Thankful and Grateful

This post is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving for those readers in the United States. We are giving thanks, and as this year draws to a close, I find myself reflecting yet again on how many wonderful things and people that I have in my life for which I am so grateful. As a child, I never dreamed that my life could be what it currently is, offering peace and stability and a loving family. This year, I am also so thankful for being able to help provide for my family in a meaningful way. I couldn’t do this without your support and kind words, friends, so for that I wish to simply say: thank you. I wanted to channel that gratitude into a project, and so I pulled out several different die sets from Simon Says Stamp, some watercolor paper, and my Distress Inks to do some watercoloring. Let’s get started with the details!

To start, I die cut the Layered Berry Bird, Forest Border Frame, and Abundant Leaves dies from some Arches Hot Press watercolor paper. I left the individual die cut pieces within their negatives and used Forest Moss, Bundled Sage, Seedless Preserves, Walnut Stain, Aged Mahogany, Abandoned Coral Distress Ink reinkers to add some lovely mottled watercolor to each die cut, focusing on gorgeous shades of olive green and rich maroon, with tiny touches of coral and brown. I simply placed drops of the colors onto my palette and picked them up with a damp paintbrush to be able to control the intensity of the color.

I also added some shimmer watercolor accents to the bird and some of the foliage. I adore how intricate these die cuts are; they really do so much of the work for you! The super detailed Forest Border Frame is a perfect backdrop for the sweet Layered Berry Bird.

After I had completed my watercolored die cuts, I used a blending brush to blend the new Kale Pawsitively Saturated ink around the edges of an intense olive green A2 card base, adding some extra depth of color to match the vivid watercolored die cuts. I arranged the watercolored die cuts in the center of my blended card front and adhered them using both liquid and foam adhesive.

For the greeting, I die cut the “thankful” from the Fancy Giving Thanks die set using Purple Rain mirror cardstock. The iridescent sheen on this cardstock picks up the different colors in the watercolored die cuts so beautifully, as well as adding additional texture and shine to the card! To coordinate with this die cut word, I heat embossed a sentiment from the Thankful and Grateful stamp set using Brass embossing powder. I nestled both sentiment pieces amongst the bird and foliage, finally adding a few shimmering gems for some more sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I am so grateful to you all for being here and for supporting me through your kind comments and encouraging messages of support, as well as occasionally shopping through my affiliate links. It truly means the world to me to be able to share my art with this community as a job!

I also wanted to share that Simon Says Stamp is running a 30% off sale for all Simon-branded products. Simply enter code TKY23 at checkout to receive 30% off Simon Says Stamp-branded products from now through 11:59 pm EST on 11/23/23. Simon also is including a free gift with purchases of $100 or more. (It’s an excellent set, perfect for making tons of quick tags!!) Shop for crafty friends or even yourself with a fabulous discount and some awesome freebies!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!