Simon Says "Stamp It"

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and Wednesday Challenge, they are featuring their very own Simon Says Stamp Exclusive products. It just so happens that
I have a few of those products and one I've been waiting to use because I didn't have the coordinating dies.  In fact, the coordinating dies weren't offered initially at all. But I had a small order last week and that arrived yesterday and the coordinating dies were in that package.  At long last, I got to use the Sketch Ranunculus Stamps and Dies from Simon Says Stamp.  You can buy them separately or together.

The problem is that since I like Gold Heat Embossing, that is really hard to do using masking.  So I have a lot more success heat embossing my images individually, coloring them, die cutting them and finally, assembling them into a bouquet on my card.  That is what I did for today's card.

Those of us who work in this industry are fortunate to have really great companies to work with.  I have one such person that I want to send a card to, thanking her for all she does.  Everyone enjoys hearing that they are doing something right or well or great. I'm one of those people who likes to encourage or acknowledge when someone is doing that.  

I started by stamping the Ranunculus blooms and accompanying leaves and stems in Versamark, heat embossing them in Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, then watercoloring them using reinkers as my watercolors. This is quickly becoming a favorite way to watercolor.  For the flowers I used Hibiscus Burst and Berry Sorbet along with Vintage Jadeite for the leaves.

The background is one of the many that I made last week utilizing my Finetec Mica Gold Watercolor rinse water.  You can see for yourself why I was reluctant to pour this water down the drain - look at all that shimmer and shine!  You can read more details about it here.  I still have 3 more backgrounds to use from all that I made that night (12 in total). In fact, I am wanting to do this same style and design in a different color scheme for another card I have in mind.

I positioned all of my elements on top of the background panel, then put a piece of Press N Seal on top of that and pressed all around.  This lets me lift the arrangement off while keeping everything in its place. I cut the background panel with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Die and adhered that to a Top Folding 5.5 x 4.25 inch tall card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I turned the piece of Press N Seal over and put glue on the back side of all the elements using Ranger Multi Medium Matte then placed it onto my background how I wanted it and pressed down. I attached the sentiment "Grateful", a Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember 2016 die.  After that I had to add a few more dots of adhesive but once I had flipped it over I just stacked some glass blocks on top to hold it while it dried. I'll have to take a picture of that for you sometime.  I love how this card came out and as I said, I'm going to do a similarly styled card in a different color scheme. When you put watercolor into the mix, each card is a unique and one of a kind piece.

This will finish my blog post for this card but I'll be back soon with another project.  Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope if you enjoyed this project you'll leave a comment for me.  I treasure each and every one.

*STAMPtember® is a registered trademark of Simon Says Stamp