Holiday Wreath and an Instagram Hop

Hi friends! It's time for the SNSS September Release Inspiration Hop on Instagram. You can head over to the SNSS Instagram feed to start the hop. There's lots of inspiration with this month's release as well as a chance to win by commenting on the hop posts, so be sure to head on over there for some fun!

 Today I'm featuring the beautiful Holiday Wreath set, paired with a few other goodies.

For my first card, I colored the wreath in some winter blues, adding a bit of glossy glaze and some sparkle lacquer to accent the flowers, berries, and pinecones in the image. I hand trimmed the image and added foam tape to the back for dimension.

The scallops are cut with the Scallop Border Dies from aqua and navy, then offset and layered for a fun accent on the card. I finished with the Merry Christmas sentiment from my Endless Love set and a thin navy mat.

For my second card, I went with pinks and reds for my color scheme, coloring the Holiday Wreath with Copic markers and adding some frosted lace stickles to the pine cones.  I hand trimmed again, and this time chose to stamp the Christmas Text Background on pink cardstock for a fun background. I finieshed off with a sentiment from Christmas Wordfetti embossed onto a sentiment strip, and then a few scattered sequins.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous day.

Pretty Potted Florals and an Instagram Hop

Hi Sweet 'n Sassy friends! It's Julee. Instead of our usual mid-month Blog Hop, today we're putting on our first Instagram Hop! Be sure to head on over to Instagram and leave some comments for the designers for a chance to win a $25 gift code to the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps online shop. The beginning of the hop and all the details can be found on our Instagram page:  https://www.instagram.com/sweetnsassystamps/

Along the hop, we're playing with a something old, something new theme. I am sharing a card which features one of my very first Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps purchases, Thoughtful Words, and my newest purchase... Pretty Potted Florals.  Both of these sets are illustrated by NinaB Designs and all of her sets are on sale this week! 

I started by stamping one of the potted flowers in Versafine Clair ink and then coloring with Zig Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush Markers and a blender pen. I then stamped just the flower portion again and colored just the inner flower and fussy cut to pop up for some dimension on the stamped image.

The sentiment is from the Thoughtful Words set, and I stamped onto a circle that I stenciled with the Delightfully Delicate Stencil and salvaged patina distress ink.  Some patterned papers from my stash finished things off.

While I was at it, I decided to make another card with Pretty Potted Florals.  This time I attempted  watercoloring with watercolor pans.  I'm a little out of practice and was way too heavy with my paints, so ended up blending out with watercolor markers, then adding some Copic highlights to add some depth.  I fussy cut the image and placed onto a panel I had used to wipe up some salvaged patina ink, then finished off with a sentiment from one of my all-time favorite sentiment sets... My Thoughts of You.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Be sure to check out this week's sale and I hope you'll join us over on Instagram for the hop!