Inspired by Hero Arts

So I found this card yesterday while browsing the Hero Arts website, and just loved it.  I also just bought two new Hero Arts stamps (here and here) and was itching to use them!  This fabulous card used them both, so it was perfect for me to lift ;)

First I got out all the heart stamps I could find, other background stamps, Tim Holtz Distress Inks and tools, and white embossing powder. I stamped various images with Versamark ink and heat embossed with the white powder on a few sheets of white cardstock.  Then I took my ink blending tool and shaded them in with the inks I chose.









These are the colors of inks I used



Blending tools and foam, LOVE these babies!




Most of the heart shapes I cut out by hand.  Then I punched some of the background images with 2 small heart punches.  I used my Cricut to cut the rest.  I loaded the paper on the mat, and used Doodlecharms, George, and Doodletype to cut out a bunch of different sized hearts.








For these, I used the Centerpoint feature.  I centered the blade over the sentiment and then cut out the heart, so the word would be in the middle.







Here are all my hearts after I cut them with my Cricut, punched some more and hand-cut even more!



I used my Nestabilities Labels 1 dies to cut these out. I used the largest size, so it would almost cover the front of a 4 1/4" square card.  I cheated and just cut a little off of a 4 1/4" by 5 1/2" card.  I stamped the ledger background and then used the ink blending tools again to soften the edges.




Here is what they look like when I started putting them together!






The original card had rhinestones, but I don't have a lot of small ones so I used some dew drops instead, and adhered them with a drop of Glossy Accents.  BTW, I found a tutorial on making your own here, may have to try that!




I made 8 total, a few blue, a few orange and a few pink.







These were fun, and came together fairly quickly after I had all the hearts ready to go.  One nice thing is that I didn't use them all, so now I have a baggie of extras to add to other projects later!

If you haven't played with Distress Inks and the blending tool yet, you are missing out!!