The Growing in Unity artists from July and August are have a blog hop.  These are so fun and all of the artists are great so I hope you hop along and comment on all of the blogs.

I haven’t had the time I want in my craft room, but I did get a chance to do a few cards for the blog.  The first is Maple Girl.  I was inspired by another GIU post this year to use her since I hadn’t inked her up before.  She is one of the smaller Angie girls which allowed me to use several papers from the Ki Memories paper pack called Autumn Flowers.  I used some oval nesting dies to cut the background papers and the sentiment mat.  I colored her with colored pencils and Gamsol.  Some twine wrapped around it gave it something extra.

The next cards are exciting for me because I was able to use one of the new cut files offered by Unity Stamp Company.  They have a new stamp called Ember Girl and it has a matching cut file.  Ember girl was originally in the October 2017 Kit of the Month (Conspiracy of Love) which I do have.  I purchased the cut file (which is an svg file) and imported it into Design Space to work with my Cricut Explore.  The file was meant to work with the new stamp which is smaller than the original in the KOM.  I played with resizing the image until I had a cut I felt was close enough to work with the stamp.  Below is how it looks on my computer mat as well as two of the sizes.  There isn’t  much of a difference and I could probably have gone even smaller to get those lines right at the edge, but I am OK with a little white around the edges since it saves all of that fussy cutting.  The final size was 5.3 inches high for the girl and 1.5 inches high for the sentiment.  Make sure that the size ratio is locked when setting the height.  I also ungrouped the two images before sizing them.

Here is my first card using colored pencils with her.

The papers I used were Photo Play’s Dear Santa. I put a clip to hold the papers and splattered White Picket Fence Distress stain on the red paper before adding the rest.

Next I did a cut with gold velum on my Circut.  That is part of the reason I love the new cut file.  Fussy cutting velum is not always the easiest.  This cut was so smooth. I stamped with Versafine Black and used clear embossing powder on it then mounted it on paper from DCWV (Very Merry 6 x 6).  I put a gold mat behind it and used a kraft card base.

Whitney had a video to show how you put the paper on top of the stamp when using these cuts.  Here is a picture of how I did it.  I put a little repositionable tape on the back of the cut before placing it on the stamp.  I then closed my case and it stuck to the other side allowing me to ink up the stamp and close the case to stamp the cut.  I do not own a Misti, but have been using a clear jewel (DVD) case.  These are the ones that do not have a hub in the middle.  I bought 10 of these for a good price probably about four years ago and still have some I haven’t used yet.  Unless you have something large, they work great until I decide to spend the money for a Misti.

Next up is Sue.  Here is the complete hop list in case you get lost or need to start at the beginning.

1. Jennifer Mitten https://jenmitten.blogspot.com

2. Jeanie Marie Hays https://thewashihorse.blogspot.com/

3. Denise Sayers https://thecraftyledger.blog/     {{You are here}}

5. Aimee Phillips https://aimeesstampingadventures.blogspot.com/

6.Helen SMit https://helenmazengarb.blogspot.com/

8. Teresa Godines https://purplebunnypapercrafts.blogspot.com/

Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win one of two Unity prizes.  Thanks for visiting – Denise

I was the designer for Card A Day Challenge Blog for the first week of October.  The theme was fall and the colors were fall colors of red, orange, yellow & brown.  There is a different challenge every day using those themes.  Below are my cards.  The details for them can be found on the Challenge blog here.  Just look at the posts for the first week of October.  Each week is a different designer and it is fun to see the various styles we bring to the challenges.  – Denise

 Christmas cards using the fall colors  A card that shows a scene.My favorite is this 3-D box card.  It folds flat for mailing.  A partial die cut card.    My simple card from Sunday jazzed up.

I posted these cards as part of the design team on Card A Day Challenge and posted these cards during the first week of September.  Our theme for the month was masculine cards with the colors of green, blue and metal accents.  Here are the cards I posted that week.  For more details you can visit the blog here and search for 36-2018.

I am up this week too for October with a different theme and color scheme so check it out. – Denise