Monochromatic Challenge!

Happy Saturday! Emily Midgett is filling in for Lisa Stein to help spread the news and share some inspiration about this month's A Blog Named Hero challenge. Take it away, Emily!

Hi there! As an alumnus for A Blog Named Hero, I have the pleasure of helping out occasionally with a post, so this month, I am filling in for Lisa with some information about this month's challenge, as well as some inspiration to get you started!

First, a bit of information about A Blog Named Hero: We have a monthly challenge with prizes at A Blog Named Hero. One winner gets a $50 gift card to the Hero Arts store and the second winner gets a $25 gift card to the Hero Arts store. Now, on to my cards!

The challenge theme for this month is Monochromatic, so I chose to create some simple holiday cards that would be easily mass-produced in a pretty and unique color scheme (for holiday cards, at least!). The detail included on the rubber Bold Prints stamps is just incredible, so I wanted to showcase a "spotlight" technique with a monochromatic (but still very detailed) background.

I began by stamping two different backgrounds onto two different shades of aqua card stock, once with Holiday Florals Bold Prints using Ocean Dye ink on dark teal card stock, and once with Snowflake Pattern Bold Prints on light aqua using Tide Pool Shadow Ink.

On the lighter of the two cards, I used an ink blending tool to blend the same shade of Tide Pool ink in the center of the patterned panel. Using the same shade of ink (you could even use a darker shade of teal, if you like!) creates a solid area in the center of the card stock, which is a perfect "spotlight" for your sentiment, but still allows you to have that intricate, detailed background. For this first card, I die cut a white Merry Christmas from the Christmas Trimmings Stamp & Cut and adhered it over the solid inked section.

For the second, darker version, I first stamped the background panel with the Holiday Florals Bold Prints, then added a white embossed sentiment from Holiday Greetings. After embossing, I did some more ink blending, this time allowing the embossing to resist the ink and let that bright white sentiment shine through. I trimmed both panels down just a touch so that they would have a white mat when adhered to the A2 card base. The final touch was a few white Nuvo drops just to add some texture.

Well, that's all for me today! I hope you will join in the fun over at A Blog Named Hero, Hero Arts' official challenge blog... I always have found that the challenges are a great way to get the creative juices flowing, PLUS you get a chance to win a shopping spree to Hero Arts! Score and double score! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and good luck on the challenge!