The Ton September Release: Blog Hop!

Welcome back to the blog hop day for The Ton's September Release! We have some absolutely fantastic guests with us today to help celebrate this absolutely fantastic release!  So many stamp sets, so many coordinating dies, not to mention word dies (who's super freaking excited for those?! I know I am!!), and even some new couture gilding mixes!! You should have arrived from Mayline's blog and your next stop is Laura's blog. I have a couple of pretty watercolored projects for you today, so let's get started! 

My first project is a super festive shaker card... because, when I was looking through the arsenal of projects I created for this release, I realized that not a single one of them was a shaker card! Oh, the horror! I decided to rectify that immediately and pulled out the brand new Holiday Border stamp, Mistletoe Kisses, my Zig markers, and the new Santa's Sneezes Couture Gilding Mix. 

I started by heat embossing the incredibly gorgeous new Holiday Border stamp onto some Bristol card stock and some silver pearl embossing powder. I have started using Bristol for those background stamps that have really solid images... they just heat emboss so much more nicely than on the textured watercolor paper. I used a couple of different shades of red, some pale gray, and a touch of bright green on the mistletoe to color this pretty border. I added some white Wink of Stella to the more solid poinsettias, but you can't really tell in the photos. So pretty and shimmery in real life though! After it was all dry, I die cut a window from the center using one of the smaller Stitched Rectangle dies, then stamped the greeting from Mistletoe Kisses using Caviar Hybrid ink in the center of my white card base. I covered my window with acetate and filled up my shaker with the new Santa's Sneezes Couture Mix. Isn't that mix of pretty reds and silver and clear just so lovely??

My last project is one that just makes me happy. So much watercoloring, so much style, so much deep, rich color... Coloring this was so pleasant, and this is definitely a project that will be replicated for my holiday card stash. To start, I heat embossed the Scenes: Grand Stairway and the beautiful girl from Born Classy using silver embossing powder on my favorite Montval watercolor paper. I wanted to create a holiday card, so I used my T-ruler and a Versamark pen to turn the doorway beneath the stairs into a window looking out into a snowy night. After watercoloring the scene, I added some "snowflakes" using my white gel pen and a white chalk marker that I found in my stash. To add to the holiday feel, I used some Mercury Glass Stickles to add some sparkly garland going down the stairs. Normally, Stickles take too long for my impatient self to wait for them to dry, but this was one of those projects that demanded them. 

Once I had completed the background scene, the really really fun part began: watercoloring the knockout from Born Classy. That dress is just.... there aren't words. So gorgeous. I made certain that she had a festive and sparkly glass of champagne to fully complete the holiday feel. Her dress was colored with a shade of dark teal and then shadows were added with a navy blue Zig marker. I absolutely am in love with her dress and want one for myself (along with her figure... bahaha). I added some Spectrum Noir shimmer pen over the top of the draped portion of her dress to make it really sparkle. I fussy cut her out, but you could use coordinating dies to save time.

I die cut a frame from some Matte Silver paper using the Stitched Rectangles dies, then popped it up with dimensional adhesive. I heat embossed the sentiment (from Scripty Holiday Greetings) on a strip of vellum, tucking the adhesive on the ends where the frame and the festive chick would be conveniently hiding my Scor Tape. I popped our graceful lady up with some dimensional adhesive, letting the folds of her dress fall outside of the frame to add extra dimension.  

Well, that's all for me today! I hope you've had an absolute blast with this release... It's been so much fun for all of us, too! Now it's time to hop along to see all of the incredible eye candy that the guest artists have whipped up for you! You should have arrived from Mayline's blog and your next stop is Laura's blog. If you've lost your way along the hop, start back at The Ton Blog to find the order of the blog hop. You surely don't want to miss any of these beautiful projects! Effie will be giving out four $25 gift certificates to The Ton's store to winners randomly selected from the commenters. Leave a comment on each blog, because the more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win! (One comment per blog, please.) Four winners will be chosen randomly from the hop participant blogs. The comment period will close on Thursday, September 29th at 11:59pm. Winners will be announced thereafter. 

Good luck, and enjoy the rest of the hop! :) Have a great week, friends!