people associated with Hero couldn’t be nicer… from the shipping department to the CEO, I’ve only had the best of interactions with everyone I’ve come into contact with.

* Their generosity…man, have you seen all the cool giveaways Hero has done in the last year?!?!

* Hero really listens to their customers and are constantly searching for ways to improve how they do business – have I said how AWESOME the new webpage is?!?!?!

* Having the opportunity to share my love of Hero with the online community as a member of the web design team. It’s been a dream come true to be a part of this talented group of ladies, and I can’t say enough good things about my experience so far!

Make sure you drop by the blog hop to see everyone else’s projects, and hope you have a great weekend!
~Laura

Just thought I’d share a lil’ anniversary card I made for my parents this year. 40 years together! Click on below for a larger image.

Chipboard stickers are Making memories, ribbon is Papertrey Ink, and background stamped image, shadow ink, and notecard are all Hero Arts.