Hello there Artie! Great to see you here today.

One of my favorite artists has a new set of Christmas stamps and stencils made by Ranger that he released last weekend! Simon Hurley, a YouTube star and talented card maker, has designed some fun things over the last year and his new set of stamps, Caroling Squad, ticks all the boxes. I knew I had to have it the second I saw the little boy with his mouth wide open, singing!!

I ordered on a Friday, so I nearly died waiting for my package to arrive. For some reason, I feel like every retailer has a dedicated Daniel West staff waiting for my orders to come through for special treatment. (I need to simmer down.) But when my shipment arrived I felt like a little kid and wanted to play right away.

On my desk sat a background I had created for a different project with some Nuvo Aqua Flow Pens and some water color paper. As I turned it around and looked gazingly into the background panel, I saw a snowy scene. So I decided to stamp out the children in the Caroling Squad stamp set with some Gina K Amalgam Ink across the front. Then, I heat embossed the imaged with Brutus Monroe Icicle embossing powder.

Embossing the image allows me to water color easily without worrying about colors bleeding into each other.

Tonic released a beautiful set of coordinating supplies called Merry & Bright, last month. They include these gorgeous minty/teal colors that pair perfectly with reds in the collection. So I grabbed the Aqua Flow Pens from Merry & Bright as well as the Vanilla Sundae and Cinnamon Stick pens, and I colored in the images. The background colors just dissolved into the new painting. For the fluffy trim on the kids, I broke out my Brutus Monroe Alabaster Pigment Ink and whitened them up. I also dotted the panel with this same ink for snowflakes.

After finishing the painting, I realized, I had left no room for a sentiment from the set. And I LOOOOVE the sentiments from this set. So I decided to cut an opening on the left-hand side and create a sliding sentiment. This was so simple. I just DIY’ed one by mimicking the setup from Concord & 9th that I did here! I stamped it out with Catherine Pooler’s Midnight Ink onto some white cardstock. For the pull tab, I stamped a musical note from the stamp set onto a piece of scrap paper from the background trimmings and adhered it to the end of the pull.

Then, to give the card some dimension, I popped it up on some foam tape. Then adhered it to the front of an A2-sized card panel.

To finish off the card, i stamped a few more notes above the squad and added some Tropical Oasis sequins from Tonic’s Merry & Bright collection.

This card was so much fun to create and the colors are right up my alley! I hope you enjoyed today’s card. If you would like to shop for these supplies, I have created a supplies list for your convenience!!

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