Hero Arts Summer Stamp-Along Cards

I recently participated in the Hero Arts Summer Stamp-Along and now have had a chance to finish my cards and share them here. I am loving on line classes because they are preserved to refer to later or watch completely later if the day of the classes is too busy to watch all or finish the classes. In my case, I had some super special family plans with grandkids and kids but when those were done, I went back and finished watching and made all my cards. I think my favorite new product I learned about in the Hero Arts classes was the Looking Glass Dies. We made two cards with them and I went out and bought 3 sets now and will share more cards with them soon. They are all three layer square dies and we did a class with an inlaid version and one with a frame on the front and on the inside. The Hero Arts classes were only $25 for 8 classes and all of us could choose what Hero Arts products to buy for the classes and after they were done. I did not have many of the stamps the instructors featured but subbed mine out or used different papers. Here are a couple more looks at the Looking Glass Window Card Nicole Spohr taught:

The layered "Thinking Of You" die is a new one from Dies...to Die For. I really liked Nicole's idea of combining dies from several Looking Glass sets and putting some on the front and some on a window on the inside that you see from the front when the card is closed. 

Another idea I learned and then made into a card with stamps and dies I already own was the Tri-Fold Stand Up card taught by Debi Adams. I had not seen this fun fold before but I adapted it to make a fun Christmas card with a Penny Black background stamp and a sentiment die from Stampendous. Here is a look at the fun fold from the side:

Daniel West taught a card with the spotlight technique and vellum and his card looked totally different from this one because I did not have the stamps he used and do not color like he did. However I did stamp the Stampendous butterfly stamps on the cardbase and on the card front which was cut smaller and raised over vellum like he did. I paper pieced my butterflies and added a couple punched butterflies and some gems and love how this card turned out. 

I did buy the Color Layering Orca stamp set and matching die from Hero Arts as well as the waves stencil so these cards are similar to what the instructors taught in the two Orca classes. I love how in each class I learn something new! I learned a great tip to color blend on a colored cardstock rather than white which allows us to achieve intense colors much quicker like on the top card. And I forget to use blender brushes and a stencil and to fade off leaving white space which is a great look. I had to add my favorite gems from Gina Marie Designs to each of these cards as I do to almost all of my cards. 

There is going to be another Hero Arts Stamp-Along in September with a Holiday theme and I highly recommend these reasonably priced classes and teachers.