Excuse me but can anyone tell me what happened to the first three weeks of December? It can’t possibly be Christmas Eve already. Mind you what better day to start 200th What Will You Stamp? challenge, WWYS200 – Merry Christmas to All. As the name suggests it’s a Christmas stamp set, but it needn’t be. Peace and love is a sentiment that’s welcome all year.

DELICATE BACKGROUND

I decided to start my project with a pretty background using one of the decorative images from Merry Christmas To All.

I began by wiping a piece of Merry Merlot Card with an Embossing Buddy to remove any oils and static and then stamped the image all over using VersaMark ink. Next I sprinkled the sticky ink with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder and tapped off the excess. After that I used the tip of my tweezers to remove some stray specks of powder before finally melting the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high). I now had a pretty tone-on-tone background with a beautiful embossed pattern.

Using my Stampin’ Trimmer I then cut and scored a piece of Thick Very Vanilla Card. I folded the card along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create my card base. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I fixed the embossed background directly onto the front of the card.

PEACE AND LOVE

The ‘peace & love’ sentiment also comes from the Merry Christmas To All Stamp Set, sort of. It actually says ‘Wishing you peace & love all year long’, but I wanted to shorten it.

So to create my sentiment I wiped a piece of Thick Very Vanilla Card with the Embossing Buddy. Then I inked up the sentiment using VersaMark ink. Next I tapped the sentiment stamp onto a Merry Merlot ink pad. Then I covered the ‘all year long’ part of the sentiment with a piece of sellotape. Finally I could stamp my altered peace and love sentiment onto the prepared Thick Very Vanilla Card.

As soon as I’d stamped my altered sentiment I sprinkled it with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder and then tapped off the excess. I checked for stray specks of powder before melting the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high). ow I had a partial sentiment embossed in Merry Merlot, even though I didn’t actually have any Merry Merlot embossing powder.

With that done I now needed my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform. I decided to cut out the sentiment using the larger of the two label dies in the Merry Christmas Thinlits. Then I simply added the die-cut sentiment to the embossed background with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

FANCY FINISHES

To complete the project I chose the decorative image that I’d used for my embossed background. I could have simply stamped it using the Merry Merlot ink but instead decided to repeat the Merry Merlot embossing technique I’d used for the sentiment.

First I stamped and embossed one of the images in the centre towards the top of a layer of Very Vanilla Card. Then I fixed this layer inside the card base with liquid glue.

Finally I embossed the decorative image in the centre of the flap on a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope and I was finished.

My regular blog readers will know that I love to get the most from my stamp sets. Being able to alter a sentiment or having decorative images in the stamp set really does add value. So even though Merry Christmas To All is essentially a Christmas stamp set, I know I’ll be able to use it throughout the coming year.

WWYS200 – MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

If you have this stamp set we’d love to see your ideas. Simply create a new project and upload it to our challenge gallery At the end of the challenge we’ll randomly choose one person to be our winner. They’ll get bragging rights and a winner’s badge for their social media. They’ll also receive an invitation to join us as our Guest Designer two weeks later. It might even be you!

The rules for our challenge are very simple. Your project (it doesn’t have to be a card) just needs to include at least one image from the Merry Christmas To All Stamp Set. You could even use a part of a stamp like I did to create my peace and love sentiment. The project must also be new i.e. not previously shown on any social media. That’s it.

BUNDLE BONUS ENDS SOON

I bought the Merry Christmas To All Stamp Set and coordinating Merry Christmas Thinlits using a single ‘bundle’ item number. That meant that I saved 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. While the stamp set and dies are being carried over into the new year, the discount will end on January 2nd. So if you want to save money on these items you only have a little over a week left to place your order. I’ve included links to the bundle and the individual products below if you want to explore this option further.

Product List