edited to alert you to More Blog Candy offers!!

Happy Monday! I am traveling and in a motel at the moment. But I thought it would be nice if I told you that there are currently three offers of High Hopes blog candy available to be won by three random drawings! The first one is on the High Hopes Blog. See the blog for details to enter.
The second one is being offered by our guest Diva, Lacey! Check out her blog for the details to enter.
The third one is... I can't tell you! Its the High Hopes Hop! So get hopping on the Diva's blogs (listed on the right side bar) to find out who has it this time!


I got inspired by two challenges this week; the Ways To Use It challenge on Splitcoast Stampers, and the High Hopes Blog Challenge #8 for today! The WT on SCS was to use watercolor paper. The challenge today on the HH blog is to make a card using buttons and brads. And if you join in the fun and post a link to your card on the HH blog, you will be entered into a draw to win the Woodland Santa (see my third card below) and Merry Christmas sentiment stamps!
I used Crystal Snowlady from the new release at High Hopes, and drew the horizon line after I stamped her on the wc paper. For this card, I mostly used my actual artist quality watercolor paints. There are three colors in my snow; Prussian blue, yellow ochre and a bit of Prussian blue mixed with rose red for a purple color. You might find a bit of green too, where the blue mixed with the ochre, but it was not intentional. I tried to avoid that.
The background is all Prussian blue. I love the ultra deep color it produces.
When I was done, I punched up the color in a few places with Tombow markers. I find the Tombows are more vibrant than my paints.
For the falling snow, I used a white gel pen and a Snow Writer that should get trashed. I bought it last year, and its so dry, I had to squeeze way too hard to get it out, and I was scared I would end up with a sudden woosh of it and cause a horrid mess! It worked out ok, but it was touch and go for awhile! lol. I added glitter on top of the larger blobs of snow with Glitter Glue.


This is another sample I did for the HH challenge 8. I love the shell buttons I found at the dollar store. They have a gorgeous shine to them, but they do break easily. I will have to cover it with bubble wrap if I want to put it through the post! This one did not photograph well. I could not get the colors to look as they actually do, even in natural light. I think I took over two dozen photos, so I just picked the best of the bunch. I got some new Primas at Mike's on sale so I was excited to use one too!
I colored this image with Copics, masked the birds and bird bath and sponged green and blue ink for the sky and greenery. Highlighted with a white gel pen. The perched birdie, landing birdie and bird bath are also from the new release at High Hopes and can be found here. I love how these guys can go just about anywhere, as they are separate stamps. It leaves us with so many possibilities!


I started off this one on watercolor paper too, intending to make it a watercolor. However, somewhere in between the time I stamped it and the time I colored it, which was probably only ten minutes, I forgot, and started coloring with Copics!! I must be over forty! lol I had a bit of a problem when I was done because the background trees were too vibrant and I had to lighten them up somehow. So I thought to color overtop with white Prismacolor pencil. Because I had stamped on wc paper, there is a bumpy texture, so I could not possibly blend the pencils. It only seemed to add a texture to the look of it, which I think turned out to be kinda cool! So I was happy with it anyhow. This card was also inspired by the Sketch challenge on SCS this past week.
I used Forest Background and Woodland Santa for this card, stamping Santa first and then masking him before I stamped the forest.
Thanks for looking today! God bless you!