The SSS STAMPtember collaboration stamp set is with Gina K. Designs today and it is going to be a hot one and go fast (per my prediction from past years). It is called STAY COZY and is sold alone or in a bundle with all the dies as shown here or you can buy it with just the sentiment dies or just the image dies.
I am going to be very honest with you today in explaining how I made my card and all the mistakes I made and how I almost threw it away multiple times and thus I hate it now and might still throw it away. Sometimes when I have trouble making a card I end up hating it as all I see is the mistakes I made even if I have fixed them, so I'll let you be the judge!
I started by making the background which is the majority of the card! I first stamped the moon stamp with PSInk Trio 3 Lemonade. I then stamped the second moon insides stamp with Sunbeam. I lightly blended some Lemonade ink around the moon using a Tim Holtz foam blending tool moving outward. I then used Trio 25, Sky and Dusk PSInks to blend the sky. I used the lighter color around the moon and the darker color as I moved out. I added a ground with Fawn and Cozy PSInk from Trio 19. I stamped the tall trees first overlapping the moon using Pine PSInk. I then stamped the three smaller trees along the edge of the ground using the same color. So far so good. It looked great!
I embossed the three deer and the sentiment on white cardstock using Antique Gold embossing powder. I fussy cut them out as I didn't have the set of matching dies. It was time to add snow! I used Tonic Crystal Glaze over the moon first. Then I used a Ranger Embossing Pen and white embossing powder over the trees and ground and embossed - it looked great yay! I applied Crystal Stickles over all the snow to make it glisten and it started turning yellow due to the green and brown colors under it. So I wiped it all off before it dried. Then I tried Frosted Snow as it has a more white base and it also turned yellow. At this point, I had smeared some of the ink in the background so I tried Chalk Stick Nuvo drops and they also turned yellow. I had wiped three different drops off the card. But I let the last ones dry, so I had to use my fingernail to get them off the snow which made a bigger mess of the background. I went back and added more white embossing powder thinking I could cover all my mistakes and it worked, but I ended up with TOO MUCH SNOW! Thus the reason I don't like the card. Then I used white acrylic paint to add snowdrops in the sky and used a paintbrush to apply it to the trees. My embossing pen is one of the old ones that has a flat tip and it just looked like I drew thick lines of snow - not realistic. I realized that by painting on the snow with acrylic paint and a paintbrush I could make it look perfect - why hadn't I started that way?!!! All of these methods and covering up mistakes made me end up with a mess of too much snow, but so be it. I couldn't start over at this point!
I attached the three deer and the sentiment with foam tape over my very over-worked background and let it go. After a few hours on the card, I just couldn't let myself start over. So too much snow the looks a bit like blobs is what I am posting!!!
This Gina K. Designs STAY COZY stamp set is absolutely gorgeous even if I didn't do it justice! I'm sure many of the other designers did amazing things with it! I like to tell you all the good, bad, and the ugly so you can learn through my mistakes (if you read all that)! You can purchase just the stamp set HERE and the stamp and ALL the dies together HERE. I warn you again they will go fast. One year I sent my Gina K. Stamptember stamp set to a girl who was desperately wanting to get it, but was too late. It happens. I might even be willing to send this one to someone after what I've been through hahaha. You can see all of the STAMPtember Collaboration stamp sets that are left at this link HERE and all of the STAMPtember release products HERE. Thanks for visiting! Suzy
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