CommUNITY: Inspiration from Lara Rizzotto

Hi friends! Today we are here with an installment of our monthly series, CommUNITY, where we share artwork from artists who we'd love for you to get to know. CommUNITY is about embracing and honoring the creativity of individuals who are often underrepresented. By sharing art from a diverse group of creators, we hope to not only bring inspiration to this papercrafting community we all love so much, but also support and empower individuals to be their authentic selves as they create and share. Look for a new CommUNITY guest artist right here on the blog each month. Today our amazing guest is Lara Rizzotto!

Hello! I'm Lara Rizzotto, also known as craft.and.shine, and I'm absolutely thrilled (and deeply honored) to be guest designing for the Hero Arts CommUNITY! Originally from Italy, I've called Ohio home since 2012, where I live with my husband, our sweet girl, and our spirited toddler boy. By day, I work as a Research Scientist; by night, when the house finally quiets down, I indulge in my passion for card-making! Creativity has always been my outlet, leading me to explore various arts and crafts like embroidery, drawing, knitting, crocheting, and painting over the years. During the pandemic, card-making became a therapeutic escape and, through my Instagram page, I have been able to connect with the crafty community online and make some awesome friends.

I wouldn't say I have a distinct style, because my creativity is spontaneous and I just follow the inspiration of the moment, often resulting in a messy but fulfilling creative process. I adore vibrant colors, especially in rainbow order, and my go-to techniques include ink blending, heat embossing, and coloring with alcohol markers.

For my first card, I began by heat embossing the Love Is Love Bold Prints stamp with White Detail Embossing Powder onto a 4.25" x 5.5" panel of Dove White cardstock. Next, I positioned the Flower Stencil on this panel and ink blended over it using Hero Hues Reactive Inks in Fruit Punch, Creamsicle, Lemon Drop, Key Lime Fizz and Splash.

I cut this background to size with one of the Nesting Rectangle Infinity Dies. I die cut the large "together" sentiment three times from black cardstock with the die from the Together Stamp & Cut set and stacked them to create a thick dimensional sentiment. Finally, I stamped the "we all rise" sentiment from the same set in black ink on a small strip of Dove White cardstock.

To assemble the card, I glued the “together” and the sentiment strip to the colorful background and then used foam tape to adhere this panel onto a white A2 card base.

In creating the background for my second card, I stamped the Positive Script Bold Prints stamp onto a 3.75" x 5" panel of Dove White cardstock using black ink, then I used a scoring board to create a pattern of 1.25" x 1.25" squares on the panel.

I stamped one of the small birds from the Be You stamp set on various shades of orange, yellow, green and blue cardstock, then I used the coordinating die to cut them out. I stamped a different bird on the intermediate shade of green cardstock and cut it as well. I glued a bird in each scored squared using foam dots for some dimension and I added some glitter to the different bird to make it stand out even more.

The sentiment, also from the Be You stamp set, was stamped in black on a small strip of Dove White cardstock and placed between two birds using foam tape. To complete the card, I layered the background onto a slightly larger panel of black cardstock and used foam tape to attach this panel to a white A2 card base.

Lara, thank you so much for sharing your stunning projects and incredible talent with us today! You can find more of Lara's delightful creations over on Instagram or her blog: Craft and Shine!

Happy stamping,