It's National Stamping Month!

Can we call it International Stamping Month?

Welcome to the Australasian Blog Hop for September's very special limited edition stamp sets. There are three special stamp sets to choose from this month, all available from your Close to My Heart Consultant with no additional purchase necessary. Check with your consultant for your local price, but here in New Zealand the cost is $25 a set. Buy one or two or all! When you purchase all three sets for $64, you will save $11.
If you have arrived here from Maz Wood's Blog, Inky Fingers, then you are in the right place. The hop is one big loop, so just continue clicking around till you come back to where you started. With three stamp sets to feature, you are sure to see all sorts of ideas for the different packs.

My favourite set was the cardmaking one, and since I have been having a play with the watercolour paints this week I decided to combine the stamps with my new CTMH paintbox. I absolutely love this style of font. It's funky and fresh, and goes so well with the organic style of unpredictable watercolours running wherever they want to!
My three cards also feature some embossing. This combines really well with the watercolour technique, as the embossed wording resists the colour and remains bold, shiny and legible.

I tried out three different techniques with each of the three cards.

Card #1 - Hello

1. Stamp the sentiment on watercolour paper with black archival ink.
2. Sprinkle with black embossing powder, shake off excess and heat set.
3. Paint background with watercolour paints. Use a lot of water so that the colours run into each other.
4. Allow to dry.
5. Back with Cranberry cardstock and set on a Colonial White card.

Card #2: Oh Hey Thanks

1. Mask a piece of watercolour paper with painters tape.
2. Wet paper and paint with watercolour paints, right up to the painters tape.
3. Allow to dry fully.
4. Stamp with white pigment ink. Emboss with white powder.

Card #3: Honeycomb

1. Paint entire watercolour paper with watercolour paints. Allow lots of spreading.
2. Cut honeycomb card from Artfully Sent and Pacifica cardstock.
3. Stamp "hello" sentiment in Pacifica ink on White Daisy speech bubble.
4. Put the card together by adhering watercolour paper to the back of the honeycombed cover, and raise speech bubble up on foam tape.

Please leave a comment before you head off to the next blog on our hop, which is Mez's Craftroom.