Simon Says Stamp's ®STAMPtember & Inspired By

It's STAMPTEMBER® at Simon Says Stamp!  This is a month long celebration of Stamping and features collaborations with many of the other companies in the industry like Altenew, WPLUS9, Tim Holtz's Stampers Anonymous, Gina K, and lots more too numerous to list here.  Each day there is a new product collaboration announced.  All of the collaboration items are limited edition so if there's something you really want, you better not hesitate to get it or it will be sold out.  This card is for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, the Simon Says Stamp Wedenesday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp FLICKR Challenge plus the Inspired by... Challenge.

Several of the challenges have returned this week after a summer break including Inspired By All The Little Things. Darnell is well known from around Blogger and is helping Lesley to run the challenge this year while Lesley enjoys her new little girl.

I was waiting for the mail to arrive today because I knew I had a package out for delivery by the USPS. It was a happy mail day and I was very excited to get my STAMPtember® collaboration with Altenew called "Fabulous You". I was waiting for it to arrive after I saw the inspiration photo at Inspired By early this morning so I could use this set to make a card and enter a few challenges. Things didn't exactly go according to plan after that.  As I was studying how to stamp the main image in this set and looking at the various layers, my husband walked in and asked me a question.  When I turned back around to continue with reviewing everything, I could not find the stamp that I just had in my hand. I'll give you the prettier version of the story and tell you that after a lot of exasperation, grumbling some not so nice words and searching even the dogs' beds for the small stamp, I finally found it stuck to the dispenser of temporary adhesive I keep on my desk.  I use it on the back of my cardstock to keep it from moving around in the MISTI. I'm glad it ended okay and that I have it safely tucked away now.

For my card, I stamped the floral stem outline in Versamark and heat set it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  The blooms are just a single layer as are the leaves, but in four different stamps. Can you imagine if I had lost one of the very small leaf stamps?  Trust me, I was maniacal enough....  I lost the bigger one on the top right but it wouldn't have mattered what size it was. New, unused and unstained stamps are difficult to see anytime.  I don't really like that some ink colors stain my stamps but I can totally see how it could also be a positive thing after this incident.

I stamped the bloom layer in Hawaiian Shores Ink and the leaves in New Leaf. Once the ink was dry I misted the panel with some shimmer mist and die cut it using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Dies in the largest size.  I cut a gold panel using the MFT Blueprints 15 die.  Next I made a top folding cardbase using Berry Sorbet Cardstock.  I cut one gold and two white Honey Bee Stamps Large Thanks words (without the shadow layer) and glued them together with the gold layer on top. I tried spray adhesive again but am just not sold on it and ended up having to redo it using Ranger Multi Medium Matte. For whatever reason the layers don't stick to each other. I don't know if it's the kind I have or what, but it just isn't working out for me. I have tried several times but I finally threw my can in the trash this evening since it is nearly empty. It was supposed to be a time saver but it hasn't worked out that way at all.

All in all, I'm surprised I got this card finished at all.  And it's early enough this morning that the dogs aren't out of bed yet which means I get to work in peace. There are so many new things to see over at Simon Says Stamp so be sure to check out what it still available in the collaboration items.  There are still 20 more days with a new release each day during the month.  Thank you for stopping by to see my product today and I hope you'll join in the many challenges there are!

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

Simon Says ...

Today's post is for all three of the Simon Says Stamp Challenges; Simon Says Stamp Flickr Group Challenge #53 with a theme of "Anything Goes", Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge with a "Stitching" theme and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with the theme "Anything Goes".  I love the "Anything Goes" challenges because I don't have to try to make my project conform to something that might not be my style and I love the "Stitching" challenges because those are my most used Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Dies.

These cards are my third project using my leftover Finetec Mica Gold Watercolor from the rinse water.  The first time I used my Finetec Mica Gold Watercolors, I noticed that I was washing so much paint down the drain when I cleaned my brush so I started saving my rinse water. I have it in a container that easily lets me leave the lid open a bit to make the water evaporate and then I can reactivate it with a bit of water when I want to use it.  I was playing with some inks (Orange Zest, Scarlet Jewel, and Bright Buttercup) to make some watercolor backgrounds.

When I realized I had fall colors, I wanted to use my Simon Says Stamp Grand Maple Die to create some cards.  This die was released last year during STAMPtember® 2015.  Having lived in Hiawatha, Kansas a.k.a. The City of Beautiful Maples, I love this die.  I think Hiawatha is the reason I love Fall so much.  I love the gorgeous riot of color that is visible in all the maple trees every fall along with the crisp cool days and evenings with Hot Spiced Cider or Hot Cocoa.

I started by cutting the Grand Maple from each panel of watercolored paper and from White Fun Foam.  Using my MISTI with a negative placeholder, I stamped the greeting, "Grateful for you", using the Winnie & Walter Happiest of Holidays Stamp Set and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Rose Gold Embossing Powder.  To me, this powder seems more of a burgundy metallic than Rose Gold, but it was perfect for this project.  Copper would also have been very pretty.

Next, I cut the watercolor negatives down to 4 x 4 inch squares and mounted those onto Scarlet Jewel 4⅛ inch squares and mounted those to a top folding card base made from Cocoa Cardstock. I adhered all of the leaves to their fun foam bases with Ranger Multi Medium Matte, put a little spray adhesive on the back and placed them into the negatives on the card. This pops them up a bit for dimension but makes it better for mailing than foam tape or foam squares since it's dimension with a solid surface. I felt like the card needed something in the space below the maple leaves so I stamped the "Thankful" from the same stamp set and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder this time.  I did a test stamp on the Cocoa Cardstock with the Simon Says Stamp Rose Gold Embossing Powder, but it didn't show up on that color.

I also didn't keep the leaves in the same negative they were cut from because I wanted that color difference to make it show better so I switched them all around.

*STAMPtember® is a registered trademark of Simon Says Stamp