10 Cards 1 Kit • My Monthly Hero • July 2022

Hello folks! Scott here with my next batch of cards featuring the My Monthly Hero July 2022 kit! We are treated to a Flamboyance of Flamingos this month with a beautiful HeroScape layering stamp set and coordinating inks in the new Core Ink line as well as dies and new embellishments. (a group of flamingos can be referred to as a “flamboyance”!)

Whenever we get a kit that features only one main image, I get a little antsy about coming up with 10 different cards. Initially, I had some concerns, but figured I’d start by seeing how easily these stamps layer up!

I am so happy to report that these stamps line up very easily! I stamped the solid layer stamp on a Neena Solar White 80# card stock panel with Peony ink… these Core Inks smooth out beautifully as they dry… then the feather layer with the Cotton Candy ink and the leg layer with the Azalea ink, and finally the beaks and eyes with Intense Black ink. Absolutely Beautiful! I admit I was surprised at how great these flamingos come out! I stamped the solid water stripe with the Arctic Core ink, and the detail water strip with Paradise Core ink and added the two plant stamps in Paradise as well. I finished out by stamping the clouds in the sky using HA Contour ink.

Hmmmm… So… do I reach for the dies and cut these fellows out, or try to add a background behind them? Since I already stamped the water over their legs, it seemed logical to create a background for the whole panel. I ink blended HA Soft Sky ink around the top and sides of the card avoiding the flamingos, and ink blended Arctic Core ink around the bottom. I reached for my Pebbles Chalk set and lightly blended a couple of yellow chalks behind the flamingos. These chalks are light enough that they don’t really affect the stamping, so it’s quite a bit easier to fill-in some background colors.

I stamped the sentiment using Intense Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder before trimming the panel down to 4 3/16″ x 5 7/16″. I glued the panel to a 4.25″ x 5.5″ White card base so we have a thin frame around the scene. I did look to see if flamingos had pink legs, and they do…! I really love this Flamboyance of Flamingos!

Okay… let’s work on the sentiments in this stamp set. I always try to use every stamp in a kit, and am often inspired by the sentiments… there’s really only 4 sentiments in this set so I thought that was a good place to start… and we do have one pun…so I thought I’d go for the pun first!

I do have one caveat! If you want to use the frame cut die to cut-out this flock, then you do have to be a little careful when you line up these stamps… the design of this layering stamp is very forgiving for stamping, but is completely unforgiving if you want to die-cut these fellows out…! I did readjust my initial layering to account for the die, and I think these guys are a little more accurate. I added little party hats to all the flamingos by just coloring little triangles with markers and cutting them out to glue them atop their heads. I wish I could have given them all martini glasses!

The background is blended Arctic and Paradise Core inks through a Stampendous Flourishes stencil cut to 3.74″ x 5″ and glued to a 4″ x 5.25″ black Glitter mat and then down to a White card base. I stamped the sentiment again with Intense black ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I die-cut three more blank flocks and glued them together with he stamped flock on top, and then down to the card base. I added small gems to the hats and some of the HA Pearls on the background.

The little hats add a nice touch of whimsy to this pun-y birthday card, and I like how the flock sticks out a little bit on both sides. If you know anyone with yard flamingos, then I think this “Bird day”card would be perfect for them.!

I noticed a couple of the HA designers and blog posters were adding reflections of the flamingos on their cards… easily done by stamping the legs on acetate and then flipping that over and pressing it to your paper… since it’s a reflection, you don’t have to worry about it being stamped perfectly… a great idea for any sort of reflection stamping!

Once I had figured out the perfect alignment of these stamps, I went ahead and stamped a few panels with the pink flamingos to have on hand… I did a couple with lighter pink legs, and I even started embossing the beaks and eyes with clear embossing powder. That adds a nice touch! I kept marveling at how wonderful this flock looked all by itself on a white panel, when I thought it might be interesting to add some reflections… no water, nothing in particular that is reflective… I stamped the legs on a sheet of acetate with the Cotton Candy ink (could have used the Peony ink) and flipped that over, lined it up and pressed the ink onto the panel. The illusion is complete!

Personally, I don’t call anyone “darling”, so I performed some stamp surgery to remove the “stand tall” from the “darling” and stamped and embossed the simpler sentiment on the card front. I trimmed that panel to 4″ x 5.25″, glued it to a thin black mat and down to a White card base. This is really fetching…! You know how much I like my white space! I do think that this fairly simple card is quite stunning… really focuses down on the intricacies of the stamp! Definitely one of my favorites!

One more sentiment to go… would it be possible to pull a single flamingo away from his flock…?

The flamingos on the far right and left of the flock appear to be in front of the other birds, so I fussy cut the far right bird away from the flock – I thought his bent leg added little more authenticity. The legs are pretty thin but not impossible to cut around. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of white card stock using the Azalea ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder and then ink blended some Key Lime Fizz Reactive ink over the white card stock before fussy-cutting it out.

The background is a piece of plain Green card stock embossed with the new Spellbinders Leafy 3D embossing folder and some Lucky Clover Distress Oxide ink applied to the flat side of the embossing folder. Pink and Green are always perfect partners! I trimmed the background to 4″ x 5.25″, glued that to a thin pink mat and down to a green card base. I glued the flamingo leg to the sentiment and added them to the card from with foam tape. The green background makes this pink flamingo pop right off the card! This one tickles ME!

That covers the four sentiments in our stamp set… and most of the stamps… there are still two dragonfly stamps… a small school of fish and the small (and smaller group) of shrimp to use… hmmmmm…. are they too small to be featured?

This card is completely inspired by the “you’re one in a krillion” pun! After all… krill are basically just small shrimp…and they generally hang out in huge numbers…! Kind of putting a magnifying glass on a single critter here…! I stamped the little group of ‘krill’ all over a white card base using Peony and Contour inks, and die cut a shrimp hole in the center and stamped the big shrimp on the inside of the card to match the die-cut hole. I did add detail to the larger shrimp with a .05 Pigma Micron pen.

I printed the sentiment on the inside of the card base using my Silhouette Software and the Black Jack font. The big shrimp was still getting a little lost among all the little ones, so I added a glossy black circle die-cut over the shrimp die-cut on the front of the card. That really highlights the single shrimp when viewed from the front. A little Clear Stardust Glitter Gelly Roll pen adds a little sparkle to the hundreds of ‘krill’ on the front. It IS possible to make a card JUST using the shrimp stamps… I couldn’t resist using this perfectly appropriate pun for this fun encouragement card!

Then I started thinking about other colors besides pink, that we could stamp these flamingos in… hmmm…

Blue flamingos anyone..!? These guys are stamped with HA Reactive Early Dawn, Summer Sky, and Blue Reactive inks – and of course Intense Black ink for the beaks and eyes. Those three blues worked really well together! I added the two water stamps at their feet in Arctic and Paradise inks and then partially die-cut the flamingos so I could keep the water attached.

I printed this sentiment on the front of an Ivory card base using Silhouette Software and the Dream State font. I die-cut a yellow circle using a HA Circle Infinity die, glued that to the card front and glued the flamingos and water on top. A few of our Hero Arts Pearls highlight the sentiment, and, considering how much heat we’ve already had this year, “stay cool’ is a perfectly appropriate greeting for the dog days of summer! I really like these blue flamingos!

I have a number of Palette Ink pads from MMK kits from over the years… Could we use one of those for the flamingos?

I used the Rainbow Reactive Palette ink pad from the March 2021 kit for flamingo stamp layers two and three. I stamped the first solid layer with HA Contour ink. I did clear emboss the beaks and eyes as well. I doubled up the water stamps and added some fish and shrimp at the flamingos’ feet with Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide Ink. I grabbed my Pebbles chalks again for the background and added the clouds with Contour ink. I printed the sentiment on the panel using my Silhouette Software and the Black Jack font. I trimmed that panel to 4″ x 5.25″ and glued it to a 4.25″ x 5.5″ black mat and then to a white card base. A gem from the kit highlights the sentiment and the rainbow flamingos are delightful!

I have one more color combination that might be fun… inspired by the main sentiment in this kit..!

How about some fiery flamingos!? I stamped this flamboyance with Lemon Drop Reactive ink for the first solid layer, Creamscicle Reactive ink for the feather layer and Fruit Punch Reactive ink for the leg stamp. Cool! These colors work great! I stamped the water stamps at their feet, and stamped the sentiment below (the “BE” was surgically removed from the “BEAUT” sentiment stamp in the MMH April 2020 Australia kit) using the same inks and clear embossing. I masked off the water before ink blending Intense black ink over the sentiment. The embossing resists the ink perfectly and makes for a fiery sentiment! I fussy cut all of the flamingos using a craft knife, and trimmed the sides to 4″ wide. I cut a 4″ square of black glitter card stock and glued that to the back of the flamingos, and then down to a 4.25″ square top-folding card base. This flock is certainly FLAMAZING!

The small stamps in our set this month are tough to highlight because they’re simple silhouette stamps – no detail just a shape. I thought some fun embossing powder might be one way to get some mileage out of these dragonfly stamps.

On a piece of Hero Hues Arctic card stock, I stamped this flight of dragonflies using Embossing and Watermark ink and embossed them with WOW Cloud 9 embossing powder – quite sparkly! I filled in around them with some die-cut holographic stars and trimmed the panel to 2″ x 5.5″. This is one of my favorite (non-attributed) dragonfly quotes printed on the card front using the Dream State font. I glued the dragonfly panel to the card front and added some Silver Holographic peel-off stickers to the top and bottom edges. This is a nice mellow break from all the riotous colors of the flamingos so far, and a touching encouragement card!

This last card came about when I noticed how many extra flocks of colorful flamingos I had sitting on my desk!

A slimline card with LOTS of flamingos! I had a couple of pink flamingos stamped, die-cut and ready to go, and I had one flock of purple flamingos stamped with HA Reactive Thistle, Grape Slush, and Grape Juice inks. That’s another fun color combo! I glued the two pink flocks together, then fussy-cut the last flamingo from the purple flock and glued him over his matching pink flamingo in the center of the crowd. This one put a smile on my face!

This is a 3.5″ x 8.5″ slimline card, so I printed the sentiment using my Silhouette software and the Paprika font on a 7″ x 8.5″ white card base. I ran a strip of thin pink Washi tape from my stash along the bottom of the card front, and glued a 1/4″ strip of black glitter card stock over that. That gave me a place to anchor these flamingos which are simply glued to the card front. A pink gem highlights the sentiment for a final bit of sparkle. When you consider that flamingos do travel in flocks, and they generally ARE all pink (comes from eating mostly shrimp) it does seem courageous to flaunt your purple-ness in front of everyone else! Go ahead… dare to be different!

That’s my 10 cards using the My Monthly Hero July 2022 kit. Man… that’s a lot of flamingos! Call me a little obsessed but I got the biggest kick out of the simple ease and excellent results of these layering stamps. I think you can tell… eight of these cards are flamingos! Short of one “Bird day” card, most of these cards turned out to be encouragement oriented. I do think that was in line with the general theming they were going after… Of course, when you have a large group of identical critters, my mind does tend towards encouraging non-conformity!

I did manage to use every stamp in this set… except for the “darling” part.. and I really like the “krill” and dragonfly cards that highlight a couple of the minor stamps as well. I really like the new Core Inks… our cubes in this kit are nice and juicy! And it’s great to be able to play with some of the new Hero Pearls as well. Very pearlescent! I did have more fun with this kit that I initially thought I would… and I do have a few more ideas that I didn’t even get to…

This kit is still available at Hero Arts. If you like what you see and want your own flamboyance of flamingos in your stash, please use my links to grab a kit for yourself. My Monthly Hero kits are always a great value!

My Monthly Hero July 2022 Kit: http://shrsl.com/3m7r2

Hero Arts Monthly Release July 2022: http://shrsl.com/3m7r8

I did create a lot of my own sentiments with this kit. If you would like to get some of these sentiments for yourself, just send me a request at cardcutups@gmail.com and let me know what format you’d like the sentiments in – I can share them with you in a Silhouette file or a PDF file.

Thank you so very much for sharing your time with me here. I am always thrilled to hear from you! Let me know which card(s) is your favorite, and remember to Like me, List me, Pin me Post me, Follow me, Friend me, Share me will all your crafty friends… don’t run with scissors… and, as always, I wish you and yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

DISCLOSURE: This site contains some affiliate links to products. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links (at no cost to you). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you!