Verve's Merry Wishes and Blog Hopping!

Day 3 of reveals and hopping with Verve's new Winter Collection 2010! I am SO enjoying seeing all of the wildly creative Verve Diva's artwork and the extreme creativity they possess! Using Julee's super fine designed stamps allows everyone to be able to make some gorgeousness! The proof is in this hop! In today's jaunt, I'm going to show you how I was inspired by this new set called "Merry Wishes". I found myself going back to this set several times due to the fact that the versatility in  these phrases allows so many possibilities!  Here is the card I designed using this set:

Here's a close-up of the snowflaked bow:

Possibly my most favorite color combination is black, white and red. What elegance it infers! And to me, so does the layering of beautiful shapes. I did a lot of experimenting with different Nestabilities shapes and layering with this one. (I mean A LOT!) This is what I came up with, in order from bottom to top:

• Labels One
• Lacey Square
• Fancy Scalloped Tag
• Labels Four
• Fancy Scalloped Tag
• Soon TBA die

 I made a border along the left side with my Optic Dots corner punch since {{gasp}} I don't own the border punch. The right side punches were made with Stampin' Up's Extra Large Photo corner punch. I made my own background paper with red and black ink and a cute holly berry stamp from this set.

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Merry Wishes (Verve)
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Basic Black, Whisper White (SU)
Ink: Riding Hood Red (SU), Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Labels One, Four, Lacey Squares & Fancy Tags Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders), Tulip collection ribbon rounds (CTMH), Snowflake & Optic Dots punches and Red Holiday gems (Martha Stewart), Extra Large Photo corners punch (SU), dimensionals
Size: 5 1/2" square


 Here is a card that I experimented with a big fat bow using Becca Feeken's Double tied bow tutorial:
 
 

And a shot of the sentiment panel:

Let me tell you that wired ribbon can be a life saver sometimes! I still think that this bow is too large for the card, but I'm trying to put the feelers outside my comfort zone. I used an Oval Nestability for the "Joy" sentiment and an SU word window punch for the "to the world" part. I attached the smaller sentiment with some SU gold cord that matched the trim on the ribbon.

Card Ingredients: 

Stamps:  Merry Wishes (Verve)
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Whisper White (SU) 
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Lacey Squares & Oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders), White wired gold trimmed ribbon (Caspari), Gold cord, Word Window Large punch (SU)
Size: 4 1/2" square

And for your viewing pleasure, here are the Divas that are participating in the hop today:

1. Charmaine
2. Michelle
3. Lynda
4. Jackie
5. Laurie
6. Mercy
7. Amy
8. Teresa
9. Sankari
10. Tosh
11. Susan
12. Amber
13. Andrea
14. Julee

Be sure to comment along the way while visiting all the Verve gals for a chance to win that day's featured stamp set!
Thanks for visiting and I'll be "seeing" you tomorrow with more Verve-y goodness, leading up to the Release party over at Splitcoast on Friday, October 29th at 9pm Eastern time! I can't wait to chat it up with everyone! Have a wonderfully creative day!