Hello and welcome! I am so excited and thrilled to announce that I have been asked to be Guest Designer for the month of January for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

What an honor to be given this opportunity to be a part of this amazingly talented group of makers over at SSS and a special thank you to Lols for asking 🙂

This weeks Monday challenge is ‘ Use Something New’

As it is the first Monday of the month we are showcasing a particular company. This time we are all using our very own Simon Says Stamp Products. You don’t have to use them to join in, but if you have them we would love to see them used!

The lovely folks over at Simon Says Stamp are generously giving away a FABULOUS $50 voucher to shop at the  Simon Says Stamp Store!  All winners are chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance to win! Woo Hoo!! Good Luck to everyone! The Design Team is looking forward to seeing your crafty packages and will pop around to visit you ASAP!

‘Use Something New’ inspired me to share with you a new product that was recently released by Tim Holtz for Sizzix ~ Dimensional Domes 663559. Although these were designed to be paired with the Thinlit dies Tiny Snowglobes 663119, they can be used all year and knew they would work perfectly with Entomology Stamps.

Another ‘new’ thing for me is a new found love of bugs, well on paper only but still a new fascination. I adore the look of the vintage graphics from book pages and wanted to achieve this organic feel. I have a roll of really thin craft like paper that I believe it is used for packaging. For the first layer, I used a blending tool and lightly applied Rusty Hinge Distress Ink, then using the script stamp from the Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous Entomology CMS328 with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, lightly spritzed with water and then did a first and second stamping.

Using my stamping platform, I stamped all the bugs onto Stathmore Bristol Cardstock with Distress Markers and some shimmer watercolors, softening and blending them out with water. I left the images in the position on the platform while coloring so I could re-stamp once the coloring was done. This makes for easy coloring, not worrying if I stay in the lines 🙂

Once coloring was complete and the final stamping was done, I used fine clear embossing powder with Archival Black . This really makes the fine details of the stamps stand out over the coloring. The stamped craft paper was now dry, so I crumpled it up, lightly went over the creases with Distress Embossing Ink and then heat set the fine embossing powder. Which to my delight gave this a look of almost being ‘encaustic’ or like wax was used. So, wow, another ‘new’ for me 🙂

I then used the circle die from Thinlits Tiny Snowblobes to cut out the holes for the domes but if you don’t have this thinlit set a 1 1/4″ punch would work.

 I wanted to add a fabric element and had the Textile Surface Sheet which had the perfect coloring, so I used Thinlit Stacked Tag 663118 die cut and placed it over a #8 Distress Tag, leaving the backing in place because I wanted to fray the edges a little bit. Placed my die cut bugs using Framelits 663068 on some 3-d foam and attached the dimensional domes. The domes come with adhesive already on them, so no worry about glue showing 🙂

I stitched the layers together on my sewing machine and added a few more details. I used a 1 3/8″ circle punch to cut a circle from the deepest brown of Kraft-Core.  Took the punched circle and placed the circle die from Tiny Snowglobes and ran it through my Sidekick for a really thin circle that added just a hint of interest around the domes. For the final step I created a double bow using Tim Holtz linen trim for the top of the tag.

I decided to keep the tag pretty simple and love how it turned out. Win, win I have all the other bugs to play around with in future projects, all ready colored and ready to go 🙂

I do hope I have inspired you to try this new product or at least create your own ‘Use Something New’ make and submit it for the Monday Challenge. While there, be sure to check out all the Design Team makes, they are always so inspirational and often has me in complete awe of all their talent.

I do hope to see you next week, too! Also, for each submission it enters you into a chance to win a $50 voucher! ❤ As always, have a blessed day, xo xo