Simon Says.........Happy Birthday!

Welcome to another challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!

It's our 6th birthday at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!   Our blog began on April 1, 2009. We want to thank you for supporting us these 6 years!   

So of course, our theme is birthdays this week.  The Design Team are using all Simon Says Stamp products this week, and if you have them we'd love to see you showcasing them, too!  Here's my first card for today:

supplies: Simon's Lots of Dots, white pigment ink, Sending & Wishing, Wishing die, Crystal Reflections sequins, picked raspberry, mustard seed, and ripe persimmon distress inks

I wanted to do a bokeh effect and started by sponging on distress inks to my trimmed watercolor panel, then overstamping several sizes of the solid dots with white ink.  After drying thorougly, it was affixed to my card base, then I cut and stamped my sentiment and added some of these colorful crystal reflections sequins.  

I used cooler colors for my second card:

supplies: Simon's Oh Happy Day die, Audrey Blue, Green Apple, and a yellow cardstock, Love This (stamped sentiment), Stars & Dots stencil, peacock feathers, mustard seed, and shabby shutters distress inks

It's your turn now!   Because this is a special occasion, we have not one, but SIX $50.00 gift vouchers to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for some lucky random winners of our challenge!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too!

Bokeh

When I saw the current challenge at A Blog Named Hero, I just had to play - there is just something so special  and fun about the Bokeh effect!

So I pulled out my Hero Arts stamps and looked for some circle shapes.  I ended up using the reverse of several clear sets (Many Dots and Mix & Match), along with just about every Hero Arts blue and pool ink I have, and Green Hills and Mint Julep.

After stamping the circles, I added some Diamond Stickles to a few of the smaller circles and a mix of clear, aqua, blue and green sequins.  My sentiment is from Winnie & Walter's The Big, the Bold, and You set. 

Thanks for your visit!   

A Bokeh of butterflies.........

I was just playing today and wanted to try again for a bokeh effect, only using hearts instead of circles like is usually seen.  So I found 3 different hearts and 4 colors of pale inks and stamped away.

Because of the hearts, I liked this sentiment, and then it occured to me that the hearts looked like a big flock of pastel butterflies, so I added this big die-cut Cheery Lynn one, and some clear irridescent sequins.  

The sun is shining today, but it's still pretty chilly, so I'm making my own spring!  

supplies: Simon Says Stamp Mint and Surf Blue inks, Memories Baby Pink and Soft Lilac, Hero Arts Made with Love sentiment, hearts from Simon's Love This and Only Have Eyes for You, and HA's Hugs 'n' Hearts

Thanks for stopping in today - hope you're having a sunny day wherever you are, too!

Bokeh

I have been entranced by the Bokeh style of photography and thrilled to see it spilling over into cardmaking.  It occurred to me that the Simon stamp set called Lots of Dots is perfect for playing with this style.

So I pulled out some inks in aqua and added a few greens, chose 4 of the solid circles in the set and stamped away.  Inks are Hero Arts Mint Julep, Soft Pool, Pool, Tide Pool, Splash, and Green Hills and I added my Simon's exclusive Green Apple to the mix.  (the card base is also that same color).  So far, this is my favorite color from Simon!   I used one of my favorite sentiments, from Ali Edward's Simply You.  To give the ethereal look that bokeh has, I then covered my stamped panel with a piece of vellum before attaching it to my card base.  Unfortunately the vellum doesn't lie completely flat, so the sentiment was almost too muted to read, and so I went back in and overstamped it onto the vellum.  Then I added the perfect sequins from Lawn Fawn's Into the Woods collection.  

I love how this turned out, and making it gave me a little foretaste of spring!  Thanks for visiting me today - hope your week is off to a great start!