A Collection of Spirited Snowmen Cards

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Like many of you, I was super busy with the usual holiday preparations of shopping, baking, wrapping, etc...so I didn't have time to post on my blog. I did however manage to get some handmade Christmas cards finished and in the mail. I mainly used the adorable Spirited Snowman set along with Snow Is Glistening, Half Full and Buffalo Check stamps. Today I would like to share those cards.

I just love this cute skater snowman...above he is shown with the Buffalo Check background in Real Red  and layered die cut snowflakes. Below is the Granny Apple Green version with a hand cut holly image from the set.

Another version using the beautiful die cut snowflake swirl...

Here he is yet again using Pool Party and the Tin Tile Embossing Folder. I was happy to see that both this awesome new embossing folder and the Buffalo Check background will be sticking around after the Holiday Catalog.

This snowman couple and the sentiment is so sweet, isn't it? All these images were colored using my Aqua Painter and various inks pooled in the lids of the ink pads...still my favorite way to color. 

This snowman likes to have fun...here he is with some wine. I used the Half Full stamp set and the masking technique to create thses next couple of cards. 

A look at the inside...

As you can see, I have had a lot of fun with the Spirited Snowman set and have created a variety of fun cards with it. Today is the last day that you can purchase this stamp set and many others from the Holiday catalog. 

Cheers to you in the New Year! Wishing you much happiness and creativity in 2019!

So Hoppy Together

Taking a little break finishing up Christmas cards to play with a few new goodies that arrived here this week. It's that time of year when demonstrators can pre-order items from the upcoming Occasions and Sale-A-Bration catalogs. I grabbed a few of my favorite items offered along with some catalogs.

The So Hoppy Together stamp set is adorable and you can get it FREE with a $50 order during Sale-A-Bration! I was excited to play with this stamp set, but the item I was most excited to see offered are the Stitched Rectangle Framelits! I know these are going to get lots of use! Both the positive and negative pieces have the stitched look around the edges, which is really cool for both creating frames and layering.

Some Stampin' Up! news in the New Year...there will no longer be wood mounted stamps offered. The red rubber cling stamps will all have a new stickier cling mount that actually stick AWESOMELY to the blocks with the labels on! I was one to never use labels on my stamps because I hated them falling off when cleaning. These new labels were easy to apply and I am happy to report that the stamps stayed put on my blocks even when cleaning them on the Stampin' Scrub!

I used the Buffalo Check background stamp inked in Granny Apple Green for the base and my Aqua Painter to color the image. I've read of some having difficulties getting a good image with this stamp, so I hesitated to purchase it even though I loved it. I'm glad I went ahead and got it because I got a perfect image the very first time I inked it up. I have stamped many more backgrounds using it  since, all with good results, so I thought I would share how I like to stamp using the big background stamps.

First, lay the stamp face up on your work surface and ink as shown in the photo above. Lay your card stock piece on top of the image as shown below.

I then cover it with a piece of scrap paper that's bigger than the stamp and rub over the entire top surface with my bone folder. This method has always worked great for me. Hopefully this helps if you have been having a difficult time getting good images with your background stamps.

Have a GREAT weekend!