SSS DieCember Blog Hop, Mountain Horizon Cover

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Today I'm hopping with Simon Says Stamp, celebrating the new DieCember release. You should be arriving from Lisa Addesa's blog, and I have the full list below if you need it. As usual, there are some great prizes to be had. Simon is giving away a $25 store credit at each stop along the hop to a lucky commenter. In addition, you'll receive the cute snowman die pictured above with any DieCember purchase this weekend.

OK, let's get to the cards. Today I'm showing off my Mountain Horizon cover. This one is a lot of fun to work with, and I thought I would show you a few different ways to 'color' the die.

First up, inking with blending brushes. I die cut a panel of white cardstock, and then just inked each of the pieces with Pawsitively Saturated inks and blending brushes. I used Cabbage, Sage, Artichoke, and Kale for the greens, inking up the reflected parts of the landscape more heavily than the top portions.

For the blues, I used Marine, Cadette, and Royal.

I used my Be Patient dies and stamps for the the sentiments.

Next up, watercolor. This time I dry embossed rather than die cut the panel. I then used Kuretake Gansai watercolors to paint the panel, using the embossed lines as guidelines. 

I really kept this very loose and organic, I did not let the different areas dry between as I wanted a fair amount of bleeding to occur.

The sentiment is from my Stacked Holiday Sentiments set. It was embossed in gold on black cardstock, die cut, and popped up with foam tape.

For the next card, I let the cardstock do the coloring, choosing four blues, and three pinks to create my landscape. I also love that there is no 'right' orientation with this die, so instead of the landscape itself having seven layers, I flipped the die, and had the reflection have seven layers.

A simple reverse sentiment strip completed the look.

For my lasst card, I again die cut a white panel, but instead of using blending brushes to apply the ink, I went direct to paper, swiping the ink pads directly over my cardstock pieces. For the greens I had some mini cube inkpads which make it really easy to apply the ink. I used the colors from the Green Meadows set, in some cases applying multple colors to a piece to get the shade I wanted.

For the blues, I used Marine and Cadette, swiping more for that darkest blue.

I used another sentiment strip to finish things off.

I hope this gives you some ideas for how to use this cover. It's a lot of fun to work with! Your next stop on the hop is my good friend Cheiron Brandon, and the full hop list is below if you need it. 

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered to win the store credit. Enjoy the hop!

Simon Says Stamp Blog 

Heather Hoffman

Barbara Tarayao

Cathy Zielske

Jennifer McGuire

Emily Midgett

Amy Rysavy

Heather Ruwe

Lisa Addesa

Miriam Prantner

Cheiron Brandon

Kath Stewart

Caryn Davies

Bonnie Crane

Rosemary Dennis

Heejung Hunsberger

SSS Be Patient, Take 3

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

I've got one last Be Patient card to share with you today.  

I pulled out the Sunflower Fields stencil for this one, inking it up with Sky, Dusk, and Artichoke in a very light hand.  I used Artichoke twice, the second inking went heavier and for those emerging buds, I inked those areas with both Artichoke and a little bit of Dusk as well.

Normally, I stamp my sentiments with Versa Clair black, but I wanted a more muted tone for this one to go with the background, so I opted for Charcoal ink instead.  I also added a light blue mat.

I hope you enjoyed this week's Be Patient cards, and I hope you're inspired to pull out some of your older products too!

SSS Be Patient, Take 2

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

I've got another Be Patient card to share today.  Yesterday's card used just the stamp set.  Today, I'm using the dies as well, and have paired them with my Spiky Flowers dies.

I started by created my flower using four shades of yellow, along with a very muted green for the stem and leaves.  These are great dies for using up scraps.

The flower was adhered directly to my white panel.

Once that was done, I cut the sentiment from black cardstock and the shadow piece from white.  I stamped one of the secondary sentiment from the Be Patient set with Versa Clair black ink directly onto my white panel, and then popped the die cut sentiment up with foam tape.  I also added a light yellow mat to finish things off.

See you back here tomorrow for one more Be Patient card.

SSS Be Patient

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

This week I'm highlighting my Be Patient stamps and dies which are part of the STAMPtember release.

The fun thing about highlighting sentiment sets is that it allows me to pull out some of my older products, so I'll be using oldies but goodies along with the new this week.  In this case, I pulled out my Snake Plant stencils to create the background.

Because I wanted a nice, flat, one layer card, I inked this up very lightly using Melon, Cantaloupe, Cabbage and Artichoke inks.

The panel was trimmed down, and the sentiments were stamped with Versa Clair black ink.

Really simple.  Thematically, I think plants/florals work well with the theme of patience, so you'll be seeing those this week also.

That's all for today, see you tomorrow!

SSS Curvy Background Take 2

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi friends!  This week I'm sharing different ways to use my Curvy Background from the STAMPtember release.

Today's card features Embossing Glaze.

I placed the background in my stamping platform, and inked a section with Versafine, applied Embossing Glaze and embossed.  The panel was then placed back in the stamping platform, another section was inked with Versafine, and the process was repeated.

For my card, I used Fired Brick, Rusty Hinge, and Dried Marigold.  It's a little hard to pick up the Rusty Hinge as it didn't end up having the contrast I was looking for, but it shows up just a little bit in the bottom right of the card.

I trimmed the panel down, backed it with a red mat, and adhered it to my card base.

For the sentiment, I did something similar, using Fired Brick for the bottom of the Be Patient sentiment, and Dried Marigold for the top.  This was die cut and popped up with foam tape.  I also added a secondary sentiment from the Be Patient set which also used Fired Brick.

See you back here tomorrow for another Curvy Background card!

SSS Curvy Background

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi folks!  This week I'm going to be sharing different ways to use my Curvy Background, which is part of the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember release.

This background can mimic a lot of things - wind, waves, water, woodgrain, etc.  For today's cards I'm showing two different ways to 'watercolor with emboss resist.

For this first card, I clear embossed the Curvy Background on watercolor paper.  Then I sprayed liberally with three colors of Distress Spray Stain: Twisted Citron, Lucky Clover, and Fossilized Amber until I was happy with the color mixing.

I let the panel dry, and then used an almost dry paper towel to rub any excess spray stain from the embossing, trimmed it down, and adhered the panel to my card base.

I finished the card off with the Hello sentiment that comes with the Stromanthe die, cutting the shadow piece from the excess spray stained watercolor paper, as well as a sentiment from the You Got This set that was white embossed and cut with the coordinating dies.

For the second next card, I gold embossed the background on watercolor paper, added water to the panel with my paintbrush, and then used Kuretake Gansai watercolors to color the background.

After trimming it down, the panel was adhered to my card base with foam tape.

For the sentiment, I die cut Be Patient from Matte Gold cardstock, and the shadow piece from the excess background piece that was trimmed off, and I added a secondary sentiment from the Be Patient stamp set, embossed in gold.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for some more Curvy Background inspiration.