HOLIDAY 2016 RELEASE: Santa's Reindeer and Holiday Houses with Kelly

Hello, and welcome back! Are you excited? Our Holiday 2016 Collection will be available for purchase tomorrow, October 5, 2016. If you are just joining us, be sure to check out Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

Are you in love with what you've seen so far? I know I sure am. I'm pretty sure when I saw the adorable little images in Holiday Houses my neighbor's two streets away heard my shrieks of joy!

I really loved the idea of the reindeer from Santa's Reindeer flying over a village of tiny houses in the middle of the night. So with the magic or watercolor and Copic markers I was able to make it happen.

You can watch it come to life in the video below.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

There is something that is just so cool about backlighting don't you think?

I already know I'm going to be using these little houses a ton so prepare yourself for cuteness overload!

Be sure to come back tomorrow. We still have a lot of new stuff to show you and Dawn will be here with the whole shebang!

Giveaway Alert

Would you like to win a $25 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment on this post by 10:00 p.m. EST on 10/04/16 to enter and we will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Winners page by 11:00 p.m. EST on 10/04/16.

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the supplies (or equivalents) used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list does contain some affiliate links.

Black Dye Ink Shimmer Spray Mist Canson MONTVAL SPIRAL WATERCOLOR 5.5x8.5 Pad 7026760 Zig CLEAN COLOR 36 SET Real Brush RB6000AT36V Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker PERSIAN BLUE RB6000AT032 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker DEEP BLUE RB6000AT035 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker COBALT BLUE RB6000AT031 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker BLUE RB6000AT030 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker PINK RB6000AT025 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker VIOLET RB6000AT080 Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker BLACK RB6000AT010 Simon Says Stamp LARGE GRID PAPER Pack Pad SGRID1 The Color of Fun *ZIG Wink of Stella GLITTER CLEAR Brush Tip Marker 025320 EK Success WRITING PEN FINE TIP 55-30080 Sakura 6 WHITE Gelly Roll Classic Medium Point Pens Set 57488 3M Scotch SUPER STICKY FULL ADHESIVE Post It Notes 35625 Grumbacher MISKIT LIQUID FRISKET Mask 1.2 fl.oz. 559 Ranger Studio Paint ARTIST BRUSHES Brush BRU40842 Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER WHITE Fine Detail WhiteEP2 Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK PAD Watermark VM-001 Inkadinkado EMBOSSING MAGIC Powder Bag 05847 https://www.simonsaysstamp.com/product.aspx?id=342224 Copic Sketch MARKER C9 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch MARKER C7 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch Marker C1 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch MARKER C3 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch MARKER C5 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch Marker E59 WALNUT Dark Brown *Copic Sketch Marker E57 LIGHT WALNUT Light Brown Copic Sketch Marker E55 LIGHT CAMEL Tan Copic Sketch Marker E53 RAW SILK Cream Copic Sketch MARKER 100 BLACK Copic Sketch Marker Y0000 YELLOW FLUORITE Copic Sketch Marker B24 SKY BLUE *Copic Sketch Marker R59 CARDINAL Maroon Dark Red *Copic Sketch Marker R29 LIPSTICK RED Bright Bold Copic Sketch Marker R35 CORAL Copic Sketch Marker R32 PEACH *Copic Sketch Marker YG93 GRAYISH YELLOW Light Dusty Green Pale *Copic Sketch Marker YG95 PALE OLIVE Light Green Yellow *Copic Sketch Marker YG97 SPANISH OLIVE Dark Green Moss Copic Sketch MARKER YG99 MARINE GREEN

HOLIDAY 2016 RELEASE: Holiday Houses 4 Ways with Yana

Hello, and welcome back! We hope that you are all enjoying the new products that will be available for purchase beginning October 5, 2016. If you are just joining us, be sure to check out Day 1 and Day 2 as well.

Today, I wanted to give a you look at the upcoming Holiday Houses stamp set and companion die. Instead of creating one card I decided to make a set, 4 cards in total, to show you a few different ways you can use these adorable houses.

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 5, 2016

Holiday Houses
4x4" Clear Stamp Set
$9 USD

Holiday Houses Companion Die
Steel Rule Die
$14 USD

This stamp set features several holiday houses - a beautiful two-story house, a church and a few smaller homes. You’ll also find several trees - a few groupings and an individual tree, a moon for night scenes and some little hedges/bushes that can double as snowballs. There’s a good mix of elements to create beautiful little winter scenes.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

At a very economical $9 USD, this particular stamp set doesn’t have any sentiments, but you can use messages from other holiday sets to complete your cards. I used messages from Be Merry and Be Merry Sentiments stamp sets (both from the Holiday 2016 Collection) to stamp various Christmas wishes on my projects. You can also use our older Holiday sentiments - they all work great together!

I stamped my images onto watercolor paper and used 5 colors of Distress inks to loosely color them (watch this video for a closer look at this coloring technique). You can also use alcohol based markers to color these houses or other methods - the sky's the limit here.

I die cut my colored images using companion dies and arranged them into simple scenes on A2 top folding cards made out of Dove Gray cardstock http://www.wplus9.com/dove-grey-cardstock/. I cut snow hills out of white cardstock for some of my cards as I wanted them to stand out, so using light gray cardstock was a good option here. I mostly freehand cut mine, but you can also use the Landscape Borders Die to die cut these in your die cutting machine.

I blended white pigment ink onto one for the cards as an alternative to die cut hills.

I tried to include at least one house, a tree or a few trees and snowballs for each of my scenes and I used thin and regular foam adhesives to foam mount my die cut piece for a pop of dimension.

To complete my cards I added glitter glue to the roofs of these homes to imitate snow, drew in lights using white gel pen (so that it appears the lights are covered in snow) and colored wreaths using red and green Copic markers.

So what do you think?

Don't you just love these little houses! Thank you for joining us today. Kelly will be here tomorrow sharing more fun and inspiration with this release!

Giveaway Alert

Would you like to win a $25 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment on this post by 11:00 a.m. EST on 10/04/16 to enter and we will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Winners page on 10/04/16.

HOLIDAY 2016 RELEASE: Santa's Reindeer with Joni

Hello everyone and welcome to Day 2 of the Wplus9 Holiday Release! Remember all new products will be available October 5th. If you are just joining us be sure to check out Day 1 to catch up.

Without further ado, I want to introduce you to Santa's Reindeer stamp set and Companion Die - a fun (and quirky) set illustrated by Stephany Zerbe featuring Santa and his reindeer.

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 5, 2016

Santa's Reindeer
4x6" Clear Stamp Set
$15 USD

Santa's Reindeer Companion Die
Steel Rule Die
$23 USD

There are some really fun images in this set, including Santa's reindeer impersonating the jolly old man. I chose to highlight the two traditional reindeer in the set for today. I really like that these images can go either way - silly or traditional.

For the background of my card, I masked off the bottom quarter of my card and distressed it with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar, making sure to concentrate the color in the center.

Next, I stamped the cute Santa and Reindeer with Wplus9 PURE COLOR Dye Ink in Black. Then colored them with Copic Markers and die-cut them with their coordinating dies. The "ho, ho, ho", the "music notes", and "fa-la-la-la-la-la" are all also from Santa's Reindeer. The banner and the "BE MERRY" sentiment are from the new Be Merry stamps and dies. You can find out more about this in yesterday's post.

For the finishing touches, I added some Diamond Stickles and Opal Liquid pearls to give it more interest on the card. Then, adhered the die-cut Santa, reindeer and sentiments with foam tape to create dimension.

I hope you enjoyed this look at Santa's Reindeer! I cannot wait for you to all see the rest of the new sweet products coming your way. Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what Yana has to show you using Holiday Houses!

Giveaway Alert

Would you like to win a $25 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment below telling us what your favorite style of Holiday cards are by 11:00 a.m. EST on 10/03/16 to enter and we will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Winners page on 08/03/16.

HOLIDAY 2016 RELEASE: Woodland Basics & Be Merry

Hello everyone, and welcome to our Holiday 2016 Release previews! All of the new products that we will be sharing with you over the next couple of days will be available for purchase beginning October 5, 2016 at wplus9.com as well as at many of your favorite retailers.

I have had a really hard time choosing a favorite this time. There are so many choices and everything works so well together! Since we do have a lot to share, I've decided to combine several on today's projects, but the main stars today are the Woodland Basics Die and the Be Merry Stamps and Die

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 5, 2016

Be Merry
4x6" Clear Stamp Set
$15 USD

Be Merry Companion Die
Steel Rule Die
$17 USD

Woodland Basics Die
Steel Rule Die
$18 USD

Christmas Tag Die
Steel Rule Die
$16 USD

When it comes to creating for Christmas, I usually break it into three categories. Children's cards, mass production and those special cards that get sent to people that I know will appreciate them. You know, like your crafty friends! The Be Merry set covers two of those categories. The large focal sentiments make it perfect for quick and simple cards. And the flowers and companion die allow you to create much more intricate and detail cards. Pair it with the Woodland Basics Die and you've got masterpiece potential!

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

This card was actually quite simple to create. I ink blended three water color panels in Distress Inks (blues, greens, and reds), added a little water to get a watercolored effect and spritzed them with Wplus9 PURE COLOR Shimmer Spray. Once the panels were dry, I die cut several of my elements from each.

I used the large main sentiment from Be Merry. The size of this sentiment is perfect for carrying the large die cuts from Woodland Basics. I heat embossed it in white onto black card stock and then die cut it using the Be Merry Companion Die.

I had lots of die cuts left over so I decided to create a matching tag. This will be one of those "special" cards, so most likely I will be needing a tag for a gift as well.

I used the new Christmas Tag Die and the empty banner and "BE MERRY" sentiment from Be Merry. The Christmas Tag Die comes with 2 word dies as well. I'm really in love with this die and will have more on it a little later this week.

I really do love how this little ensemble turned out. The colors are so vibrant and really pop against that black. Would it be wrong to just decorate my own gifts with them? LOL

The next card is perfect for Christmas mailing. One layer and flat.

I stamped the large sentiment and then added some floral clusters above and below. I did a little masking for the two flowers, but creating multiples of these would be super easy with a MISTI stamping tool. I chose to stamp my images in blue ink instead of black just to switch things up a bit and then colored them in with Copics.

I was going for the off-set printing look, so I intentionally colored outside of the lines and left some white portions inside. I really like this design and will be trying it in some different color combos.

I hope you're enjoying the previews so far. Like I mentioned, we still have lots to show you, so be sure to stop back by again tomorrow. Joni will be here sharing Santa's Reindeer.

Giveaway Alert

Would you like to win a $25 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment below to enter by 11:00 a.m. EST on 10/02/16 to enter and we will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Winners page on 08/02/16.