fir & foliage no. 2

Welcome to the first day of product reveals for our first ever holiday collection. I’m so excited that my favorite crafting season is here again!

All of the products being introduced on the blog this week will be available for purchase in The Shop, beginning at 10am EDT on Friday, October 4.

Let’s meet today’s new products…

Christmas Eve stamps & dies

Christmas Eve, the most wonderful night of the year! This nostalgic stamp set includes a beautiful multi-step church image along with several different scene-building elements. Add a bit of glow to the church windows by stamping them in yellow ink. String the garlands between the trees or the street lamps, or consider nestling the church in snowy hills cut with the Drifting die. The retro vehicles and family of silhouettes add even more charm to this set!

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This layering and multi-step stamp set comes with a printed full-color stamping guide.
Sentiments include:
silent night
holy night
merry christmas (two styles – garland and traditional sentiment)
Approximate sizes:
assembled church – 2.1″ x 2.5″
longer car – 1.75″ x .5″
shorter car – 1.5″ x .5″
tree – 1″ x 1.75″
street lamp – .4″ x 1.25″
ball garland – 3.5″ x .75″
man silhouette – .4″ x .75″
silent night sentiment – 1″ x .5″
merry christmas sentiment – 1.6″ x .6″

Fir & Foliage No. 2 stamps & dies

The beautiful tree images in the Fir & Foliage series come to life as you stamp them! Fir & Foliage No. 2 features beautiful evergreen trees in three sizes. Each tree consists of 3 layered steps, making for an lovely, realistic image that was adapted directly from watercolor artwork. The optional trunks can be used to give the trees a different look.

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This layering and multi-step stamp set comes on a 6″ x 8″ sheet and includes a printed full-color stamping guide.
Approximate sizes:
large tree – 2.3″ x 3.7″
medium tree – 1.8″ x 2.8″
small tree – 1.1″ x 2.1″

Tree Trimmings stamps & dies

The Tree Trimmings stamp set is designed to coordinate with the Fir & Foliage No. 2 stamp set. Use these images to decorate the beautiful evergreens from Fir & Foliage No. 2 and create an enchanted holiday wonderland! Perfect for both focal points and scene building. Experiment with heat embossing using metallic powders for a truly elegant look. Combine these with the matching dies to add lots of dimension to your designs!

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This stamp set comes on a 4″ x 6″ sheet and includes a printed full-color stamping guide.
Sentiments included:
May your Christmas be filled with light & love
Merry Christmas & happy new year
deck the halls & be merry.
Approximate sizes:
large tree embellishment 2″ x 3.75″
medium tree embellishment – 1.5 x 3″
small tree embellishment – 1″ x 2″
large single star – .6″
small single star – .3″
deck the halls… sentiment – 2″ x .6″
may your Christmas be… sentiment – 3.1″ x .6″

Frosty Flakes Stencil Collection

Add some pretty and delicate snow crystals to your next project using the Frosty Flakes stencil set. This set of two stencils is perfect for creating frames and backgrounds. The larger stencil in the set features an all-over background of falling flakes, while the smaller stencil is sized perfectly for creating a snowy frame on an A2 card.
Approximate sizes:
background stencil – 5.5″ x 5.5″ (design area), 6.5″ x 6.5″ (overall stencil size)
frame stencil – 4.25″ x 5.5″ (design area), 5.25″ x 6.5″ (overall stencil size)

Frosty Corners Die

Create beautiful and delicate frosty corners, frames, and accents with the Frosty Corners die! The mirror-image corners are perfect for using on an A2 card front. Use two at just the top or bottom of your card, or place them on all four corners for a dramatic and beautiful look. Fill the center of your beautiful frame with a pretty focal point, such as the large tree from our Fir & Foliage No. 2 set for gorgeous holiday cards. The set also contains two individual snowflakes along with a collection of tiny confetti-like stars and snow crystals.

Set of 12 dies, wired together.
Approximate sizes:
corners – 2.25″ x 2″
large flake – 1.4″ x 1.6″
small flake – 1″ x .85″
tiny assorted flakes – .4″ – .2″

Drifting Die

Cut layers of snowy hills using our Drifting die! The graceful pierced detailing is reminiscent of swirling snow, and adds a a pretty finishing touch to these snowy hills. Try nestling our Fir & Foliage No. 2 trees, or the church from Christmas Eve among the hills. When you get tired of the cold, you can use this die for other applications as well. Paired with your favorite floral images they’ll take on a whole new, elegant look! These dies are sized to span the entire 5.5″ width of an A2 card.

Set of 2 dies, wired together.
Approximate sizes: – 5.5″ x 1.5″ each

To aid in your list-making and planning, below you will find the prices for today’s products.

• Christmas Eve 6″ x 8″ stamp set – $24
• Christmas Eve die – $23
• Fir & Foliage No. 2 – 6″ x 8″ stamp set – $24
• Fir & Foliage No. 2 die – $18
• Tree Trimmings 4″ x 6″ stamp set – $15
• Tree Trimmings die – $19
• Frosty Flakes 2 pc. stencil collection – $9
• Frosty Corners die – $14
• Drifting die – $16

I’m ready to share some projects – are you ready?! There are a lot of products to showcase today, but they all coordinate so well! I have lots of projects to show you!

This first card is a simple one-layer card that uses the new Christmas Eve set. It’s an easy to create, one-layer card that would be great for mass producing. I put a video together (see below) that shows how easy it is to stamp that beautiful multi-step church. I make just one card in my video, but if you were to follow the same steps to stamp multiples, they would come together really quickly! I did not make this card prior to the video, so you’ll hear me say about halfway through that the card is almost finished, but clearly I just kept going and adding details. 😉 I also added some glitter to the trees, windows, and snowflakes post-video. All Christmas cards should have a touch of glitter, don’t you think?

Here is the video for you…

The next two cards are the ones I shared in the sneak peek. I’m a huge fan of all the colors, but sometimes a subtle color palette can be almost more striking than loads of color. Here I chose to stick to a bluish-gray neutral palette, that really lets that pretty church shine…almost literally! It looks like it’s glowing in the frosty countryside. This was done by stamping the windows with yellow ink, shaded with a deeper orange, just like I did in the video above. The snowflake design along the top was done using the new Frosty Flakes stencil. I simply watercolored over it. If you’d like to try this, it’s super easy, just make sure to use a stencil adhesive, such as Pixie Spray, which will keep your stencil in place and give your watercoloring more definition by preventing the watercolor from seeping too much under the stencil. I used the two banners from the Christmas Eve set to layer over the top. I also used two trees from the Fir & Foliage No. 2 set to finish off my scene. The snow drifts were of course done with the new Drifting die. Several of you commented on the paper’s texture in the sneak peek photo. That is actually just inexpensive watercolor paper – the Master’s Touch brand from Hobby Lobby. Although I don’t recommend it for actual watercolor painting that involves layering and blending, I love it for basic things like I did here, or card backgrounds because I love the texture and how white the paper is.

My next card sticks to the same color palette, and uses the same watercolor/stencil technique across the top. I used the largest tree from the Fir & Foliage No. 2 set along with the Tree Trimming set. I heat embossed the garland for the largest tree using gold embossing powder. I also used one of the sentiments from the Tree Trimmings set, also embossed in gold. This was a pretty quick card to do, and is another one that could be mass produced without wondering “what have I done??” by the 10th card. 🙂

My next card uses the Christmas Eve set for a soft and pretty pastel winter scene. I stamped the tree from the Christmas Eve set, and also the smallest tree from Fir & Foliage No. 2 in shades of pink. The church was also stamped in shades of pink, with glowing windows once again. Our Pathway stencil is a great companion to the Christmas Eve set. I used it here to sponge a soft gray pathway for the small figures from the Christmas Eve set. Do you recognize them? It’s our sweet family from the Hand in Hand set…in a much smaller scale, and silhouette form instead of outlines. I also added some winter gear to them so they’re decked out in hats and scarves. The pretty Frosty Corners die finishes off the top of the card.

My next card uses Fir & Foliage No. 2 and Tree Trimmings set. I added the little girl from the Hand in Hand set, which worked out just perfect! I was so excited about this discovery! The little boy from Hand in Hand would work as well. Wouldn’t that make a sweet card set? I watercolored a golden background for those pretty trees. I added some of the individual snowflakes from the Frosty Corners die, and a sentiment from the Tree Trimmings set. The garlands were heat embossed with gold, and embellished with red Nuvo Drops.

My next card uses the medium tree from the Fir & Foliage No. 2 set, embellished with a Tree Trimmings garland. This time I added one of the trunks from the Fir & Foliage No. 2 set for a bit of a different look. I created a simple scene inside the Halfsies: Diamond die using the tree and a couple of layers cut with the Drifting die. I also stenciled some snowflakes using the all over snowflake stencil from the Frosty Flakes stencil set and embossing paste. Another fun thing I discovered while creating my projects is that the Frosty Corners die layers just perfectly over the Halfsies Diamond die! The sentiment I used here is from a new Sentiment Suite set that you’ll be seeing more of later this week.

You all probably know by now that I just love creating scene cards. The Fir & Foliage sets are perfect accessories for your scene cards, and I’m just tickled to have these pine trees in our line up. Here I paired them with the barn from the Harvest Home set to create this dreamy winter scene. I started by adding a little blue watercolor to a panel of watercolor paper. I then stamped some of the Fir & Foliage No. 2 trees directly onto the background, allowing the texture of the watercolor paper to show through. I added some Drifting hills along the bottom, and also stenciled a road using our Pathway stencil. I finished if off by layering diecut trees from Fir & Foliage No. 2, and the barn and the tiny fences from Harvest Home. The scene wouldn’t be complete without snow flying, so I stenciled some using the Frosty Flakes stencil and embossing paste.

I just had so much fun creating scenes using the Christmas Eve set. I knew from the start that I wanted to try and create a watercolored night sky to pair with the “Silent Night, Holy Night” sentiment. I used some intense blue watercolors, but also some golden shades behind the church to give a sort of glowing look. I used the “windows only” die to cut the windows of the church this time. I once again used the Pathway Stencil for my little figures heading to the Christmas Eve service. Their cars are parked out front, along with a couple of the adorable little street lamps from the set.

My final card for today uses the pretty trees from today’s sets in a different way. For this Northern Lights night sky card, I used the smallest tree from the Fir & Foliage No. 2 set and the tree from Christmas Eve, which is just a bit smaller than the smallest one from the Fir & Foliage set. I used both the base (most solid layer), and the second step of the layers to stamp the row of trees. Using the second layer alone gives the trees a different look…they almost look like they’re covered in snow. The sky was done with watercolor. I added lots of white splatters to give the look of snow and stars. I also added the snowflakes and tiny crystals and stars from the Frosty Corners die. The sentiment is from the Tree Trimmings set, and is just perfect for this scene. My favorite part of this card might be the shadows in the “snow” at the base of the trees. I think it adds the perfect finishing touch and makes if feel very dimensional.

Now that you’ve gotten to meet all of today’s new products and see them in action, you can “greet” them for a chance to win a $50 gift card! Read on for details…

• Comment here on the blog for one entry (one comment per person)
• Comment on our Inspiration Team Members’ blogs for more entries (one comment per person, per blog)
• Comments close at Midnight EDT on Thursday, October 3
• Winners will be posted at 7am ET on Friday, October 4 here on the blog

Without further ado, here is what our amazing Inspiration Team has to share with you today!
(click on the images to visit their blogs, or click HERE if viewing this post via email)

Thank you so much for visiting I sincerely hope you enjoyed today’s products and projects as much as I enjoyed creating them! I hope you’ll stop back to see what we have up our sleeves for tomorrow!