Simon Says Stamp Make Merry Release

Hey everyone!  Simon Says Stamp just released a new collection called Make Merry and I have a couple cards to share with you today using a new 6x8 stamp set called Autumn Leaves.

For my first card, I embraced the Autumn theme of the set, and randomly stamped a bunch of the leaves onto a panel of watercolor paper using Smoky Gray Versafine ink.

The panel was then watercolored very loosely using Gansai Tambi watercolors.

For the sentiment, I cut the 'fall' from dark brown cardstock using Altenew's Bold Alphabet dies which were popped up over the card panel with foam tape.  I then added a secondary sentiment from Simon Says Stamp's Clean Line Faith set which was stamped with Smoky Gray Versafine as well and popped up over the alpha dies.

Since I'm in Christmas card mode, I decided to create a Christmas card as well.

For this card I used just a couple of the clusters of smaller leaves and the berries.  

I didn't feel like masking, so I started by lightly drawing a rectangular outline in the center of my card so I could place my stamps so that what shows doesn't overlap.  

I used a MISTI, so I could place each of the stamps around the frame of that rectangle, stamp, rotate ninety degrees, and stamp again.  

I then colored my images (only the parts that would show) with Copics.  I normally color with three shades, using the lightest first, then going to the darkest in the shadow areas, and blending out with the medium color and then the lightest color again.  For this card, I tried coloring from dark to light.  I really like the results, they look much brighter and more luminous, but I think you do need more shades to create this look. For the greens, I used G29, G28, YG17, YG23, and YG13.  For the reds, I used R89, R29, R24, and R22.

I wanted to fill my frame out a bit more and get some more red in, so I colored and fussy cut two additional berry sprigs.  These were adhered directly to my colored panel.  

The sentiment is from the Holiday Greetings Mix 1 set and was stamped with Versafine.  I added a black mat and popped the entire piece up over the colored panel with foam tape.

That's all for me, but be sure to head over to Simon to check out the rest of the release!