Hi friends! I am here with my first project using one of the incredible, limited edition STAMPtember Collaboration sets! Nearly every day throughout the month of September, Simon Says Stamp releases a stamp set created in collaboration with a different crafting company. This provides an opportunity for you all to get to know these incredible small businesses that help make our stamping dreams a reality with their innovative products and gorgeous designs! (You can check out all of the collaboration sets that have been released already HERE.) Today’s spotlight is on Honey Bee Stamps, a company very near and dear to my heart. Melissa, the owner, is a dear friend of mine, and Honey Bee Stamps was the first company to turn my artwork into clear stamps. I will be forever grateful to her for taking a chance on my illustrations, turning my flowery doodling into stamps. I was lucky enough to be on the Honey Bee Stamps design team for quite a while; working with Melissa’s beautiful designs is truly effortless!
I have a trio of flaming orange projects to share with you today, two using the new Honey Bee Stamps STAMPtember collaboration stamp set and another project pairing some older dies from Honey Bee Stamps and Simon Says Stamp that I’ve had waiting for the perfect project. Let’s get started with the details!
I am really leaning in to orange lately, finding that when I pair a bright sunny yellow-orange with an intense burnt orange, it creates the prettiest and most elegant orange combination. For my projects today, I turned to my stash of orange cardstock scraps and selected a few different colors that were not the typical pumpkin orange, but just a degree or two lighter or darker. After I had my main color palette in mind, I stamped all of the beautiful pumpkin images from the Honey Bee Stamps STAMPtember set called Sending Autumn Blessings. I stamped them first with black pigment ink onto some Arches hot press watercolor paper, then added some beautiful Iridescent Gold embossing powder over the top, the combination of which created the shiniest, most shimmering shade of bronze.
I used Karin Brushmarker Pro watercolor markers to watercolor all of the pumpkins, keeping the color palette a bit more towards the sunrise yellow and burnt orange rather than traditional pumpkin orange. With Karin markers, I like to scribble the color onto my glass mat or ceramic palette, then pick the color up with my damp paintbrush. This gives me more control over the intensity of the color, as well as providing me with a bit better movement on the watercolor paper itself. Once I had finished watercoloring, I used my sharp scissors (you could use the coordinating dies, but I didn’t receive them in time) to fussy cut all of the images. I used a coordinating deep orange alcohol marker to color in the edge of the die cuts to keep my overall color palette as loyal as possible to the vision in my head.
To create the background for my pumpkins, I die cut a few of the gorgeously detailed dies from Honey Bee Stamp’s Fancy Fall Layering Dies set, cutting the largest two frames from two different shades of orange cardstock that coordinated nicely with the watercolored pumpkins, lightly blending some Paprika Pawsitively Saturated Ink around the edges of the smaller frame. I also die cut the included banner die from some gold pearl vellum. To create the sentiment, I used the banner as a guide to curve the “truly thankful for you” greeting so that it would follow the arch of the banner nicely. I used the same black pigment ink and Iridescent Gold embossing powder combination to stamp the sentiment onto some more burnt orange cardstock, then used my scissors to fussy cut the sentiment. I popped the layers up using foam adhesive squares, finally adding a twine bow and a few orange gems for added sparkle!
I did end up with a leftover watercolored pumpkin cluster, so I decided to make a cute little tag using the Simon Says Stamp Label Tag Dies. I die cut the tag from some more burnt orange cardstock, then blended more Paprika ink around the edges to add extra dimension. I popped up the pumpkins on the tag with some foam adhesive, then added another embossed sentiment strip directly over the top. Finally, I finished off the tag with a twine bow and loop as well as a few more deep orange adhesive gems.
My last project is showcases some dies from Honey Bee Stamps that I’ve had in my stash for awhile but have never had an opportunity to use. I bought the Honey Bee Stamps Lovely Layers Autumn Bouquet last year; I find the entire Lovely Layers die collection absolutely wonderful, and I adore how nearly all of the different die sets work together so nicely in terms of scale. One of the nice things about the owner being a cardmaker herself is that she understands how important proportions are for cardmaking, and Melissa does a top notch job designing her stamps and dies!
To start, I used the leftovers of those same shades of orange cardstock that I used for the first projects, adding in some brushed copper foil cardstock for added texture and shine. I die cut multiples of several of the designs in the Lovely Layers Autumn Bouquet set in multiple colors so that I could arrange a harvest bouquet! I also die cut the largest frame image from the beautiful Decorative Star Layering Frames from some orange cardstock, adding to the drama and vibrancy by blending some more Paprika ink around the edges. I find that ink blending over the top of die cuts that have debossed details on them, as these frames do, helps to enhance those beautiful details and make them pop a bit more. I popped up the blended frame die cut on an A2 panel of Flaming Orange glitter cardstock, adding a sparkling edge around the blended frame!
Before I began arranging the foliage die cuts, I die cut the detail layer of the new Simon Says Stamp Fancy Just Because from some more of the burnt orange cardstock and the shadow layer from some more gold pearl vellum. I layered the die cuts together using liquid adhesive and decided to enhance the sentiment with a foiled greeting from the new Sentiment Strips Reverse Just Because, to which I had used my Minc machine to add Simon Says Stamp DecoFoil Orange toner foil. I popped up the sentiment in the center of the card with some more foam squares, then arranged the foliage in a bouquet around the sentiment, popping some up with foam adhesive and adding some with liquid adhesive to create multiple levels of height and dimension. Finally, I added a few sparkling gems as a final touch of shimmer!
Well, that’s all for my projects today! These STAMPtember collaboration sets are limited edition and usually sell out very quickly, so if you’re on the fence, don’t wait too long! To sweeten the deal and make it even easier for you to shop, Heidi at Simon Says Stamp has offered free shipping for purchases over $25 for a limited time!!
Don’t let this set get away from you! Not only are the pumpkin illustrations absolutely luscious, the sentiments included in the set are beautiful and so useful for cards beyond the autumnal season. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!
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