Unity Stamp Company ~ Growing In Unity November Blog Hop

Hello! I'm so excited to be a part of the Growing in Unity Blog Hop!!

I really wanted an excuse to play with some of my new Unity Stamps so the timing was perfect!

I have been itching to use the Pierced Feature Frame - Ovals from Papertrey Ink and how perfect is it paired with the stamps from Unity Stamp's 'Twas the Night!!

I started by stamping snowflakes from the Snow, Snow Cute stamp set on a 4 x 5-1/4" piece of white card stock. I layered the bottom portion of the card stock with striped Classic Kraft Bitty Big patterned paper. I then mat the piece on a 4-1/8 x 5-3/8" piece of Pure Poppy card stock. I adhered the card front to a Kraft card base and set it aside.

I then die cut a piece of Pure Poppy Bitty Big patterned paper and a piece of white card stock to build the featured oval in the center of the card. It's been a very long time since I've colored directly on my stamps so I thought I would give that a try for this adorable tree and I love how it turned out. I used my neglected SU! markers ~ Mossy Meadow, Chocolate Chip, Real Red, and Cherry Cobbler ~ to color directly onto the rubber of the stamp while in my Stamp Platform and then I'd stamp. I worked in sections from the lightest color to the darkest color, cleaning the stamp and re-stamping the image with the next color. For the pot that the tree is in, I stamped it first with Real Red and then I stamped it again with Cherry Cobbler... just around the bottom and outer edges... to give it some dimension.

I adhered the oval pieces to the card base and stamped the other images.

I stamped the bear with the bird and the dog using Memento tuxedo black ink and colored them in with the following Copic markers:

Bear ~ E55, E57, E59, R20

Bird ~ R14, R27, Colorless Blender

Dog ~ N1, N3, N5, R14, R27

I then stamped the ornaments coloring the images directly on the rubber, just like I did with the tree. I decided to trim the string on the ornaments... and I adhered them to the tree. I adhered the one hanging ornament to the bears paw and then adhered him to the card. I also adhered the dog and then I got to thinking... I had to ground these images somehow... they were just floating there. So I stamped the sentiment from Old Traditions onto a piece of Kraft card stock using VersaMark watermark ink and then heat embossed some fine white embossing powder. I die cut the sentiment using a banner die and then popped it up on the card.

I just love how this card turned out! I hope it inspires you to play with some of your new Unity Stamps! Now let's get back to the hop, shall we!

~ Blog Hop List ~

Katy Duffy Fowler

Crystal O. Minkler <--- you are here

up next ---> Berina Febin

Shelly McGovern Schmidt

Brandon Leggit

Bobbie Sue McConathy

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

~ Crystal