Beautiful Blizzard

Hi Stamper Friends (and others!),
I'm back at it today after spending some time with a "tricky" set. This bundle is gorgeous but I wasn't completely sure what to do with it!  I like some of the catalog ideas, but I wanted to see what I could come up with. The bundle is called "Beautiful Blizzard and it features some snow-related stamps and one big thinlit die full of snowflakes.  I wanted to try cutting the whole thing out first and see what I ended up with.  Hence, my first two cards:

I cut a 4" x 5-1/2" piece of Balmy Blue card stock and ran it through the big shot, using the Precision Cutting Base and it did a great job of cutting out a whole bunch of "blue" snowflakes. I set those aside and adhered the background (what wasn't cut out by the snowflakes) to a sheet of Whisper White card stock. That is how I got white snowflakes, which is usually how you see them! I added a sentiment with some more stamping. The gray tone I chose for this card was Gray Granite.

With the leftover snowflakes, I wanted to create a diagonal line going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner.  Before I glued them on anything, I decided I wanted to try and create a special background. I mixed a little bit of Shimmer White paint in a Stampin' Spritzer with some rubbing alcohol.  I sprayed (fairly heavily) the front of a black card. I masked off the back of the card so it wouldn't get sprayed. Because I used alcohol, the spraying dried fairly quickly and didn't warp my card stock. I hope you can see it with my photograph. After it was dry, I adhered the snowflakes with dabs of Snail tape runner and then added a sentiment.

I also wanted to see what the thinlit die would look like if I tried to just emboss it, using our Big Shot embossing pads.  I discovered you don't need much for this die to emboss!  I layered the regular Big Shot platform, the white and blue embossing mats and then my silver foil paper and the die. I was really happy with the results. To finish off this card, I used some iridescent boxwood wreath embellishments.

For my last card, I wanted to play with just the stamps and not worry about the die. The big "stormy cloud" like stamp was a challenge, but I liked how it turned out. For this card, I used Pool Party and Smokey Slate inks and card stock.

 This set was fun and challenging to play with!  I hope to have some more fun with it soon!  Hope you are enjoying the fall, knowing that winter is coming soon and with it, some beautiful blizzards of the "real" variety!

Happy Stampin'!
Sarah