 Hey there, it's Sandy Allknock. I am sharing the new Colorado Craft Company release. I missed the blog hop a couple of weeks ago. A long story on that one, but they want me to share a little fun deal. It's written up over on the blog, so make sure you check that out. But I wanted to show you some cards that I made with these beachy stamps showing how not to make them beachy. So let's get started. Since I'm working with colored pencil today, I thought I'd break out something. I just got myself a black wing pencil sharpener. And this one is a bit unique. It's a little more expensive than others. It's, I think it was like $16, $17 and it comes with extra blades. So basically you get a couple of sharpeners in one, but it's a two-step sharpener. It takes quite a while to get this thing working with your pencils because it needs to be in the right shape. So the first hole gets the whole point into the right shape to make it a nice long point. And when it comes out of the sharpener, it has a really funky end on it because the very tip goes straight. It's only sharpening that the rest of that. It's sharpening basically the wood. And then you put it in the other hole. And that's when it starts sharpening the lead and making that really pointy. I had trouble doing this with my colored pencils. This one's made, I believe, for their graphite pencils. So I do want to try it on those. I want to see if there's a difference in how hard or easy it is. But holy cow is that a sharp point. I really like this one also because it's really small. And I wanted it to be able to travel with me and be in a kit and that sort of thing. But I will report back later with my assessment of how good it is or isn't. But I took a quite, quite a long time to sharpen all my pencils for these projects. So this one is the stamp set with the bunnies on the beach. And I put sweaters on the rabbits. Dad has a vest and mom has sleeves. Dad had glasses in his hand and I'm gonna have to draw them back in later. So yeah, when you start coloring over things, you lose some of the elements. You could put a cup of coffee in his hand, which would be easier to draw than a pair of glasses. Because it was just way too hard to go around them with the color. But their chairs have a little bit of fall checkerboard pattern on them. I thought that would be kind of fallish for them. And then the baby bunnies are supposed to be under an umbrella on the beach with all their beachy toys. But I decided to give them leaves instead. So a giant pile of leaves. You can use this kind of technique with a lot of your different stamps, put down a bunch of different colors and clump them like keep them in little clusters rather than making polka dots. Some dark colors, some light colors, leave some yellow opening so you have some bright color and then use a blending solution and blending stump to mush it around a bit. When you have all those clumped colors, it really does look like leaves. When I was using the implied line technique for these cards, I have to use my pencils and get really close to those edges. Since I don't have a black line, I stamped it in a very light line, which implies there's lines there, but there's not actually stamped lines there. And it ends up looking like a drawing as opposed to looking like it's got stamps in it. So that's what I'm kind of doing here is mushing it all around and getting close to El Bunnies. This one was super fun. I did give mom some glasses as well, put them on her face and drew dad's glasses back in. I just put two lines down for the glass and then handles on them. And then some leaves falling from the sky. So I got to get this onto a card. If I get it on a card before I leave for my vacation, I will have it on the blog. I'm doing this video before I leave and I'm kind of in a frantic panic to get ready to go see mom. So there will be more information on the blog, including some stuff from CCC. So be sure to check that out and find out what the deal is that's going on right now. So for this stamp set, it was one stamp set that had a whole bunch of animals in a row and they all had beachy things in their hands or their paws, I guess. And I just replaced them with Christmas packages and a gift bag. And I made the, I think that was a fishing net. I just turned that into a banner with a Christmas tree on it. And I didn't spend time filming all of this because this was a couple of hours worth of coloring for all these critters. They have jackets and sweaters and vests and hats. It was a blast. I felt like I was playing dress up with paper dolls or something. Super fun. You can do this with any stamp set, make them Christmas characters. And if you do, then tag me and let me know. I have one more to show you that is a bit easier than these. These were very complex images, but the cats in those three sets are pretty simple. So I stamped three of the cats and then I stamped the other two cats in between. The only thing I masked off was that one little paw that had a crab, I think in it, because I didn't want to crab in this. But then I stamped the sea items, all the little tiny stamps. I stamped one on each one of them on their chest. So I could draw sweaters. Oh my gosh, crazy cats in Christmas sweaters. I kind of picture them maybe they're performing a show for Christmas or something. That might be it. It was just it was a hoot to think about putting little dress up costumes on them. So I just had a good time. I don't know about you, but I tell stories to myself while I'm drawing things and I talk to the characters that are on there. So I've given them hats and then I colored some of the items on their shirts and then color the cats themselves. None of this required masking because when I get to the cat's tails, I can just decide which one's going to be in front, which one's going to be in back. And that way they can have all their hands intertwined. Some will have their one paw in front and one will have it in the back, that sort of thing. And then I flattened out the bottom of all their feet because I wanted their feet to be standing in the snow, like it's deep snow. I put a little heavy line across each of their feet to make it look like there's a hole there where they're standing. And then I added a snow line in the back that's higher above their foot line. So it looks like there's some snow behind them. And that let me have room to put a little shadow just a very light shadow underneath of each of their bodies. And that cute. Oh my gosh, too much fun. Cats in sweaters. I don't know what they're doing. Maybe you can tell me in the comments what the cats are doing. Are they having a party? Are they performing? Are they just celebrating? I don't know. But go see if I made cards out of them by now on the blog. And I will see you guys later. Go get a deal from CCC. And I'll see you next week.