Flashback Friday Part 4: The 2000s

Our 45th Anniversary Flashback Friday series continues and this week we're throwing it back to the 2000s! Here is CEO Aaron Leventhal to share some of the decade's highlights:

"The 2000s were exciting years for Hero Arts and the stamping industry. Scrapbooking, after years of shunning stamps, began to embrace the idea of stamping on pages. This lead to themed collections, photography in catalogs that featured pages, working with scrapbook artists like Jennifer McGuire, and more. It also was an exciting time for new designs, as Hero Arts begin to turn towards 'realistic elegance,' a big change from the colorful and cutesy of the 1990s. Hero Arts introduced Shadow Stamps (2000), Poetic Prints wood sets, including etched flowers (2000), Shadow Ink (2001), Clear sets (2005), and Cling (2008, re-introduced). Hero Arts also first introduced the Color Layering technique (2001)."

Perhaps you remember some of these catalogs from the 2000s...

The Color Layering technique was developed by the Hero Arts artists, including Shari Carroll. Color Layering included both the current technique of stamping in layers, but at that time without clear stamps it often meant inking or partially inking a wood stamp and stamping over a stamped image. It also included the "blowing in the wind" style of stamping with "layering" inks on the rubber (without cleaning) to get different color effects. This technique sheet features Color Layering with the popular Real Flowers.

Shadow Stamps and Poetic Prints woodblock sets were stylish staples in the stamper's toolbox!

Another exciting thing was happening throughout the decade - the web was growing by leaps and bounds! Hero Arts as a website was actually first launched in the previous decade, in January of 1996, as you can see from this early image.

This is how the website would have looked if you clicked over in 2004. We hosted contests in which stampers would mail their cards into Hero Arts.

Some of you may remember when we launched the Hero Arts Blog in March of 2008. The image below shows what the website looked like during the early days of the blog. Does anyone remember the weekly challenges hosted by the Hero Artists? The owl mascot was always a hoot...and a great cheerleader!

Did you enter any of our contests and challenges? Let us know in a comment below and we will pick one winner at random to receive a $25 Hero Arts gift card! Comment by Thursday, May 16 at 11:59pm PT and you'll be entered to win.

Thanks for traveling back in time with us today. Happy weekend and happy stamping!