Simon Says: Celebrate!

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is celebrating their 6th Birthday this week so "Celebrate" is the theme for the challenge. They are also featuring their very own Simon Says Stamp branded products.  I had never heard of them until I started making cards last year about this time.  Yes, I was sort of living under a rock for a while there.... but that's a whole other story.

I could hardly wait to sit down and play with Altenew's Remember This Stamp Set when it arrived in my mail yesterday.  It was released last Friday and was designed to use with the Altenew Beautiful Day Stamp Set.  It's a great addition to Altenew's lineup.

I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch panel of Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper.   I started by stamping in the large outline bloom from Remember This in Versamark twice and heat embossing them with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  Using a post-it note for a very lazy mask (ha ha), I stamped the leaves from Beautiful Day on the same panel and heat embossed them with the same embossing powder.   On a separate piece of watercolor paper I stamped the large outline bloom from Beautiful Day Stamp Set and heat embossed it. Next, I colored the blooms and the leaves by misting my paper with water then stamping the solid surface stamp of the images in Vintage Jadeite for the leaves and Spun Sugar Distress Ink for the blooms.  All of these images are multi layering and have different levels of detail in each layer.  For the second color, I stamped one of the detail layers for each of the blooms in Lovely Lady Ink from Papertrey. By misting my paper with water before stamping it, the color softens immediately and blends into the bloom with just a touch of color on the outside for that very loose and organic feel. Once the inks were dry, I misted the panels with Tsukineko Sparkle Sheer Shimmer Spritz and let it dry.

Since I was trying to get some depth to my blooms, I die cut the largest bloom from Beautiful Day Dies and used Thin 3D Foam Squares to mount that bloom on top of the rest of the blooms and leaves in just the lower left hand corner. This was a great way to give the depth without having to fussy cut the blooms from "Remember This" since there aren't dies to coordinate with this set yet. I hope they will be coming in the very near future.

Next, I cut that entire panel with the largest of the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Dies then cut it again just a little smaller by realigning the die cut back into the die and cutting a bit more off the top and one side.  This is my favorite trick for having just a narrow border around my focal panel. Then I cut a Stitched Rectangle of Lovely Lady Cardstock to put behind the first panel for a mat.

You can see how narrow the mat is here.  If I would have used the next size of rectangle down, I would have lost a lot more of my image.  I've been doing the re-alignment thing for several months now and it's a fantastic way to get more out of your dies.  The Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles are my single most used die set in my tool box.  I use them on nearly every card I make.

To finish off my card, I stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Sketch Ranunculus Stamp Set and cut the Gold "Celebrate" using a Waffle Flower Die that can also be found at Simon Says Stamp.  I added a few sequins in pink and gold for a whimsical touch and mounted it to a top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.

I'll be entering this card over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge also for the "Fabulous Florals" theme.  Thank you so much for stopping by.  I really appreciate it.