Growing in Unity: Day Five

Welcome to Day Five, the final day of my Unity Stamp Company Growing in Unity week.  I've been sharing projects all week that feature Unity's high quality, red rubber stamps.  If this is the first day you've joined me, please scroll through the previous posts!  If you are a returning visitor, thank you, and welcome back.  Be sure to leave a comment on this week's blog post to be entered for a chance to win one of two fabulous prize packs from Unity Stamp Company.  Winners will be announced on this blog and on the Unity Stamp Company Growing in Unity Facebook page after December 7th.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!  In between food and football, we decided to put our Christmas tree!  It was more fun than usual to do that this year.  We were traveling last year at Christmas, so I never put it up at all.  So now, I'm really in the winter and holiday spirit!  (But not enough to brave the malls to go Black Friday shopping. I haven't done that in years.) . But we are all decorated for tomorrow's family post-thanksgiving party.

Since it's now the official winter holiday season, and the weather is transitioning to snow, I have a day full of snowmen to share with you today.  

My first snowman comes from the stamp kit, Winter Frosty.  

This image was stamped on Fabriano Artistico cold press watercolor paper, and watercolored using Distress ink.  

On this card, I decided to split my greeting.  I loved how well this sentiment from the October 2017 S.M.A.K. Kit, Winter Wild, seemed to fit with this snowman from Twinkle, the January 2017 Kit of the Month.

 I used my Dritz quilting plastic template to help me align my sentiment, so I could easily mask half at a time so I could add the first phrase to the front of my colored pencil colored image, and the second phrase to the interior of my card.

 I used both Copic markers and colored pencils to color this sweet snowman image from the September 2018 Kit of the Month, Blessed Fall.

I used my Cut-Align and a craft knife to cut my small sentiment strip from my panel, and a scissor to fussy cut my image out before highlighting it with a circle of snowy patterned paper.

My final card this week uses the snowman from the October 2019 S.M.A.K. Kit, All Bundled Up.  

I wanted to create a very vintage holiday card look, so I used watercolor paper, and a special inking process with my MISTI to create the colorful image with Distress ink.

I used small fingertip sponge daubers to pick up ink from my ink cubes and apply it selectively to areas of my stamp.  It took several layers of ink to build up enough ink on my textured watercolor paper.  Once I had enough ink transferred, I used a slightly wet paintbrush to spread the ink.  I was careful to work only one color at a time and let it dry well before starting another.

I used additional distress ink from my makeshift craft pad palette to darken areas of my image, as well as paint my background.  I used an acrylic stamp block to add the small snowflakes from Wonder, the November 2019, S.M.A.K. kit.  The sentiment was added in black ink, and stamped again and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

As they say in show business, "that's a wrap!".  This concludes my Growing in Unity week.  I'm grateful for Unity Stamp Company for this opportunity, for all your kind comments, and for you spending a portion of your days with me.

Please come back in a bit over a week to find out if you are one of the Unity Stamp Company prize pack winners from my week!

Have a fantastic weekend!