BG is celebrating the release of two new lines – Paper Cottage and Clippings. And I fell in love with the Paper Cottage line. Look at how lovely this is…

Aren’t those fun colors and whimsical prints fun? Here is what BasicGrey has to say about the line…

Retire to this idyllic, cozy crafty cottage, located just a stroll down Creativity Lane. Enjoy an authentic English breakfast complete with homemade jam or stop for a spot of tea in our tucked-away parlor. Restore your stylish senses with a jaunt through the nestled garden, and return through the glen for a lovely lunch on the patio. Enjoy your restful stay here at the Paper Cottage.

And check out these must-have buttons…

Such fun. Now be sure to head over to Leeann Pearce’s spectacular blog. (Oh, and you can always hop back to the BasicGrey blog for a list of direct links to all the blogs in the hop.) There are lots of prizes to be won!

Speaking of prizes…

And the fabulous folks at BasicGrey are letting me share the love! A lucky winner will get a 6×6 paper pad and lovely buttons from this new Paper Cottage line. Just leave a comment by Wednesday at 11:59pmEST. Good luck.

See you soon.

Hey, there. Welcome to a fun blog hop with the Paper Crafts Go-To Gals. Today we will all be using stamps from the Hero Arts + BasicGrey Nordic holiday line. And… we will all be giving a set away along with a copy of the new Holiday Cards and More. Yay!

I decided to use the snowman from the Smiling Snowman set. Isn’t he the cutest little guy?

But I kinda broke the rules after that and added a bunch of other stamping, too. The background is my new favorite stamp from Hero Arts + BasicGrey. And the clouds and woodgrain circle are stamps from Hero Arts + Studio Calico. They just worked so well with the snowman! (See the bottom of this post for all the supplies.)

Oh! And see those cute clouds? They are stamps from THIS set that perfectly fit the Fiskars cloud punches HERE and HERE. Heavenly.

Be sure to go see what the other Go-To Gals created – go HERE.

Also, be sure to check out the new Holiday Cards and More. This guy is packed full of great ideas – you will love it…

So – get this – I get to give away both a copy of Holiday Cards and More and the Hero Arts + BasicGrey Smiling Snowman set! Just leave a comment here by Friday night for your chance to win. And be sure to check out the other Go-To Gals posts for more chances to win, too!

Good luck!

I was honored to be featured on the new BasicGrey blog earlier this week. (And so happy they have a blog now!) I did three cards for them using the Hero Arts + BasicGrey stamps. For complete and detailed instructions, go HERE.

First up is one that has me looking forward to the holidays…

Of course, lots of Perfect Pearl + water on Distress Inks for the flower. And I love the look for Hero Arts Mixed Accents (matching pearls and gems) piled together…

Next up is another Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls + water mix using my favorite new flower stamps. Adore it…

Shine, shine, shine…

By the way, the BEST BEST BEST watercolor paper is now available HERE. This is my favorite – I use it for everything.

And the last one, which looks a whole heck of a lot better in real life. The photo just killed it…

That’s an acetate window there…

Ahhh… I love me some BasicGrey. And I love the people who work there… Kelly Goree, Kristina Werner and now Melanie Bauer. Such a great group.

Off to work on stuff for Inspiration Showcase! See you soon.

We have a few giveaway winners. The winner of the True Scrap class spot is Janet (tomjan)and the winner of the Simon Says Stamp gift certificate is Tere. I emailed you both.

Today’s video is one I did for the Hero Arts blog – it shows how to create a card with elements “floating” over a window. A fun effect. I like to create cards that are unique – something Hallmark doesn’t do. This fits the bill.

I used the new Pool Notecards from Hero Arts for this. LOVE the colors in this set – three shades of pool.

And get this – BOTH the large and extra large Cloud Punches from Fiskars fit perfectly with the two clouds in THIS stamp set from Hero Arts and Studio Calico. Cool, huh?

For the rest of the supplies, please check the bottom of this post.

I try not to share too much non-crafty stuff here, but a few people asked about how Colin did on his first day of school. It went perfectly. He LOVES it and day 2 was fab, too. I am so thankful. Any moms out there with issues of anxiety can relate to how tough things like this can be on us. So thank you for your encouragement. Here are pics of the school boy…

Answered prayers.

Something else to check out…

My dear friend Kristina is working hard to raise money for research for type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is heartbreaking – something my brother has battled with for years. So, I feel very strongly about supporting these efforts.

Right now she is auctioning this fabulous piece from Lori McDonough…

She also has lots of prizes you can win with a simple $10 donation. You can see them all here – one is even an iPad2! Please consider checking it out. (Big hugs to you, Kristina. Proud of you.)

Here is another great thing to check out: My friend Ali was just nominated for “The Moms Who Are Changing Your World” award in the inspiration category over at Babble. If she wins, $5000 will be donated to Ali’s two favorite charities. I have known Ali for many, many years and she deserves this award for many reasons. Please consider going to vote for her HERE. (Way to go, Ali! Proud of you, too.)

A few people asked about the class structure of my upcoming Inspiration Showcase class. Here is a bit about it:

Each row of the canvas represents a category of techniques – from resist to finishing touches to Distress Inks and more.  On the first day of class, I will walk you through the first row and all of the techniques. On the second day, I’ll share cards using these techniques, along with a project from a guest artist. On day three, I will present the second row and day four will provide card ideas with those techniques. This will continue through the class days. I will then end the class with alternative canvas designs and cards using sketches and elements from the canvases. So, you will be have reason to check out the class every day for videos!

Thank you to everyone who has signed up already!

Have a good one.

I am so excited that the newest BasicGrey releases are out. The stamps for these lines simply rock. Big time.

Here is a (0h-s0-very-bright) card I made for the upcoming Mall of America Archivers Scrapfest event. (Anyone going to be there?) BasicGrey is teaming up with Hero Arts at the event. We will be making several variations of this card many times over…

Isn’t that stamp awesome? Adore the butterfly, too. (You can find it HERE.)

And then there is the fabulous 6×6 paper pad for the Indie Bloom line… (You can find it HERE.)

There is also a new Nordic Holiday line. Look at this cute stamp set… (You can find it HERE.)

And the 6×6 paper pad for this line, too… (You can find it HERE.)

So you can find all the new Indie Bloom and Nordic Holiday lines at 2Peas HERE and Simon Says Stamp has them HERE and Ellen Hutson HERE.

And since the folks at BasicGrey are so very generous, I ended up with extra 12×12 paper packs of the Indie Bloom and Nordic Holiday lines! So I am giving them away. Just leave a comment here by Sunday night for your chance to win.

By the way, the winner of the new adhesive is Van. Emailed ya!

See you soon.

I found something fabulous and just had to share. Remember THIS trimmer that I adore so very much?

Well, you can now get titanium blades for it and they last a really long time. Cuts like butter. Swoon.

You can get the trimmer HERE and the new blades HERE.

I also thought I would share a few random cards. Not sure if I shared them already – please forgive me if I did. First up? Random card #1. All BasicGrey and Hero Arts… oh so lovely products. The rose was done by stamping with Memento Markers.

Random card #2: More proof of my love for BasicGrey + Hero Arts goodies. Along with chalk inks. Easy.

Random card #3: Used the Tim Holtz Bracket border die on both sides on the card. Also simple.

Hope you are having a fab weekend.

Card Supplies:

Each day this week, Dawn and I will be using the same Hero Arts and Papertrey Ink stamps to create cards. And for even more fun, we will be doing monochromatic cards – a different color every day.

Here is today’s combo – the Hero Arts 3 Silhouettes and Ledger, along with the Papertrey Ink Mat Stack 4 Collection… all in purple…

I decided to use these stamps together to make a set of bookmarks for my oldest step-daughter, Kay. She loves to read and likes purple. Perfect.

The bookmark is actually cut from a Hero Arts notecard. It simply slides over the top of your page in a book to keep your place…

On a couple of them, I kissed the silhouette stamp to another stamp for some added texture. I used all Hero Arts papers and inks…

And do you see how perfectly cut those silhouettes are? Yea… I didn’t do that. I actually used the Silhouette for that. Hero Arts now offers die cut downloads that are perfectly sized for many of our stamps. You just buy it, download it and open it. It automatically opens in Silhouette to the perfect size to cut. Simply stamp your image on it and you are good to go. Cool, huh?

Now be sure to head over to Dawn’s blog to see what she created. I am sure it is amazing!

See you tomorrow with more fun with Dawn. Thanks for stopping by.

Bookmark Supplies:

]]> http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2011/05/challenge-week-with-dawn-mcvey-hero-arts-papertrey-ink.html/feed 53 http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2011/05/3-basicgrey-hero-arts-shares.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-basicgrey-hero-arts-shares http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2011/05/3-basicgrey-hero-arts-shares.html#comments Sat, 07 May 2011 02:06:32 +0000 Jennifer http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/?p=1846 Hello there.

A few people asked me about the Hero Arts and BasicGrey collaboration. Basically, BG creates the fabulous papers and embellishments they always have and HA creates the fabulous stamps to match. Two companies doing what they do best… together. Gotta love that.

Here are some cards I did using  the BG/HA goodies. You many have seen them before here and there, but I wanted to share the supplies below, too. (Just check out the little product thumbnails at the end of this post.)

Who said techniques need to be complicated? Here, I white-heat-embossed the background on watercolor paper. I then covered it with Broken China Distress Ink, sprayed with a Perfect Pearl + water mist and let it dry. Yum. Lots of shine in real life.

I wanted a bigger yellow flower here. So I stamped an extra one, cut apart the petals and tucked them behind the first. Easy.

And this one is simple. Just let the stamps and BG papers shine. That is the Mini Ornamental Tim Holtz die. Slightly smaller than the original – perfection…

Glossy Accents rock. White embossing powder does, too.

And this one is one of those almost-went-in-the-trash cards. I have a lot of cards that almost go in the trash. But I never pitch them. Funny thing – I didn’t like it, but Hero put it on the cover of their catalog.

To soften the flower piece, I did a partial-stamped background on the top. To do this, I inked the stamp with Soft Sand Shadow Ink and then wiped some of the ink off the center of the stamp before stamping.

If you are interested in getting any of the Hero Arts + BasicGrey goodies, you can find them here…

• … at Ellen Hutson.
• … at 2Peas.
• … at Simon Says Stamp.

Off to rest. Finally home for a week. Yay! Night.

Card Supplies: