Monday, September 2, 2019

Stamptember 2019: Simon Says Stamp/Colorado Craft Company

If you are like me, and use USPS delivery notifications, you probably have a pretty good idea of what is arriving in your mailbox most days.  You probably remember if you've ordered something, and have a relative idea of when it is expected to arrive.  You might stalk the notifications, waiting for the one that says "Out for Delivery". On Saturday morning, I found a mysterious "Out For Delivery" email notification for a package that I wasn't expecting.  I had no idea what it might be, so I was very surprised to find a small padded envelope in my mailbox that contained a letter with this letterhead!


I'd rather forgotten all about the earlier email that I'd sent a few weeks ago, expressing interest to receive a random Simon Says Stamp Stamptember set to play with and to help promote the Stamptember event!  My email had been one of several dozen chosen to receive an advance Stamptember set!  How exciting!

Stamptember is a month-long celebration featuring a large fall/holiday release of Simon Says Stamp branded products, and a fun industry collaboration month, with limited editions of special collaborative stamp sets released each day.


 I received a Stamptember limited edition collaboration set between Simon Says Stamp and Colorado Craft Company: a 6x8" set called Stamptember: Lovely Legs.



This is an adorable set for a dance family.  The large image has jazz or tap, Irish dance and ballet represented, and has, like all of the Colorado Craft Company sets, amazing sentiments included.

This set is one of the very first collab sets of the Stamptember celebration and is available for purchase at Simon Says Stamp now, so if this set appeals to you, grab one while you can!  These limited edition stamp sets sell out very quickly!

Here are four cards that I made using this Lovely Legs set over the holiday weekend:



I stamped the large image onto a panel of Artist's Choice cardstock using Black Amalgam ink.  I allowed the ink to dry a minute or so, then colored with Polychromos Pencils.



I loved the thank you sentiment for a dance instructor so much, that I knew that I wanted to use that one, but I wanted it to be created for a specific ballet instructor.   I decided to use only a portion of the large image, isolating the single ballerina.  Since the ballerina's leg is partially hidden behind the Irish dancer's dress, I had to do a bit of masking to be able to only stamp the ballerina.


I first positioned both the ballerina and the sentiment in my Original MISTI, so they would fit on a horizontal A2 panel.  I then removed the sentiment before picking up the image stamp.  I then covered the Irish dress with small pieces of Post-It tape. then carefully inked with Inkon3's Fade Out Ink.


Now that I'd inked the stamp, I removed the tape before closing the MISTI lid and and inking my paper.  The tape had protected the remainder of the image from receiving any ink, so none of the Irish dress image transferred to my paper.


The Fade Out ink is very faint, but is visible.  The ink color virtually disappears beneath your coloring. I had stamped on a piece of Xpress It Blending paper, and used Copic Markers to color the Ballerina and background, sketching in a barre and floor line.  After trimming down my colored panel I added the sentiment with Gina K. Designs' Dark Chocolate ink.


I assembled the card with ivory cardstock, and added the rest of the sentiment on the inside of the card.



The ballerina was really fun to color with markers, but I wanted to try to paint the ballerina too.  On my second card, I used the same masking technique to stamp the ballerina again, but this time onto cold press watercolor paper, and this time I was thinking ahead. I lightly penciled in my floor edge and barre first before I started painting.



I used Daniel Smith watercolors to paint this ballerina. The sentiments were added to both the watercolor paper and the inside of the card base with Soft Stone ink.



My final card uses only one of the dancers once again.  This time, I used Post-It tape to isolate the Irish dancer.  I also used the MISTI Creative Corners to allow for the large image to go off the side of my cardstock panel.  I wanted it to be held securely in place when I stamped and I also wanted to re-stamp after I had colored the image and wanted to know exactly where to replace my panel when I came back to my MISTI after coloring.  So after inking with Warm Glow ink, I left my stamp in place on the lid of my MISTI.  I just cleaned it right there on the lid.


Once my Irish dancer was stamped on to my panel of Bristol Smooth paper, I colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers.  After the panel was colored and fully dry, I replaced it into my Misti, secure between the Creative Corners,  I dusted the panel with anti-static powder and very gently tapped the very tiny tip edge of a mini Versamark ink cube only on the portion of ornate designs of the Irish dress.  This careful inking allowed me to heat emboss the pattern in gold onto the blue dress.



That's all from me.  I hope you enjoyed these samples as much as I enjoyed creating them.  Thank you for visiting, and thank you Simon Says Stamp and Colorado Craft Company for the opportunity to play along with this fabulous Stamptember set!

Happy Stamptember!

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