Hi friends!  Today is an exciting day for us and we are so pleased to share the news!  Well known and highly respected in the scrapbooking industry for many years, Cathy Zieske is joining forces with Simon Says Stamp.  We are helping her bring her CZ Design fresh and fun designs to market for you. Welcome 4 introductory clear stamp sets that are now available for reserve at Simon Says Stamp *shipping in mid May.

Simple Sentiments No. 01
Salty Ladies No. 01
Archie Numbers
Archie Alphas

This Simple Sentiments No. 01 is my favorite CZ Design stamp set. What’s yours? Be sure to visit our store to see all 4!

There will be wafer dies coming soon to coordinate with many of her designs.

I love these cards below that Cathy has created (notice the sentiments are from her collection).  It’s hard to believe she’s only caught the card making bug so recently!

I think you’ll really love Cathy’s personality and charm.  Her blog is relatable and makes me giggle almost every time I read it.  Be sure to pop over. Please.  I’d love for you to see Cathy’s charm and wit.

But that’s not all folks, Cathy teaches online classes too! If you’re interested in an online class that’s created to be fun, informative and highly do-able, make sure you check out Cathy’s online class library!

Cathy has recently gotten hooked on stamping.  (I can relate to being hooked!, can you!?)  Let’s welcome her with open arms.  Please use the comment section here and on Cathy’s blog to welcome her and tell her what YOU love about stamping.  We will be reading the comments and select random people on our Simon Says Stamp blog next week to win her new stamps *that are coming in Mid May.

Happy Fri-YAY!  It’s great having you with us today!

Happy High Five day everyone! Have you given anyone you know a “high five” today? I love giving my friends who live far away “high fives” in the form of encouragement cards. Encouragement cards cover a wide range of occasions. Today I want to share a set of encouragement cards I created that feature stamps from both Pretty Pink Posh and Simon Says Stamp! I’m also going to focus on how you can use simple, inexpensive coloring supplies to get awesome effects!

I’m sure a large majority of us all have Crayola markers on hand somewhere in our homes. Crayola products have been in all of our lives for years! In our most recent monthly card kit, Animation, we included a box of 12 Crayola Fine Line markers. While these aren’t your artist-grade, alcohol-based Copic markers, you’d be surprised at how well these fine line Crayola markers work and what you can do with just 12 of them!

The one big difference these markers have in comparison to Copics is that the Crayola markers are water-based. This means that the marker ink will reactivate when it comes in contact with water. Because of the water-reactive properties, you can use these markers for watercoloring! Today I am focusing only on Crayola markers, but the same thing goes with other water-based markers, such as Tombow or Zig markers.

I used the markers to watercolor the adorable little kids from Pretty Pink Posh’s Friends Forever stamp set. There are four children in the set, with a few accessories too. They can be used alone, as I did here, or together to create a cute grouping! I think these would be really fun for kids to color as themselves to then send as a more “personalized” card. Imagine – with the upcoming Mother’s Day and Father’s Day holidays – how fun it would be for moms and dads to receive handmade cards with these kids colored as their own children?

I paired the kids with sentiments from Simon’s Uplifting Thoughts and Loving Heart stamp sets. To make the sentiments a bit more interesting, I cut the stamps apart and used multiple colored inks that matched the colors I used for the children.

Because these cards are meant to be encouraging, I wanted to go with something colorful. The newest plaid paper collection from Lawn Fawn – Rainbow – was the perfect papers to pair with these kiddos. I have pretty much used up all the paper I had from that pad, I love it so much! Going to have to get another one!

I hope today’s cards inspire you to create something encouraging for someone you know! I also hope it proves a good demonstration as to what you can do with even the simplest of coloring mediums, such as Crayola markers! Thanks for visiting me today and spending some time with me… I’ll be back next week with a brand new Studio Monday video!

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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!

Hi readers! Happy Wednesday! Welcome to Work It Wednesday for April 2017!

In case you’re wondering what ‘Work It Wednesday’ is, let me explain: On the last (NOW second to last! :) Wednesday of every month, we want to see what you’re creating! The Simon Says Stamp community is so very talented, and we want to see more of your cards and projects every month.

We thought this would be a great way for all of you to ‘stretch your creative muscles’ and share what you’ve been working on. So we’ll give you a little challenge each month, and you’ll have until the following month to share what you’ve made. Please limit entries to 3 per month.

Each month we’ll pick a few random participants to win a Simon Says Stamp grab bag!
The projects and cards that were shared for March were so great! We loved what you made, and we look forward to seeing what you make for this challenge.

Do you want to see all of the cards and projects that were shared for March 2017 Work it Wednesday? Check them out!
The following three participants were randomly chosen to win a goody bag from Simon Says Stamp:

Paper Tokens!
Cindy Beach!
Gwendolyn!

Please email [email protected] with your mailing address and she’ll get your prize sent out to you.

Now on to this month’s challenge! April showers bring May Flowers! As April winds down, share something with rain or think forward to May blooms! Rain or flowers in your project will make you eligible for a prize next month!

Once you’re done creating, share your project below!
What are you waiting for? WORK IT! ;)