Merry Everything and Octo Stencil

*This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

I've got a couple of cards to share today using the Merry Everything stamp and Octo stencil from Simon Says Stamp's Sweet Wishes release.

I used two colors of ink for each of these backgrounds.  This lighter color was blended over the entire stencil, and the darker colors was added using a smaller blending brush just in the center of those Octo designs.  For the red, I used Terracotta and Brick, and Sprout and Fairway for the green.

These backgrounds were then trimmed down, coordinating cardstock mat was added, and then adhered to the card base.

The Merry Everything sentiment was stamped with Versa Clair black ink and then die cut.  I added a bit of inking with the darker ink color around the outsides of the sentiment (be sure to use a heat gun to help dry the ink as Versa Clair stays wet a bit longer than most inks).  The sentiment was then adhered with foam tape.

A added a few snowflakes from the Merry and Bright die set with Glossy White cardstock which were arranged around the sentiment.

These were a very quick make and would be great for mass producing.

SSS Sweet Wishes, Merry Everything

  *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Just a very quick card share today.  I made some very simple cards using my new Merry Everything sentiment.  This big sentiment was created for a friend from work who wanted a sentiment that covers everything in the year.  There's a coordinating die that goes with the sentiment but I went with easy one layer cards here.

I used the large rectangle from my Printmaking Houses stencil to mask off the portion of my panel to be inked, and then chose two colors of Distress Oxide for each panel.  Clockwise from top left, I used Abandoned Coral/Broken China, Villainous Potion/Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron/Lucky Clover, and Chipped Sapphire/Crushed Olive.

I mixed up the orientation of the inking - diagonally from corner to corner as well as top to bottom.  I had another panel that gave me issues with the gold embossing.  I was having a hard time getting even inking for the embossing...it was hard to tell when the Versamark didn't fully cover the area.  My fix was to ink all the sentiments with Versa Claire black, and then some were embossed in gold and some in clear.  

I also added some splatter to the Chipped Sapphire/Crushed Olive card, and for the Abandoned Coral/Broken China card added some very subtle stamped accents using the small stamps from the Zippy Winter set using Versamark.

That's all for me today.  Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend!