November in my house means that I get started creating cards, tags, and decorations for the holidays. I delight in playing and enjoying the process, and I’m excited to bring you four weeks of ideas here at the Simon Says Stamp blog!

The first thing I get out when I am getting prepared for the holidays is my collection (both old and new) of Hero Arts holiday stamps. From sentiments to cute images, backgrounds to small designs I love the amazing designs for my holiday crafting!

One of my favorite uses is to let my girls have a cute stamp + colored stamp pad and stamp the backs of envelopes of our Christmas cards. It’s fun for them, and adds an extra level of cute to my greetings! Today I’m going to share three projects that I’ve created with you.

First, a sparkly blue card! Using my favorite new stamps (the Hero background and sentiment), a doily, some perfect pearls mist, and a bit of stitching I have a quick card I could mass produce – or create different variations of in different colors!

Next up, I used a few stamps to decorate a package! Taking the backside of a tag, stamping (and clear embossing) both the heart (which I cut out) and the sentiment, then using another background stamp I  stamped a bit on my package as well.  

Finally, I mixed new + old to create a tag that I can use on a package, or to decorate a card.

The reindeer stamp is one of my all time favorites and most used – as is the holiday post stamp. I paired them with more perfect pearls (I do love how the mist adds sheen!), and my new snowy nights stamp. It is hard to see in the photos, but I did coat the stamped areas with glossy accents and perfect pearl mist to add even more sparkle and holiday magic.

Whether you chose to keep things simple, create artistic layered tags, go whimsical and cute, or get into stamping all kinds of things this holiday season I encourage you to look at your stamps! My love of Hero Arts for the holidays is the first thing that came to mind when I sit to create and hand craft things for my holiday celebrations – but I’m just getting warmed up.

I hope that you’ll join me here each Monday in November for another installment in my holiday series – and be sure to come on over to my blog for more ideas as well.

Happy Crafting!

May