Hero Arts Summer Blog Hop

Welcome to the Hero Arts Summer Blog Hop!  All week long the Hero Hostesses are sharing cards inspired by summer.  If you arrived here from the fabulous Jenn Biederman you are in the right place. If you just joined in the hop go to the Hero Arts Blog to start from the beginning.

Of course when we talked about summer I was thinking of the glorious flowers that fill the landscape during the hot summer days.  Being in the north we really only have the summer months to enjoy our flowers so I really appreciate the months that they shine.

 A few steps to create my card:

1. Lay stencil over white cardstock and spritz with gold mist. Lift stencil and place onto white cardstock and pick up the reverse image from the stencil.  This was the reverse image piece that I used in the background. 
2. Paint black cardstock with white paint using foam brush. 
3. Stamp flowers over dry painted surface using black water resistant ink. 
4. Color flowers using STAEDTLER Soft Pastel Chalks and a waterbrush.  The waterbrush will pick up the chalk and apply it like watercolors.  Repeat until desired shading. 
5. Add highlights in center of flowers using white gel pen. 
6. Splatter a little gold watercolor around the edges by inking up the waterbrush and splatter around the flowers. 
7. Add shading around edges of flowers using watercolor pencils and waterbrush. 
8. Cut rectangle around flowers and hand cut edges of flower. 
9. Stamp sentiment using Gold ink along edge of flowers. 
10. Accent with lace trim and gems. 
11. Assemble card. 

Products: Stencil, Hero Arts Made With Love, Hero Arts - F529 Garden Star, Versafine Toffee, Yellow Gems, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist - Dijon, Lace Trim

My second card was inspired by the hot summer days where the sun is so hot that the air shimmers and you see sun spots.  I decided to create a background using alcohol inks in yellow to reflect the hot summer day.

 Steps for the sunshine card:

1. Ink up glossy cardstock. Smear a blend of alcohol blending solution and yellow alcohol ink over the entire surface. 
2. Drip alcohol inks directly on the surface yellow let dry. Drip the next shade of yellow overlapping circles. Let dry. Repeat with different shades of yellow and Alcohol blending solution. Let dry between each color to hold the circles. 
3. Stamp flowers using Versamark onto the surface randomly. Heat emboss using light yellow embossing powder. 
4. Stamp butterflies on extra piece of alcohol ink background using versamark. Heat emboss with light yellow embossing powder. Cut out. Accent centers with pearls. 
5. Assemble card. 
6. Stamp sentiment on coordinating cardstock. Cut in banner shape attach to front of card.

Products: Ranger Alcohol Inks - Sunshine, Butterscotch, Alcohol Blending solution, Hero Arts -
H3257 Real Salvia, Hero Arts - Everyday Sayings.Hero Arts - Papillion

We decided to share some of our favorite recipes for summer..  As you know from previous posts, cooking is not my strength. :)  When we have family parties in the summer I am usually asked to bring the pudding salad.   No cooking involved and easy to make. 

Pudding Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

• 8 oz Cool Whip
• 1 5.9 box of Vanilla Instant Pudding 
• 1 15 oz can of Mandarin Oranges 
• 1 15 oz can of Fruit Cocktail 
• 16 oz Maraschino cherries
• 2 medium size Bananas
• 3 cups of Milk (for pudding)
• Optional:  Marshmallows

1. Make Instant Pudding per instructions. 
2. Fold in cool whip into pudding.Stir until completely mixed.
3. Drain cherries, fruit cocktail, and mandarin oranges of juices. 
4. Mix in fruit into pudding. 
5. Slice up bananas and mix into pudding. 
6. Add marshmallows if desired. I have never actually added them. :) 
7. Refrigerate for a few hours before serving. 

Everyone loves the fact that you have full cherries in the salad. They are like little surprises.

Now onto the next stop in the hop.  The extremely talented  Donna Mikasa. 

Don't forget to leave a comment at every blog because Hero Arts will be doing random drawings from all the blog comments. There will be three lucky winners, and the more you comment, the greater your chance of being one of them!!! 

If you encounter a broken link, just go to to the Hero Arts blog for a list of all the blogs with their links. Please report any broken links to blog[at]heroarts[dot]com.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz