Hi friends! Welcome to the REVEAL of our latest exclusive collection, Dads and Grads!  Thanks for joining us today to celebrate our mini release!

It’s that time of year!  Many moms received special love last week in celebration of Mother’s Day.  Dad’s turn is coming up soon :)  Show dads some love with a special handmade card.  Don’t forget… puppies have dads too.  My dog Simon was my “first born” before kids. High School Graduations, College Graduations, even Kindergarten graduations are upon us and this “Grad” wafer die is the perfect staple for the occasion!

If you are looking for the perfect clear embossing ink, look no further!  Our new Simon Says Stamp embossing ink has a very useful slow drying time so you can achieve the perfect embossing without a rush.  Our new black pigment ink is the perfect staple for your stamping stash.

Check out the gorgeous card Shari Carroll created with this new release:

Nina-Marie Trapani used some tried and true watercoloring techniques to create this card with the new products:

A note from Nina-Marie on how she created the card:

I’ve created a fun Father’s Day card using the Father’s Day Finds stamp set; this set has so many awesome, masculine themed images in it. And one of my favorite aspects of the set are the sentiments that can be used for dad/grandfather themed cards year round; and not only for father cards, but even sentiments like “you rock” and “enjoy your day” I could see being used on birthday cards and more!

I decided to use the adorable fish on my card (he’s so cute, makes me giggle!) and create a simple, underwater scene for him to be swimming in. I contemplated using the fishing rod too, but thought that having the fishing line coming down from the top of the card made more sense for this design.

I stamped the fish onto watercolor paper using Simon’s Duckling dye ink (it is waterproof) and watercolored him in using Twisted Citron, Mustard Seed and Ripe Persimmon distress inks. The underwater background is created from distress inks as well; for that I used Broken China and Peacock Feathers and did ink smooshing using a sheet of acetate/window plastic.

After stamping and heat embossing my sentiments, I layered up the water background onto my card base along with some birch wood paper that I cut from a wood envelope and a strip of Burnt Orange cardstock (die cut using a scallop die from Simon’s Charmed Heart die set). The fish and bait line are attached using foam tape.

And of course no underwater scene is complete without some bubbles! So I grabbed some Pretty Pink Posh clear droplets (both the 4mm and 6mm sizes) and blued them to my scene using Glossy Accents. For a final touch, I tied a bit of natural hemp around the bottom of the water background.

So that’s going to do it for me today! Be sure to check out the entire mini release over at the Simon Says Stamp shop and pick up your favorites…  See you again soon!