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Hi Hollowers!

Welcome to our final launch post; we shall end the week with a craft room tour which I have split into three parts so stay tuned for that starting tomorrow!  After that normal service will be resumed next week; next Tuesday we will have a tutorials agin for you and our daily Facebook lives will continue.  Next week is ink week; each day we will focus on a different type with some tips and tricks thrown in too.  Without further ado i’m delighted to say I am part of Sizzix’s affiliate team; it is a dream come true to be affiliated with such a massive company and someone who has revolutionized the crafting world too.  I remember going to a trade show where the first die cutting machine was, back then we had a lever to push down nd for larger die you had to move it along and push down several time! Who else members this?

It’s only about 2 years ago when I finally got rid of mine! However, I did keep all the dies, they are still great basic shapes and I still get them out now and again! Of course our launch would not be complete without a giveaway so I have this lovely Sizzix stamp set to giveaway to you and this lovely lawn fawn ink pad too!  To enter just leave a comment on this post of what your favorite dies are before Midnight EST on March 15th 2017, a winner will be drawn at random and announced in Thursday Facebook live!

Who I was browsing the Sizzix site for something to make for you I found this gable gift box and I just knew it would look delightful with some flowers on it, however, it being me I wasn’t content with using these beautiful hydrangeas in a conventional way! I decided to grab my distress oxides and try something a little different…of course! The first side I made with the re-inkers, this gives you more intense and brighter colors; I decided to use blues and pinks as these are the core colors; I vividly remember my grandfather going out and buying the appropriate skill enhancers for each spot around the garden so he got a variety of colors of hydrangea bushes (they give you different colors depending on where the soil is alkaline or acidic!).  So here is picture one (left is this technqiue, right is below)…

On the other side I worked with my distress oxide pads using the same approach but adding in some green and purple too I made this alternative hydrangea; I then used some tone on tone stamping and some black fine detail embossing powder to finish it off (left is this technique, right is the one above)…

Each side was edge using the vintage photo oxide pad, it still gives the lovely aged look on the edges but its a more delicate finish.  You could use either but I wanted to keep with the oxide theme!  Finally I edged some basic shapes dies I have with oxides to blend them in with the hydrangeas.  Of course you need a tutorial video to step you through each step so here we go…(NB. I made a mistake while filming, it went horribly wrong but I decided to go with it and show you my rescue because it happens to you too sometimes…doesn’t it?)

I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed the making process, it’s pretty inky but great fun!  I hope we have inspired you to grab some distress oxides and try your own, Simon Says Stamp still has them in stock (as of writing this post) and you can still use the code ‘LEAP’ for $5 off (thats nearly one pad for free!).  Remember you need to enter the code under your shopping cart, check out last week Facebook lives if you are unsure where to enter it, we walked you through exactly where it is.


Thank you so much for following along our launches, we really appreciate each and every one of you, every time you shop please remember to use the banners on our sidebar so they know you came from the Hollow and would like our tutorials to continue, I also wanted to remind you they are affiliate links which I explained in this post.  Thank you again for your support of the Hollow, we wouldn’t be here without our loyal followers, and if you just found us welcome, we hope you will join us again soon!

Happy stamping!