Hello and happy Weekend! I’m always happy to see you here and it’s time for the latest edition of Weekender with Wanda here on the Simon Says Stamp blog! I’m so grateful to be able to share with you every week, and I appreciate your kindness and love shown in the comments. I read all of them, and they cheer me and lift me up! So, thank you! It’s definitely holiday time and I’m ready to get the party started!

This week I thought I would make some one layer, clean and simple cards in vivid, bright colors! Today my cards are featuring stamps from one of our very favorite companies, Hero Arts! The Hero Arts Holiday 2016 release is amazing. A really varied and beautiful assortment of products for every style and holiday. Today I chose one of the happy clear stamp sets called, appropriately, Holiday Cheer! I used my Zig Clean Color Markers to watercolor the images in non-traditional brights. I made three cards out of the one stamp set. I adore the font of the sentiments so much.

Here are all three cards together. I like to use colored cardstock as my card base when I do one layer cards since it adds just the right punch of color. Then, inside, I will layer a piece of white cardstock to write on. These colors remind me of retro 60’s Christmas decorations!

This little snowman is just the sweetest thing with his hat and scarf! I stamped the hill, the sentiment and the snowman in waterproof ink. I stamped the snowflakes and trees in Distress Inks. The coloring was done with Kuretake Zig Clean Color Brush Markers. I chose them for this project because of the pretty colors they come in!

I made this tree card first, and that’s what started my creative juices flowing for today’s post. I lined up the trees in then put the sentiment in the center. The snowflakes are stamped in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I added a few clear Hero Arts gems as a finishing touch.

Now, this house card I think is my favorite one! Probably because there is so much color! Each watercolor panel was die cut with the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles die to give a polished look. I also mounted each panel onto the card base using foam tape. These are just a couple of quick ways to make your CAS cards pop!

I started each card with watercolor paper, and stamped my images in rich black ink.

There are a couple of ways to color with your Zig Markers. I chose to paint onto the images with the markers and then go back over the color with clean water and a paint brush. This gives a darker color wash. If you want the color to look lighter, I recommend painting on your image with clean water first and then adding the color to the water. Just a matter of personal preference! I like both ways.

On the House card and the Snowman card I splattered gold and silver paint over the final images. I LOOOOOVE my Finetec Gold palette. I highly recommend that this paint palette be part of your crafty stash. I’ve been using these paints for a long time and the color hasn’t even started to go down yet. I simply mix some paint and water together on a stamping block and use a paint brush to flick the paint onto the card. This is one of my favorite looks.

After I did the gold on the card above, I started thinking… I wonder if I can make the white metallic into blue!? So I put down some Zig marker onto a block, added water, and then added the white pearl paint. Voila – icy blue shimmery paint speckles. How fun is that? We can make any color now!

Thank you for joining us here on the Simon Says Stamp Blog! Holiday Cheer and Winter Wishes to you!

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