Whimsy Hop! New Rubber! New DP! Metal Dies!

I'm starting off the latest Whimsy Blog Hop today, yay!  Welcome precious peeps! There are a ton of prizes to be won along the way, and lots of time to enter, so I hope you'll hop along with us!  The hop starts today (Wed Nov 10) and goes til noon Wed Nov 17th.
There are lots of new rubber stamps by the Whimsy Artists, so I hope you'll check out the fun we've been having drawing and designing them!

I'm giving away (well, Denise of Whimsy Stamps is!!) my Peace on Earth rubber stamp set!  I have used the angel from the set on my card.  See the entire set here.  If you are entering for the draw, leave a link to your blog by using Inlinkz at the bottom of this post.  If you don't have a blog, just make sure you tell me so in a comment and I'll make sure you are entered.  I'll be using Random.org to pick the winner on the 17th!

Well, I have some news for you! I have been secretly working away along with Denise and Ann of Whimsy on some special projects!  We have come up with some original 6 x 6 designer paper, AND some metal dies!!!  Ann developed a metal die for all her ticket sentiments and I designed (with some help from the Whimsy Studios) a snowflake die I call, "Winter's Jewel 1" !   I'm so excited to see my illustrations being used in these new ways!

My Winter Jewel 1 is on pre-order and will start shipping around Nov 22.  But the ticket die and papers are available now!  I can't wait for you to see!  And tell me what you think!

Ann did the bulk of the work for the paper packs.  Most of the images she used are my rubber stamp illustrations for Whimsy, which I hand painted.  But she used her graphic art design skills to arrange them in various patterns for the papers!  I think she did a fantastic job myself!

There are two packs that will be for sale.  Each pack will have two each of twelve designs for a total of 24 sheets per pack.  Here is a sample of one of the 6 x 6 papers from the Holiday Folly collection: 

And this is the snowflake I designed!  I actually had a lot of graphic help -- I needed it!  The Whimsy Studios artists helped me tweak it to get it perfect.  Without their input and know-how, it would not be symmetrical at all.  I'm afraid I've never had a course on computer graphic design, and when you are drawing a snowflake, you really need the help of a computer if you want it to look right. 

It wasn't ready for me to use on my card today, but I can't wait to get mine and start using it!  I'm rather pleased with how it turned out!  This die will cut and emboss just like the big name brand dies out there.  Cool, huh? heh - heh, yeah, cool (snowflakes -- cool -- get it??) Actual die measures two inches.

          

Now on to the details of my card!

I stamped my Angel from my Peace on Earth set in Versafine Onyx Black ink onto 140 lb. cold press watercolour paper by Canson. I used Distress Inks to water colour.  The background was done using a very loose brush stroke and two brushes; a round size 6 and size 10. 

I used Twinklets Diamond Dust glitter on the snowflakes and on the wings.  I used gold Smooch Spritz all over the card, but it is impossible to see the delicate gold sheen it gave it.  So nice IRL though!

The two white panels were embossed with the Spellbinders Impressability snowflake die.  I then used Vintage Photo Distress ink to distress just about everything!! lol

Snowflakes are from some Martha Steware punches and also some Spellbinders snowflake dies. 

The circle tag is from the new Winter Letter Seals by Raindrop Echo Designs (Ann Vento for Whimsy Stamps).  It cuts perfectly using the circle dies by Spellbinder! She's a smartie, designing a lot of her sentiments with those popular dies in mind! You can find all her Whimsy graphic work in rubber here and digital here. 

Below is another example of her beautiful work.  She does custom rubber stamps for crafters!! There are a ton of beautiful designs and fonts to choose from!  This is what she did for me that I can put on the back of all my cards.  And see how beautifully it fits my Spellbinders frame too! 

Not to mention, the custom stamps are made in grey rubber to save on costs.  They stamp well and yet are very affordable!!  AND she also does custom digital work too -- signatures and watermarks.  You can find the many templates she has available here.  And here's a hint: November 15 thru 21, Whimsy has a 20% off sale on all their rubber and digital Custom stamps! And this week, November 8 thru 14, all their digital stamps are 50% off!! They are having their 2nd birthday bash sale-abration all month long.  Check the blinkie on my right side bar near the top for details.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Kaboodledoodles Challenge Blog: Vintage

The Crazy Challenge: Things with Wings

Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge: Display weather (snow, ice, rain, sun)

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge: Red and Gold

One Stop Craft Challenge Blog: Embossing

Drunken Stampers: Punch Me!

Paper Sundaes: Let it Snow!

Craft Your Passion Challenges: Use double anything (two embossed panels on mine)

Crafty Calendar Challenge Blog: Winter Snowflakes

 Seven of us are offering blog candy prizes, so you won't want to miss out on your chance to win!  And one of the blogs has the GRAND PRIZE of ALL the stamps being released today!  If you get lost in the hop, here is the hop order.  Don't forget to sign up below that with Inlinkz!!

Hop begins here Crissy Armstrong (that's me, that's me!!)

Simonne Clay

Marley van der Heljden

Debbie Eastman

Patricia Garcia

Claudia Rosa

Annika Ryan

Erin Bailey

Ann Vento

Chris Olsen

Beate Johns

Lori Pachkowsky

Denise Lynn

Iris Wiechmann

Deb Routledge

Crytal Irwin

Linda Coughlin

Vanja Stevanovic

Donna Smith

Vicky Parson

Kathy Page

Bev Rochester

Phew, so that was a lot to tell you!  Now if you want to continue on with the hop, go to

  Simonne's blog to see what she has cooked up for you!