Hi friends! Happy Tuesday and happy CZ Design release day! We’re honored to be your one stop shop and make these exclusive cool collaboration of stamps and dies with Cathy Zielske available for you!

HOLLA!  YAH! HELLO!  I can totally hear Cathy saying these things (Do you watch her instagram?! SO FUNNY!)  What do you think of these new designs?

In celebration of the new release, Cathy created this gorgeous card below. We hope it inspires you!  Guess who inspired her to make this card!? It’s one of our OG Simon designers!

Hi everyone! It’s Cathy Z. here and I’m super excited to be sharing a card with you today because today I’ve got a whole slew of new releases in the store!

My card today features my new “Hello You” sentiment stamp set and I made a simple one-layer card completely inspired by the one and only Kristina Werner and a card she recently made that I adore.

I didn’t have the exact supplies that Kristina used, so I decided to improvise and just use what I had on hand. As a new card maker, my stash of supplies is still growing and I have some really good basics (like a set of nested heart dies) that helped me to get started on making my own version of her charming card.

Here’s a short video that shows you how!

WATCH THE VIDEO:

This is the first time I’ve ever used masking paper and I have to say I might just be hooked! It really is magical to do your stamping and pull off the paper to see the crisp, clean shape you’ve created courtesy of your die.

Doing the card also reminded me that even if your stamping isn’t perfect, the end result can still be beautiful! So embrace those little mistakes and make the most of them!

Thanks for reading (and watching!) today and thanks to Kristina, as always, for her amazing ideas!

SUPPLIES:

Thanks for reading today, and thanks to Cathy for being our guest!

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Hello everyone! I’m back again with a new Studio Monday video for you, and this week I wanted to feature Nuvo embellishment mousse again! There are SO many ways this product can be used, and I have 3 new ideas to share! If you missed any of my previous Nuvo embellishment mousse videos, you can find them here:

• Embellishment Mousse product close-up and ideas
• Embellishment Mousse as a shimmer spray

My first idea in this week’s video is creating a tone-on-tone effect by blending mousse onto cardstock and then blending a stenciled layer of the same mousses over top of the previous blending. We do this with inks all the time, and I think it looks even more amazing when done with mousse! After blending all the mousses onto my Bristol cardstock, I cut the panel down with a scalloped border die from Pretty Pink Posh (the entire card was embellished with mostly Pretty Pink Posh products). I die cut the “smile” sentiment die from both navy and white cardstocks; with the white piece, I trimmed it so that the word “smile” was taken out of the white frame. I then adhered the “smile” word to the blue frame. The butterflies are stamped in colored inks that coordinated with the embellishment mousses on the background. I then colored them each with Copic markers and added white details on their wings. I also added some Nuvo white gloss drops around the butterflies to look like trails following them. Did you know that embellishment mousse is able to be broken down with water and turned into a coloring medium? The second technique I feature in today’s video is watercoloring with embellishment mousse. This is really fun, because you get a beautiful shimmery effect once it dries! I created my watercolor by simply applying some mousse onto a plastic palette (any slick surface will work), I working a little water into the mousse to break it down into a liquid form. I used just a few colors of mousse (a purple, green, teal and gold). This is a great demonstration that you don’t need lots of colors to create great variation of color and sharing, as you see in the irises on my card. The outlines of the irises are heat embossed with black pigment ink and clear embossing powder, as I didn’t want the mousse to mute the outlines (the irises are from the Altenew Enchanted Iris stamp set). I heat embossed in gold a sentiment from that same Enchanted Iris stamp set and I also stamped a supporting sentiment underneath in purple ink. The gold frame is die cut with a My Favorite Things scalloped frame die and then I blended some of the gold mousse onto it; this way it coordinates perfectly with the gold in the flowers! To embellish the card I used a few Nuvo jewel drops onto the background. The final technique in this video is adding embossing powder onto the mousse. When you stencil a design onto paper with the mousse, if you apply it thick enough  you end up with the edges of the stenciled design being a little bit more dimensional then the centers of the stenciled design. Those thicker areas stay wetter a little bit longer than the rest of the mousse and gives you a chance to add embossing powder on top! You do need to work pretty quick with this, because mousse doesn’t take long to dry (just a few minutes); so keep that in mind as you are working. I finished off the card by die cutting an “awesome” sentiment from slate cardstock and a Neat & Tangled die set. The supporting sentiment is from the Awesome stamp set that coordinates with the die I used and that is white heat embossed on red cardstock. I embellished the card with stars die cut from a Simon Says Stamp die set and added Nuvo glitter drops onto each one for a dimensional glitter effect! And speaking of glitter, the gorgeous stenciled design with the glitter-crusted edges looks really awesome… check it out in this close up: I hope you will be checking out the video below to see these techniques in action! Thanks for stopping by and visiting with me today… I’ll be back again next week with a new tutorial!

WATCH THE VIDEO

SUPPLIES

LinkDeli.com

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Hello crafters, it’s Nina-Marie here with you; Happy International Friendship day! 

Today is one of those “fun” holidays, in which friendship is promoted and celebrated. As cardmakers, we have many friends around the world that love and support us. And what better way to celebrate International Friendship day than to send a card to one of our friends! I encourage you to send a handmade card to a friend, letting them know how much you love and appreciate them.

Need inspiration for making a friendship card?? Well, I have a bright and happy card to share with you today in honor of this special day! This card spawned from a crazy experimental-idea that I had one day and just had to try. 

I wondered what would happen if I combined Distress Ink refills with Embossing Paste. I’ve done techniques in the past where you color the Embossing Paste with Distress Ink refills and that looks cool too. But my idea was to add the Distress Ink refills after I applied the paste onto my card. The result was even better than I had hoped!

There is such a unique blend of color by using the refills in this way! This has more of a watercolor effect, yet it still has the dimension of the Embossing Paste.

Overall, the technique is really easy to recreate. The hardest part is letting it dry, LOL! I ended up letting this dry overnight because I wanted to ensure that the paste was completely dry. Depending on your climate, drying time will vary.

I finished off the card with a die cut friend word from Simon Says Stamp and a supporting sentiment from Altenew. I covered the friend die with glitter embossing powder from Tonic Studios and added a little heart Shape Sprinkle from Doodlebug over the dot of the “i” for an extra bit of embellishment.

Be sure to watch the video below to see this card in action! I think you’re really going to enjoy watching the Distress Ink refills and the paste combine together for an amazing result! 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with me today; I’ll be back again tomorrow with a new Studio Monday video for you!

WATCH THE VIDEO

SUPPLIES

LinkDeli.com

Blog Candy Alert!! Follow our blog via email and comment on this post for a chance to win grab bags and blog candy! Remember to tag your awesome projects with #simonsaysstamp on social media so we can see what you are creating!