Simon Says Stamp "This Is The Life" Blog Hop and Giveaway

Happy Friday everyone and welcome to the Simon Says Stamp "This Is The Life" Release Blog Hop!

If you'd like to join us for our exciting hop, then it starts over at the Simon Says Stamp blog but if you're already hopping along, then you will have arrived here, from Jo Nevill's lovely blog.

I'm so excited about all the fabulous new designs in this release and in my opinion, they are all a definite "must have" for your crafty stash and there is something for everyone! For the card that I'm sharing with you today, I was lucky enough to be able to work with the gorgeous Chevron Cloud Dies and the Petite Butterflies Dies and I combined these dies, together with a couple of other products from today's new release. I hope you love what I've created...

To create my background, I applied some Distress Stains to a craft sheet, which I then spritzed with water before "swooshing" my cardstock through it to pick up all the ink. Once the background was dry, I mounted it onto some cardstock and attached it to my kraft card blank.

The Chevron Clouds are die cut from Centura Pearl cardstock which I then attached to my cloudy sky background using various depths of foam pads.

Now, for those gorgeous butterflies ~ I used the medium sized and smallest dies to die cut multiple layers from vellum and vintage paper. I then inked the vellum with Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink before layering the vellum and the vintage paper, alternately to give these dimensional butterflies.

I attached my kaleidoscope of butterflies onto the front of my card and added small pearls to the centres of each of their bodies.

The final touch was to use the frame die, which I cut from some of the leftover inked card and I stamped the quote onto the scalloped oval and added it to my card with some wrinkle ribbon, that I hand dyed using Squeezed Lemonade Distress Stain.

To complete the card, I added some paper string and a couple of decorative pins to the bow.

***GIVEAWAY TIME***

To celebrate the new release, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a prize pack at every stop on the hop and all you have to do to win one of these fabulous prizes is to leave a comment on each of the blog posts, including mine, as you hop along. The giveaways for the goody bags will close at 6:00pm EST on Thursday July 17th, 2014. A complete list of winners will be posted on the Simon blog on Friday 18th July, 2014!

Your next stop on the "This Is The Life" hop is the talented Kelly Booth

See you all soon and thanks for hopping by today!

Emma xo

PRODUCTS USED TO MAKE MY BLOG HOP CARD

Simon Says Stamp Dies ~ Chevron Clouds, Petite Butterflies and Frames

Simon Says Stamp Stamp ~ Life's Journey

Distress Stains ~ Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Picket Fence, Squeezed Lemonade and Brushed Pewter

Distress Ink ~ Squeezed Lemonade

White Woodgrain Cardstock

Authentique Vintage Paper

Simon Says Stamp Card Stock Sea Glass

Ranger Inkssentials Speciality Stamping Paper

Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Paper String

May Arts White Wrinkled Ribbon

Bazzill Vellum

Crafter's Companion Centura Pearl Snow White Card

Black Archival Ink

Ranger Large Mister Bottle

Melissa Frances Cream Pearls

Decorative Pins from my own stash