Verve Winter Release Blog Hop...Day 1

Welcome to Verve's Winter release celebration blog hop! I am so excited to show you all the wonderful stamps that I have had the priveledge to work with over the last few weeks and give you some sneaky peeks at all these festive sets that Julee has designed. All of the super talented Verve Divas and my humble self will be previewing new stamp sets all week long. Now let's get to the good stuff!

This first card was made with a Plain Jane stamp called "Christmas Blessings". This beautiful font made me think of a vintage Christmas scene and I had remembered that I had this wonderful paper with this old time sepia drawing of St. Nick:

Here's a close-up of the sentiment on a new Scallop Tag stamp (a very early sneak peek):

And oh my, how did I cut out that adorable tag? You'll see....

 And the pretty Prima Poinsettia floral focal piece for that obligatory splash of color:

For this card, I used Mistletoe dp by Memory box and distressed the edges, then sponged them with some Vintage Photo distress ink for that "worn out" look. I also added a little sponging to the St. Nick image and its matting to match the rest of the card. The image was part of a 12" X 12" paper that had random vintage pictures on it, so I just cut out the drawing of Mr. Claus. The photo corners are from Close to My Heart and the burlap strip is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Christmas Blessing (Verve Plain Jane), Sweet Scallop Tag (Verve)
Paper: Mistletoe (Memory Box), St. Nick paper (DCWV), Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla (SU)
Ink: Antique Linen, Walnut Stain & Vintage Photo Distress inks (Ranger)
Accessories: Sweet Scallop Tag Die (Verve), Burlap (Really Reasonable Ribbon), Doily Lace border punch (Martha Stewart), Poinsettia & Leaf (Prima), Foundry Flourishes & Hemp twine (CTMH), Vintage button (PTI), edge distresser, dimensionals, daubers
Size: 5 1/2" square

Winter Mittens
For this card, I cut out 2 Lacey Circle Nestabilities in both Night of Navy and Kraft. I stacked them one on top of the other and then layered a Very Vanilla circle onto that. Next I added another smaller Lacey Circle and a second smaller circle for my sentiment and placed it on top. The heart is a cute little stamp that I just circled around the sentiment circle. The gems around the sentiment are placed on top of a snappy button stamp also included in the set. I love the way Julee mixes fonts on the phrase stamps. I know that design really catches my eye:

And a little close-up of the blue gems and fancy saying:

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Winter Mittens (Verve)
Paper: Snowflake Blue dp (Daisy D's), Night of Navy, Very Vanilla (SU), Kraft (PTI)
Ink: Night of Navy (SU)
Accessories: Lacey Circle & Plain Circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders), blue gems (Icons), Waterfall Stickles (Ranger), Putty craft seam binding (Martha Stewart), button (CTMH), Linen thread & dimensionals (SU)
Size: 5 1/2" square

Holiday Phrases
My last card for today comes from a set called "Holiday Phrases", appropriately enough. I had made a lot of intricate cards and one night while surfing around the web, my brain told my hands to deliver this fabulous CAS card to me. So I accepted it. This card took me less than 10 minutes to make, but I think, has a very striking effect:

Another little close up of the glitzed out poinsettia leaves:

Not a lot to this card, I punched out the window with a Stampin' Up! large label punch and stamped the sentiment inside the card. The poinsettias are from Prima and I attached them randomly with some leaves and pearl centers.

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Holiday Phrases (Verve)
Paper: Whisper White (SU)
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Prima Poinsettia flowers & leaves, Large Label punch (SU), Pearls (Martha Stewart)
Size: 4 1/4" X 5 1/2"

Now you HAVE to check out what the Divas have been up to as well so here is a list of today's hoppers:

1. Lynda
2. Michelle
3. Mercy
4. Amy
5. Shannan
6. Laurie
7. Teresa
8. Sankari
9. Tosh
10. Susan
11. Amber
12. Jen d.
13. Andrea (you are here!)
14. Julee

Be sure to leave some blog love on the posts you visit for a chance to win that day's featured set!
Julee will be giving away the featured stamps from each day to one random commenter.  The cut-off for the comments is Friday at 7 pm Eastern. Winners will be announced at the Release Party Friday night!

Thanks for hanging in for such a long post, I have LOTS of Verve goodness to share with you along the way this week.
Have a great day and thanks so much for visiting!