{YNS #51} 'Too Cute To Spook' Blog Hop & Release

Hi there and welcome to Your Next Stamp September release/blog hop and my YNS DT debut!! I am so excited to be joining this awesome little Canadian company..a big thanks to Karen for asking me to join her team:) I hope you enjoy what I have created for the release! I sure had fun making these cards;)
We are also combining the hop with YNS Challenge #51- Paper Piecing, so get your paper snips and scraps out and join in on the fun!

You should have arrived here from Dana's blog, but if you just stumbled over to my blog and want to start at the 'top of the hop', then go to Kerri's blog and you won't miss any stampy-goodness;) Trust me, this is a must-see release, filled with fun fall characters, cute critters and sweet spookables that will have you itching to make Autumn cards for everyone in your life! !
Today I have two cards to show you, the first featuring Handmade With Love. I am combining YNSC51 on this card...so keep your eyes peeled for some paper-pieced elements!

Isn't she cute? I think so:) I spy with my little eye: a paper-pieced sweater, hair bow (also popped up on a tiny pop-up dot) and table cloth! I stamped all the apple goodies, plus hands and fork) again on cs, colouring with copics and adding spica glitter pen, and adhered them to the 'top' of the tablecloth. The trick with paper-piecing is to make sure that your layers are as realistic as possible, so that things don't appear 'sunken'. For example, the little girls hands would naturally be in front of her shirt, so after I stamp and adhere the patterned paper sweater, I would stamp another set of cs hands and glue them to the top of the sweater. So the hands don't look sunken into the sweater..Get it? Same with the tablecloth. I didn't cut around the food with my patterned paper, but rather added the food to the top of the layer of patterned paper. Doing this makes sure that things appear to be in the right order. And it really does make a difference. If you have never done this technique and still don't quite understand, there are some awesome videos out there. This one by Joanne B is great!

Here is a close-up! I used some Verve dies for the paper/cork/button flower embellie, and the sentiment tags are cut from spellbinders. I stamped the 'Thankful' sentiment (one of three that comes with the set, as well as a few accessory stamps) in black ink.

For the inside, I left it pretty simple, just using scraps from the front. Plenty of room for a nice, personal message:)

For my second card, I used my personal favorite from this release, 'Apple Cutie'.

And here is a close-up of the apple embellie that I made! I used some small circle spellbinder dies, and cut them from a folded piece of red cs and patterned paper, trimmed the folded corners to give a more apple-y shape, inked the edges and embossed with cuttlebug folder. I did this because one side of the circle was nice and smooth, while the other was all rough looking from my well loved cutting plate. The embossing evened them out, and as a plus added some nice detail! The leaves and seeds were cut using an MFT dienamic and the stem was free cut. The fancy scalloped edge was cut using TCP's Big Scallop cutup, and the grass was cut using a TCP cutup as well. Her boots, eyes and the apples were coated with Crystal Effects glaze.

Awe- isn't she just the sweetest!? I thought she looked like a auburn-haired little muffin (E17,19,27), and in true red-headed style, a few prismacolour freckles were added (I find copic are hard to control and end up running a bitn into the light skin tones, so thats why I use pencil for my freckles).

Paying homage to me and my hubby's eternal fight over which is better: red apples (me) or green (him)...I decided to have both in my basket. Of course, we all know that red is best, but I am trying to be a peaceful soul lately and not rock any boats...so a mixed basket of apples it was!

 
The senitment that comes with this set was stamped on the inside, which again used up some of my cardfront scraps! And true to Jenny form, I smudged the inside;) I think it's my trademark! I am just gonna go with it! lol

Okay, no great blog hop is complete without a prize, so here it is! A selection of stamps from the new release!! Isn't Karen just the best?! So generous she is:) Just link up to any of the hoppers blogs (just once is all you need to do;)

 And guess what else? There is a sweet deal going on over at YNS! For every $30 you spend, Karen will throw in a free, surprise stamp!! Spend $60, get two..Spend $90, get three....Yippee! And with this being the cutest release EVER, you shouldn't have a problem earning yourself some free rubbah!

Now it's time to hop on over to one of our talented YNS guests,  Jen del Muro's blog!