It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...Kraftin' Kimmie Release Day Blog Hop!!

Welcome to the release day blog hop at Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps!! This month, Kimmie and her Krafty Artists are bringing you a fantastic assortment of Christmas themed stamps to suit all your holiday projects. There is the gorgeous O Holy Night Nativity Set by Cheryl Alger, a Nativity Sentiment Set, a Christmas Inside Sentiment Set, some fun Christmas characters by Emilie Goulet and a collection of gorgeous angels by Annie Rodrigue. We've all had so much fun playing with these new stamps, and I'm sure many (if not all!!) have found their way onto your Krafty wish list!

The hop today begins over at the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Blog where you will find a complete list of links to the participating designers. As you hop along, make sure to leave comments on each blog for your chance to WIN a package of some of the new release stamps. (Two lucky winners will be drawn!)

If you've been hopping along, you should have arrived here after visiting with the very lovely Angie Baker. If not, just pop on over to the KKS Blog to start at the beginning.

This beautiful angel is "Felicity" by Krafty Artist Annie Rodrigue. The design paper is all from My Mind's Eye Holly Jolly Collection. I used a few Spellbinders sets to cut out the various elements. (Circles, Lacey Circles and Parisian Accents) Black Soot and Antique Linen Distress Inks were used to sponge around the paper edges and some dollar store pearls were added as a finishing touch.

On the inside, I used one of the sentiments that is included in the Nativity Sentiments Set...I love how all the different image and sentiment stamps from this release compliment each other! The sentiment was stamped with Versafine Ink and I used a couple of elements from Spellbinders Parisian Accents to dress it up.

Here's a closer look at Felicity...I think she's just gorgeous! She is so serene and peaceful. Felicity is perfect for Christmas cards, but I think she would also be beautiful on cards or projects for so many other occasions. ("praying for you", sympathy, baptisms, friendship...these angels really are very versatile!) Felicity's wings were given a pretty shimmer with a generous coat of Stardust Stickles. She also comes with a coordinating sentiment, "Angels sent from up above, please protect the ones we love.". (she was stamped on Neenah cardstock with Memento Ink and coloured with Copic markers)

Skin: E000, E00, E11, R20  Hair: E50, E31, E35, E37, E59  Gown: R22, R27, R46, R59, C5, C7  Wings: E50, E42, E43, E47

All the new September stamps are now available for purchase at the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Online Store!! Oh, and if you just NEED to have them all, the Gimmie Kimmies Kits will be available for a limited time!! The stamps are grouped together by artist and are offered at a discount, so order yours quickly before they disappear!!

It is now my pleasure to send you off to visit with the very sweet Diana Pickering who has a lovely project to share with you. :) (remember to leave comments at each blog on the hop for your chance to WIN some of the September stamps!!)

Thank you so much for joining us today...happy hopping!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: KKS "Felicity", "O Holy Night Nativity Set"
Ink: Memento, Copics, Distress Ink, Versafine
Paper: Neenah, Bazzill, MME
Tools: Spellbinders
Embellishments: Stickles

Away in A Manger (September Kraftin' Kimmie Sneak Peeks Begin Today!)

Good morning folks!! We're kicking off the September sneak peeks at Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps today!! Each day, the Krafty Girls will be previewing stamps by one of our Krafty Artists...you will find links to these daily sneak peeks over at the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Blog. There will also be daily BLOG CANDY giveaways, so you'll want to make sure to visit each designer sharing sneak peeks to leave comments for your chance to win!

So, what's the theme of the September stamps?? Christmas!!! December always sneaks up so quickly, so now is a great time to get a jump on making your Christmas cards and Kimmie has a fantastic collection of holiday stamps sure to get your holiday spirit in full swing. :)

Today, we are introducing you to TWO new stamps sets...the gorgeous "O Holy Night Nativity Set" by Krafty artist Cheryl Alger and the  "Nativity Sentiment Set". The O Holy Night Nativity Set includes three main image stamps ("The Wise Men", "Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus", and "The Shepherd Boy"). It also includes a few small coordinating sentiments. This collection will ONLY be sold as a complete set. The images are a perfect size to mask together to create a full scene. They are also fantastic when used individually as the feature image of a card.  The Nativity Sentiment Set includes several beautiful sentiments and Scripture verses in lovely fonts that reflect the "reason for the season".

I inked up Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus for my card today. Cheryl has done a beautiful job with this set ...they are absolutely adorable! The Echo Park papers were all lightly distressed and sponged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. The "O Holy Night" sentiment is included in the "O Holy Night Nativity Set". The larger Scripture verse (Isaiah 9:6) used to prop up the easel portion of the card is part of the "Nativity Sentiment Set" and was popped up on some foam squares. Both were stamped in Versafine Ink on white cardstock that was sponged with Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.

And when opened up to show the verse from the Nativity Sentiments Set...

Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus were stamped on Neenah Cardstock with Memento Ink and coloured with Copics. I did add some additional shading with brown and black Conte Crayons. Spellbinders Labels 8 were used for cutting out the image and the larger sentiment. The background was sponged with Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Inks. The star was given a coat of Stardust Stickles.

Skin: E000, E00, E11, R20  Hair: E50, E31, E33, E37, E59  Mary's Clothes: B91, B93, B95, B97, C5, C7, V01, V04, V17, V09, E50, E53, E57, Conte Crayons  Joseph's Clothes: G20, G82, G85, G99, R27 R46, R59, C5, C7, E11, E13, E17, E59, Conte Crayons  Baby Jesus' Blanket: B32, B34, B37, B39, C5  Manger: E50, E31, E33, E25, E59, E97, E99  Straw: E50, Y17, Y23, E33, E37  Star: Y11, Y17, Y23, E13


Make sure to pop on over to the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Blog where you will find a list of links for today's sneak peeks. The Krafty Girls have created some gorgeous projects with these two new sets that will be available for purchase this Sunday!

***BLOG CANDY ALERT***

Would you like to win both the O Holy Night Nativity Set and the Nativity Sentiments Set??!! All you need to do is hop around to visit each Krafty Girl sharing a sneak peek today and leave them a comment. Kimmie will draw a winner from the comments and post their name on the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Blog tomorrow morning...good luck!

We hope you can join us tomorrow for another round of previews featuring stamps by yet another Krafty Artist. :)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Kraftin' Kimmie Stams "Nativity Set" and "Nativity Sentiments"

Ink: Memento, Copics, Distress Inks

Paper: Neenah, Bazzill Kraft, Echo Park

Little Christmas Angel

Good morning friends! Have you been keeping up with the posts at Sundays With Crissy this month? Each very talented member of Crissy's Crew has a designated day to post, so there is inspiration and gorgeous eye candy to be seen throughout the entire month! This month, Crissy has set a wonderful festive colour challenge of "Red, Green and Gold".

I chose to work with one of Crissy's newest digital images from Whimsy Stamps...this is "Little Christmas Angel". I always adore Crissy's illustrations of children...they are so precious! After measuring the Spellbinders Labels 8 die that I planned to use, I resized "Little Christmas Angel" to fit, printed her off on Neenah Smooth cardstock and coloured her with Copic markers. I chose some design paper from My Mind's Eye and used accents of red and gold for the matting and punched border. To pull in some green to fit with Crissy's colour challenge, I sponged around the image and sentiment (from CC Designs) with Bundled Sage Distress Ink. The little flourish in the sentiment is something I drew in myself...mostly to fill the huge gap left when I misjudged the placement of the word "Christmas", lol. I added in some gold flourishes that were made with Spellbinders Doodleparts. The snowflakes were also made with Spellbinders.

In hindsight, I wish I would have coloured her gown with ivory or cream shades just to provide more contrast between the clothing and the wings. I coated both with Stardust Stickles after colouring.

Copics: Skin: E000, E00, E11, R20 Hair: E50, E30, E31, E33, E37, E59 Bird: R22, R27, R46, R59, C10 Gown: B60, C5, C3, C1, C00, blender Wings: B000, BG0000, BG000, B60, blender

We would love to have you join in our challenge this month...you have until midnight on November 30th (EST) to submit your project on Crissy's post HERE. (Just look for the little blue Inlinkz frog at the bottom of her post) If you use one of Crissy's digital images on your project, you will be eligible to win this month's fantastic prize from our wonderful sponsor LSL Diversified. Take a look:

Crissy will also be giving the winner 3 of her digital images from either Squigglefly or Whimsy Stamps! You can purchase Crissy's digital stamps from Wags 'n Whiskers, Whimsy Stamps or Squigglefly.

Make sure to become a follower over at Sundays With Crissy so that you never miss a post by one of the lovely members of Crissy's Crew...we still have a few more post to come this month!

Have a wonderful day friends...and thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Whimsy Stamps "Little Christmas Angel" by Crissy Armstrong, CC Designs sentiment Paper: Neenah, Bazzill,

Ink: Copics, Distress Ink

Embellishments: Kaisercraft brads, dollar store pearls, Stardust Stickles

Tools: Spellbinders Labels 8 and Snowflakes, Martha Stewart border punch

Lavender and Lace

Oh, I am soooo late with this post! I must thank Lacey (and Nikki too!) for her patience with me...I've had some unexpected things come up that required my attention, and so my post had to take a back seat today. Better late than never though...right??

Welcome to another challenge at Wags 'n Whiskers Stamps!! Our challenge this week is "Lavender and Lace".

I decided to pull out one of my favourite Wags 'n Whiskers Stamps, "Say a Prayer" for this challenge. I have to admit that "lavender" is not a colour I have an abundance of in my paper collection. I searched through my papers several times for anything lavender, or even purple, and found this pretty polka-dotted paper from My Mind's Eye (Wild Asparagus). I also found a little scrap of polka-dotted paper from KaiserCraft that I used to paper peice the dress on this beautiful stamp. I chose to use some crocheted "lace"...this is one of my personal favourite embellishments. For finishing touches I distress the edges of the paper with my scissors and Milled Lavender Distress Ink, pulled out a Martha Stewart paper punch, added a few pearls, Prima Hydrangeas, Stardust Stickles, ribbon and a metal sentiment tag from the dollar store. I really wanted to add some machine stitching...another favourite embellishment of mine, but I've run out of white thread! (It's on my shopping list for this weekend, lol)


"Say a Prayer" was stamped with Memento Ink on Neenah Smooth cardstock and coloured with Copic markers. The paper-pieced dress was shaded with Copic markers. When paper-piecing, always remember to add some shading to your patterned paper. Otherwise, those areas of your image will just look flat.

Copics: Skin E000, E00, E11, R20 Hair: E50, Y21, Y23, Y26, E31, E33, E37, E59 Ribbon: C00, C01, C03, C05 Wings: BG0000, V000, RV000, blender Shading on dress: V000, V01, V12, V15, V09

We'd love to have you join in the "Lavender and Lace" challenge this week! You can link up your submission on the Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge Blog...you can also check out all the beautiful cards that the WnW Divas created this week. They are just stunning!

Remember, that the Wags 'n Whiskers Challenges are now open to submission featuring any stamps line. However, if you do use a WnW stamp on your project, then your name will also be entered into a bonus draw for a WnW digital stamp!

Thank you so much for stopping by today friends. It means so much to me that you all continue to keep looking in on my little blog...and your sweet words are so encouraging. :)

Have a wonderful Friday evening, and I hope to see you back tomorrow!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Wags 'n Whiskers "Say a Prayer"

Ink: Memento, Milled Lavender Distress Ink, Copic markers

Paper: Neenah, Bazzill, MME, KaiserCraft

Embellishments: Prima flowers, pearls, Stickles, ribbon, metal sentiment tag

Tools: Martha Stewart border punch

Distressed Digis

(This is one of two posts today!! Please scroll up for the Kraftin' Kimmie June Previews!)

Welcome stampers...thanks for visiting today. There are some great things happening over at Wags 'n Whiskers!! Today marks the release day for another set of DIGITAL STAMPS!! That's right...some of your favourite rubber stamps are now also available as digis!! We also have a great new challenge over at Wags 'n Whiskers this week courtesy of the wonderfully talented Michele...Distressing Time! So get out those edge distressors, inks, rulers, scissors or whatever your favourite distressing tool is and get creating!

The image I'm using today is actually the same one I used for the challenge two weeks ago (you can see that post here), but I thought I would show you how the digital version opens up even more possibilities to stretch your creativity! This is "Say A Prayer"...I just love this pretty image. Before printing "Say A Prayer", I re-sized the image and flipped it (more on this in a moment). I found this great wooden cross at my local dollar store (yup, I'm a bargain junkie...the pearls are from the dollar store too!) and painted it with an ivory acrylic craft paint. I chose this gorgeous vintage paper from TCP and distressed the edges before adhering it to the cross. I used Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink on both the cross and the paper edges.

I wanted to mount "Say a Prayer" on a Spellbinders Fleur De Lis pendant, so I first measured the die to determine what size the image should be. When adjusting the size of your digis in your computer program, make sure to click on the "Keep Scale" option so the proportions will all remain accurate. After pop dotting her onto the pendant, I realized that the Copics were just a bit too vibrant for the muted vintage feel of this project. So out came the Antique Linen Distress Ink, and I very lightly applied it with a makeup sponge over the entire image until it was a better match for the paper. I did add a touch of Stardust Stickles to her wings for just a little glitz. Finally, I lightly touched a bit of Brushed Corduroy to the edge of the image.

Would you like the chance to win a prize from Wags 'n Whiskers?? Then come on over to the W&W blog to play along with us! You'll find some beautiful inspiration from the rest of the Divas to get your creative juices flowing! Just make sure to use a Wags 'n Whiskers stamp or digital image on your project if you want to be eligible for the prize. You can buy Wags 'n Whiskers stamps/digis HERE.

We can't wait to see your Distressing skills!

Blessings,

Melanie

Digital Stamp: Wags 'n Whiskers "Say a Prayer"

Paper: Neenah, TCP

Ink: Copic markers, Distress Inks

Tools: Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Pendant

Other supplies: Wooden cross decoration and pearls from the dollar store

Faith

(This is one of two posts today! For the Town Scrapper challenge, just scroll up or click here!)

Good morning stampers! I need to apologize, as I had promised you all a card with Popcorn the Bear yesterday. I had some things come up, and unfortunately didn't have a chance to get my post up. Sooo, I'll plan to show him to you next week if you all don't mind coming back...pretty please?? :)

Are you ready for another challenge over at Wags 'n Whiskers?? This week, it was my privilege to choose the challenge...how about Handcrafted Embellishments?? I would love to see you incorporate at least one hand-made element on your project this week!

I decided to ink up "Say a Prayer" this week. Oh my goodness, I absolutely love this beautiful image! Once again I paper-pieced the outfit...I've been on a big paper-piecing kick lately, so I hope you'll bear with me while I get it out of my system! lol I added some additional shading to the dress after stamping it and cutting it out. That frilly purple flower is my hand-made embellishment...it's made from coffee filters! I saw a similar flower over on my pal and cardmaker extraordinaire Andrea Murdock's blog recently, and I was so impressed...Andrea's looked absolutely amazing! So I fired off an email to her and she was kind enough to send me this link to a fabulous tutorial. Thanks Andrea!! That gorgeous crocheted trim is from Lacey's store Stamp and Create. That charm has been in my stash for quite a while, just waiting for the perfect stamped image...think I picked it up at Michaels. Add a couple of Prima roses and dollar store pearls and voila! You know, I think this is one of my favourite colour combos...this KaiserCraft paper is gorgeous!! (think I'd better go grab a few more sheets!)

I used some great Daisy Buckets paper for her dress...it has fantastic texture!





Time to hop on over to the Wags 'n Whiskers blog to see what the rest of DT has made...get ready for some gorgeous creations! If you participate in our challenge this week, you will have the chance to win a fabulous stamp!! (Just make sure to use a Wags 'n Whiskers image on your project! You can buy them here.)

Have a fantastic Friday, and I'll see you back here tomorrow!!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Wags 'n Whiskers "Say a Prayer"
Ink: Memento, Copics
Paper: Neenah, Bazzill, Daisy Buckets, KaiserCraft
Embellishments: Crocheted trim, ribbon, charm from Michaels, Prima flowers, hand-made coffee filter flower, KaiserCraft brad, dollar store pearls, machine stitching, jump rings
Tools: Spellbinders scalloped circles (smallest), Bow Easy