Hello Folks! Happy Holidays! Scott here with 10 new cards from the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month for December of 2025. “Soup There It Is” is what they have titled the December Hero Studio release and the Card kit features all sorts of ingredients and equipment for making a pot (or a bowl) of your own nourishing soup. Soup On!

December 2025 Card Kit of the Month includes: • You’re Souper 6″ x 8″ Clear Stamp Set • You’re Souper Coordinating Dies • Big Squishy Hugs Die Set • Brown Acrylic Speckle, .5 oz. • 10 Sheets of Cardstock- 1 of each color, 5.5″ x 8.5″ (Poppy, Pomegranate, Carrot, Terra Cotta, Cinnamon, Beeswax, Saffron, Tuscan, Truffle, Alabaster)

Looks like we get to do some coloring this month!! I am a big fan of soup…! When we make soup, we always make a great big pot so there are plenty of leftovers. You’ll almost always find a tub of frozen soup in the freezer at this house!

Of course I reach for the You’re Souper Stamp set to get things rolling… and to get some coloring in! I also grabbed an old Bo Bunny Family Recipes Collection paper pad that I had in my stash… I thought that might come in handy!

I decided to do some stamping and masking instead of relying on the coordinating dies to start with. I only need a mask for the green pepper and top right side of the pot. First I stamped the pepper with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and then cut a mask to place over it. The carrot, onion and pot were then stamped and a mask placed over the right side of the pot. Then the pepper mill is stamped in the background. Everything is stamped on Bristol Smooth card stock and colored with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers.

I must give a big shout out to these Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I got this set of 36 pens exactly 10 years ago, and all of the pens are still going strong – not one has dried out, and I feel like I use them pretty regularly. When paired with Strathmore Bristol Smooth card stock the blending and watercolor possibilities seem almost effortless! And they LAST!

As a final touch on this vignette, I stamped the steam rising from the pot using SSS Barely Beige ink. I die-cut the panel to 3+1/8″ x 4″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and added a thin black mat behind. The background is from the Bo Bunny pattern paper cut to 4″ x 5.5″ and glued to the center of an A2 White card base. I added some Love From Lizi Pin Stripe Peel-Offs in Brown Mirror on the two sides of the pattern paper for a touch of shine.

I glued the matted vignette to the center of the pattern paper, and stamped the sentiment on a scrap of Bristol card stock with Hero Hues Root Beer Reactive ink and embossed that with some clear embossing powder. I die-cut the sentiment (and two blanks) with the matching die, stacked and glued the three layers together, and added them to the card front. The shine on the sentiment matches the peel-offs and the tile background feels extra homey… and a perfectly good pun!

In that Family Recipes paper pad I had some extra backgrounds that I had used on an old Re-Gift-Able Recipe Book I created quite a long time ago, and that red polka-dot with heart trim reminded me of a placemat…

I stamped the bowl and spoon with VersaFine Onyx Black ink on some plain Ivory card stock and stamped the detail of the bowl with Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide ink and the contents of the bowl with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink. Then I stamped the “noodles” in the soup with more Antique Linen ink and embossed that with Clear embossing powder. I colored the rest of the bowl and spoon with my Zig markers and die-cut them both with their matching dies. (I did make a paper template for the bowl die to help me line it up correctly).

I did some slicing and dicing to that old red pattern paper and shrunk it down to about 3″ x 1.75″ – perfect size for a placemat! I added a black mat behind the placemat to highlight the heart trim. The background is white card stock die-cut with an Altenew Cross Stitch Canvas Die and trimmed to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and ink blended with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink around the edges. I matted that with black card stock and then I spattered some Brown Acrylic Speckle on that for an added touch of distress… that Acrylic Speckle is great for dark card stocks… you can see how well the little dots show up on the black mat. I glued the background to a White card base.

I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of White card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with clear embossing powder. I die-cut the sentiment (and two blanks) with the matching die and stacked and glued them together. The placemat is glued down to the background, the bowl is attached to the placemat with foam tape, and the spoon is glued to a 3/4″ square of water color paper with torn edges and folded in half to be a napkin. I like the shine on the “noodles” in the soup, and the napkin is just the perfect touch – Looks like dinner to me!

The die-cut borders on the bowl and spoon didn’t bother me so much here because they were stamped on Ivory card stock (same as the placemat trim) which helped them blend in… but in general, I am not a fan of die-cut borders.

So I turn back to masking again! I stamped the pot lid on a panel of white card stock and cut a mask to fit on top. Then I stamped the pot (both with VersaFine Onyx Black ink). I stamped the pot detail with some Concord & 9th Sea Glass ink and colored the rest of the image with my Prismacolor Colored Pencils. I stamped and fussy-cut the big spoon from a scrap of White card stock and colored that the same. I cut a slit in the soup for the spoon to go in – just enough room!

Since I had the masks, I decided to cover the pot and lid with the masks and use an old Carta Bella Designer Diamond background stamp with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink to stamp the background right over the masks. I stamped the background a second time using Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink around the edges. While the masks were still on, I blended a little Antique Linen ink around the bottom and sides of the pot, with a light touch around the edges and all over the background, and I also stamped the steam coming out of the pot with SSS Barely Beige ink. Then I die-cut the panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin Black mat before gluing them down to an A2 White card base.

I slipped the spoon into the soup through the slit and attached the end of it to the card front with foam tape. That adds an interesting touch of dimension to an otherwise flat card. I stamped and embossed the sentiment as usual directly on the card front. Looks like a nice tomato bisque in that pot… I hope you have some grilled cheese on hand!

There is one sentiment in this set that says “feel better fast”. How do you speed up the recovery process?

More soup, of course! Using my MISTI, I stamped the bowls and spoons on a panel of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80# card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I colored the bowls and spoons with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers and used a variety of Distress oxide ink pads with a brush and water for the soups. I stamped the “noodles” in the bottom center bowl with Antique Linen Distress oxide ink and embossed that with clear embossing powder. Short of covering the entire contents of the bowls with Glossy Accents, I think adding some shine to the “noodles” does the trick and adds the right amount of shine to your soup.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment as usual, and die-cut the panel to 3.25″ x 4″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin black mat behind. The background is some old Scrapbooking Made Simple Dottie Primaries card stock die-cut to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie with a thin Black mat glued behind. Those are glued to a White card base and the colored panel (and mat) are glued on the background. Pea soup, tomato soup, miso soup, chicken vegetable… what ever your pleasure!

I still wanted to do a pot of soup with a lid that flips up… an interactive card that kind of blows the lid off the pot…!

First off… I love this dark Blue pot! I think it came from William Sonoma!!! I stamped the pot in the center of an A2 panel of Neenah Classic Crest 80# Solar White card stock with VersaFine ink and colored it with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers B350, B380, and B440. I stamped the lid on a scrap of Neenah card stock and colored it the same. I fussy cut the lid with a half-inch wide tab coming off of the top edge (you only need an inch of length at most).

I stamped the soup (and the detail noodles) using Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink – heavier on the edges and lighter in the center. I stamped the noodle sentiment with VersaMark ink and embossed it with Love From Lizi Ivory Pearl Embossing Powder. That’s a great “noodle” color (and shine) but to get a little more contrast, I added a touch of shadow to the left and bottom sides of the letters with a Brown Pigma Micron pen. That’s fairly easy to do with embossed letters… the embossing will help guide your pen…!

Again… since I already had the masks, I masked off the pot and stamped the background using the Concord & 9th Sunshine Turnabout Stamp set (and, yes, I use the C&9th turnabout jig as well). That is one of my favorite and most used turnabout stamps in my stash! I stamped that with Fossilized Amber, Peeled Paint, Candy Apple, and Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide inks. Love it!

I trimmed the panel to 3.75″ x 5″ and glued a thin Black mat behind. Using a T-square and the pot lid I marked where the tab on the lid fell, and cut a slit in the base for the tab to pass through. Now the secret to making this a pull-tab card is to NOT score the tab at the edge of the pot lid, but to score it about a quarter of an inch above the lid. Now slide the lid tab through the slot and affix a “spacer” (wider than the tab but just under a quarter inch) to the tab in order to hold the lid in place. Then, when you fold the tab over, and attach a pull-tab (1/2″ wide/double thick), the lid will flip up when the pull tab is pulled. If you find that description confusing, I will demonstrate this on my video that accompanies this blog.

I did stamp another lid using SSS Barely Beige ink (wiping off the knob) and fussy-cut that to go on the inside of the lid (of course the Alcohol markers bleed through) to give us a clean interior. A couple of card stock channels on either side help keep the pull-tab in place, and I use a 1/2″ punch to expose the pull tab (stamped with the MFT Interactive Labels stamp) at the bottom of the card. I glued the whole mechanism to a White card base – being careful not to glue down the pull-tab, and here we have a fun interactive card ready to delight the recipient… no matter how sick they are!

Enough with the soup! Let’s turn our attention to the Big Squishy Hugs Die Set! I did ascertain that the two sets of sleeve dies (one pair with a cuff the other pair with stripes) do not match. It appears we have two different sleeve options!

I die-cut the two hand dies from plain Ivory card stock and colored the hands with my go-to R18, R19, and R20 Ohuhu markers. I die-cut the two Striped sleeves from some plain Gray card stock and the stripes from some darker Gray. I glued the stripes to the sleeve and suddenly had what appeared to be prison garb… so I grabbed an R180 Ohuhu marker and colored over the Gray. That’s better! I masked off the arms and ink Blended Hero Hues Lemon Drop, Creamsicle, Grape Slush, Thistle, Splash and Blue Hawaii Reactive inks for the background (half on one die cut, half on the other).

I glued the sleeves to the arms trying to keep away from the bottom of the right arm and the top of the left arm to avoid buckling where the arms overlap. No matter how hard I tried I still had a bit of conflict where the arms touched. I don’t think the overlap is bad… you just need to be aware of it. I glued the two die cuts (only the left and right edges of the arms) to an A2 White card base. I slid the heart (die-cut from the Poppy card stock) behind the arms and glued it in place. Then I glued the hands down and tried to ignore the tiny buckle where the arms overlap.

I stamped and embossed the sentiments as usual on a scrap of White card stock, die-cut them (and 2 blanks each) with their matching dies, and stacked and glued them together, and then down to the card front. A really unique die that creates a delightfully whimsical card for conveying “big squishy hugs” to anyone and everyone you’d like!

Let’s see if we can make those arms work without any sleeves… maybe try to illustrate the action of a hug..?!

Again, I die-cut the two arm dies from some plain Ivory card stock and colored the hands as usual. I also die-cut the two arm dies from some pattern paper in my stash (Sizzix Geometrics Paper pad) and die-cut two cuffs from the backside of that pattern paper. I trimmed away the hands from the pattern paper at the same point on both arms. I cut a piece of White card stock to 4.75″ x 5.5″ and scored the long sides at 1/4″ and folded those both to the inside of the card.

I glued the Ivory die cut to the back-side of the flaps on the card base and trimmed away the rest of the flap on either side. Then I glued the pattern paper die cuts on top of the Ivory die cuts (and the flaps) leaving the hands exposed. The arms interweave together quite nicely! I added the contrasting cuffs to both arms. We don’t need no stinkin’ sleeve dies!

I stamped and embossed the sentiment on the front as usual and added the ellipsis at the end with a Pigma Micron pen. The heart is die-cut from some plain Red card stock and the sentiment stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with white embossing powder. I glued the heart to the inside of the card – I suppose you could glue the heart to one of the arms and let it appear in the hug, but this seemed to be one of the easiest ways to get these die-cuts to be a unique opening for this card. The cuffs sometimes interfere with each other, but over all, a pretty smooth operation.

Of course you can just cut away the arms from the rest of the two dies and put them wherever you want!

It’s Sweater Weather!!! I die-cut the two arms (only the two arms) from some Plain Ivory card stock and colored the hands as usual (Ohuhu R18, R19, R20). I took a 3.75″ x 5″ panel of White card stock and embossed this knitting pattern on the whole panel – this is an old Love From Lizi embossing folder from her October 2018 Card Kit. I added some ink blending around the edges and over the front of the embossing using Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink. I glued that to a thin Black mat and glued those down to an A2 White card base.

I die-cut the cuffed sleeves from the same card stock and embossed them with the knitting pattern too. I added plain white cuffs over the embossed cuffs and ink blended more Antique Linen along the bottom edges. I glued the sleeves on top of the Ivory arms. I stamped and embossed the sentiment as usual and die-cut it (along with two blanks) with the matching die and stacked and glued the sentiment together.

I used an old Sizzix Heart, Cross Stitch emboss and cut folder to cut out this heart from Poppy card stock. I thought the texture would be nice along with the sweater texture. I attached that to the center of the card front using thick foam tape. I decided where to place the arms, and trimmed off the excess before gluing them to the left and right edges of the card front and then to the top of the heart. No need to fuss with overlaps or buckling… and an extra pair of arms is always useful!

When I was die-cutting the stripes for the other sleeves, I noticed that the negative die-cut was pretty interesting…

It’s Rugby Season!! I took an A2 panel of the Cinnamon Card stock from the kit and die cut the two sleeve stripes dies right into that panel – I did tape the two stripes dies together and carefully spaced them around in a circle and die-cut the pair five times for a total of 10 arms. I die-cut 10 hands from Ivory card stock and colored them as usual with my Ohuhu markers. I slipped the die cut hands into the last stripe of the arms, pulled them snuggly into place and marked the bottom of the stripe on the hand. I removed the hand, trimmed it down to just inside the pencil line and glued them back in place with a touch of glue behind the stripe. Looks like a “Go Team” huddle to me! and the striped “shirts” are very Rugby!

I die-cut the Cinnamon layer with a 3.75″ x 5″ LFSRdie (carefully keeping tabs on the orphaned corner pieces) and glued that down to a 3.75″ x 5″ piece of Terra Cotta card stock – remembering to add the corners of the stripes to complete the image. I die cut the sentiment from some plain White and Black card stock using an old Alpha die set from the Love From Lizi Oh, Baby special edition kit. I glued the letters together for a bit of a black shadow and glued them down to the card front. I did add the “you got this” sentiment on the inside of the card. I really like this… a totally terrific masculine card for any sports enthusiast on your list! Or any sports playing female on your list too! Go Team!!!

Over the last year or so, Waffle Flower came out with stamps, dies and stencils in their Postage Collage collection. I slowly gathered the essentials of that release thinking that it would be a perfect way to showcase smaller images…

This is exactly what I had in mind! I die-cut the Postage Collage Die from some 110# Neenah Classic Crest Solar White card stock and then arranged the stamps. Since I already had a green pepper mask, I went ahead and added that in front of the pepper grinder. I stamped all the food items with VersaFine Onyx Black ink, and stamped the solid soup stamp with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide inks. I created this pun-y sentiment using my Silhouette Software and the Take Charge font. I printed that right in place using my piggy-back printing method and my NEW! Epson EcoTank printer.

I took the Postage Collage Blocks Stencil and ink blended all the “stamp” backgrounds with Hero Hues Splash, Key Lime Fizz, Thistle, and Lemon Drop Reactive inks and then Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide inks. I used my Ohuhu Alcohol markers to color everything – with the help of some White Gel pen for the onion and garlic. Once everything was colored, I stamped the “noodles” in the soup with Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink and embossed that with some Clear Embossing powder. I also have the Postage Collage Stamp Set so for a final touch, I stamped the “FOREVER” and the stamp prices as well as the “Hugs Inside” markings.

I added a thin Black mat behind the sheet of stamps and glued those down to an A2 White card base. And who doesn’t need another Birthday card in their stash! I’m thrilled to finally get to see how this Waffle Flower Postage Collage collection can work with a group of smaller stamps. And this is perfectly in line with the whole Hero Studio theme this month. I really like how this turned out!

And before you know it, that’s all ten cards for this month! This is a handsome batch of cards with lots of COLOR!

I did manage to use every stamp in the You’re Super stamp set except for the “deep breath, friend” sentiment. Somehow that just seemed a little too personal for a greeting card. I also opted for some simple masking this month instead of relying on the coordinating dies to create my vignettes – but I always love (and use!) the sentiment dies! I did use every die in the Big Squishy Hugs die set, but didn’t use much of the Brown Acrylic Speckle – it just didn’t feel very appropriate for most of these cards. But we did end up with a wide variety of cards colored in a number of different mediums with some good puns (one extra!) and even some interactivity. Admittedly, I had a great time playing with this kit!

As usual, if you’d like to get this kit (or anything else in this month’s Studio release) for yourself, you will need to Subscribe to the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month by December 27th. If you do go shopping at Hero Arts, please use my links listed below… I make a small commission from whatever you buy (at no cost to you) and that helps support this page and keeps a little bit of fun inspiration coming your way! It is so very truly appreciated!

Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month Subscription:  https://www.kqzyfj.com/click-101337132-16959232?url=https%3A%2F%2Fheroarts.com%2Fproducts%2Fhero-studio-card-kit

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Once again we have reached the end of another year. I can’t believe how fast the time flies! Thank you so very, very much for sharing your time with me here… I hope you have enjoyed yourself and maybe even learned something new this year. Remember, YOU are the reason I keep posting! If you liked this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this page, and if you wish to be notified of new blog posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. Please, take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Basically, just share this post with everybody you can, and remember… Don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send you and yours Love and Light, Happy Holidays and Happy Crafting!

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Hello Folks! Scott here again with 10 new cards inspired by the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month for November 2025. One More Chapter is the title of this month’s release and that might as well be One More Book once you see how many books are featured in this kit.

Card Kit of the Month Includes: • To Be Read Pile 4×6 Clear Stamp Set • To Be Read Pile Coordinating Dies • Happy Place Die Set • Professional Bookworm 3×4 Stamp & Cut • Gold Hero Wax, 1 oz. • 10 Sheets of Cardstock- 1 of each color, 5.5″ x 8.5″ (Bellini, Coral, Carrot, Terra Cotta, Beeswax, Saffron, Tuscan, Peridot, Seaside, Waterfall)

I think that’s a lot of books! There’s 8 books in that “pile”! The Coordinating dies are a fairly clever die set with the covers of the books rendered as 8 individual dies. Lots of spine decorations, but not much to color this month… The Happy Place die set is fairly unique and should be fun to assemble, but the Professional Bookworm stamp and cut set makes very little sense to me… many of the sentiments are about the sender not the receiver – “If you need me I’ll be reading”, “Books are my happy place”, “Shhh… I’m reading” etc… those kinds of sentiments seem odd to me…!

So I naturally started with the To Be Read Pile stamps and dies. I like the dimension the separate cover dies provide!

I started this card by die-cutting the book pile from some plain ivory card stock. I do keep plain old ordinary (Staples grade, generally) Ivory and Grey card stocks in my stash – they come in very useful! Then I die-cut the 8 book covers from the Spellbinders card stock included in the kit – Terra Cotta, Beeswax, Saffron, and Tuscan. I stamped and embossed the book bindings using VersaMark ink with HA Gold and Silver embossing powder, LFL Golden Crown embossing powder, and HA White embossing powder. Then it’s a simple matter of gluing the book covers on top of the full pile – but BEWARE! All of the cover dies line up edge-to-edge EXCEPT for the 4th book down from the top. The left side of the 4th book cover has to layer ON TOP of the fifth book cover die. So I suppose it’s better to glue those book covers on going from the bottom to the top…

I die-cut a piece of the Terra Cotta card stock and a piece of Tim Holtz pattern paper with two Spellbinders Essential Arches dies and glued them together before gluing them to the front of an A2 card base. I added some foam tape behind the assembled pile to attach it to the card front. That’s a lovely Thank You card for your favorite bibliophile!

I mentioned my disappointment that there weren’t really any images to color… so I made do with coloring the pile itself!

I die-cut the pile of books from some Bristol Smooth card stock and used my TomBow watercolor markers along with some water and a brush to color all of the book covers. That satisfied my coloring mojo a little, and I swear it took no more time than die-cutting and assembling all the book covers. Do note that I removed the top book from the pile… yup… there’s only 7 books here! Once the water coloring was dry, I stamped and embossed the spines using VersaFine Onyx Black ink with Clear embossing powder for all the words, and VersaMark ink with Gold embossing powder for the top and bottom books. I did use some craft tape on the back of this die-cut to hold all the cut lines together.

I die-cut a panel of White card stock to 3.25″ x just under 4″ using a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die (3.25″ x 4.5″) and doing some partial die-cutting to bring that die cut down to size. I added a thin black mat behind and glued those to a White card base. I used thick (1/8″) foam tape on the back of the book pile and placed that in the center of the card front. A couple of strips of alphabet washi tape completes the literary theme and compliments the water colors nicely. The embossed spines add plenty of sparkle to this highly complimentary card!

That’s the covers done with colored card stock and simple water colors… let’s die-cut AND color with alcohol markers!

I do like this pile! Note that I did cut the top TWO books off. I die-cut the pile die from Ivory card stock again (trimming away the top two books) and die-cut the remaining 6 book covers from some alcohol friendly White card stock.

Here’s a pic of the Ohuhu alcohol markers I used for the book die-cuts in this pile.

I figured it was about time to play with the Gold Hero Wax, so I used a paintbrush to color the edges of the die-cut book pages with the wax. I glued the colored covers in place (book 2 overlaps book 3 here!) and this pile looked so nice I decided we didn’t need any spine stamping but we could sure use some more of that gold wax!

I was surprised that we got this pot of Gold Hero Wax in this kit but didn’t get any kind of stencils to use with the wax. I dug through my stash and found this nice Rococo wallpaper stencil (I believe it’s an old Michael’s stencil (very thin!)). I took a 4″ x 5.25″ panel of the Seaside card stock and spread the Gold Hero wax on through the stencil. Really nice shine to that wax!! When the stenciling was dry I added a thin Black mat and glued those to a White A2 card base.

I was perusing my stash for alternate sentiments to use with this kit when I came across the MMH March 2021 card kit. That kit has some great book oriented sentiments – including the one I used on this card. I thought the “you are the author of your own story” was appropriate for a stash of untitled books…! I stamped that on a scrap of Seaside card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder and trimmed it down to size. I added foam tape behind the book pile and the sentiment and added them to the card front. I really do like this card a lot.

That’s book piles of 8, 7 and 6… maybe there’s something we can do with the 2 book-cover dies that are only the book spines…

I took the card stocks from the kit and started die-cutting the 2 spines from them – from the left – Terra Cotta, Saffron, Tuscan, Seaside, Terra Cotta again. I stamped the spines with Black Soot, Walnut Stain and Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide inks. It’s easy to make a shorter book by just trimming down the die-cuts with the dies! Then I sketched in some “page-turning” titles using colored Pigma Micron pens. Not too shabby if I say so myself!

I stamped the sentiment (again from the MMH 3/21 kit) on a scrap of Beeswax card stock using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with Clear embossing powder and trimmed it down to size with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die. I die-cut a panel of my Staples Ivory card stock to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a LFSRdie and ink blended some Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink around the edges. I also used that ink to add a little shading to the edges of our books. A thin Black mat completes the background on a White card base, and I trimmed the sentiment to be our “bookshelf” and mounted everything to the card from with foam tape. You may disagree with my idea of a “page-turner” but you could personalize this card to anyone’s particular tastes! Harlequin Romances, perhaps?

I’m running out of ideas on how to use the To Be Read Pile of stamps and dies… I thought the stamps might give me something a little more graphic…

I started this card by stamping the four spine stamps on a panel of White card stock using VersaMark Onyx Black ink and embossed them all with Clear Embossing powder. That was very flat and colorless, so I started thinking about how to add some color to this stamping… water colors… alcohol markers? I even thought of covering the stampings with colored vellum. Finally I realized I could die-cut masking with the spine dies and blend ink over the stampings to add color. I used HA Reactive inks in Taffy and Fruit Punch on top, Key Lime Fizz and Green Apple on the right, Splash and Blue Hawaii for the bottom, and Thistle and Grape Slush on the left.

I die-cut the colored panel to 4″ x 2.75″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin Black mat behind. I cut a piece of the Bellini card stock from the kit to 4.5″ x 3.5″ and glued that to a White card base. I stamped this sentiment (from the MMH 3/21 kit again) with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder. A bit more of a graphic card here but the sentiment works and the ink-blended books provide an interesting frame – with a little “hello” in the corner!

It feels like I’ve done just about everything possible with the To Be Read Pile stamps and dies… moving along…!

For the Happy Place die set, I used my Staples Ivory card stock to cut out the hand and forehead and hair (the book pages too) and colored those with my Ohuhu alcohol markers (R18, R19, R20 for the skin tones) I reached for some textured card stock for the book – Core’dinations Cardstock Brights – and die-cut the embellishments from the same and used a darker red alcohol marker to color them before gluing them in place on the covers and the spine. I die-cut the clothes from some random dot pattern paper in my stash (plain white for the cuffs) and gave them a little dimension by ink-blending Black Soot Distress Oxide ink on their edges. I die-cut the flowers and their centers from more Beeswax card stock (coloring the centers with a Brown alcohol marker) and arranged all nine of them on the cover of the book. The leaf (die-cut from Ivory and colored with HA Key Lime Fizz and Green Apple Reactive inks) is inset on the back cover.

The background is made from a Danielle Steele “book” (The Affair) that was printed in the NYTimes many years ago as a special fold and cut booklet – of course I put that in my pattern paper stash! I cut that to 3.75″ x 5″ and added a thin Black mat before gluing down to an A2 White card base. I glued the assemblage together and mounted it to the card front with foam tape. I decided to go with this sentiment from the Professional Bookworm stamp and die set… I stamped that sentiment on a scrap of White card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder and trimmed it down with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die.

In order to make this a little more useful as a greeting card, I decided to add this secondary sentiment on the inside. I created this sentiment using my Silhouette Software and the Mutaka Mahee Extra Bold font printed on the inside flap of the card base. I think this is a pretty good reason for being a touch late…!

While I was looking for a background for that last card, I did do a dry-embossing of the book pile die on some watercolor card stock thinking it might work as a background behind our engrossed reader – unfortunately, the assembled reader almost covered the entire embossing… so it was not useful as a background, but it did give me an idea for this next card…

I dry-embossed the Book Pile die on more watercolor card stock but this time I inked the die with some Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink before embossing. Then I took a brush and some water and started spreading that ink out from the lines. I did add more ink to help fill in the covers, and I also used some Vintage Photo Oxide ink as well. I really like this watercolor look all in sepia tones… and inking the die really shows the outline here! I die-cut the watercolor panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin Black mat.

This sentiment is once again from the MMH 3/21 kit – stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black ink but NO embossing – I thought any shine would take away from the watercolor feeling of this congratulatory card. This is similar to the stamp set with the whole compliment on one spine. “Literally” would be a useful (pun-y) word to have in this stamp set!

There is another sentiment in the MMH 3/21 kit that works perfectly with the Happy Place die set…

I don’t think you could find a more appropriate sentiment for this die set than this one! I die-cut and assembled this reader like the first one I did, but I used HA Liquid Watercolor in Cocoa for the skin tones and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink for the shading on her clothing. The book is die-cut from the Seaside card stock and the embellishments are cut from the Waterfall card stock. The flowers were cut from Ivory card stock and colored with alcohol markers and glued to the covers – small one to the left.

The leaves on the Spellbinders Leafy 3D Embossing Folder look very similar to the leaves on the flowers, so I embossed a panel of Green textured Core-dinations card stock adding HA Green Apple ink to the embossing folder for a darker shade in the background. I trimmed that down to 4″ x 5.25″ and added a thin Black mat before gluing them down to a White card base. The sentiment is stamped on a scrap of White card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed with Clear embossing Powder. I die-cut that sentiment with another Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die and did a little ink-blending on the edges with Key Lime Fizz Reactive ink. Our reader and the sentiment are mounted to the front of the card with foam tape.The Leafy background is so immersive… it kind of makes me feel like I’m on the same chapter!

As usual, I start looking for ways to use this die-set that doesn’t necessarily entail assembling the whole reader…

That usually leads me to something a little more graphic. And another perfectly appropriate sentiment from the MMH 3/21 kit! I die-cut the five books from the textured Core’dinations card stock. For the Blue, Green, Red, and Purple books, I used a negative die-cut from the embellishment outline to color the outlines with a Gold Gel pen. I took a scrap of White card stock and spread some of the Gold Hero Wax on it for the embellishments on the Yellow book. I also spread the Gold Wax on the exposed pages. I decided to inset the frames on the covers so I die-cut the frames from the center of the book covers and inset the Gold Wax frame with the yellow centers.

I stamped the sentiment (last one from the old kit, I promise) on the cover of the Yellow book with VersaMark ink and embossed that with Gold embossing powder. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good embossing on the textured card stock so I pulled that inset panel off, die-cut another from the smooth side of the card stock, replaced that inside the frame and embossed the sentiment again. Much nicer! I decided to do the leaf in the same embossing powder, so I melted some Gold embossing powder on a scrap of card stock and die-cut the leaf from that. I inset the leaf on the back cover of the book – a nice match to the sentiment.

I glued the plain books in an interesting modified chevron to a White A2 card base trimming off their edges on either side, and then mounted the Yellow book with thick foam tape behind the spine and thin foam tape at the edges. Some Enamel dots from the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month from September of this year adds a little celebratory sparkle to this card – a perfect birthday card to go along with a book for your favorite reader!

I was starting to keel a little guilty about not using much of the Professional Bookworm stamp and die set, so…

I don’t think I’ve ever combined a stamped sentiment with a printed sentiment, but I think this works quite well and is certainly a topical reminder to put down your screens every once in a while…! I die-cut, colored and assembled our reader the same as our first one, and used some pattern papers from a Sizzix Geometrics Paper pad. I used HA Splash reactive ink for shading on the clothing (looks like pajamas here!) and used the Gold Wax for the cover embellishments. I decided to cut the inner panels of the book covers from the same pattern paper I used for the background. That gives this card a fun, almost see-through feel…

I printed this sentiment on a scrap of White card stock using my Silhouette Software and the BM Hanna Pro OTF font. Then I stamped the Shhh… (which I trimmed away from the accompanying “I’m reading” sentiment) with VersaFine Onyx black ink and did some partial die-cutting to cut out the Shhh… and continued the die cut in a simple box around the printed sentiment. The background is die-cut at 3.75″ x 5″ with a thin Black mat added and glued to an A2 White card base. Our reader is glued to the card front along the bottom edge and I used some foam tape behind the book and head for a little dimension. Finally I added this “compound” sentiment along the bottom with some foam tape. I do believe we could all use a little Digital Detox these days!!! What better way than with a book!

That wraps up my 10 Cards from 1 Kit post using the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month for November 2025. This is actually quite a colorful collection of cards this month… and though I didn’t use every single stamp this month, I did use all the die sets! And, despite my reservations at the beginning, I did get to do some coloring this month!

I recognize that having the My Monthly Hero March 2021 kit in my stash was a big help in creating ten usable greeting cards! I actually used all six sentiments from that old kit! Thank you, stash! Though all these cards are book-oriented, I think I did manage to get a good variety of looks this month. I really like the short stack of colored books on the Gold HA Wax background, and the sepia-toned watercolor card really stands out, as well as the graphic Novel Birthday card. Both of the die sets are very unique, and I know where I’ll turn when I need a greeting card for a real book lover! Let me know which cards are your favorites!

As usual, if you’d like to get this kit for yourself, you will need to Subscribe to the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month by November 27th. If you do go shopping at Hero Arts, please use my links listed below… I make a small commission from whatever you buy (at no cost to you) and that helps support this page and keeps a little inspiration coming your way!

Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month Subscription:  https://www.kqzyfj.com/click-101337132-16959232?url=https%3A%2F%2Fheroarts.com%2Fproducts%2Fhero-studio-card-kit

Hero Studio Monthly Subscriptions:  https://www.tkqlhce.com/click-101337132-16959232

Hero Arts:  https://www.jdoqocy.com/click-101337132-16957493

Thank you so very much for sharing some time with me here… Your participation means so much to me! If you enjoyed this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this page, and if you wish to be notified of new blog posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. Please, take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Share this post with all your crafty friends, and remember… Don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send you and yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

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Hello Folks! Scott here with my ten cards inspired by the October 2025 Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month – “Merry Era”. Disco balls or, mirror balls if you like, are the main icon in this kit, with touches of holiday theming…

Card Kit of the Month Includes: • Deck the Halls with Disco Balls 6×8 Stamp Set • Deck the Halls with Disco Balls Coordinating Dies • Have a Ball Die Set • Gold Embossing Powder .5 oz • 10 Sheets of Cardstock- 1 of each color, 5.5″ x 8.5″ (Poppy, Dahlia, Tutu, Blush, Alabaster, Beeswax, Tuscan, Fern, Seaside, Waterfall) • Two Sheets of Gold Matte Paper, 5.5″ x 8.5″

I have to admit I’m not all that current on the slang use of “era” to define particular moments (generally fleeting) in a person’s life… I always thought “era” was used to refer to an epochal period of time, as in the Paleozoic Era, but I suppose in this age of constant navel-gazing, we have adopted “era” to mean any length of time marked by any sort of change in one’s personal life. Hmm. I admit I do like the “Deck the Halls With Disco Balls” sentiment, and as someone who was actually alive and participating in the Disco Era, I do love the assorted “Disco Balls” in this kit.

I reached for the stamp set and the layering disco ball stamps to begin with – one outline and three filler stamps…

I used Altenew Dark Night ink for the Mirror ball outline, then Misty Morning, Cloudy Sky, and Nimbus for the filler tiles. These inks came in a set from Altenew with matching grays from light to dark. This set of inks does lean into more of a Teal Gray which I thought would work well for a mirror ball. To add a bit of reflection to the ball, I used a VersaMark pen to color in some tiles, and embossed them with Clear embossing powder. That turned the shiny tiles more Green! I stamped the ornament cap with HA Granite ink and die-cut that and the ball with their matching dies. I trimmed away the white border on the ornament cap where it overlapped the ball, punched a tiny hole in the opening, and glued that to the top edge – ready for a hanging cord!

The background is a panel of Seaside Card stock from the kit stamped using layers of HA Contour ink with a very old graduated circles rubber background stamp. I die-cut that panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and sprayed some Sheer Shimmer Sparkle to bring that background to life. When the sparkle was dry, I added a thin Gold mat behind. I die-cut a panel of White card stock to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin mat of Fern card stock (from the kit) behind, and glued that to a White A2 card base.

I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of White card stock with VersMark ink and embossed that with HA Gold embossing powder (from the kit). I die-cut that with the matching die and added it to the card front with foam tape. I added a piece of Gold thread through the ornament cap, glued that behind the Gold mat, and attached the mirror ball to the card front with foam tape. I glued that to the card front and added a few Gold sequins for some extra sparkle. That is quite the versatile mirror ball stamp set… you can let your crafty spirit explore any combination of colors!

Of course, I’m just looking for some sparkle on my mirror ball, so I gathered all the sparkly metallic inks in my stash…

And I guess I have to surrender to the HO HO HO at least once! The Gold HO outline is stamped with Hero Hues Rose Gold Pigment ink, and filled in with Golden Glitz, Celestial Copper, and a touch of Bronze Burst Delicata inks from Tsukineko. I stamped the H and the bow in the same colors. Very interesting shine for a subtle sparkle! The Silver HO outline is stamped with HA Granite ink and filled in with Delicata Silvery Shimmer ink, and Concord & 9th Dove ink and HA Contour ink. Again the H and bow are stamped in the same colors. For the center HO I stamped the outline with Dove ink and filled it in with Concord & 9th Peacock, Oceanside, and Aqua Sky inks. The bow outline is stamped with the Peacock ink and filled in with the other two inks and the H. uses all three. There’s no glitter in these inks so I used a Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen to add some glitter to the stampings. The silver set is the least glittery of the three…

The background is a piece of pattern paper from my stash die-cut to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and I sanded the edges for a bit of distressing. I glued that to a thin white mat and a thin teal mat hoping to match with the center HO. Close! I glued the stacked background to a White card base.

I added the three HOs to the card front with foam tape. Because of the slant on the H’s, it was a little tricky to line these HOs up…! I used my gridded mat to line them up and transferred them to the card front with low-tack tape. Some Red/Gold crystals adds extra sparkle and more Red! I did add a panel (3.75″ x 5″) to the inside of the card with the Have a Ball sentiment and Santa hat using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and Concord & 9th Poppy ink for the red. The curve of the hat fits the curve of the sentiment quite nicely. I do think you need all three HOs for this combo to make sense…!

Most mirror balls are silver (plain mirror) for maximum reflectivity. Though I suppose any color of mirror tiles would work since they are actually reflecting what ever color of light is projected on them… I’m just shooting for classic silver!

I think this comes pretty close! I wanted to stamp on metallic card stock so I reached for my StazOn Jet Black Solvent ink to stamp the mirror ball outline on some Silver Matte card stock in my stash. Then I stamped the same on some Silver Mirror card stock and proceeded to fussy-cut all the mirror tiles. I die-cut the matte ball and glued the mirror tiles on top – alternating the mirror tiles with the matte background. That feels like a real era-defining mirror ball!

The background is Dark Blue Pearlescent card stock from my stash die-cut to 4″ x 2.75″ with a LFSRdie and the sentiment is stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with HA Silver embossing powder. On a scrap of the same card stock I stamped, embossed and die-cut the three sparkles with the same Silver embossing powder. I added a piece of silver thread to the back of the mirror ball, added the ball over the sentiment with foam tape, and wrapped the silver thread over the top of the Blue background and glued it behind. I added a thin mat of White card stock and a thin mat of Silver Matte card stock behind the blue and attached the sparkles with foam tape.

The Green striped pattern paper is from my stash and die-cut to 5″ x 3.75″ with a LFSRdie and the same White and Silver mats are glued behind. Those are glued to an A2 White card base and the matted Blue panel is glued on top. This may be my favorite mini Mirror Ball!

Once I broke out that StazOn Jet Black Solvent ink I knew my metallic card stocks were going to get a bit of a work-out!

This is about a simple as you can get with these mini mirror balls! I stamped these on some Red and Green Tim Holtz Metallic Jewels card stock and some Mirrored Holographic card stock from my stash… StazOn ink dries perfectly and no filler tiles needed! I die-cut the balls with the matching die and added silver thread to hang them from.

Back to my pattern paper stash for this Green Striped paper with White Glitter snowflakes down one side. I die-cut that to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and stamped the sentiment with VersaMark ink and embossed it with HA White embossing powder. I decided on an arrangement of the mirror balls, attached them all with thin foam tape, and taped their strings over the top of the pattern paper. Then I added a thin Black mat and a thin Silver mat before gluing all down to a White card base. Some small silver snowflake sequins add more sparkle, and this is a terrifically shiny Christmas card! And I do think this sentiment is kind of a hoot! Especially for anyone who actually participated in the Disco Era.

Okay… I can’t bring myself to use the “said no one ever” sentiment but I will brave the Merry Era sentiment…!

“In My” seems a little odd on a card front… why am I sending you a card about me being in my “merry era”…? Similar to sending someone a card that says “I’m having a Merry Christmas”!? But I guess I understand that’s kind of the vernacular now… but I digress…!!! I wanted to use the pine branches and holly stamps in the set and I haven’t used the sunburst stamp yet either. And, of course I’m going for as much sparkle as possible! I grabbed this great White Holographic Glitter card stock from my stash and did a quick experiment on a scrap to see if I could emboss on its shiny surface. It worked! I do like using a white(ish) background when I use die-cut stampings. I think it helps the white borders on the die cuts appear less obvious.

I stamped the pine branches with Hero Hues Byzantine Green Reactive Glitz ink (touches of sparkle there!) the holly leaves with the C&9th Oceanside ink and the berries with C&9th Poppy ink. I die-cut everything with their matching dies. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of white card stock with VersaMark ink, embossed it with LFL Emerald City embossing powder, and die-cut it along with three blanks and glued them all together. I stamped the sunburst on the White Glitter card stock die-cut to 3.75″ x 5″ and embossed it with HA Gold embossing powder. I stamped another mirror ball on Gold Metallic card stock with StazOn ink and die-cut that out as well.

I added a thin mat of Fern card stock (from the kit) behind the White Glitter background and glued those to a White card base. I attached the mirror ball with foam tape and the pine branches with glue and a bit of foam tape on the ends of the short branches. I glued the holly and berries in place and glued the sentiment on top. I found a pack of Enamel stickers from the MMH Premium Kit of April 2023 and the small red stickers fit on the berries perfectly! Just a little more shine for this sparkly declarative Christmas greeting.

Short of the “said no one ever” sentiment, I have used all the stamps in the kit. Time to look at the Have a Ball die set!

This Disco Ball die is 4.25″ in diameter! When I get a die this large my first thoughts often turn to shaped cards! Who could resist a fun Disco Ball card! I grabbed some Gold Metallic card stock and some Gold Glitter card stock from my stash and die-cut the big ball from both. I die-cut two scraps of White card stock with a 4.25″ HA Circle Infinity die (if you have the HA dies the next to the largest die fits perfectly), and I glued the outline die cut to the white base. Then I could paper piece in the tiles – Metallic tiles on the Glitter outline and Glitter Tiles on the Metallic outline. Two for one!

I folded a piece of White card stock in half and die-cut the 4.25″ circle leaving an eighth of an inch (or so) of the die over the folded edge to give me a round folding card base. I glued the assembled mirror ball on top. I die-cut the bow from the Tim Holtz Red Metallic Jewels card stock, and the underside of the loops from some dark red card stock in my stash. I glued the bow pieces together and glued that to the top of the ball. The sentiment is stamped on the Dark Red card stock with versaMark ink and embossed with the Gold embossing powder. I die-cut the sentiment and two blanks with the matching die and glued them together before gluing them to the face of the mirror ball. I trimmed about a quarter of an inch off the bottom of the back of the card (parallel to the fold line) so the card will stand for display! No embellishments needed!

And here’s that two-for-one option – –

This is the Gold Metallic outline with the Gold Glitter tiles. It’s interesting how the Metallic outlines look thinner than the glitter outlines – some kind of optical illusion I suppose! The ball is glued to a die-cut card base just the same and the bow is die-cut from the Tim Holtz Green Metallic Jewels and the loop shadow is cut from Hero Hues Palm card stock. I glued the bow together and down to the mirror ball. The sentiment is stamped on the same Palm card stock and embossed with Gold embossing powder and then die-cut along with two blanks. Those are glued together and then glued down to the card front. These shaped cards are glorious and I’m sure anyone would be thrilled to receive one!

But you know me… I gotta have my Silver Mirror Ball…!

I grabbed some Matte Silver Metallic card stock and some Silver Mirror card stock from my stash and die-cut the big ball from both, glued the outlines to two white 4.25″ circles and paper-pieced the tiles into the openings – Matte tiles into the Mirror outline and Mirror tiles into the Matte outline. For this card I did add the die-cut ‘tag loop’ to the top of the mirror ball. I tied a green striped bow from some wired ribbon and slipped some Silver cord into the knot so I could tie the bow to the top of the Mirror Ball and have some cord left over for hanging!

I stamped the sentiment on the Matte Silver card stock with VersMark ink and embossed that with the LFL Emerald City embossing powder. I die-cut the sentiment and one blank with the matching die and glued those together for a little more rigidity. I also stamped a “to:” and “from:” on the backside of the mirror ball (which is white) using stamps from the Hero Studio CKM from October 2024. I attached the mirror ball to a plain White A2 card base using Zots removable clear adhesive dots. The recipient can then remove the whole mirror ball and use it as a tag or an ornament… or a tag AND an ornament! I love that a the ribbon is sparkly and a little see-through – doesn’t feel like too much here!

And another two-for-one… I was interested in trying to imitate the mirror ball reflections on the background…

To give me more background area, I cut the assembled mirror ball in half. I looked for a stencil that had an irregular pattern of dots and picked the Concord & 9th Confetti Dots Turnabout stencil for these random reflections – since the stencil is created to be stamped four times in rotation, doing it only once makes for a very random distribution. I pounced VersaMark ink through the stencil and embossed the dots with LFL Silver Glitz embossing Powder – very sparkly! I die-cut the background to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin Silver Metallic mat behind and glued them to a White card base.

I stamped the Pine boughs with the Byzantine Green ink on plain Green card stock and added some veining details with a Brown Pigma Micron pen before die-cutting them with their matching dies. I stamped the sentiment with VersMark ink on the same Green card stock, embossed that with HA Silver embossing powder, and die-cut it and two blanks with the coordinating die. I glued those together and weighted them down to dry. I added the mirror ball with thin foam tape, the pine boughs glued at their ends and foam taped at their tips, and glued the sentiment to the mirror ball with some thin foam tape on the right side. I think the sparkly dots are very reminiscent of a mirror ball’s reflections twirling around!

OKAY! Enough with the Holiday Balls! LET’S GO TO THE DISCO!

Ahhhhhhhhhh! That feels amazing!!! A disco-licious all-purpose encouragement card!

I actually created the background I’m using here, when I was making this card using the Hero Studio CKM from March of this year. I used the Thin Stripes Stencil in that kit to make the Deco Foiled background on this “YAY” card, and I immediately took the leftover foil and laminated it to a panel of Black Toner card stock. So I had an extra panel of that foil with thin Black stripes instead of the thin foiled stripes. This is the DecoFoil Rainbow Shattered Glass transfer sheet. This panel has been sitting on my desk since March… time to use it!

I die-cut the foiled panel to 3.75″ x 5″ and added a thin White mat and a thin Black mat and glued them to an A2 White card base. I created this sentiment using my Silhouette Software and the Phosphate font and I printed it on some glossy photo paper. I die-cut the printed sentiment with a 1.5″ Infinity Circle die along with three blanks, and glued them all together. I attached the (other) half Disco Ball with thin foam tape (a little closer to the top to leave room for the sentiment) and die-cut the ‘sparkles’ from the same White Holographic Glitter card stock used on card five, and attached those to the Disco Ball with thin foam tape. The sentiment is glued down comfortably in the lower left corner. I can practically feel the base pounding and hear the diva’s wailing with this card. Keep On Dancn’ INDEED!

And thanks to some two-for-one assemblages, that’s my ten cards for this month. You do have to hand it to Hero Arts – their card kits are definitely unique and continually offer something that I’ve never seen before. I had a great time trying to emulate an actual mirror ball, and it’s nice to be able to feature some metallic card stocks for a change!

This is a shiny and extra sparkly set of cards this month! I used all but the “said no one ever” stamps and most of the coordinating dies, I used all of the Have A Ball die set and a good amount of the papers and lots of the Gold embossing powder. Though I don’t think I’m going to be making a Disco Christmas theme for my actual holiday cards anytime soon, I do like the small stamped Disco Balls and the large Disco Ball die, and that big ribbon die is terrific… there are lots of uses for the items in this kit throughout the year for many non-holiday greetings. Let me know which cards are your favorite!

As usual, if you’d like to get this kit for yourself, you will need to Subscribe to the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month by October 27th. If you do go shopping at Hero Arts, please use my links listed below… I make a small commission from whatever you buy (at no cost to you) and that helps support this page and keeps a little inspiration coming your way!

Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month Subscription:  https://www.kqzyfj.com/click-101337132-16959232?url=https%3A%2F%2Fheroarts.com%2Fproducts%2Fhero-studio-card-kit

Hero Studio Monthly Subscriptions:  https://www.tkqlhce.com/click-101337132-16959232

Hero Arts:  https://www.jdoqocy.com/click-101337132-16957493

Thank you so very much for sharing your time with me here today… Your attention means so much to me! If you enjoyed this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this post, and if you wish to be notified of new blog posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. Please, take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Share this post with all your crafty friends, and remember… Don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send you and yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my new 10 Cards 1 Kit post featuring the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month for September 2025. Fall in the Forest is the theme this month and the Card Kit features a quintuplet of cute squirrels. SQUIRREL!!

Card Kit of the Month Includes: • Fall is my Favorite 6×8 Stamp Set • Fall is my Favorite Coordinating Dies • Treehouse Die Set • Sunset Enamel Dots • Brown Twine, 1 yard • 10 Sheets of Cardstock- 1 of each color, 5.5″ x 8.5″ (Truffle, Merlot, Cinnamon, Terra Cotta, Carrot, Coral, Bellini, Beeswax, Saffron, Tuscan)

This kit is perfectly appropriate for all your Fall or Autumnal needs… Not a lot of sentiments this month but that just gives me more room to come up with a few classic chestnuts (pun intended) and maybe some new sentiments as well!

Now, it may be the simple juxtaposition of the sleeping squirrel and the big pumpkin on the stamp set that made me think of this, but my first thought was putting that squirrel on top of the pumpkin…

Very Cozy! On a panel of 80# Neenah Solar White card stock, I stamped the squirrel with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and stamped the same on a piece of masking paper. I fussy-cut the bottom of the squirrel masking and placed that over the stamped squirrel and then stamped the large pumpkin with the same ink. I also stamped the same pumpkin on more masking paper, fussy-cut the bottom edge, laid the mask over the pumpkin, and stamped the pile of leaves at the bottom. That gives us a perfectly stacked little vignette.

I decided that this would be a great kit to practice coloring with my Ohuhu Alcohol Markers. All of the colored images this month (except for the small individual leaves) were colored with this batch of markers. Quite the autumnal palette!

I did do some partial die-cutting to cut this little vignette out. I die-cut the top half of the squirrel and the bottom half of the leaves just to where they meet the pumpkin, and then I fussy-cut the sides of the pumpkin to join the two partial die cuts.

Looks like there was a die especially made for this combination! AND you don’t have to worry about extraneous white borders on your die cuts! I do love that! I didn’t think any of the kit sentiments were particularly appropriate for this little scene so I dug through my old MMH kits and found these two sentiments in the MMH Sept. 2023 (Happy Autumn) and the MMH Sept. 2020 (Let’s get cozy) kits. Even though these are from two different MMH kits, they work quite well together! I stamped both on White card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink, embossed them with Clear embossing powder, and die-cut both with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die.

Fortunately, I had stamped our vignette right in the center of a 4.25″ x 5.5″ White panel, and with the partial die-cutting and fussy-cutting, I had a perfectly shaped hole in the center of an A2 panel. I trimmed that panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die (keeping the die cut opening in the center) and embossed it with a Taylored Expressions Burlap embossing folder (that kinda killed the stitching). I inked the top raised side of the embossing folder with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink which gives us some color to the inside of the depressions, and I ink blended a little more of the same ink around the edges. That texture feels cozy too! I added a thin Black mat behind the embossed panel (filling in the center opening as well) and glued that to an A2 White card base. I added the sentiments and vignette to the card front with thin foam tape. When viewed at an angle you get a perfectly shaped black shadow right under the die cut vignette. Not quite an eclipse card but kind of! Love that sleeping squirrel stamp!

Let’s see what I can do with the sentiments in this stamp set. “You Got This” seemed like a good place to start.

That sentiment and the “standing” squirrel inspired an interactive card with the squirrel juggling the pumpkin! I stamped the squirrel and the second largest pumpkin on Neenah Solar White card stock, colored them with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers (I think my pumpkin coloring is better on this one) and die-cut them with their matching dies.

I’m pretty sure everyone is over my constant reliance on the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Dies… so I bought a new ModaScrap Framed Rectangles die set (on sale!). Only four dies in this set but I do love the casual feel and the funky cut-out border on these dies! I die-cut a panel of 100# (need some strength here) Neenah Solar White card stock to (just under) 3.25″ x 4.5″ with the second largest die in the set. I decided on an arrangement for the squirrel and pumpkin, and stamped the sentiment in place and embossed it with Clear embossing powder.

I marked where the center of the pumpkin would fall on the die-cut panel and used a HA Infinity Circle die to cut a hole through the panel. I took a double layer of foam tape and fashioned a circle from that (smaller than the hole) and stuck that on the center back of the pumpkin. I die-cut another circle (larger than the hole) from a scrap of white card stock, then put the pumpkin foam tape through the die cut hole and glued the larger die-cut circle to the back of the doubled foam tape – allowing the pumpkin to spin around without coming off. Once the pumpkin was in place I glued the squirrel directly to the front panel.

I added a SINGLE layer of foam tape around the die-cut panel (inside of the border cuts) and attached that to an 3.25″ x 4.5″ panel of Terra Cotta card stock (from the kit) and then glued that down to a White card base. This is a fun card to play with! Not only will the pumpkin spin around just by shaking the card, but (with the help of the pumpkin stem) it is greatly satisfying just to manually spin the pumpkin round and round! Big pumpkin for such a little squirrel!

Autumn themed Stamp Sets usually have some kind of a “thankful” sentiment included – this kit is no different!

I stamped the stump, squirrel and heart on 80# Neenah Solar White card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and colored them all with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers and die-cut them with their matching dies. I die-cut a 2.75″ x 4″ panel of more Neenah card stock (with a LFSRdie!) and ink blended HA Splash Reactive ink on the top half and Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink on the bottom half. I decided on my arrangement and stamped and embossed the sentiment as usual. I added a thin White mat and a thin Black mat behind the inked panel and glued those down to a White card base. I glued the stump flat to the card front and added the squirrel and heart with thin pieces of foam tape. This would even work for a Valentines Day card… maybe “I’m squirrel-y for you!” Cute!

We’re slowly making our way through all the squirrels in this set… and I’m trying to use all the accessories as well.

This card displays a certain nutty logic…! I stamped the group of nuts (VersaFine ink) on a panel of Neenah card stock three times – cutting a mask for the center group (left and right ends) so I could add to the grouping on both sides. That seemed to be enough nuts to nestle this squirrel into comfortably. I stamped the squirrel and three single nuts on more Neenah card stock and colored everything with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers.

I die-cut the squirrel with its matching die, and fussy-cut the three nuts. I die-cut the panel to 3.5″ x 2.25″ with a LFSRdie and ink blended a bit of Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink on the edges. I did some selective fussy-cutting on the back side (and hands) of the squirrel to get rid of the white borders where the die cut stamps intersect. I glued the squirrel and nuts flat to the panel with two spots of thin foam tape behind his tail and his favorite nut!

I dug out some fall themed pattern papers from my stash and picked this fun polka-dot for my background. I trimmed that paper to 5″ x 3.75″, added a thin black mat, and glued them to an A2 White card base. I created this sentiment using my Silhouette Software and the Nanum Pen Font. I printed that on a scrap of White card stock and trimmed it to size with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die. I added 2 layers of Pitch Black card stock behind the sentiment and the assembled panel and glued them both to the card front. I did consider a couple different sentiments for this card… there’s plenty of racy puns that would work! But I like this personalized approach!

I was more than a little intrigued by the book stamp in this set… Squirrel bibliophiles? Okay… There is what appears to be a sitting squirrel…

Maybe bibliophiles are good advice columnists!? This card tickles me…! I stamped the squirrel, book, and large mushroom on more Neenah card stock, colored them with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers and die cut them with their matching dies. I played around with an arrangement and cut a scrap of white card stock to 2 5/8″ x 2.75″ and stamped and colored the smaller mushroom before ink blending Splash and Antique Linen on the top and bottom. I added a thin Black mat behind the inked panel. I die-cut this blue pattern paper from my stash to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie, added a thin Black mat and glued that to a White card base.

I created these “notes” using my Silhouette Software and the Nanum Pen font again. That is a great font for this stamp set! I printed the notes on a scrap of legal pad, and punched the spiral-bound edge with an old American Crafts punch and carefully tore the edges around the other three sides. Chewed?!? I glued the squirrel to the mushroom using a little fussy-cutting (on his butt and the right side of the mushroom) to hide the die cut white borders – I like that his leg is in front of the mushroom but his tail is behind.

I glued the book in the squirrels hand (not bothering with the white borders) and glued the assemblage flat on the inked panel. Now the smaller mushroom becomes a toad stool foot stool! I glued the completed panel to the card front and added the sentiment using a tape runner. I do think this advice is pretty sound… especially coming from a squirrel… I really like the fourth one – go out on a limb…!

I guess the five squirrels in this kit each deserved their own card…! Let’s turn our attention to the Tree House Die Set…

And here we have an honest to goodness pun! I couldn’t resist die-cutting this tree from Wood Abachi Solid card stock (from the MMH Sept. 2019 kit) Great texture for a tree trunk with no effort! I die-cut the “carvings” into the tree trunk and blended a little Antique linen on the edges and a touch down the center of the tree. I wanted a bunch of leaves for the top of this tree, but wasn’t looking forward to having to color every leaf, so I die-cut the “maple” leaf die from Beeswax, Saffron, and Tuscan card stocks from the kit. I did ink blend some Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink on all the card stock pieces before die-cutting the leaves – just for a little variation.

I added some veining to the otherwise plain leaves with a Pink Pigma Micron pen – that gives us a nice touch of added color and detail without having to color all 18 leaves! I ink blended HA Splash reactive ink on the sides of an A2 White card base and glued the tree trunk on top. I arranged the leaves and glued everything flat to the card front. I did try to hide the stems of all the leaves as they were attached (because of no branches, you know!).

I printed this sentiment (same as the rest) on a scrap of White card stock, trimmed it to size with a Lawn Fawn die and swiped over it with a little Antique Linen ink. I highlighted the heart “carving” using a disposable Micro Applicator and the Antique Linen ink. I also went over the die cut lettering with a .03 Pigma Micron pen to darken it up as much as possible. Another Valentine from this Fall kit… with a pun!

So this is a “Treehouse” die set and there is an oval die for the squirrels home inside the tree. Okay… I swear if any creature opened up a hole this large in a tree it would surely kill the tree!

Ding-dong! I die-cut the tree from Neenah card stock along with the house hole, stamped the standing squirrel and colored both with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers. I did fussy-cut the squirrel. On another panel of Neenah card stock I placed the tree in position and outlined where the house hole fell. I removed the tree and stamped the two squirrels inside the house and colored all with my Ohuhu markers. I ink blended Splash Reactive ink on the sides of the panel before trimming it to 4″ x 5.25″ and adding a thin Black mat behind.

I glued the inked panel and mat to a White card base and stamped the sentiment using HA Unicorn White ink and embossed that with White embossing powder. I added two layers of Pitch Black card stock behind the tree for some homey depth, and arranged our visiting squirrel on the branch. Since he was fussy-cut it was easy to split his arms and legs so it looks like he’s holding on to the tree. For a final touch, I die-cut some Translucent Leaf Notes (from the MMH September 2018 kit) with one of the leaf dies in this kit and added them to the card front for some extra color and shine. Maybe that house hole is so large because it’s just a dead tree stump… the lack of branches might support that theory!

I knew I was going to have to buckle down and color me some leaves before I was done with this card kit…!

I did switch to my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers to color the leaves – I do prefer the Zig markers for coloring such small pieces. On a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock I stamped the smallest pumpkin along with a mask using VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I fussy-cut the left side of the mask, placed that over the small pumpkin and stamped the larger pumpkin next to it. I stamped the leaves randomly across the rest of the panel, and stamped a few extra leaves on some scrap Bristol Smooth card stock. I colored everything with my Zig markers.

I die-cut the panel to 3.5″ x 2.25″ with a LFSRdie and used my Pebbles Chalk palette around the leaves to tone down the white a little bit. I had this breezy background paper in my stash – the dotted swirls are actually gold with a little touch of shine. I die-cut the pattern paper with a 5″ x 3.75″ LFSRdie, added a thin Black mat and glued those to a White card base. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of matching card stock and embossed it with Clear embossing powder, cut it to size, and added a thin Black mat behind as well.

I fussy-cut the extra leaves (I almost always color the edges of my fussy-cuts with a Black Memento marker) and added a thin Black mat to the colored panel. I glued the sentiment and colored panel directly to the card front, and added two of the individual leaves breaking through the boundaries of the panel with thin foam tape. For the final touch I added a number of the Sunset Enamel Dots for more texture and shine… I have always felt very comfortable in fall colors…!

I was determined to figure out another way to use that Treehouse die… since the only branches on this die end in abrupt cut-offs (actually at the edges of an A2 card) this presented a bit of a challenge, but I really like this idea…

I die-cut the tree from more Neenah Solar White card stock, and cut it right down the center so I could move the flat, cut edges to the sides with the branches in the middle. On the die, the top branch is short and stubby, so I die-cut another of the longer branch, flipped it upside down and melded that with the short branch to make it longer. I colored both trees with Ohuhu markers. I die-cut a piece of HA Arctic card stock to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie, and ink blended HA Splash Reactive ink down the center. I taped the two trees in place on that panel, and cut off the overlaps along the top edge (including the now longer branch).

Since the leaf was the main focal point, I wanted one that was a little larger than the leaves in the kit. I found this leaf from the MMH September 2018 kit, stamped it on Bristol Smooth card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink, colored it with my Zig markers and fussy-cut it out. I printed the sentiment on the inked background panel (just like the rest of my sentiments) and added a thin Black mat and glued those to a White card base. I glued the trees flat to the card front and added the leaf with thin foam tape. I really like this encouragement card – splitting the tree in two and moving them to the sides almost makes this a three-panel card front… the blues and browns work well together, and the leaf is just the right size with enough detail to really pop. Love it!

The MMH September 2023 Kit (I used the “Happy Autumn” sentiment from this kit on card one) also has some larger decorative sentiments perfectly themed to the changing season…

I stamped this sentiment on a piece of pattern paper from my stash, and embossed it with Clear embossing powder. I colored the little leaves and mushroom with Alcohol markers and added a little drop shadow behind the sentiment. I do believe this sleeping squirrel is my favorite in this set. I stamped, colored and fussy-cut him just like the other squirrels.

I die-cut the stamped panel with a HA Oval Infinity die, and die-cut the next larger Oval from Black and glued them together. I wrapped the brown twine around and around the bottom of the squirrel to create a little messy nest for comfort. I used a thick piece of foam tape for the top of the squirrel, and glue for the nest, and placed the squirrel right on top of the sentiment.

The background is a piece of watercolor paper perforated with a Honey Bee Stamps Spring Leaves Pierced Cover Plate and trimmed it to 4″ x 5.25″. I ink blended Antique Linen ink over the whole background, added a thin Black mat and glued those to a White card base. I glued the oval down to the card front and added a few Sunset Enamel Dots for some extra shine. Looks like a perfectly cozy nest for napping.

And there you have all ten of my cards inspired by the Hero Studio CCM for September 2025. I have to admit these squirrels are pretty cute and I do love the overall palette created with this batch of cards! Now, I’m usually pretty slavish over trying to use every stamp in a stamp set but I relaxed a bit this month… I didn’t use the rake, the coffee cup, or the leaf banner stamps. I thought I was doing good just figuring out how to use the book in this set!

For a Fall themed Kit, we have a pretty diverse group of cards here… there are a few outright Autumn cards but we also have some possible Valentines and encouragement cards and friendship cards, a pun, and even a moving interactive card! Let me know which card(s) are your favorites!

As usual, if you’d like to get this kit for yourself, you need to Subscribe to the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month by September 27th. If you do go shopping at Hero Arts, please use my links listed below… I make a small commission from whatever you buy (at no cost to you) and that helps support this page and keeps a little inspiration coming your way!

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Thank you so very much for sharing your time with me today… Your attention means the world to me! If you enjoyed this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this post, and if you wish to be notified of new blog posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. Please, take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Share this post with all your crafty friends, and remember… Don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send you and yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

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Hello Folks! Scott here with my new 10 Cards from 1 Kit post featuring the Gina K. Designs Christmas in July Card Kit from her July 2025 release. August is certainly not too early to start thinking about your Christmas cards for this year!

Christms in July Card Kit includes:

Let Your Light Shine 6 X 8 Stamp Set

Let Your Light Shine Die Set

Let Your Light Shine Stencil

O Christmas Tree Stamp Set

O Christmas Tree Die Set

Layered Mistletoe Stencil

Layered Mistletoe Die Set

FREE GIFT!! 2 oz Starlight Sparkle Gel 

As usual, a big batch of goodies in the kit and I’ve always loved Gina K Glitz Glitter Gels – perfect for the holidays!

Naturally I started out with the string of Christmas lights, but, without even thinking about it, I stamped the string in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. Well that doesn’t look right… OHHH… yesss… let’s stamp that string in GREEN!

On an A2 White card base I stamped the string of lights on the bottom right and top left corners (just flipping the card around on my MISTI) using Concord & 9th Clover ink. I was careful to leave room for the light bulbs around the edges and between the strings. Using the stencil, I colored the bulbs with C&9th Poppy, Buttercup, Oceanside, and Eggplant inks. There are two strings of lights here, so I did have to stencil twice. Then, I used the stencil to spread the Starlight Sparkle Gel over the light bulbs – letting one string dry before stenciling the Sparkle Gel over the other string. Though it doesn’t show up in the photo, that gel is super sparkly!

I stamped the sentiment with VersaMark ink and embossed it with HA Red embossing powder. I die-cut it out with the matching die and cut two more blanks at the same time. I glued those three layers together for some dimension, and glued that right to the card front. I cannot say how tickled I was when those light strings come together! Down and out, absolutely adorable! Though it is a tad fiddly, those little light bulbs are extremely cheery!

Of course I wasn’t going to let my Black stamped strings go to waste…

These light bulbs are stenciled with Gina K. Designs Gold Glitz glitter gel – even more reflective than the Starlight Sparkle Gel! Again, I did have to wait for one string to dry before stenciling the second string. The sentiment is stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed with Clear embossing powder, die-cut along with two blanks and glued together and then down to the card front. I like that this sentiment isn’t necessarily a Christmas greeting – though it could be used for the holidays, it doesn’t have to be! Those little light strings are freakin’ adorable!

Beyond the lovely, big sentiments and the light string, there’s also an assortment of sparkling star stamps in this set…

I actually began this card by stamping all the stars onto Pitch Black card stock with VersaMark ink and embossing them with HA Yellow Prisma embossing powder (from the MMH December 2020 kit). There’s some great sparkle in that embossing powder that doesn’t really read in the pic. I stamped the sentiment directly on the card front with HA Unicorn White pigment ink and embossed that with White embossing powder. I added some shine around the stars and the sentiment with my Pebbles Chalk palette, added more stars with a White gel pen, and trimmed that panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″. Everything seemed a little flat, and the Pebbles chalk “glow” did dim down the yellow embossing powder a bit…

SO… I stamped all the stars again on Pitch Black card stock using VersaMark ink and embossed them with the same embossing powder and then die-cut them all with their matching dies. Note that the bottom right cluster of four stars has two dies – one stamp – but two dies. Now when I placed the die-cut stars over the stamped stars it gave me a nice black outline around the stars before you get the “glow” around them – perfect little touch of focus!

I cut a panel of TH Yellow Metallic card stock to 3.75″ x 5″ and glued the stamped panel on top. Then I added a thin mat of Black Tie Glitter card stock (4′ x 5.25″) and glued them all down to an A2 White card base. And here we have another “not necessarily a holiday card” from this Christmas kit. I do like that this kit has a couple of non-holiday sentiments!

Okay… I guess it’s time to embrace the Christmas of it all, and let’s try die-cutting that string of lights too!

I do believe Gina suggested die-cutting the string before stenciling the light bulbs, so that’s what I did. I stamped the string of lights twice using C&9th Evergreen ink and die-cut them out with the matching die. Then I stenciled the light bulbs with C&9th Poppy, Buttercup, and Oceanside inks. Instead of using the Sparkle Gel again, I chose to “color” in all the bulbs with a GellyRoll Stardust Sparkle gel pen – a little more obvious on top of the colors, but a good amount of shine!

I stamped the sentiment on White card stock with VersaMark ink and embossed that with Love From Lizi Emerald City embossing powder. I have to admit that is one of my favorite embossing powders of all time – so beautifully smooth and it has an almost neon sheen! I die-cut the sentiment (and two blanks) with the matching die and glued them together for a little dimension.

I was digging around in my stash for some Christmas-y pattern paper when I thought of ribbon! I have some nice ribbons in my stash that don’t get used very often, so I took a piece of this striped 1.5″ ribbon and covered the back with Scor-tape and burnished that down to the ribbon. I removed the tape liner and adhered the ribbon to the center of the card front. I trimmed the edges and ran a little bead of liquid glue along the cut edges to prevent fraying. I glued the sentiment on top of the ribbon, trimmed off the ends of the light strings (at the third loop) and added both of the light strings to the card front with thin foam tape. Merry Christmas indeed!

Let’s take a look at the Layered Mistletoe stencil. I decided to keep to the C&9th palette of inks that I’ve already started.

The Mistletoe is stenciled with Clover and Evergreen inks for the leaves, Poppy and Cranberry inks for the berries and Aqua Sky and Oceanside for the bow. That makes for a fun, rather stylized image – I die-cut the stencil with the matching die and set that aside. I stamped the sentiment (this one is from the O Christmas Tree stamp set) with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder, and die-cut it (and two blanks) with the matching die, and glued all three pieces together.

For the background, I grabbed an old Stampendous Flourishes metal stencil and spread the Starlight Sparkle Gel through the stencil directly onto an A2 White card base. Though I could have sworn the stencil was clean (it LOOKED clean!) the Sparkle Gel activated some leftover inks on the stencil (on the edges??) and tinted the gel just a little bit. Actually that works quite beautifully – and it doesn’t interfere with the Sparkle Gel at all!

I die-cut another mistletoe and sentiment layer from Pitch Black card stock, and glued those to the inked mistletoe and sentiment – offsetting those a little for a bit of dark shadow definition. I did cut off the “AND” from the sentiment before adding the shadow. I glued those both to the card front and let the Starlight Sparkle Gel add all the celebratory shine!

I am aware that Mistletoe actually sports white berries, and is generally hung upside-down to encourage a holiday kiss.

OKAY! WOW! On a panel of plain Black card stock I used HA Unicorn White ink to stencil layers one and three of the Layered Mistletoe Stencil – that covers all the leaves, berries and bow. I did flip the bow around before stenciling to make it “hang” in the right direction – and I didn’t stencil through the extended ends of the ribbons so there was no overlap to worry about. I let the White ink dry throughly before adding the colors. I did use HA Key Lime Fizz and Green Apple Reactive inks for the leaves (letting each layer dry before adding the next) and decided to stick with Unicorn White ink for the berries and bow. The layers of the Unicorn White ink blended together beautifully and created some lovely dimension to the berries and bow.

I trimmed the stamped panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die, added a thin White mat and a thin black mat, and glued them to a White card base. I stamped the sentiment (again, from the O Christmas Tree set) on a scrap of Black card stock with Unicorn White ink and embossed it with White embossing powder and die-cut it out with the matching die. I glued that (no extra layers!) directly to the card front. I did add a tiny touch of highlights on the berries with a White gel pen, and I am completely thrilled with this Mistletoe! It is actually quite striking, and at least we’ve got it hanging in the right direction! Love it!!

Time to dive into the O Christmas Tree stamp set and die set… This stamp set probably spoke to me the least in this whole kit… I don’t know if it was the extreme tree and branch varieties or the simple graphics that gave me pause…

On a panel of White card stock I stamped this tree (probably my favorite of the three) in the center with C&9th Clover ink, scooted the card stock over 3/4″ to the right and stamped the tree again (2nd Gen Stamping). Then I returned the card stock to its original position and stamped the center tree again with Clover ink, scooted the card stock 3/4″ to the left and stamped the tree again. This gives me a dark center tree and two lighter trees all with the same ink pad! I did exactly the same with the tree branches stamp using C&9th Eggplant ink. (I had a design teacher in school who liked to repeat that there is no true black in nature, and I think this Eggplant ink is a greta “natural” alternative to black.

Once the trees were dry, I stamped the baubles, the star and the sentiment(s) with VersaMark ink and embossed them all with Ranger Gold embossing powder. I die-cut that panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a LFSRdie, added a thin mat of TH Green Metallic card stock behind, and glued them both to an A2 White card base. Very graphic, and very Holiday!

I believe Gina made a card with all three of the trees and I wanted to see what I could do using all three trees as well…

How about just using the tree dies? I die-cut the three trees using the Altenew Green Meadows Cardstock set (Minty Green, Just Green and Hunter Green) and stamped their corresponding bauble stamps with VersaMark ink and embossed the Minty Green tree with Ranger Silver embossing powder, the Just Green tree with LFL Emerald City embossing powder, and the Hunter Green tree with Ranger Gold embossing powder. I stamped three of the stars and embossed them to match the trees. I fussy cut the stars out leaving a super-thin white border and glued the Silver and Green stars to the tops of their trees.

I found this perfectly lovely soft Silver Textured card stock in my stash and die-cut it to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie. I took a piece of 4″ x 5.25″ card stock and embossed the edges with Scor-tape and the Emerald City embossing powder. I glued the two pieces together and down to a White card base. I stamped the sentiment with VersaMark ink and embossed it with Emerald City embossing powder, die-cut it out (and 1 blank) with the matching die and glued them together. I added another die-cut tree to the backs of all the trees just for a little rigidity, and glued them to the card front. I added the Gold star and the sentiment with thin pieces of foam tape. For a final touch, I added a sprinkling of Gold enamel dots around the background. I think the die-cut trees harken to a retro graphic approach and feel kind of pop-art-y..!

Aside from the tiny baubles meant to decorate the trees, this stamp set also features some larger bauble stamps as well.

Those bauble stamps make for a delightful holiday background. I stamped the three circles and three snowflakes on a panel of White card stock with VersaMark ink and embossed them all with Ranger Gold embossing powder. Then I ink blended some HA Splash Reactive ink on the embossed panel fading it out towards the bottom. I added little dots connecting the baubles with a Gold gel pen and tried to keep the whole background a little loose and carefree. I die-cut the panel with to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a LFSRdie, and added a thin mat of TH Silver Metallic card stock and glued those to a White card base.

I stamped both sentiments with VersaMark ink and embossed them both with Ranger Silver embossing powder and die-cut them out (along with 2 blanks each) with their matching dies, stacked and glued them together. I added the big sentiment to the card front with thin foam tape, and the sub-sentiment directly to the card front. The string of lights is the left-over lights from card number 4 (Merry Christmas) “invisibly” joined together and mounted to the card front with thin foam tape. This card brings BOTH stamp sets together for a very shiny Holiday card!

Out of all the tiny bauble stamps for the trees in the O Christmas Tree set, I really like the star baubles the best…

With the addition of the highly graphic “branches”, those star baubles become quite contemporary and rather industrial! I stamped the “branches” on a panel of White card stock using the C&9th Eggplant ink. They are 3/4″ apart from each other, and the center tree is 1/4″ higher than the side trees. I stamped the Star Baubles on top of the tree skeletons with VersaMark ink and embossed them with Ranger Gold embossing powder. You can line up that bauble stamp so none of the stars actually touches the “branches” – I really love that!

I stamped the sentiments with VersaMark ink and embossed them with Ranger Gold embossing powder. I trimmed the panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin TH Gold Metallic card stock mat behind, and glued those to an A2 White card base. I love how modern and industrial this card is – like something you might see at Rockefeller Center when it’s all done up for the Holidays! Plenty of shine here too!

There you have it! All 10 of my cards using the Gina K. Designs Christmas in July Card Kit! I’m a little surprised at how much fun I had playing with all the different parts of this kit!

The String of Lights tickles my fancy every time I look at them… I love the fact that some of the sentiments have nothing to do with the holidays… I really LOVE the upside-down mistletoe on the black with appropriately white berries and I actually love how versatile the O Christmas Tree stamp set turned out to be…! I used bunches of embossing powder this month… I believe every card has SOME embossing… and a number of cards have Glitz or Sparkle gel! There’s lots of shine and sparkles this month – perfect for the Holidays (or ANY occasion). Let me know which card(s) are your favorites!

This kit has already sold out at Gina K. Designs which is so often the case with her Card Kits. Though you don’t have to subscribe to receive the Gina K. Designs Card Kits you do need to order early whenever they come out! Looks like the August Release party is scheduled for Tuesday, August 26th…! Don’t forget to tune in! NOTE: Due to rising tariffs, the Gina K. Designs Card Kit will increase in price by $10 this release… That is still an incredible bargain… but if you want to combat rising prices in the craft industry (and everywhere else!) don’t forget send a letter or call your representative or congressman and make your feelings known! We can combat rising prices collectively!

Thank you so very much for sharing your time with me here today. Your attention and encouragement mean so very much to me!  Let me know if you have any questions or any comments! If you enjoyed this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this page, and if you would like to be notified of new posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. I would kindly appreciate it if you would take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Share me with all your crafty friends, and remember… don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send You and Yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

Hello Folks!! Scott here with another 10 Cards 1 Kit post featuring the Gina K Designs “Relax and Have Fun” Card kit released in June of 2025! This unique kit includes two 6″ x 8″ stamp sets, along with dies and stencils and a great big free gift in the guise of ANOTHER 6″ x 8″ stamp set and dies! So much to play with this month!

Relax and Have Fun Card Kit includes:

Next Gen 6″ x 8″ Stamp Set and Dies

The Great Outdoors 6′ x 8″ Stamp Set

Happy Hibiscus Layering Stencils (4)

FREE GIFT:

Spice of Life 6″ x 8″ Stamp Set and Dies

The Next Gen Stamp and Die Set is designed to expand upon the sentiments included in the Flora Fix Card Kit with additional familial designations, and we get some classic Gina K silhouettes with the Great Outdoors Stamp Set, and the Spice of Life Set is an adorably huge freebie – useful all over the house!

Often, when I am confronted with a new stamp set, I’ll get the juices rolling by stamping and coloring all the images in the set. Especially when there’s a larger number of smaller icons to work with.

I stamped all the images from the Next Gen Stamp set using VersaFine Onyx Black ink on Bristol Smooth card stock and colored everything with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I guess the phone didn’t need coloring..!?

Then I’ll usually take the matching dies and die-cut everything out. This makes it easy for me to fiddle around with combinations and layouts, and get the old noggin’ focusing on the new stamps!

The stack of books with a cup of tea (coffee?) on top seemed appropriately feminine to me, so that’s where I started.

I found a nice piece of pattern paper from an old Sizzix 6″ x 12″ Geometrics Paper Pad (lovely combination of pinks and corals) and die-cut that to 2.75″ x 4″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die, added a thin Black mat and another thin Pink mat and glued those to an A2 White card base. I stamped the sentiments on a scrap of White card stock with VersaMark Onyx Black ink and embossed them with Clear embossing powder, and then die-cut them all with their matching dies. I do love sentiment dies! I glued the sentiments directly to the card front and added the die cut stacked books and tea with foam tape.

Okay… I don’t have a daughter, but if I did!!!

The phone stamp gave me a little bit of a pause… there are five little sentiments and three speech bubbles to create a text exchange on the phone, but the sentiments are rather generic and there doesn’t seem to be much chance to have an actual conversation just using the stamps… and, of course, my mind goes a little overboard with a challenge like this.

We have two speech bubbles (long and short) for our side of the conversation, but only one speech bubble (long) for the replies… hmmmmm. Happy Birthday seemed a safe place to start. I stamped the speech bubbles in Hero Arts Dusty Blue Core ink (for my bubbles) and HA Contour ink for the speech bubble replies. There are no “thank you” or “that means a lot to me” replies in the stamps so I just used smileys for the replies. It was easy enough to color the smiley faces on the grey speech bubbles with a Yellow Zig Marker, but that wouldn’t work on the blue speech bubbles – and besides, I wanted the ‘heart eyes’ to be in red. So I stamped another heart smiley on a scrap of white card stock using Concord and 9th Poppy ink. Then I colored in the mouth and outline with an 03 Black Pigma Micron pen. Finally, I cut it out using a standard hole punch – close enough – and glued it over the original black stamped smiley.

(I didn’t realize till much later, that the smileys DON’T need a speech bubble… DOH!)

The phone still seemed a little barren so I got the idea to add hearts floating up from the heart smiley – I think most phones have this feature now… floating balloons or hearts or fireworks on top of your texts. I used some Love From Lizi Red Glitter Heart peel-offs for the rising hearts – they come in three sizes, so that worked quite well to indicate the animation of floating hearts!

I felt like the phone wasn’t quite enough for me… so I decided to add a little pun-y sentiment to this card… Are you taking about the recipient of the card or are you talking about your phone..?!? I die-cut another piece of pattern paper (from the same Sizzix paper pad) to 3.75″ x 4.5″ with a HA Rounded Rectangle Nesting die. I created the sentiment with my Silhouette software and the Typewriter Hand font, and printed it directly on the pattern paper. I added a thin Black mat behind that and glued them both to the card front. I die-cut another phone from some Silver Metallic card stock and offset it behind the phone for a little touch of shiny metal and some added thickness. I rounded the corners of the card base with my Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper, and glued the phone in place. A pun-y, funny Birthday card for your favorite smartphone addict!

For some reason I thought these three images went well together… and provided another little challenge for me.

First off – – I LOVED coloring the rainbow on the camera – the original white Polaroid Camera did have a rainbow under the lens… adding a little angle to the sides of the rainbow helps sell the 3-D. I also enjoyed coloring the Journal like a composition notebook, and after fiddling with the stamped (black) polaroid pics decide to up the ante with those.

I stamped the polaroid pics stamp on a scrap of black card stock with HA Unicorn White ink and embossed that with White embossing powder, and die-cut it with the matching die. I decided I need some pictures in there so I searched the internet for a couple of images, shrank them down to size (using my Silhouette software) and printed them on some glossy paper. I fussy-cut the inside of the polaroid pics stamp (leaving a thin black line between the pics) and glued the printed pics into the openings. (No, I don’t know who that lady is, but it would be easy to include the recipient’s pic there as well!)

I cut a panel of White card stock to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a Simon Says Stamp Modern Postage Stamp Rectangle die and stamped the sentiment using VersaMark Onyx Black ink and embossed that with Clear embossing powder. I added a thin Grey mat behind that, and a panel of Black card stock (die-cut to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie) behind that and glued everything down to a White card base. Finally, I added the images with thin foam tape. This is a great friendship card and if you put your the recipient’s pic on the polaroid it’s completely personalized!!

Now there’s that Stanley to-go mug and a Starbucks to-go cup… I seem to remember a coffee themed kit in my stash…

I remembered right…! The My Monthly Hero August 2018 Card Kit is all about coffee!! I used the sentiments and paper from that kit for this card. I cut the Coffee & Tea Dyed Decorative Paper to 1.25″ x 5.5″ using my Tim Holtz Deckle Edge trimmer and glued that to a 1.5″ x 5.5″ strip of Black card stock. I decided on my arrangement and stamped the sentiments directly on the decorative paper (sentiment dies were rare back then!) and of course I embossed them with Clear embossing powder as well.

I ink blended Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide ink on the top and bottom of an A2 White card base and glued the strip down to the card front just above the center line. I added the to-go cups with thin foam tape and used some tiny copper gems for a touch of extra sparkle. A little anthropomorphizing of the cups makes for a sweet card usable for all your coffee friends and tea addicts!

I did like the little scooter stamp in the Next Gen Stamp Set, but I had a problem pairing it up with anything else…

Perfect for another pun! I started this card by sketching a little black ground line across a panel of White card stock with a Pigma Micron pen… I did sketch that in with a pencil and when I went over it with the pen, I tried to draw it all in one stroke. I die-cut that panel to 2.75″ x 4″ with a LFSRdie. I created this sentiment using my Silhouette Software and the Times new Roman and Raustilla fonts, and printed that directly on the die-cut panel. Then I added a thin Black mat behind.

I found this polka-dot pattern paper in my stash and die-cut that to 3.75″ x 5″ and added a thin Black mat behind that and glued those to a White A2 card base. I added the printed white panel on top of the polka-dots and mounted the scooter with thin foam tape. I added a little indication of movement behind the back wheel of the scooter with the Pigma Micron pen. Love this little scooter! One of my friends once called me Scooter… ONCE!

Suddenly I realized that I’ve done five cards already and have only used one of the stamp sets… best be moving along!

Anybody in your circle play golf?! I have many avid golfers in my family! (and one of them is actually retired!) I took a panel of White card stock and ink blended some HA Splash Reactive ink on the top half and then stamped all the landscape stamps using Altenew Misty Morning, Cloudy Sky, Nimbus, and Dark Night inks. I got a lot more layers by overlapping the stamps and letting the combined colors be visible – even flipping the small hill stamp upside-down below the golfer. I stamped the golfer, the tree the bird and the flagstick with VersaFine onyx Black ink (and some Dark Night ink) and then I die-cut the inked panel to 3.75″ x 5″.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment as usual, added a thin Black mat behind the inked panel, and glued all to a White card base. We did have a lively discussion about which direction the golfer was actually facing… (does a silhouette stamp automatically indicate that you are behind the figure?) and I finally made the case that we have a left-handed golfer here at the end of his stroke. Works for me!! For a final touch, I figured we needed a ball flying through the air towards the hole, and after dismissing most little round dots (die-cut or stamped), I ended up using my Pigma micron Pen to add the golf ball. That seems perfectly in scale! And I LOVE those tree silhouette stamps!!

We have golfing, fishing and biking in the Great Outdoors Stamp Set and we have both men and women doing all three!

I thought I would concentrate on the women for this card! I started out with a bunch of 1.25″ strips of White card stock. The long strip is 5″ and the short strips are all 2.25″ long. I ink blended HA Splash reactive inks on the four strips (top or bottom or all-over) for some variation. For the biking strip I stamped the small hill stamp with Concord and 9th Wheat ink, and stamped the riverside (fishing) with Concord and 9th Dove ink and I used Concord and 9th Evergreen ink for the small hill under the golfer. I stamped all the figures and images with VersaFine Onyx Black ink. When everything was dry I added thin Black mats behind each strip.

I decided on my arrangement and stamped the sentiment on the card front with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with Clear embossing powder. All of the strips were then glued directly to the card front. I thought about adding the Happy Birthday stamp but decided that there were more occasions that his card could be used for, than just a birthday – so I’m keeping the options open!

And we have another set of Layering Stencils in the kit this month – a big graphic grouping of Hibiscus blossoms!

On a panel of White card stock I ink blended the stencils with HA Lemon Drop, Fruit Punch and Green Apple Reactive inks. I tried to keep away from the outer edges of the second stencil (the centers) for a little more of a blended feel as opposed to the strongly graphic layering of colors. I added a little water to a smoosh of Lemon Drop ink and spattered that across the background.

I die-cut the flower panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie, added thin black and yellow mats behind and glued all to a White card base. I had to dig around for this sentiment in my stash – I knew I had a “Be Amazing” stamp and die but it was too large and would cover up a lot of the hibiscus… I finally found this sentiment from an old Paper Pumpkin kit. Works perfectly for this bright, colorful happy card!

Finally we get to the FREE GIFT stamps and dies – the Spice of Life set… beyond labeling your garden, there are some great pun-y sentiments in this set too!

I figured a great pun like this needed more than a single sprig of thyme so I stamped the thyme stamp repeatedly in a circle on a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock. I did fussy-cut a mask of the right side of the stamp, and masked off the “thyme” label as well… I believe there are eight stampings giving us a total of sixteen branches. I colored all the herbs with my Zig markers. That gave me a little circle just over 2.25″ in diameter… Hmm… I decided to cut the circle in half to stretch it out! For some reason, I created the division on an angle and thought that was interesting enough to keep playing with that angle. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of Bristol Smooth card stock using HA Green Apple Reactive ink and embossed that with Clear embossing powder.

I assembled the sentiment strip and the two halves of the herbs using craft tape to hold everything together and then I die-cut the whole thing with a 2.75″ x 4″ LFSRdie. While everything was still taped together, I added a thin black mat behind but only gluing it to the two herbal halves of the assembly – then I could remove the sentiment strip to add a thin black mat behind that as well. I die-cut a panel of Green card stock with a 3.75″ x 5″ LFSRdie and embossed that with a Spellbinders 3D “Leafy” embossing folder. I added a thin Black mat behind the Green panel and glued those to a White card base. I glued the matted herbs directly to the card front and added the sentiment strip using foam tape. A great Birthday card for your favorite gardener, or herbal enthusiast or anyone who appreciates a good pun!

Now this may seem a little esoteric, but I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind so I decided to follow up on it!

Where…? Why to Scarborough Fair of course!! I stamped the herbs on a panel of White card stock using VersaMark Onyx Black ink (I stamped the rosemary with C&9 Evergreen ink (masking off the label) and then stamped the label (masking off the herbs) in Black. A 1.25″ Scalloped Square Layering die (from Tonic Studios) fit all the stampings nicely, so I die-cut the 4 herbs and added thin Black mats behind them all.

I found this foiled green polka-dot pattern paper in my stash (from a Love From Lizi May ’18 card kit!) and die-cut a panel to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin Green/Gold mat (from the same kit) behind that and glued them down to a White card base. I used my Silhouette Software and the Winnie Font to print this sentiment on a scrap of White card stock, and I die-cut that with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners Lawn Cuts. The herb blocks and the sentiment are all mounted with foam tape. I wasn’t sure everyone would get this reference, but I figured that between the Simon and Garfunkel fans and the The Graduate movie fans, then that should cover a lot of bases right there! Beside the fact that it tickles me!

And there we have all ten cards using the Relax and Have Fun Card Kit from Gina K Designs! There is so much more that can be done with this kit and the plethora of supplies contained within! I kind of feel like I barely scratched the surface! I usually try to use everything in a Card Kit on my ten cards but there’s so much stuff in this kit!

I didn’t get to the game controller or headset from the Next Gen kit… missed a couple of guys in the Outdoors… and I didn’t use the lovely frame stamp in the Spice Kit… but we certainly have an eclectic groups of card this month! There’s a number of Birthday cards (always useful) and friendship/love cards, a retirement card, and even an all-purpose card! And, boy! Those hibiscus really pop!

This post went live the day after Gina released the New Card Kit for July… which I believe means this kit is no longer offered as a kit but the stamp sets are available individually! DOH!!

I had a great time with this kit and I believe all the stamp sets this month are great stash builders and will get plenty of use over the years! It’s always a good thing to have a wide variety of options – especially sentiment options!

Thank you so very much for spending your time with me here today! Let me know if you have any questions or any comments you’d like to make! If you enjoyed this post please click the “Like” star at the bottom of this page, and if you would like to be notified of new posts click the Follow Me button at the top of this page. I would kindly appreciate it if you would take a few moments to Like Me, List Me, Pin me, Post Me, Share me with all your crafty friends, and remember… Don’t run with scissors!! As always, I send You and Yours Love and Light and Happy Crafting!

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Hello Folks! Scott here with another group of cards created with the Hero Studio Card Kit of the Month for July of 2025! “Road Trip” is the Hero Studio theme this month and the Card Kit combines a HeroScape Stamp set with quite a large batch of dies… looks like the interior of a car dashboard and some people parts to populate the car…

Hero Studio July 2025 Card Kit of the Month includes:

On The Road HeroScape 6″x8″ Stamp Set

On The Road HeroScape Coordinating dies

Let’s Go Die Set

Pine Core Ink cube

10 sheets of 8.5″ x 5.5″ card stock in Sicily, Coral, Bellini, Waterfall, TealTopaz, Blue Spruce, Peridot, Beeswax, Saffron, and Carrot

Mirror paper 8.5″ x 5.5″

Our kits were a little late in arriving this month, and when I got mine (minus the Ink cube and Mirror paper) the only reference I had to what this kit was all about, was the picture above… I knew it would take me little time to decipher what all these pieces were and where they all went, and I admit that sometimes HeroScape Stamp sets intimidate me…especially when they don’t come with a stamping guide! So that’s what I decided to tackle first.

It’s pretty easy to spot the sky stamp… it’s the one with the clouds..! First I stamped the cloud stamp on some 80# Neenah Solar White card stock using HA Summer Sky ink (appropriate, huh!). The mountain stamp fit in right below the sky and I stamped that with HA Green Hills ink (I see a theme developing). Then I stamped the large detail stamp over the mountain stamp using the Pine Ink cube. It took a little time figuring out where the fourth stamp (a thinner band of detail) went in this arrangement, but it soon became apparent that it was the base and detail of the mountains – stamped in HA Forever Green ink. The road stamp is obviously very apparent and I stamped that using Altenew Dark Night ink – fading it out a bit in the distance.

Considering that I was just trying to figure out this stamp set, this first combination came out better than I expected! Even the slight misalignment of the road (leaving the white strip down the right side) works perfectly fine here! I decided this had to be my first card! I stamped the sentiment with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed it with Clear embossing powder (as usual) and die-cut it with its matching die. I die-cut two more sentiment blanks and glued them all together. I trimmed the stamping to 4″ x 2.75″ with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and added a thin Black mat behind. I found a piece of perfectly matched card stock and cut it to 4.5″ x 3.25″ with the next larger LFSRdie and glued that to the back before gluing all to the front of an A2 White card base. I glued the thick sentiment directly to the card front and called it done! I think the Blues and Greens are quite vibrant and inviting, and that road pulls you right in!

Let’s take a look at these dies… I count 37 dies in the Let’s Go die set… and some are downright tiny!

I die-cut all the car pieces from three shades of Grey card stock, and black card stock, and I used some Silver Mylar I had in my stash to stand in for the Mirror paper in the kit. Just building up this dashboard took a great deal of fiddly time (especially when first figuring everything out!) My first revelation on this go round was to die-cut the dashboard background from two shades of Grey and then remove the light grey floorboards to show the darker grey behind. Plan on spending a good amount of time putting this dash together… so many little pieces!!

I stamped the Heroscape stamps using HA Sand, Sand Stone and Pine inks for the hills ( I did stamp the thin detail stamp twice – right side up and up-side down), and I didn’t care for the sky I stamped so I just cut that away at the mountain edge. If you want to get as much of the car on an A2 card as possible, then you’ll have to limit the amount of sky you’ll see. And remember… we want to see as much road as we can too! I ink blended a little Hero Hues Fruit Punch and Splash reactive ink on the top edge of a White card base and glued the fussy-cut hills on top.

Then to those body parts… we have a right hand and a left hand and a pair of legs with shoes and shorts and things. When I realized that the legs were meant to be propped up on the dashboard, my first reaction was “get your feet off the dash!” but far be it from me to criticize anyone’s riding habits…! I die-cut the legs using some HA Colors Of Earth Card Stock (I wish there were more flesh tones in the included card stocks!) I did use my Pastel Chalks to give a little shading to our body parts and clothing. I die-cut the left hand and curled the pointing finger around the sunglasses. I glued those legs and hand with sunglasses down to the passenger side. I die-cut the right hand from another piece of HA Colors of Earth card stock and after giving it a little shading and sliding the hand around the steering wheel, I was suddenly aware of a missing a leg on the drivers side of the car… seems odd to me!

So I die-cut another pair of legs to match the right arm, and cut away the top leg, added another pair of shorts (there’s that Sicily Card Stock) and slipped the new leg under the dash… it’s a little out of proportion, but I think it conveys the right idea and at least we have a driver that can reach the breaks! I cut a slit for the cassette tape in the dash, added a little stitching to the steering wheel, and glued all the body parts down to the car. I stamped, embossed and die-cut the sentiment the same as my first card and glued that to the left of the feet (Get Your Feet Off The Dash, PLEASE!) Quite an interesting perspective with all these die-cut assemblages… I don’t think I’ve ever put a die-cut together with quite so many pieces!!! Certainly something I’ve not seen depicted on a card before…! Kind of random but a detailed random!!

I got tired of asking my passenger to get her feet off the dash so I dropped her off at a rest stop and continued on my “Road Trip” all by myself. There’s even a sentiment encouraging that very thing…

I die-cut the dashboard pieces from two shades of Brown, Black, a little off-White and some Silver Metallic card stock again using the darker color for the floorboard and top of the dashboard and the lighter brown for the seats and console. Note that the Coffee Cup die cut DOES fit in the cup holders! Two more cassette tapes, the fuzzy dice (illegal to hang from your rear-view mirror in most states!) and that terrifically fun Pine Air Freshener adds more personal details, and I cut a couple of steering wheels and separated the wheel from the hub for the perfect additional steering wheel detail. I did notice that the die-cut dice are not actually accurate… each of the opposite sides of the dice should add up to 7… so One should be opposite the Six and Three should be opposite the Four… is that being too nit-picky? I guess we do still know what they are..!!

I die-cut the right arm and right leg from HA Ivory card stock and colored the arm with alcohol markers… I got a really nice flesh tone using R18, R19 and R20 Ohuhu markers – I’ll remember that one! I colored the leg Blue and tucked it under the dashboard, die-cut the shirt sleeve and cuff, added a little shading with Ohuhu markers and glued them on top of the arm, before gluing the hand to the steering wheel.

I stamped the sky on a panel of White card stock using the Earth Palette Reactive Ink pad (from the MMH December 2019 kit), and stamped the hills with HA Sand, Sand Stone, and Pine inks and added the small cacti and bushes with Pine and Green Hills ink. I was looking for a little bit of a lighter road surface, so I stamped that using HA Soft Granite ink and still tried to fade it out a bit as it recedes into the distance. I got the layering of the HeroScapes stamps pretty spot on this time! I stamped, embossed, die-cut and stacked the sentiment (thank you, Fleetwood Mac!) as usual.

I combined all the pieces together and glued everything down to a White card base. Personally, I have done a great deal of cross-country driving in my lifetime and have always enjoyed being able to listen to whatever music I wanted, being able to stop whenever I wanted and sometimes just being alone with my thoughts was the perfect way to rack up the miles! Go Your Own Way!

Enough with the fiddly little bits of these die cuts… is there some way to use the stamps without making a HeroScape?

Sure! Just use the tiny Cacti and Bushes stamps to make some pattern paper! I stamped the Cacti using HA Light Mint ink and the small and medium sized bushes in Green Hills ink. I used a little Micro-applicator to add tiny pink blooms to the larger cactus stamp. I die-cut the “pattern paper” to 3.75″ x 5″ with a LFSRdie and added a thin black mat behind and another thin Mint-y mat behind that before gluing them all to an A2 White card base.

At first I thought I could get away with just a sentiment on this pattern paper, but couldn’t find an appropriately large sentiment that worked with cactus pattern paper and would be a large enough focal point. I remember that the MMH August 2023 Kit included a few sheets of cacti rub-ons..! I printed the sentiment on a scrap of White card stock using my Silhouette Software and the Nanum Pen Script font. I selected a blooming cactus rub-on and nestled that in close to the printed sentiment and rubbed it into place. Then I fussy-cut around the cactus and the sentiment making it all look “of a piece” and mounted that to the card front with foam tape. A decent little pun on fun cacti pattern paper!

The left hand die cut features a pointing finger, and as a die-hard fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, I thought that die could help me take this kit to the heavens!

On a panel of Watercolor paper, I used Brusho Black Powdered Watercolor to begin my galaxy coloring. I sprinkled that across the watercolor paper and lightly sprayed water over the top… then I just let it dry naturally. I ink blended some HA Taffy and Splash Reactive inks into the leftover white spaces and spattered a bunch of stars using Permanent White Gouache watercolor. I trimmed that panel to 3.25″ x 4.5″ with a LFSRdie, added a thin white mat and a thin black mat and glued those to a White card base.

I die-cut the right arm from Ivory card stock and colored that with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers. I die-cut the shirt sleeve and cuff from some textured Blue card stock, shaded them with some alcohol markers and glued them to the arm. I printed and cut this sentiment using my Silhouette Portrait and the Dream State font and I cut a few more blanks to glue together. I trimmed the arm to length and glued the bottom edge to the card front and added some foam tape behind the hand for some dimension. I glued the sentiment in place and decided we needed to be pointing to something particular, so I added a small clear gem to be the sparkling star we’re pointing at… This is a terrific sentiment for an encouragement card… whether you’re looking at the stars or just looking at life!

I did want to go back to the HeroScape stamps because they have interesting edges (on the top and bottom) that aren’t simply straight lines… we do have dies that will cut the top and bottom, but I do dislike the white borders those leave.

Also… The MMH August 2023 kit (with the rub-on cacti) has some GREAT sentiments perfectly suited to this set! I stamped the sky using HA Fruit Punch, Creamsicle, and Lemon Drop Reactive inks, used Sand Stone ink for the background hills, Caramel ink for the big detail stamp and Pine ink for the small details. Again I flipped the small detail stamp around for a little bit of extra green in the distance. I went back to the Altenew Dark Night ink for the road. I do believe this was my best layering of these Heroscape stamps… no errant white gaps anywhere! WOO-HOO!

I trimmed the stamped panel to 5″ x 3.75″ with a LFSRdie, added a thin Black mat and a thin Saffron mat (from the card stock in the kit) and glued those to an A2 White card base. I stamped the sentiment (from the MMH August 2023 kit) with VersaMark ink, embossed it with Clear Embossing powder and die-cut it with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die and mounted it to the card front with thick foam tape. I do like the irregular top and bottom edges of this Heroscape stamping, and I love how different this card looks compared to my first HeroScape card!

Another sentiment from the MMH August 2023 kit caught my eye and made me think about summertime tubing!

I die-cut one set of legs from Ivory card stock (colored with my Ohuhu markers) and and one set in a mid-brown from the Colors of Earth card stock and added shading with my Alcohol markers. I added the shoes to both sets of legs and die-cut a couple of half-circles using the HA Circle Infinity dies. I die-cut a piece of Blue Marbelized pattern paper to 3.75″ x 5″ and added a thin black mat behind before gluing them both down to a White card base. I did a little shading around the half-circles with my Chalk Pastels, positioned the legs on top, trimmed the edges and glued them to the card front. I stamped, embossed and die-cut the sentiment the same as the previous card (without the banner ends) and added that to the card front with thin foam tape. Whether you’re in a pool or on a river, reclining on a float is a great way to relax!!!

I do believe this is my first set of dice in my stash… I have no stamps or dies featuring pairs of dice… but now I do!!

A little “ABBA” anyone!? I die-cut the dice background (the pips) from some Glossy black card stock and the foreground from some plain White card stock. I trimmed off the hanging cord and glued the dice together. I die-cut (and embossed) the heart from a scrap of Red card stock using an old Sizzix Cross Stitch Heart die. I printed this sentiment on the front of an A2 White card base using my Silhouette Software and the Nanum Pen Script font. I lightly ink blended some Fruit Punch Reactive ink on the card front as a ground behind the heart and ink blended some around the edges of the die cut heart as well. Lastly, I added two strips of Washi Tape along the edges. I glued the die cut heart in place and added the dice with thin foam tape. Love the reflective dots on the dice and the obvious Abba reference!!

I started thinking about this next card when I was working on the other two car cards… I just couldn’t resist!

YES! A Thelma and Louise Card!!! First I need a cliff – preferably a Grand Canyon cliff! I die cut the canyon from a panel of White card stock using the negative part of the Venice Skyline die from the MMH April 2019 Card Kit. I colored the canyon walls with my Ohuhu Alcohol markers. I free-handed the cliff edge on another piece of White card stock and colored that with my Alcohol markers as well – trying to pull your attention right to the edge… I ink blended some Splash Reactive ink to the top of a White card base and glued my canyon walls (with the top trimmed off) to the card front. I added the cliff with foam tape along the top edge and glued it flat along the bottom.

Thelma and Louise are driving a turquoise 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible in the movie, so I looked on-line to see what the dashboard looked like on that car… I created the dashboard using Black, Ivory, Grey and Silver Metallic card stock. In order to expose as much of the cliff and canyon as possible, I trimmed down the car piece down to just past the seats. I die-cut both arms and two sets of legs and colored them all with Alcohol markers. I added some bracelets to the arms with some assorted cords and clasped them together… just like they do in the movie! As they are speeding along to the edge of the canyon they reach out and hold hands just like this – the camera even zooms in on their hands…! I glued the bottom of the arms flat and put some foam tape behind the clasped hands. I printed the sentiment (Thelma says this) on a scrap of White card stock using my Silhouette Software and the Winnie font, trimmed it to size and added it with foam tape. I’m not sure if anyone other than a true Thelma and Louise fan would recognize this card, but as a unique encouragement card, it tickles me to no end!

Playing around with the die cut arms on this card gave me this idea for the last card for this kit…

Hopefully everyone recognizes the hands from Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel… matching that up with a classic Dad joke gives me the giggles! I die-cut two right arms from more Ivory card stock and adjusted their poses to suit the picture… the one on the left is the back-side of the die cut (Adam’s left arm) with the wrist bent down a little more, and the arm on the right (God’s right arm) I straightened out the wrist a little bit and the finger a bit more. (I took “darts” at the wrists and knuckle and trimmed away any overlap so the cut edges matched up as close as possible) you can see traces of the seams on the left wrist and right knuckle, but once I colored the arms up with my colored pencils (trying to imitate the original) the seams almost disappeared!

I cut some Grey marble pattern paper to 4.25″ x 5.5″ and ink blended some Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide ink around the edges. I die-cut some Gold Metallic card stock with the largest HA Wood Frame Infinity die and toned it down a little by rubbing some VersaMark Onyx Black ink over the surface. I glued the pattern paper to a White A2 card base, arranged the hands and glued them down… trimmed off the excesses and glued the frame over the top. I printed the sentiment on a scrap of Ivory card stock again with the Nanum Pen Script font and trimmed it to size with a Lawn Fawn Everyday Sentiment Banners die. I added two more layers of card stock to the back and glued the thick sentiment to the card front. This would make a great Father’s Day card or even a Birthday card for the Dad Joke Champion in your family!

I admit that I thought this kit was pretty limited in it’s scope, so I’m actually a little surprised I was able to come up with as many options as I did… and while all of these options might not work for everybody, I hope some these ideas inspire you to keep experimenting! I did use most of the stamps (no sun or moon or “you go girl”) but I do believe I used every single die in the Let’s Go die set. I only used a couple pieces of the card stock but I already mentioned I thought that there should have been more skin tones and neutrals in that batch.

Regardless, this is certainly a riotous collection of colorful cards this month! The Let’s Go Die set is very unique – you can do a lot with those arms and legs! I do feel like I conquered the HeroScape Stamp set admirably, and heaven knows there are tons of backgrounds (even lots from past MMH Kits) that would work with a close-up car dashboard! I actually did consider a Drive-in Theatre theme but never got that far…! All in all, a wide variety of cards created from this kit! Let me know which ones are your favorites!

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