Cozy Hugs Blog Hop

Hello my friends!!

Welcome to the Simon Says Stamp Cozy Hugs Release Blog Hop, day 2! Thank you so much for stopping by. I’m so excited to be a part of this wonderful hop and I’m happy to share with you what I created for it! Let me start off by sharing the important stuff first.

FREE GIFT: While supplies last, use code COZY with any $75 or more purchase and receive the Simon’s Giant Hugs Card Wrap for free!! This promotion will expire on October 9 at 11:59pm EDT.

GIVEAWAY: Simon is giving away a $25 gift card to every stop on the hop from the comment section. So leave a comment at each stop to increase your chances of winning. The winners will be announced on the Simon Says Stamp blog on October 12th.

MORE INSPIRATION: Be sure to check out day 1 of the Cozy Hugs Blog Hop AND Simon’s blog galleries for tons of inspiration.

Cozy Hugs Release: Click HERE to see the entire new release.

If you hopped all the way here then you should have just came from the very talented Jean Doeringsfeld. Isn’t her work darling? If you haven’t arrived here from Jean’s blog, then you can start at the Simon Says Stamp Blog and work your way around. Your next stop will be Diane Morales who is also a fellow design team member of the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog.

Ok, so now let me share with you what I created! I’ve also created a video tutorial for your viewing pleasure.

I used the Batty For You stamp set. This is such a cool set because if you get the coordinating dies, you can make the wings flap! I didn’t have the die but I’ll show you how I made it work anyway.

I started out by making my backgrounds. I didn’t have the Circle Masks Stencil so I had to create my own. I have stencil material on hand so I just used one of my circle dies and cut out a circle. I ink blended distress oxide inks on an A2 size panel of Bristol Smooth card stock.

I ink blended Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness and Black Soot. Then I splattered water and black paint onto my background.

For the orange background I blended Carved Pumpkin, Ripe Persimmon and Black Soot. I also splattered this background with water and black paint and then I decided to emboss this orange background with the Kaleidoscope embossing folder just to add a different element. I set both background aside and started in on my bats.

So when you purchase the coordinating dies, you’ll also get instructions on how to put the bats together. I stamped the bat and wings twice and then an extra “body silhouette” as the instructions say to do for each bat. I colored each bat the same with my copic markers and fussy cut out all the pieces. Then I went around the edge of all pieces with a Memento Tuxedo Black marker to hide any imperfections in my fussy cutting.

I took the silhouette body and I measured 2cm across the chest which looked to be about where the holes would be if I had the die. I punched the holes into the silhouette.

I overlapped the wings using the silhouette as my guide and pierced a hole directly in the center of the wings where they were layered and what appeared to be the center of the silhouette. Then I swapped the wings to the back of the silhouette and since I had my holes in the silhouette, I simply drew a circle or marked the spot through the holes on the silhouette onto the wings directly behind the silhouette so I knew where to puncture the holes on the wings.

I layered the wings on top of each other to match up the center holes and then I looped some string through.

I placed the wings on top of the silhouette and attached the outer holes on the wing with the holes on the silhouette using black brads. The nice thing about getting the coordinating dies is you also receive 50 small brads.

I made sure the brads were loose enough for the wings to move around freely and then I tied a little knot in the string, also loose enough for the wings to move so that the wings wouldn’t try separating when I pulled or pushed the string.

I then took some foam squares and doubled them up so they were a bit higher and I placed them in areas of the silhouette body where they wouldn’t interfere with the wing movement. I’m not sure if it was because I didn’t have the dies or because my string was not stiff enough but in order to be able to push my string to get the wings to come back down, I decided to add a little hot glue on the string, below where I tied my knot, to make my string more firm.

Once I was happy with my working mechanism, I adhered the second body on top of the foam squares. I trimmed my ink blended panel down to 4″x5.25″ and attached it to a black A2 panel and then attached the entire panel to a side folding white card base. The green card I trimmed down a tad more so that I could have a white border around the black panel. Before attaching the bats to my backgrounds, I added one more layer of foam squares on the back of the whole bat so that the wings would come off the card a bit. Both sentiments are also from the Batty For You stamp set. I added a few Onyx Crystals on both cards and called it a day!

That’s it for me! I just want to thank you again for hopping along. You’re almost done. Don’t forget to leave a comment at each stop to increase your chances of winning a $25 gift card to Simon Says Stamp and be sure to check out Simon’s Galleries where you’ll find all kinds of inspiration.

Take care ~

Misty