September SOTM #5

Wow, this is amazing! I've managed to post 5 days in a row. Of course, I haven't had any cakes to work on this week, so that makes a HUGE difference in my free time. In case you are new to my blog, cakes are my other hobby. You can check out some of my work here.

On to September's Stamp of the Month: Gorgeous Grunge. Love this set. So many things you can do with it. So far we've done a feminine card, masculine card, bright and cheery, and a thank you. How about the holidays? Yep, you can use it for holiday projects too. Lookie:

What do you think? Can you tell where I used Gorgeous Grunge? Yes, one of the splatter stamps makes a perfect snowfall.

To make this card, I stamped the tree image from the new White Christmas set on Whisper White and then stamped the snowman on the hill. I stamped a second image on a scrap piece of paper and used it to mask off the snow while I sponged Night of Navy on the sky. I then embossed the snow in white. I stamped a second image of the snowman on some scrap Whisper White and fussy cut him out. A little shading with Cherry Cobbler and Pumpkin Pie and he was ready to go on with a Stampin' Dimensional. I used Smoky Slate to shade the snow a bit and highlighted it and the tree branches with some Dazzling Diamonds. Wish you could see how sparkly this card is in real life. LOVE!

My demonstrator friend has an awesome tutorial on making bows. I used it for this bow and it was super easy. You really should check it out. I used one of our wider ribbons and found that just gluing the bow to the ribbon didn't look right since the ribbon was much wider than the knot in the bow. To remedy this, I stuck a glue dot in the middle of the ribbon and pinched the edges together to gather it under where the bow was going to be stuck.

Yes, I pulled my bow off so I could take this picture for you. 

About the White Christmas stamp set. It is super cute. Not only is there a snowman, but there's little birds, a deer, a polar bear, station wagon with a tree to go on top, a banner and more. Lots of great scene making images there. It is also a photopolymer set which means it is perfectly clear and easy to line up the images. I did learn something rather important while using it though. Do NOT use Staz-On ink with the photopolymer sets. I wasn't aware of this, and since my original idea was to watercolor the background I immediately reached for my Staz-On. Not a good idea.

Apparently Staz-On has a reaction with the stamps and makes them SUPER sticky. Like, it ripped my paper in multiple places, sticky. So, lesson learned, use our new Memento ink with the photopolymer stamps. It is water resistant as well, so you can still watercolor with it. I did try water coloring, along with spritzing some background color for this, but I think I like the sponging the best, at least for a dark night time sky look.

When I first mentioned the Stamp Of The Month idea, I said I would be giving away the projects that I've made, and I've finally figured out how I'm going to do that, so check back tomorrow for those details. :o)

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!