Happy 4th of July & Oh My Cod!!! It's the new releases!!!!!!!

Good morning, & Happy Independence Day to all!!!! Hope you have a fun day ahead of you, ending with some wonderful fireworks!!

Today is the day ~~~ brand new High Hopes stamps!! Hold on to your hats ~~~ they are AWESOME!!!!! I only got 2 cards done, I'm in the middle of a 3rd but it will have to wait until I'm done celebrating the holiday :) Without further ado...........


HOW CUTE ARE THESE LITTLE SEA CRITTERS?!?!?!?? Oh, how I giggled when I got the images sent via email from Crissy!!! She does such an amazing job! What a task deciding which of these cuties to use first!! The whole thing is colored with Prisma pencils & gamsol, with a bit of shading done with Twinkling H2O's (a little trick I learned from my idol & friend, Ila). I didn't add many extras because of course the critters are the star of this show! I used the Cuttlebug Swirls folder on the pattern paper, some silver brads in the corners & a photo corner in the lower right & it was done! Now on to the next one.....

I've wanted a pirate set for the longest time, because I have 2 boys who attend oodles of birthday parties & always thought it would be perfect for little boy cards. I was so excited when I found out this was one of the themes of the new release!! I stamped the mat onto a thinner white cardstock, colored it, then crumpled it & tore the edges a bit. I used some brown distress ink on the edges & stuck it onto the card with glue dots. The blue background is embossed with my new Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder. After coloring the pirate with pencils & gamsol I cut him out & popped him on dimensionals, added the saying & the twine (can you see the anchor tied onto the twine?) & I added 3 brads to finish it off. I really wanted some kind of antique-y brads ~~ either copper or dark silver ~~ to go with the theme. Of course I have every color, plus gold & silver, but nothing antique-y. So I scraped the heck out of some silver brads on my sanding block, added a bit of Stazon Timber Brown ink & VOILA ~~ antique-y brads!!! Of course, I got this brilliant idea AFTER I had already assembled the card, so I cut off their legs (eek!) & stuck them on with mini glue dots. Which was not fun, because by that time it was near 12:30 am & the later it gets, the smaller those little brads get!!!

There is one more set of stamps that you will absolutely flip over. I haven't finished my card with that set, but check back in a day or two ~~ after the celebrations are over. Meanwhile, head over to High Hopes to check out the new stamps. You can find them all here. Just type "hotp" into the search box (I had trouble linking the actual new release page, so I'm just linking the home page). Thanks for stopping by, & happy shopping!!