Simon Says Stamp Designer Spotlight

I am very excited to be the Designer in the Spotlight this month at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog and I'll be here every Wednesday all month long. This week we are featuring Winnie & Walter products for our theme of Girl Power.  You don't have to use Winnie & Walter products to enter the challenge, but if you have some, we would love to see them used.

I also wanted to mention that Simon Says Stamp generously provides a $50.00 Gift Voucher each week for each of their blog challenges. I actually won one of these right after Christmas and got to splurge on a purchase. That was a lot of fun!  Thanks again to Heidi for providing that each week.

Winnie & Walter have several sets of Sentiments and I love their The Big, The Bold & The (fill in the blank) Series of stamps.  I have quite a few of them with the coordinating word dies. I only have one Winnie & Walter stamp set with images, so I decided to try making a spring-like friendship card using Happiest of Holidays.  I make and use a lot of encouragement cards or "Just a Note" kinds of cards and the sentiments in this set are very sweet.   

Sometimes, as a card maker, I have a tendency to make things more difficult than they need to be.  My original plan was to make something more complex and when I was finished, I didn't like it at all.  So for my second attempt, I wanted to try out this stamp set.  This card is very simple but still very pretty. The combination of colors on the card (Neenah Desert Storm and Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue) with the soft watercolor is just right - not overdone or underdone. 

I started by heat embossing my images onto a panel of Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper.  I did the branch first, then the bird house and bird and once I finished water coloring, I added the sentiment.  With heat embossing it is important to use some type of powder tool between each layer of embossing to maintain a clean image.  The powder eliminates static and also picks up any stray oils from your hands that the particles might stick to. I like to use baby powder and a big fluffy brush but you can use an Embossing Magic Powder Bag, corn starch or even kitchen flour.

I colored this with a combination of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and Distress Ink.  I used simple coloring with a Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush in Size 2 with a tiny bit of water with markers in Light Blue, Blue Grey, Light Grey and Grey.  I have the equivalent of the 48 set.  I started with the 36 set and added the additional colors individually.  Simon Says Stamp carries the sets and each individual color of the Zigs. That means you can get a few and try them out, or get a set and add in any extras that you want. The background was done with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink on an acrylic block, more water and a Size 6 Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush.  When it was dry I hit it with some Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Mist and let it dry again. 

Once everything was dry, I die cut the panel with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die. Then I cut the Desert Storm Cardstock with MFT Blueprints 15 (discontinued) and made my card base from Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue. I assembled everything with Kokuyo Dot Runner Adhesive. I thought about adding a few sequins to the card or some Nuvo Drops but I felt like that would have been too much fluff for such a simple style. If I hadn't painted the background, I think it would have been okay.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  The supplies I used are linked below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used at no additional cost to you).

Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper 9 x 12 #140 Shop at: SSS	Cuttlebug Shop at: SSS	Distress Ink Mini - Tumbled Glass Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS
Neenah Desert Storm #100 Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Size 2 Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Size 4 Shop at: SSS	SSS Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS
SSS Stitched Rectangles Dies Shop at: SSS	SSS Surf Blue #100 Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Spritz Shop at: SSS
Versamark Ink Shop at: SSS	W&W Happiest of Holidays Shop at: SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers - 48 Set Shop at: SSS