10 Cards 1 Kit (plus!) • My Monthly Hero • July 2023

Hello folks! Scott here with my 10 cards (15!) inspired by the My Monthly Hero July 2023 Classic and Premium kits! This month, Hero Arts is inviting us out for a picnic by the river. Featuring a wildflower silhouette stamp set and an amazing collection of dies, this kit will certainly help keep your summer grooving along!

I do believe this is the first MMH Kit (Premium) to include a batch of ephemera mostly modeled after the silhouette stamps. We will get to those later… as usual, I’ll make my first five cards using just the items in the Classic Kit. Let’s start with that cluster of silhouetted wildflowers and that Ombre Ink Pad.

Naturally, since this is a 4.25″ wide stamp (seemingly designed for an A2 card in a portrait orientation) I want to expand this stamp to fit on an A2 card in a landscape orientation! On a panel of white card stock, I ink blended some Lemon Drop Reactive ink over a little more than half of the front. I stamped the wildflowers using the Ombre Reactive ink (I did the blue ink towards the top of the flowers thinking it would probably blend with the yellow background to make green – it did – close enough!) I shifted the stamp a little to the left for the first stamp (so you don’t see the left side of the stamp) and then stamped the right side (now we see the left edge!) to complete the panel.

I added the dandelion floaters (I actually thought those were dragonflies at first!) to add a little movement to this scene, and stamped the sentiment using only the greens on the Ombre Stamp pad. I trimmed the stamped panel to 4″ x 5.25″ and added a thin Pesto mat behind that. (No… I’m not cheating… I do have some Hero Hues Pesto card stock in my stash…) I glued those to a white A2 card base and called it done! I really like this arrangement of wildflowers – well composed and so much quicker than using the individual stamps!

The Dandelion Fancy dies caught my eye, and I thought it would be fun to pair up the dies with the dandelion stamps.

I die cut the three Dandelions and three floaters from some plain white card stock, and used a light grey alcohol marker for the stems and centers. I do like these dies! On a panel of light grey card stock, I ink blended some ‘windy’ swooshes with a very small blending brush, using the Blue from the Ombre Ink pad, and some Unicorn White Pigment ink. I stamped the Dandelion stamp (and the floaters) with HA Contour ink, and did a little stamp surgery on the floater stamp so I could get a single floater to stamp all by itself. I stamped the sentiment using the Contour ink (many stampings) and then used Embossing and Watermark ink to stamp it one last time so I could emboss it with clear embossing powder

I trimmed the stamped panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die, and added a mat of Gina K. Blue Raspberry card stock, and glued those down to a White card base.

I wonder what it might look like to die cut the complete dandelions from vellum – maybe add a card stock stem… or thicker vellum..? Very interesting!

We also get that 3′ x 4″ linen cling stamp in the Classic Kit… great for multi-media cards or just a simple background!

Well, HELLO…! I stamped the Linen Cling stamp on some White card stock using Lemon Drop and Creamsicle Reactive inks, and stamped the flower and snail and sentiment using HA Cocoa ink. I dug around in my stash and found the perfect die to cut that whole stamp out – the largest of the Spellbinders Nestabilities Deckled Rectangles Large dies.

I will probably pay a little more attention to that cling stamp now that I know I have the perfect die for it!

The Parklands Window Fancy die. Hmm. This die didn’t seem to match the scale of our stamps or the dandelion dies…

Talk about very simple, straightforward yet impressive card…! The Parklands Window is die-cut from a 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of Hero Hues Pitch Black card stock. The sentiment is stamped with Unicorn White Pigment ink and embossed with White embossing powder. The background is a piece of Altenew Watercolor Nebula Wide Washi Tape burnished to the front of a White A2 card base. I added thin pieces of black foam tape behind the die cut and mounted it on top of the nebula. Though I’m not quite sure what you might use this sentiment for… I do think this is a beautiful card!

Okay… now I feel like I have short-changed that Parklands Window Fancy die. Let’s try this one again with some color!

This might be a little bit more in line with what the designers at Hero Arts were thinking about for that Fancy die! This time I die-cut the Parklands from a 4.25″ x 5.5″ White alcohol-friendly card stock and colored everything with my Spectrum Noir Alcohol markers.

This is a fun encouragement card and a perfect thank you card… especially for something a little more personal!

Well, that’s five cards, but I haven’t used hardly any of the Wildflower stamps… sometimes I think silhouette stamps can be a little boring… and I was trying to bring some life (and color) to these flowers…

VOILA! I used my TomBow watercolor markers to color the stamps and then stamp ’em! I secured a panel of Canson Mixed Media card stock to a Stick & Stamp mat and put that in my MISTI to make multiple stampings easy. It’s been a while since I “watercolored” with stamps… Colorado Craft Co. has a whole line of stamps specifically made for “watercoloring” with watercolor markers..!

There is a section in my corresponding YouTube video where I show the stamping of a few of these flowers… if you want to see. I stamped the sentiment with Walnut Stain Distress oxide ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder. I die-cut the panel to 5″ x 3.75″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched rectangle die, added a dark brown mat behind that and glued them both down to a White card base. Some tiny bronze gems adds a little more sparkle around the sentiment – Have a beautiful day, INDEED! I must remember to use this ‘stamp-coloring’ technique more often!

That covers almost all of the Classic Kit… now we can move on to the Premium Kit and those Picnic Fancy Dies!

Very cute Picnic basket! I die-cut the basket, champagne, grapes, cheese, bread and salami from some alcohol-friendly card stock and colored them all with my Spectrum Noir Alcohol markers. I did use a Gold Gel pen for the bottle accents and a White Gel pen for the grape highlights. I die-cut the champagne glasses from Hero Arts Acetate – we got some of that in our MMH November ’22 Kit – and two of the triangle dies from some old Lawn Fawn Gotta Have Gingham pattern paper.

For a final touch I added some yellow gems to highlight the sentiment and add a little sparkle. These are all fun dies and I really think cutting the champagne glasses from acetate was rather inspired!

And then we have the Picnic Scenic Detail Fancy dies… another die set that doesn’t seem to match the scale of anything else in this kit… neither the stamps nor the ephemera nor the picnic dies… kind of a stand alone pair of dies…!

I went back and forth a few times on this card… I die-cut the picnic die just above the middle of an A2 panel of alcohol-friendly card stock and colored the chair and basket with alcohol markers and used a Red Pigma Micron pen to add the pattern to the picnic blanket. And a Blue Pigma Micron pen for the basket. Then I cut those pieces away from the panel. I die-cut another picnic die from more White card stock and, after cutting out the dishes, ink blended the panel with Green Apple Distress Oxide ink. Then I glued the colored pieces to the top of the ink-blended piece – including the dishes!

One more panel of 3.75″ x 5″ card stock ink blended with some Splash Reactive ink will be our background. I trimmed the picnic, river and far bank pieces to 3.75″ wide and attached them to the card front with glue and some thin pieces of foam tape. I stamped this sentiment (from the MMH July 2019 kit!) with Green apple Reactive ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder. I think the river die works well in this arrangement… the far shore piece certainly helps it to read a little better as a river, and I like this sentiment as well… since there’s only ONE chair… I do wish YOU were here!

And then we have the 45 pieces of ephemera… I have to admit right here from the start that I am not a big fan of ephemera… and the pieces in this kit, though colorful, are still just simple silhouettes with variably accurate die-cuts.

I thought one great way to use the ephemera would be to make a brilliantly colorful themed set of Thank You cards! Perfect for gift giving! I die-cut six panels of White card stock to 5″ x 3.75″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and added a thin black mat behind all of them. I picked out six of the largest ephemera pieces and dug through my stash to find matching card stocks – These turned out to be: Gina K Plum Punch, Gina K. Sweet Mango, Gina K. Passionate Pink, Gina K. Sandy Beach, Hero Hues Plum, and Hero Hues Periwinkle. Not perfect matches, but pretty darn close! (It sure seemed to me that almost every piece of ephemera in our kit was a completely different color…!)

I really like the Pie Die that came with the Picnic Fancy Dies but I couldn’t justify packing it into our picnic basket on its side… all the filling would come out…! So I saved it for a good pun on my last card…

From some plain Ivory card stock, I die-cut six pies, and colored them with my Alcohol markers – the centers on three and just the crust edges on the other three – I also added a little texture with my colored pencils. I separated the crusts from their (uncolored) centers and glued them on top of the crusts on the three fully colored pies – that adds some nice thickness to the edges of our pies! I die-cut 1.5″ circles of Metallic card stock in red, blue and champagne (good apple filling color!) and glued those to the back of the die cuts for the fillings! That’s a great Pie Die!

Using the metallic card stock for the fillings really pops and adds all the shine this card will ever need! And I think that’s a terrifically good pun on top of it all!

There we have My 10 Cards (well… 15…) inspired by the My Monthly Hero July 2023 Classic and Premium Kits. Quite an eclectic batch of cards. I did feel like this kit had like three or four mini-kits included… we have the wildflowers and dandelions, the Parkland Window, the picnic dies and then the Scenic Detail Fancy dies… all apparently themed together, but not necessarily the easiest of items to USE together. I mean, we don’t even get to the picnic till card 7!

If you like a wide variety of items in your card kits then this one is right up your alley! I really like all the parts of this kit, but did find it a challenge to use them all together. I really love the ‘Beautiful Day” card, and the Nebula Parkland Window, and the pies (of course… I LOVE pie!) and the Thank You card set… there’s a lot of variety here!

Both the Classic and Premium versions of this month’s kit are still available at Hero Arts! If I have caught your eye or given you any new ideas and you want to grab a kit for yourself, please use my links listed below when you go shopping at Hero Arts. It is always thoroughly appreciated and it actually does help support this page! Thank you!!

My Monthly Hero July ’23 CLASSIC Kit: http://shrsl.com/45zas

My Monthly Hero July ’23 PREMIUM Kit: http://shrsl.com/45zau

Hero Arts July ’23 Complete Release: http://shrsl.com/45zax

Thank you so very much for sharing your time with me here! It is always appreciated and valued and I know you have so many other things to do with your time that I am quite humbled that you choose to spend some of it with me.

Let me know your thoughts on this kit, and which cards are your favorites. Please remember to Like me, List me, Pin me, Post me, Share me with all your crafty friends… beware of heatstroke… and I send you and yours Love and Light and, as always, Happy Crafting!

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