Colored Pencil on Gray + Simon’s STAMPtember® Party!

Hello everyone! Can you believe it is already September? And on top of that, can you believe it is STAMPtember®???? I am very excited that Simon’s month-long STAMPtember® event has finally arrived, because it is always full of great fun, awesome surprises, exclusive releases and so much more!

Speaking of so much more… Simon is hosting a HUGE (and I mean REALLY huge), party on their blog! I am part of the party, sharing inspiration AND an exclusive shopping promo code! At checkout, use code JAVA38 through 9/4 to get an exclusive Coffee Hour stamp set that I had previously designed for Simon.

At the Simon blog, they have a list of amazing crafters that are also participating in the STAMPtember® party, which I encourage you to check out when you are finished up here. Be sure to visit the other crafters’ blogs, because we all have random promotions for MANY exclusive free gifts!

The card that I made for today’s inspiration uses the new, Beautiful Flowers 2 set that Kristina Werner designed for this release. I really love that she incorporated a couple of single, stemmed florals into the set, which can be used on their own or in a grouping.

Using my Mini Misti, I stamped the flower onto gray sketch paper with Barely Beige ink. Because I was planning on doing no-line colored pencil coloring, I wanted to use an ink that would not show through the coloring; the pencils I used were from Prismacolor.

To make sure I maintained a detailed stroke with my pencils, I sharpened them frequently with the KUM Precision Sharpener. I have used this sharpener for a long time now and LOVE how it always maintains a sharp tip on my pencils, and rarely breaks the lead.

After coloring my flower with a mixture of purples, pinks, blues and greens, I added a few splatters of dark purple ink onto the panel for some organic texture. The edges of the panel were cut down with a Memory Box Wrapped Scalloped Rectangles die.

For a greeting, I heat embossed the word “thanks” in Liquid Platinum embossing powder from Hero Arts; the warm tone of this embossing looks so pretty with the gray background.  I trimmed the sentiment out of the purple cardstock using the Sentiment Labels die set that I designed for Simon’s STAMPtember® release.

You can see another card I created with the Sentiment Labels set in this video that I shared on STAMPtember® 1st! I also incorporated many other new STAMPtember® products into the design, including the Big Thank You die and the Harvest stencil!

Finally, I finished up the card by adding a few sequins around the greeting, which are from the new Birthday Cake confetti mix! I put dots of Morning Dew Nuvo Drops into each confetti piece to create a dimensional, domed effect.

You are probably wondering why I chose to use gray sketch paper for my coloring today. The reason?

1. I find this paper blends the pencils beautifully. There is enough tooth to make color transitions easier to acheive.
2. It is a slightly darker surface (but not overly dark), which allows the pencil coloring to “pop” more off the paper. On white, the colors have a differnet look to them; either way it is still beautiful, but I really prefer the darker paper.
3. The paper is extremely inexpensive! You get 50 sheets from a 5.5 x 8.5″ pad, for only $7.

I hope that this card has inspired you with an elegant way to use the new Beautiful Flowers 2 stamp set, along with the Sentiment Labels dies!

Don’t forget! Be sure to visit Simon’s blog to learn more about the amazing STAMPtember® release party happening NOW! And remember that you can use the special promo code above, to get the Simon Says Stamp Coffee Hour stamp set FREE with any purchase while supplies last!

I hope you enjoy the blog party; thank you for visiting me today! I will be back again very soon with more exciting things to share!