Brown Thursday HOP

I'm so excited for this HOP!  It's that "ALL OUT" time of year for Unity. TONS of new releases and a discount on almost every stamp in the store - just for YOU.  The big benefit is that it's happening right now - well before any of this Black Friday nonsense so you have plenty of time to check out all of the new stuff and move all that wish list stuff right into your cart!  Let's go!

 

I wish I'd had time to play with all of the new releases, but there are so many I only did a few.  This post is still full of photos and some friendly tips.

 

I'm a HUGE Phyllis Harris fan and this release is stunning.  This Magical as Snow kit is destined to become one of my favorites. It's colored with distress markers and the the edges are inked with more distress ink.  I rotated the circle frame snowflake die just so it appeared that one of the snowflakes was sitting in her hand.

 

Let's move on to a beautiful sentiment kit (Full of Merry) just in time for Christmas card and tag making.  This card is so easy to make! Take a rectangle of card stock smaller than your card front.  Die cut an ornament shape from the center (think of the other seasonal possibilities!).  Stamp your sentiment on some cardstock, add some simple coloring, and mount behind your frame with foam tape.  Adhere the whole thing to your card and add some sequins and a twine bow.

The new I Tolerate You kit from Lisa Arana is just the sweetest image.  Again, I used my go-to coloring tools - distress makers.  The bear is colored completely while for the bunny, I simply used a light color and went right inside the image line then took a wet paint brush over that to blend it out a bit.  This gives some depth to a white image :) I love the little strip of "sweater paper" I found at HL and then some die cut snowflakes to finish it off.

Now it's Joy to Go from Angie Blom.  She might be famous for her girls, but her talent extends to so many other images (psst!, like this one). It's easy to color a detailed image with distress markers (or any water-based marker).  For instance on the pine branches, lay done a fine line with your marker on the main stem and then use a paint brush or water brush to pull the color out to the ends of the needles.  It creates such a pretty watercolor effect.  As with all of my cards, I want the image to be the focal point.  I only added a piece of a doily and a little enameled heart dot for embellishments.

I saved my favorite for last.  Anyone that knows me knows that I love dogs.  OK, so Labradors are my absolute favorite, but I do love all dogs.  This little fellow from the Lucky Dog kit is just the cutest thing.  The coloring is so simple.  I kind of squiggled (my word-of-the-day) some distress marker close to the black parts of the image and then took a very wet pint brush and laid it on top of the color to let it flow a bit.  The result is a tri-color dog!  The sentiment is masked to break it into 2 parts (or if you prefer and I do! - just cut into 2 parts - no stamp harmed in doing this).  You can still stamp the parts into a straight line, or do what I did to get them to fit into the little tag die.  One sad note here...the paper I used is part a very old DCWV Pet Mat Stack.  To the best of my knowledge it is no longer available.  I guess this is why I have so much paper that I can't let go of!

 

So here's the big SCOOP you've all been waiting for.

 

 

And don't forget what happens every single HOP...there are prizes to be had just for leaving each design team member a little bit of love.

 

 

So follow all of the pretty faces you see below (and the Unity blog too!).  Remember our HOP motto

HOP, then SHOP!