...or "How to think warm thoughts when it's freezing outside"
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!
A little more than a week ago I've received the February "My Monthly Hero" Kit from Hero Arts and I must say - I really would like to go on a tropical vacation right now!
With the "Aloha" theme and the cutest images, this Kit was so much fun to play with and it was kind of easy to get creative for some much needed sunshine cards.
“Aloha is the true meaning and symbol of the Hawaiian culture and lifestyle: respect and love one another, and live in harmony with everything around you. Aloha is not something that is spoken, it is something that must be experienced.”
I found this meaning of Aloha here: https://www.skylinehawaii.com/blog/the-meaning-of-aloha
OK, let's dive in!
First, I'd like to tell you what's included in this months kit.
As you can see in the picture below, the Kit includes a lovely stamp set with tons of tropical plants, a surf board, hula girl and ukulele player, turtles, fish, landscape and sentiments. Also included are the coordinating dies, six sheets of paper (6 5.5" x 8.5"), washi tape with tropical flowers as well as sand embossing powder.
Just looking at the material, I knew I had to make three cards: One card with the cute girl/boy, another card with sea creatures and one more with lots of flowers and a nice sentiment.
And here is what I came up with:
For the "Turtley Awesome" - card I decided on extra heavy card stock (110lb - Neenah) for the card base as well as the layer for the underwater scene. The medium layer I cut from the turquoise card stock that came with the Kit.
For the "watercolor effect" I used the Ranger Distress Oxide ink. I simply put the ink down on a medium mat and sprayed water on it - then dipped the paper in it. I did mask off the sky part first to color the dark part. After the "water" part was dry, I reversed the masking and even masked off the "sun". Once I've added the yellow for the sun (same way, just dipped) and let it all dry, I decided on using the ALTENEW "Tiny Bubbles Stencil" for some underwater action (white pigment ink with some white marker effects). To finish up this layer, I used the My Favorite Things (MFT) "Wonky Stitch Die" to cut it to size.
The turtles and the two sentiments from the Kit I stamped on extra heavy card stock as well: The turtles I colored with Copic markers, die cut and added them to the card, using foam squares. For the sentiments I used the ALTENEW "Featured Sentiments Die Set" and cut them 3 times to add some some dimension to them as well.
To finish up the card, I added some "clear drops" by Studio Katia on the underwater bubbles.
For card number two - "Hula On The Beach" - I decided again on the extra heavy card stock. I figured with a colorful beach scene I wouldn't need a middle layer.
I used Ranger Distress Oxide ink again - this time for the ink blending technique of the sand, water and sunset sky. In addition to the beige/brown sand blend on the bottom, I added the sand embossing powder from the Kit - which turned out super nice. To the water I added the waves (stamp from the set) in white pigment ink.
For the scene I decided on the girl and boy, as well as two surfboards, a palm tree as well as my all-time favorite fruit - the pineapple - all stamped in black and Copic - colored. Also I enjoyed the sentiment " you're hula amazing", but found that the "Aloha" stamp in the Kit was a little too small to fill the sunset sky. So instead I used the Honey Bee "Narrow Uppercase Alpha", stacked three layers on top of each other and used the sky colors for some more ink blending.
Each element I either glued to the card directly, or used foam tape for dimension.
My final card I'll call "Peaceful Thoughts". When I saw all those beautiful flowers and plants and leaves, I knew that I wanted to create a card with lots of them.
Again, I went for the extra heavy card stock and added some red card stock (Kit) as well as a white layer with the sentiments stamped on it. To give them a kind of unique look, I cut them using the ALTENEW "Rounded Rectangles die Set" and glued them overlapping each other on to the middle of the card stock. As for the "aloha" greeting I used my favorite alphabet die set from Pinkfresh Studio ("Lea's Ornate Lowercase"). I decided on the same red card stock and added some effects with the Sakura white gel pen.
Then I used lots of flowers, plants, leaves, palm tree, pineapple as well as the paradise bird on the branch - all stamped, Copic - colored and die cut, to surround the sentiment in a picture frame style.
To give the card interesting layers, I used different foam squares and dots.
The Nuvo "Aqua Shimmer" pen on the "aloha" as well as the flowers added some final sparkle.
Again, I could have made lots of more cards with this set - and I probably will at some point.
As for now, I will turn on "Somewhere over the rainbow" on Spotify, dream of Honolulu and write one of those cards - and I know exactly who'll receive it :-)
Thank you again for reading my post and I really hope you also find a way to think some warm thoughts as well.
Please make sure to like and comment this post and let me know if you have any questions :-)
Love,
