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

Now for the fun part of being a Growing In Unity girl.  I randomly picked two people from my comments to win the Unity stamp grab bags so graciously given by Unity Stamp Company.  Without further ado they are:

Dale Sue Glass

and

Pat Ceccacci

In addition I drew another name for a prize of 3 Distress Oxide Inks.  That winner is :

Sweet April

Congratulations to the winners.  Please email me with your addresses so that your prizes can be sent your way.

Thank you to everyone for the great comments that made last week a special one for me.

Well I can’t believe it is the last day of my week.  I truly have loved this opportunity that Unity gave me to showcase their stamps.  I have also loved reading all of the comments and appreciate those who take the time to leave their thoughts.  Remember that on Sunday evening I will randomly draw two winners from all of the comments left this week.  The winners will receive a grab bag of 25 stamps graciously donated by Unity Stamp Company.  In addition I will draw a third winner of 3 new Distress Oxide Inks that I have doubles of.

For my last day I decided to try and use some of the freebies that Unity has sent me.  For those of you who don’t know, they send some gifts each month with the Kit of the Month (KOM) and the SMAK kits.  There are also sometimes a surprise with a regular order.  Below is a picture of these gifts that I hadn’t had a chance to put away yet, but had just kind of let accumulate. As you can see there is quite a variety here.

Because I was filling a spot that opened up, I only had a couple of weeks to get ready for GIU week so I didn’t get to make as many things as I was hoping to, but you can get the idea of some of what can be done with these fun extras.

First up were a couple of card bases from the stash.  On the red card I stamped the butterfly and sentiment from February 2017 KOM called Unexpected Places in Versamark and put White Pearl embossing powder on it.  When I heat embossed it, it turned out more silver than white.  I assume that is because some of the red was showing through.  Also from the Unity stash I took the string of clear beads and put them around the butterfly and down the side.  I used a thin double sided tape called Scrappy Tape that held it pretty well.  I added some crystal flowers that I had and seemed to go with the string of beads.   On the kraft base I added a tag received from Unity (I received a lot of tags from Unity).  I heat embossed the sentiment from the Lasting Thoughts set and then used Distress Oxide inks on them.  I also used a brush to splatter on the kraft card base.  Some washi tape that I had on the side and bottom of the tag and it was done.

I used two more tags and a cute cloth bag for these.  The tags used sentiments from Lasting Thoughts and Something within that were heat embossed and then distressed with Distress Oxide inks.  Some washi tape finished them.  The squirrel is from September 2017 KOM called Flowers, Foliage, and Fall.  I stamped it with brown Stazon ink and will probably fill it with nuts and put in a Christmas stocking.

I impulsively purchased a pack of 36 small cans of Pringles while I was at Costco.  The first time I opened a can, I thought I should be able to do some with this (in true crafter fashion) so I started to save them.  I searched Pinterest and there was this cool idea to make an Advent tree using these little cans.  I thought that could work and there would be plenty of room to put something in each day for a family to share.  I cut circles on my Cricut Explore to fit the lid from a Christmas paper stack by DCWV.  The stamps I used are from a Donna Downey set called Advent.  This is a huge set that comes in two packages.  It includes these wonderful ideas and thoughts for each day of Advent.   It also includes large numbers 0-9.  The numbers were too large for my tops, so I ended up using another number set that I had.  I was able to use the Unity gift stash for the embellishments.  There were cute snowflakes, bells, red cording, etc.  I was only able to make five before I needed to stop and actually take pictures to make this post.  When I get the rest done and put together in either a tree or wreath shape I will try and post it.

Thanks for looking and make sure to leave a comment. – Denise

This week is going by so quickly.  Thank you for all of your comments and feed back.  Remember that two winners will be randomly chosen from all of the comments this week to receive a grab bag of 25 stamps from Unity Stamp Company.  I will pick the winners late Sunday, so you have until then to leave comments.  I will also pick a bonus winner for 3 new Distress Oxide inks that I have as extras.

I am going to talk faces today. When I first found the Unity Stamp Company I noticed that several of their beautiful Angie girls had blank faces.  I admit that at first I wasn’t sure that I really liked them and didn’t know how I would use them.  Then I noticed how beautifully some of them were colored and made so that they could be any woman and any expression based on the sentiments with them.  The more I used them that way, the more I like them that way.  However based on some posts from the Show and Tell page there are people who would like faces on their Angie girls.  I will try to show the same stamp as they are and some options for putting faces on them.  I honestly don’t think there is a right or wrong on adding faces because it is strictly a personal preference and I like it both ways.  If I were really talented, I could draw my own face, but that is not an option, lol.

This image is from the January 2018 KOM called Twinkle.  I colored both the same way with water colors on watercolor paper.  I used a large oval to cut the edge and placed it on a piece of cardstock from a paper pack by The Paper Studio called Sunbeam Meadow.  I found if I pick my paper first, I can match the colors to paint with easier than trying to find paper to match what I already painted.  The image on the left is the original stamp and the one on the right uses a Unity stamp set called Angie Girl Faces.  I will warn you that these stamps are tiny (in fact I have two because I lost one set for a little while) It works beautifully with this stamp.  One face is with eyes open and one with eyes closed. The thing about this stamp is that it doesn’t fit a lot of the Angie Girls. To see if the faces will work with a stamp, I have stamped both images on an piece of acrylic with Satzon ink. You can also just use a scrap piece of plastic packaging.  This allows you to place them over your stamped image to see how they will work.

I also put a simple mask made from a post-it note over her hair because the eyes were going to stamp into the hair which I didn’t want (hair in my eyes bugs me in real life too). I used a Stamp-a-ma-jig to be able to place the face in the correct place.

Here is another bigger stamp that Angie Girl faces will not work with, so I went a different way.

This image is called I Hope You Feel Beautiful and the sentiment is from Eloise Girl.  This face came from a set by Peachy Keen.  They are clear face stamps that come in sets of  multiple sizes of the same image for different things such as people, animals, snowmen, etc. They are meant to be used with die cuts such as those done on my Cricut machine.  I stamped all of them out on an acrylic sheet just like the Angie Girl Faces to see if any of the sizes will work with the various Angie Girls.  A couple of notes: One – they really only work for front facing images, not those looking off to a side; Two – they seem to be made for faces that are shorter than the Angie Girls.  In order for them to look right, I put a piece of painter’s tape over the mouth and nose and inked it up.  I removed the tape and stamped the eyes.  I then covered the eyes with the tape, inked it, removed the tape and stamped the nose and mouth lower on the face. The paper is from Shimelle called Little by Little.  I used some rick rack that I had in my stash.  The images were colored with my Spectrum Noir markers.  This also needed a mask (made from a post-it note) to keep the eyes out of the hat before stamping the face.

I am not forgetting about the guys either.

This is Forrest Guy. As with the prior Angie girl, I used a face from a Peachy Keen set.  I also had to stamp the eyes separately from the mouth.  This was especially important so that I could fit the mouth inside the mustache and beard.  I stamped with a dye ink and then colored with my Spectrum Noir markers.  The patterned papers are from a 6 x 6 pad called Outfitters by Pink Paislee.

Let me know which is your preference – face or no face.  I will finish up this fun week tomorrow. – Denise

Wednesday and I am half way through my week already.  Thank all of you for commenting.  I will pick two random winners from all of the comments for the week on Sunday for a grab bag of 25 stamps graciously given by Unity Stamp Company.  I will also draw a winner of 3 Distress Oxide inks that I happen to have duplicates of.

I am finishing the July 2018 Kit of the Month and the Pink Paislee paper pack called Citrus Bliss that I started yesterday with these cards. I used all of the images and most of the sentiments.

This was made by stamping in Versafine ink and using Distress inks to water color the image.  I colored two wooden birds that I had in my stash.  I tried coloring them with the Distress ink I had used to color the image, but found I had to use Distress Oxide ink to get the color to really show. I also made the card square instead of my usual A2 size.

Both of these cards use the same image, but different sentiments from the kit.  I stamped the images on two different papers using Versamark ink and then heat embossed using a bright white powder. The image on the darker orange showed up much better.  Since the image on the lighter green wasn’t showing up as well, I added flower shaped sequins from Cartwrights to each of the flowers to make it pop a little more.  I also used an orange ink for the sentiment on the one card to try and break out of my habit of almost always using black ink.

For the final card, I stamped the image on a gray cardstock in a deep pink ink then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  Since it was a dye ink instead of pigment, the embossing powder didn’t stick as thickly as I would have liked.  When I did the sentiment, I remembered a trick when using dye inks to emboss.  If you ink up your stamp with Versamark first, then ink it up with the dye ink and then stamp the image, it will stay sticky long enough to put on the embossing powder.  Always do the Versamark first and then the ink so that you don’t ruin your Versamark pad.  I cut up to the image and fussy cut around it to allow the paper I put on the inside of the card to peak out.

I will be back tomorrow with a post I am calling the Great Face Debate.  Come join me – Denise