SSS DieCember® Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my blog! I am happy to take part in the Simon Says Stamp DieCember blog hop, to celebrate the release of the new DieCember dies. You should have arrived here from the very creative Marge Yoon, and I hope you are enjoying all the inspiration along the hop.

The DieCember release is a really big one, with 44 sets of wonderful and versatile dies. You can find the whole release here.

Don't miss the free gift! If you use the code DCMBR27, you will get a free Nutty & Bright stamp set (while supplies last!) with any purchase. The code will expire Sunday, 12/9 at 11:59 pm EST.

I made a winter panel and a spring tag, to mix up the seasons a little, and there are step photos for both. So let's start!

The background is sort of the main thing on this winter project, and It was such fun to make. The technique works for any season or theme and for lots of different types of projects. For the wall-hanging, I wanted to use a fun Christmas color-combo of turquoise, pink, red and white, which by total coincidence coordinates with the banner for the DieCember release. It's 6 x 6.3 in big.

I used these five DieCember dies on my projects: Grassy Edges, Celebrate, Nested Banners, Hooray, and Bixby Arch.

The Nested Banners set is so versatile, and you get a lot of dies, which can all be used in many different ways. When I saw the Nested Banners, I immediately thought the rectangular banners would look great for a background. Instead of separating the three dies, I kept them intact and die cut lots of nested rectangles from watercolor paper. This gives you two frames and one thinner center piece. If you have already separated the dies, you can use the Sizzix Magnetic Platform to keep them in place when die cutting.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and press the papers into the ink.

When dry, I started applying them to a piece of mat board. You can use a sheet adhesive, such as this one by Sizzix, but I couldn't find mine, and instead used my ATG gun. Vary the colors and the placement until you are happy with the lock.

When you are done, cut the mat board at the bottom and cut off the overhanging rectangles on the sides. I almost didn't want to cover any of this background up.

Die cut snowflakes from White Diamond glimmery cardstock and from Schoolhouse Red cardstock, using the Kinley Snowflake and Stitched Flakes dies from earlier releases.

I also die cut a snowman from felt, using the Picture Book Snowman. The scarf was cut by hand, but there is a die for the scarf too.

Splatter the background with white paint for texture and sand the edges of Tim Holtz idea-ology Christmas Quote Chips.

Glue the snowflakes to the background with SSS glue, and add the snowman. I also placed dots of White Opal Liquid Pearls on some of the snowflakes. 

Use the Celebrate die to die cut a title from White Diamond glimmery cardstock. This cardstock has a lovely shine, but it was a grey day when I took these photos, and I however much I turned the panel around, there wasn't enough light to catch the glimmer.

Now to the spring tag. 

Sometimes in the midst of winter, it is nice to do a spring or summertime project and to use some bright flowers. My favorite part of this tag, was creating the overlapping hills and grass, which were all done with DieCember dies. 

Start by coating a tag with gesso.

When dry, paint the sky with Distress Paints and mist with water. 

Die cut hills, grass and flowers from heavystock paper using the Bixby Arch and Grassy Edges sets. 

Ink with shades of green by smearing the ink pad directly onto the paper. The lower parts of the larger die cuts won't show, so I didn't ink them.

Mist with water droplets.

When dry, stamp with the Good Reading background stamp and Fern Green and Leaf Green Archival inks.

Color the flowers by pressing them into the ink pads. This is such a quick coloring method and gives lovely vibrant colors. 

Stamp the sky with a sentiment from Uplifting Thoughts and smaller words from Tabbed Sentiments. Add birds and a border with a white gel pen.

Glue flowers here and there with the fabulous fine-tipped SSS Tacky Glue. I love these tiny flowers. Add a dot of White Opal Liquid Pearls to each flower. When it dries, the Liquid Pearls will take up some of the color of the ink, which is not always an effect I want, but in this case, I liked the tone-on-tone look it created. If you want to avoid it, color the flowers with acrylic paint instead.

Die cut the Hooray sentiment from White Diamond and Baby Blue glimmery cardstock and glue to the background.

There are of course prizes to be won and at each stop on the hop SSS is giving away a $25 coupon, randomly drawn from those who leave a comment. The winners will be posted post on the Simon Says Stamp store blog on Wednesday, the 12th of December.

Your next stop on the hop is Gayatri Murali, and I hope you won't miss the inspiration she has in store for you. If you get lost along the way, this is the hop list:

Simon Says Stamp Blog 

Debby Hughes

Amanda Korotkova

Yoonsun Hur

Amy Rysavy

Vicky Papaioannou

Karin Åkesdotter

Marge Yoon

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Gayatri Murali

Elena Salo

Emma Williams

Ankita Gupta

Olga Direktorenko

For more DieCember inspiration, remember to check out the DieCember gallery at SSS, and if you make something with products from the range, it is fun if you post it in in the gallery too. There are galleries for all releases, and for the card kits, full of inspiration. There was also a part one of this blog hop last week, with even more wonderful projects.

Tomorrow we are going to do bake gingerbread cookies and make Christmas sweets with some friends. It is going to be fun and I bet the kids will eat a lot of cookie dough.

Thank you so much for visiting today and I hope you will have a lovely weekend!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.