March 2019 My Monthly Hero Blog Hop + Giveaway

Hi friends! It's the first Monday of a new month and time for a fabulous My Monthly Hero release! This month's kit is a sea lover's dream! It's o-FISH-ally awesome and had me singing Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid the whole time I was creating! 😁 This month's add-ons are all spectacular, so be sure to check them all out! I can't wait to find some more time to play with them all!  I know you're going to have a blast pairing them with the March MMH kit.

If you've been hopping along, you should have arrived from Laurie Willison's blog. Your next hop stop after this will be Jennifer McGuire's blog. The entire hop list can be found later in this post.

Once again, Hero Arts is generously giving away a fabulous prize for a lucky commenter along the hop.  Leave a little love in the comments section for all these amazing artists and if your name is drawn you'll receive this month's kit (or equivalent product if you're already a kit subscriber) absolutely free! If you're not a kit subscriber, you should really consider subscribing. The kits frequently sell out and subscribing guarantees you'll never miss a kit. The kits are such a great value, with super fun and versatile images and accessories. Plus there's such a wealth of inspiration from the designers each month! Speaking of inspiration, let's get started...

This month's kit includes three fabulous little mini ink cubes with reactive ink. Visions of awesome sea backgrounds jumped into my head, so I started by testing out the inks, making several backgrounds. I've recently been practicing creating videos, so I've uploaded a new one of me creating three of the backgrounds for today's cards. My cat decided to grace my desk with her presence and knocked my phone off  it's stand at the end of filming, somehow magically erasing the footage of the other two cards. I was left with just a few seconds of her swishing her tail and sitting on my finished project! Anyhow, you can view the video below or on my YouTube channel.

This release had my mind just swimming with ideas! I'm sharing FIVE cards today, so if you don't already have a cuppa something awesome by your side, you might want to go grab a cup to enjoy while I share my makes.

I started out with my go-to technique of smooshing the reactive inks onto a plastic baggie and then touching them to watercolor paper, then spritzing and drying as need be to get a super splashy background. Loved how this turned out, so I started in on a little underwater scene, stamping several of the images from the kit along the bottom using my MISTI, so that I could stamp them a couple times in ink and then stamp over them with the reactive sea salt ink to give them just a bit of a faded look. 

When I was happy with the look of things, I needed some fishies. I pretty much squealed in delight when I tried the next thing, which was stamping the fish images in sea glass a couple times, then adding blue water ink to the bottom halves of the stamps, then spritzing lightly with water and stamping again. Eeep! So fabulous!  I cut my little fishies with coordinating dies from the kit (there are a bazillion of them), then popped them up on foam tape and added the just keep swimming sentiment from the kit in intense black. The new Adriatic Hero Hues cardstock was the perfect color to mat with.

Next, I wanted to see how an ink resist would look, so embossed the Bubbles Bold Prints background in white and then blended the sea glass and blue water reactive inks over it.  I then spritzed with water for an even more aerated look. This background seemed to be calling out for the aquarium fancy die from the main kit. I cut it from the Adriatic card stock, gave it a good coating of Versamark and then embossed with Sparkle embossing powder for a super shimmery look. I then cut the die from fun foam and layered behind my embossed panel.

Once my background was layered together, I chose a sweet little goldfish from the adorable Pet Goldfish add-on set to stamp and color with Copic markers. I was a bit sloppy with my coloring, so fussy cut him instead of using the coordinating frame cuts. Then I chose the fintastic friend sentiment from the same set and embossed in the blue water reactive ink onto vellum. I layered a white cardstock circle behind this and then embellished with some of the beautiful blue and green droplets from the main kit. My final accent was a touch of the crystal clear lacquer pen on each of the fins and a sprinkle of glitter.

I had so much fun with the emboss resist, I thought it would be fun to do another using the images from the kit.  I built a little background with a bunch of the sealife images from the kit, placing them in opposing directions here and there. Then I embossed in white onto smooth bristol cardstock. Next I blended sea glass and blue water reactive inks onto the panel, then wiped in horizontal swaths with a baby wipe to get the striation effect I was going for. A super light touch is all you need here.

Then it was simply a matter of adding the swim in your own direction sentiment from Color Layering Betta Fish add-on set as a little popped up banner and grabbing an extra fishy I had stamped and cut when I was making that first card.

I loved how the inks blended, so decided to do a very simple simple technique of blending the two colored inks onto smooth bristol cardstock, then spritzing with water and blotting with a paper towel. Isn't that reactive property just fabulous?

I didn't want to cover up too much of that beautiful background, so I pulled out the Color Layering Betta Fish add-on set and stamped in worn lipstick, picked raspberry and seedless preserves Distress Oxides, the die cut with the coordinating frame cuts. I popped my betta up on foam tape and then added the fun sentiment in black and a thin pitch black Hero Hues mat to finish things off.

For my final card today, I created a background by swiping the reactive inks across a paper in stripe formation, then spritzing and blending, until I got the effect I was looking for. I stamped the coral type images from the main kit in Versamark along the bottom of the panel and then embossed them with white puff embossing powder to give them a rough texture.

My boys have a weekly therapy appointment, and in the waiting room they have a tank of artificial jellyfish that move around and glow in all the colors of the rainbow. It's absolutely mesmerizing to watch (I've spent many hours just watching it), so as soon as I saw the jellyfish image in the main kit I knew I wanted to stamp a bunch of jellyfish. I stamped the image multiple times with the Sea Aquas inks and sea glass reactive ink. Then I cut them with the coordinating die and accented with some sparkly glitter glue. I chose a sentiment from the adorable Curious Cat add-on set and embossed it in white to finish off the card.

Okay, that's all for me today. I hope you've enjoyed my makes from this fabulous release. If you're a kit subscriber, remember you can order any of this month's lovely add-ons to ship with your kit with no additional shipping fees if you place your order before Thursday. All of the add-ons are added to the Hero Arts catalog and restocked. The kit is only available while supplies last, so grab yours while you can!

Here's a closer look at the March My Monthly Hero kit. I've also linked the entire release along with the supplies I used for these cards below for your convenience.

For a chance to win the giveaway of this month's kit, leave some comments for the talented designers linked below. Here's the full hop list. Next up on the hop is Jennifer McGuire.  Happy hopping!

The Hero Arts Blog
Nichol Spohr
Michelle Short
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Janette Kausen
Ilina Crouse
Emily Midgett
Caly Person
Lydia Fiedler
Laurie Willison
Julee Tilman 👈You are here
Jennifer McGuire
Debi Adams
Amy Kolling
Libby Hickson
Mariana Grigsby

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