October 2015 ReleaseWeek: Day 1

Welcome to our October 2015 Release week! It's finally time to unveil all of the new products hitting the stores on October 5, 2015.

Before they officially go on sale, we are going to spend the next couple of days previewing all of the new goodies and showing you some fun ways to use them. Remember, the entire October 2015 Release will be available for purchase beginning October 5th at wplus9.com as well as at many of your favorite retailers.

It's no secret that I love graphic images. Pair them with anything hand drawn or hand lettered, and I'm in heaven! I'm going to kick things off today with a look at the Holiday Boughs stamps and dies, along with the Christmas Greetings stamp set.

Holiday Boughs
4x6" Clear Stamp Set
$14 USD

Holiday Boughs Companion Die
Steel Rule Die
$10 USD

Christmas Greetings
3x4" Clear Stamp Set
$6 USD

My first card today is a perfect example of what I envisioned when I was illustrating this set.

I stamped the large solid bough several times. To get the variation in color, I inked my stamp up with Appletini dye ink, stamped it off a couple of times and then immediately inked it in Fairy Dust dye ink and started stamping. Each time I re-inked with Fairy Dust, the color started to turn gradually more gray. I have become addicted to stamping with "dirty" stamps lately. I just love the cool color mixes you can get.

I added the large outlined bough in Black and then stamped a few "berries" in Gala Red. A little glossy accents on the berries and the large sentiment finish it off. I just love the large scale of this sentiment. To continue my sentiment, I used a little help from our Heartfelt Holiday stamp set and the Basic Banners Die.

Next up, I decided to pair the Christmas Greetings stamp set with Holiday Boughs. The font is this set makes it a perfect classic go-to sentiment set for the holidays.

For the background, I used the Gansai Tambi watercolors to paint directly onto the boughs and then stamped them onto Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. I love the way these sentiments looks heat embossed, especially in gold. I stamped and die cut a few of the boughs and pine cones and added a little Rock Candy Distress Glitter for some shine.

I added these to the card on a panel die cut from our Gift Card Layers Die and adhered it with foam tape.

I decided to use the same products and create another version of this card. This time I used the other large script sentiment included in Christmas Greetings and embellished the card with a few of our new enamel dots from the Autumn Splendor-Blue Enamel Dots.

I have one more to share with you today. I wanted to show you how well Holiday Boughs works with the Botanical Bunch stamp set.

I do love a little white heat embossing with watercolor. After I heat embossed the images onto Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock, I added some very loose washes of color with the Gansai Tambi watercolors. To create my focal point, I used the Timeless Tags 2 Die to die cut a tag from vellum. The sentiment was created using the Hand Lettered Holiday Die and stamp set.

And of course, a few Pretty Pink Posh sequins were the perfect finishing touch.

That's it for me today, but, there is still a lot to see.

Design Team Inspiration

Are you ready to see what the design team has been up to? Check out what the girls have in store for you:

• Joni Nina Andaya
• Kara Vrabel
• Kelly Latevola
• Maureen Merritt

Giveaway Alert

Would you like to win a $25 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment below by 10:00 a.m. EST on 10/02/15 to enter letting me know what your favorite Christmas theme is and I will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Release Winners page by noon on 10/02/15.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop by again tomorrow to see Joni's newest addition to the Wplus9 family, it's a cutie!