My Monthly (Hero) Mash-up! A Blog Named Hero May 2020 Challenge

I have been a subsriber to the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero Kit for almost 2 years and I love their kits! I did subscribe to card kits from other companies but I didnt find it as appealing as the Hero Arts Kits. I love their kits because its focus is on stamps and dies which is something I love to use and find so much value in them. These kits do not come with pattern paper or ephemeras which is ok because I dont use them anyway. They do come with inks (sometimes 4 mini ink pads), plain or textured cardstock or some new crafty coloring medium to try out!

Since I have about two years worth of kits, I always look for a variety of ways to mix and match them – I love doing MMH kit mash-ups! Even if you are not a subscriber to the Hero Arts kits, there may be something here in this post that inspires you to look at your stamps and dies in a different way!

This project is a mash-up of the March 2020 kit and the April 2019 kit. The March 2020 kit is Japanese themed and comes with 5 mini ink cubes and the August 2019 one is a Venetian inspired kit that comes with lots of beautiful cardstock. It was fun mashing these two very different themed kits! Here is the result.

The basic scene is from the Japanese kit but I wanted to recreate that red bridge that is common to traditional Japanese gardens. I was in Japan with the family two years ago and we had lunch in a restaurant near Tokyo Tower and they had this most beautiful Japanese garden. Here is a photo I took of the bridge in that garden. My apologies if the photo is not very clear, I had to crop out my family from the photo.

Anyway, I noticed that the Venetian Kit had a die of one of those bridges that spans across a venetian canal, so I had an idea to do some die-cut surgery.

First, using the bridge die, I die-cut 4 pcs out of red cardstock. Then I removed the sides of the bridge and the widened the arch.

Then I glued that piece on top of another die-cut and used that as a guide to trim the next layer. I did the same to the 3rd piece to make the bridge look more dimensional.

The Japanese scene stamp set came with a stamp for a sandy zen garden but I wanted to convert it into a pond where the bridge can span over – so with some masking,

I was able to stamp the zen garden twice, one on top, of another with blue ink to create a wave like pattern.

Then I masked off the pond and stamped the grass starting with the base layer then the top grass layer.

I removed the mask, then I used the coordinating die to cut out the layered grass scene.

I stamped out the tree trunk, the leaves and the stone pagodas separately and used the coordinating dies to cut them out. You can use the inks that came in the kit to complete your scene. But if you don’t have the kit but have a similar tree and garden stamp, I list the colors I used below.

I wanted to create a sunrise glow behind the bridge so on a separate base panel, I ink blended the sun using Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide Ink and used the Tumbled Glass for the clear blue sky.

I assembled the scene using foam tape behind the grass panel on top of the red bridge which I glued down. I also foam mounted the tree trunk and the leaves. I added the two sizes of the stone carved pagodas onto the scene. Then I stamped the sentiment “Thinking of You” also from the Japanese garden set. I used the birds stamp from the Venetian set to finish off the scene.

I am entering this card in the A Blog Named Hero Challenge for this month of May. The theme is sending hugs.. thinking of you, is like sending a virtual hug, which would have to suffice for these unusual times.

Hope you were inspired to look at your stamp and die sets in a different way!

‘Til next time!

❤️

Anna

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