glimmer metallic inks

Good morning! Today is the monthly Hero Arts My Monthly Hero Blog Hop celebrating the fabulous new My Monthly Hero kit! This month, we are featuring a beautiful autumnal kit, chock full of gorgeous botanical images with a bit of Asian influence! For today’s hop, you should have arrived from Jennifer McGuire‘s blog, and your next stop is Caly Person‘s blog! The My Monthly Hero kits are always an excellent value, and this month is no exception.

This kit, including a large 6×8 stamp set, coordinating dies, beautiful fancy oval frame die, and accessories is valued at over $70, but is available for purchase now for $34.99! These kits frequently sell out, so it’s always a good idea to subscribe if you want to ensure that you’ll get your hands on one! The kit & add-ons go live in the Hero Arts store on Tuesday, September 4th at 1pm eastern/10am pacific. The main kit is available for a limited time only – once it’s gone, it’s gone. Kits begin shipping from Hero Arts on Friday, September 7th.

I combined the gorgeous autumnal fancy frame die with the new Glimmer Metallic Inks in my countdown post here, but today I wanted to show some of the beautiful botanical images included in the main stamp set. There are some stunning florals included, which the ever-knowledgeable Jessica Frost-Ballas informed me are Chinese lanterns. These plants have a bright red bulb-like flower that drip off of the main stems so gracefully… I knew I needed to do some watercoloring with these gorgeous flowers.

I began by stamping and die cutting several of the Chinese lantern images from the kit using Hero Arts’s Intense Black ink, a waterproof ink that stays nice and crisp even on watercolor paper. I then watercolored the images using the new add-on Orange Liquid Watercolor, followed by some shadows created with the Red Glimmer Metallic Ink. I used the Glimmer Ink instead of just using Strawberry Liquid Watercolor because the Glimmer Inks are a bit more bold and slightly more intensely pigmented than the regular liquid watercolors…. plus, they’re metallic, so yay! They react similarly to the watercolors in that, when you lay down the concentrated color, you can create a nice fade with a clean, damp paintbrush. I added touches of the Red Glimmer Metallic Ink over the top of the orange, then pulled the color out with my wet paintbrush to create almost a glaze of metallic shimmer. I added some Moss Liquid Watercolor to the foliage, as well.

For the background, I used the new Patterned Leaves Bold Prints, stamped in Red Royal on some red card stock. I love the subtle texture that the tone-on-tone background provides for the floral bouquet. It’s just enough to add interest to the background without distracting from the beautiful floral images. I adhered my bouquet of exotic flowers to the card front using liquid adhesive, then added a stamped sentiment strip to the bottom of the card front using dimensional foam adhesive.

Now for some fun giveaway information! Hero Arts is giving away a September My Monthly Hero kit to one lucky winner (and if you purchase a kit and then win, they will reimburse you!). All you have to do to enter is comment on the blog hop posts. The more comments you leave, the more chances to you have to win! Here’s the full lineup in case you get lost:

The Hero Arts Blog
Ilina Crouse
Lydia Fiedler
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Libby Hickson
Janette Kausen
Amy Kolling
Kelly Latevola
Jennifer McGuire
Emily Midgett<— you are here!
Caly Person
Michelle Short
Jenn Shurkus
Yana Smakula
Nichol Spohr
Julee Tilman