Hey everyone, it's Dawn, and it's my turn to introduce some brand new product! Remember, if you are just joining us, be sure to start at Day 1 to catch up. All of the products we've been sharing will be available for purchasing beginning December 5, 2016 at wplus9.com as well as many of your favorite retailers!
We're going cute today. But not too cute. A quirky-fun cute. That's right, it's the Winter edition of the Friends for all Seasons series - Friends for all Seasons: Winter stamp set and companion dies.
AVAILABLE December 5, 2016
I adore the Friends for all Seasons series illustrated by Stephany Zerbe. The winter edition features fun foxes and even a cute little snowman.

How cute are they? I wanted to turn this one into a sweet friend valentine. I started by stamping an all-over pattern in the background.
My 16 year has developed a love for my Copics and a lot of them are mysteriously dry! So, instead of coloring the images with a traditional coloring medium, I created my own stamps from fun foam. I knew I wanted to color their scarves, so I stamped my image onto a piece of fun foam and then trimmed out their scarves. I adhered that to my acrylic block, inked it up and then stamped as usual. Voila! Solid filler image stamps. BAM.

I stamped the snowman, another fox and the top hat, did the same fun foam stamp technique and then die cut them using their companion dies.
For a little interest, I created a faux shaker card. I'm going to be honest...I have very little patience for creating shaker cards. So instead, I just added little dots of Multi-Medium inside my negative circle space and glued a smattering of sequins down.

I totally could have kept that to myself and let you think it was an "actual" shaker...but I'm honest like that. LOL
Ok...now on to another cute, but-not-too-cute, valentine. The entire Friends for all Seasons series has so many great sentiments, I decided to put them to use. And this one might be my favorite of my projects from the new release products...and there's a lot of them.

I used several of the new December Release products on this one. I started by white heat embossing several phrases using the Whimsy Alpha onto Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock. Using the Misti stamping tool made this incredibly easy. I then inked over them using Tim Holtz distress ink in Spun Sugar, Festive Berries and Aged Mahogany.
I white heat embossed the sentiments "je t'aime", "smitten" and "everyone deserves a friend like you" onto black card stock. For the main sentiment I die cut the Painted Friend die cut by Simon Says Stamp in both black and white.


The upcoming Happy Gang stamps and die were perfect for creating my little friends. And of course, I had to use the dog and the cat! I stamped each one and then added the contrasting "details" by either double stamping in the same color or using a slightly darker ink color. You can see these on the side of the dogs head, under his arms and between the kitty's hands.

I added a heart behind the kitty's head using the double solid heart image from Friends for all Seasons: Winter. As a final finishing touch, I added some highlights to their eyes using a white gel pen.
And for my last card today - using the Whimsy Alpha and the Happy Gang sets together gave me an idea.

I have sat on the Happy Gang stamp set since last Spring and I was so excited to finally get to use it. These are the solid version of our Get Well Gang set. So if you liked those little guys, you'll really enjoy these as well.
I stamped and die cut the phrase "WISH BIG" using the Whimsy Alpha stamps and die. Then I replaced the "i" in "BIG" with the puppy from the Happy Gang set. I stamped and die cut the balloons, also from Happy Gang and added them across the top.


To create the background, I used a little Inkadinkado Stamp Masking Paper to create a star burst pattern and then inked it using PURE Color Dye Ink in Wild Mango.
To create the banner, I used the previously released Be Merry Companion Die, inked through it using Ocean Drive ink and then white embossed "Happy Birthday" from Happy Gang.
I hope you've enjoyed release week! Kelly will be here tomorrow with more inspiration for you, but for now...on to the fun stuff!
Release Day Sale
As mentioned earlier this week, we did not have a Black Friday Sale this year. We decided to hold off and bring you those same savings during our December Release! So on release day - December 5th only - when you shop our new arrivals at wplus9.com, you can also save up to 35% on the entire store! No codes necessary, discounts will be automatically applied to your cart at check out. ***Limited to in stock items only. Can not be applied to previous purchases. No rain checks.***
Giveaway Alert
Would you like to win a $50 store credit to wplus9.com? Just leave a comment letting us know which set you're most excited about below to enter by 9:00 p.m. EST tonight, 12/04/16 to enter and we will select one random winner from all comments. Winner will be posted on our Winners page by 10 p.m. EST.
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. (New products not yet released have been excluded.) Please note: this list does contain some affiliate links.
Snow One Like You Card
Friend Like You Card
Wish Big Card