[Music] hello it's kentley Marie Alvarez here from lonon with a video for Simon Says Stamp today we are so excited to be introducing our brand new set Christmas in the desert Christmas in the desert is a part of Simona stamps exclusive stamptember event and is only available for a limited time this set has a stamp set coordinating dieses and coloring stencils so let's go ahead and check it out first we're going to take a look at the stamp set and this fic box with the little reindeer antlers I mean it's so cute next up we have a Road Runner who's got a string of lights all wrapped around him that just makes me smile this turtle with the bow around his shell is just too sweet and then we have a snake with a little Santa hat we also have a cactus that is decked out for the holidays with a string of lights all around it and then some other things that you can use to decorate we have these cute little hanging ornaments that you can hang off of the arms of the cactus we also have some fun things for setting the scene we have this little little potted plant with a little bow around it the perfect gift for these cute desert Critters and then we have some little piles of sand with a little present inside and then we also have a sand that's got a little candy cane too we have this little tree topper with a star that's perfect for putting on top of the cactus and then a little Trio of presents too and there's that sand with the candy cane in it oh my gosh it just makes me smile and then we have a little extra pile of sand that helps set the scene we have a larger Santa hat that's perfect for putting on top of the cactus and then some tiny Santa hats that you can add to the critters or you can also add them to the arms of the cactus too and it's really really cute we have some fun tiny little phrases that oh my gosh they just make me giggle we have I got you a point Setia then we also have TI the season to celbrate then we have we hiss you a Merry Christmas perfect for the snake and then we have deck the cactus which is perfect for our Cactus with the string of lights all around it and then we also have Fel naad then we have some larger mix and match sentiment so that you can create the perfect sentiment for your card so first up we have may your Christmas be then we have have a and then we also have you desert up for a really fun pun and then you can mix and match it with the word either Mary or also sansational if you want to add some more puns in there and then you can use the phrase Christmas after that so may your Christmas be Sensational or you desert a sensational Christmas you can really mix and match them to create the perfect sentiment for your card now it's time to add some color to these super fun images and here you'll see this is actually Rebecca here in the office coloring and her coloring is some of the most beautiful coloring that I've ever seen so you guys are in for a treat here and here we're going to be adding some color to this adorable fenic Fox and I just love these desert Critters so much the Road Runner with the string of lights I mean it's just the cutest thing this makes for such a unique and sweet Christmas card that would just make anybody smile so here you can see we're adding some color to that cute little headband with the reindeer ears and now we're going to add some color to this fun Road Runner and I always like to do part of him in brown and then I always do a little bit of the blue as a nod to the road runner from the cartoons I just think it looks so cute and then of course those Christmas lights you can play around with any colors you could do bold holiday colors or you could do red and white or you can do a little bit more of like these soft pastels like we're doing here next up we're going to work on that Turtle who is so super cute and you'll see that Rebecca is laying down a light color first to kind of help wet the paper and then she's coming in with her medium to add a little bit of the highlight and then she's blending that out with the lightest color and by adding that lighter color down first it makes it a little bit easier to blend the colors because the paper is already wet and so now we can work our day down from medium into light and to get these soft more like pastely type colors you can really bring in some nice light markers and leave some white areas like you can see we left kind of around the chin of the turtle and on his legs and by using the lightest possible Brown marker there it really gives him this beautiful highlight that's so pretty now we're going to use these fun yellows here for this cute little snake and then coming in with a darker marker and adding some little dots give some really fun texture to these Critters next up we're going to work on the cactus and we're using the same shades of green again so that way everything's going to coordinate so that shade of green we used on the Christmas lights we used on the turtle shell and now we're using it on the cactus we just brought in a little bit of a darker marker just to add a little bit of a darker look to the cactus than the turtle shell but everything is in those same Shades which is so pretty and then we'll do the same thing for the Christmas light so we're going to use those same really pretty pastel colors that we use for the lights around the reindeer around the cactus and we're going to be inspired by these pastel lights to create this whole next interactive card that I'm going to make in just a little bit so now we're going to use those same markers there onto those hanging ornaments and then now it's time to color in the sand and so we're going to use these same shades of brown here on all of the sand so once you have your brown markers out you might as well color in all of the sand right so that's what we're going to do here and you can see how pretty that is looking now once again we're bringing in those same greens so once you got the markers on your desk you can go ahead and bring in those same greens those same Reds so that everything's going to coordinate so beautifully on the card and I just love how these guys are looking and by leaving those nice really light areas it really gives such a pretty highlight this is just so beautiful I love seeing the coloring come to life in this fast motion it's just so much fun next up we're going to start working on all of the presents and deciding what color to color the present sometimes I'm like oh what should I do well the best thing to do is just look at your desk and see what markers you have out that you used for other things and so in this case we're going to color all the bows red because it just feels classic and then we're going to use the same Blues from the Road Runner on one of the presents and then we're going to use The Pastels from the lights on the presents now when we did this the pastal presents looked a little bit too bright for everything else so you can just go over those presents with a light warm gray marker and that will dull out the colors and help it blend in so if you ever color something too bright don't forget to take out a light gray marker go over your colors and it'll be the perfect thing for your card and so now that we have all of the coloring done it's time to work with the coordinating dieses so these are the coordinating dieses which you can bend apart at the tabs or use your wire sniffs to separate then you can take the dieses and line them up with your stamped images hold it in place with some low Tac tape run it through the D cut machine and and you'll have perfectly cutout images every time and here are all of these adorable images look at them I love that there's so many so that you can mix and match and create your perfect holiday desert scenes and here are some ways to mix and match those you can hang the ornaments from the cactus add the star or the Santa hat on top of the cactus those tiny Santa hats are perfect for adding on top of the critters but also for adding on the cactus arms too and then here you can see how you can mix and match your Critters to create the cutest scene you could do something with just one Critter in the cactus or you can bring all of the friends in to create just the most adorable holiday cards they just make me smile now these are the coloring stencils and if you've never used a coloring stencil before make sure to check out lon's intro to coloring stencil video we'll link it in the description below the Christmas in the desert stencils have four in the set and you can see there is a stencil for every single image in the set these are also designed to be a 4in by 6in size which means they're the exact size of the stamp set so they will store with your stamp set no matter how you organize all of your favorite sets now these stencils have these awesome etched guidelines in them that make it super easy for lining up with your stamped image then all I need to do is just brush on my favorite ink to add color to my cute images so here I'm using some celery stick ink to add a beautiful green onto my Cactus then you can see I can move the stencil away and I have my beautiful Green Cactus and now I'm going to work my way down the stencil filling in all of these cute Christmas lights so you'll see we have the cute Christmas light separated so you can add lots of different colors so that you can create a cute rainbow of Christmas lights so now I'm going to line it up again I'm going to add some peacock ink I used some sunflower ink and lobster ink so many fun colors that I just love now we're going to add some uh sugar plum on there and then now some pizza crust here for the sand and these stencils are so quick and easy and I love the beautiful look that it gets you can also get a really gorgeous shaded detail with just one color of ink here I'm using some carrot ink and look at that snake isn't he just beautiful I'm using lobster for the hat and I love that beautiful shading that I can get in seconds with the coloring stencil so whether you love to color with markers or you love to stencil you're going to love stenciling with these I am such a marker person and I love these stencils so much they are so much fun to use so now for this cute little Road Runner I added some pizza crust to his main body and then for his wing I added some peacock and now for these little Christmas lights I'm going to go in and do a little Rainbow of Christmas lights to kind of match the rainow of coloring that I did earlier and now you can see how adorable these images look aren't they just so much fun so I just love that you can use these coloring stencils to add most gorgeous color to all of your projects and right now we are going to start working on an awesome interactive swivel surprise card and here you can see we were kind of playing around with the design and my son miles he's four years old and he was helping me decide exactly how we were going to design this card but we're gonna start off by working on the mechanism so what we need to do for this is cut down some pattern paper so this is the outside end Stitch rectangles and this is the largest one and we're die cutting some of this brand new Candy Cane Lane paper that is so pretty it has this gold pinstripe on it that is just stunning and so we're going to die cut two of these and then here is a standard siiz card base that's 5 1/2 by 4 and 1/4 in and we're going to be layering the pattern paper on the inside because the little surprise the surprise is that there's this awesome interactive motion on the inside of your card so we're going to add this paper in to add this bright pop of color with these gorgeous stripes and that foil pinstripe on the inside so I'm just adding some tape runner onto that and we're going to layer that right into the card now that we've added our beautiful pattern paper onto the card we need to start working on our swivel surprise mechanism and if you've never made a soil surprise before make sure to check out lon's intro to soil surprise it'll walk you through all of the steps because they're so easy and so much fun to make so we'll link that in the description below and the next thing that we need to do for the surprise is to die cut the mechanism and you'll see that the die creates some score lines for you that we're going to fold along so we're going to fold back along all of these score lines and then use a bone folder to reinforce those folds so that they are nice and sharp and I've diecut this mechanism out of 80 LB White card stock 80 lb is the perfect weight for this mechanism it just makes it work so so well so we're going to fold back along all of those lines you'll see we're kind of creating an X and then there's going to be a score line that's in the center of the X that we're going to fold back along and then we're also of course we're going to use our bone folder make sure that's nice and sharp and then we have one more fold at the bottom of the mechanism that we're going to fold back on and use the bone folder to reinforce that fold now the next thing that we need to do is we're going to take our index fingers and they are going to go towards the center of that big X that we made with our fold and you're going to press and the whole thing will just kind of collapse in on itself just like that and it'll look like this so let's do that again we're going to put our fingers right there towards that Center we're going to push in and you'll see how everything starts to just collapse and it just happens which is so cool then the next thing we need to do is flip this whole piece over and we're going to be adding some double-sided tape and we're going to add that to the little rectangle right there it looks like a house there's the roof of the house and the base of the house we're adding it only to the base into that rectangle underneath that score line and so I'm using some nice strong double-sided adhesive tape here you want some nice strong tape so that this interactive mechanism is going to hold in the card and someone can play with with it over and over again so now that we've added our tape we can go ahead and peel up the liner paper then we're going to bring back that card base that we were working on earlier we're going to take our mechanism and flip it over and it's going to be centered there in the card and you're going to butt the end of that mechanism into the fold of the card so you can see I'm kind of just budding it up right against the fold and I'm just eyeballing it there in the center once I have it in placement I can go ahead and press down and secure that in place then the next thing you can do to make sure it's working is you can pull on that Tab and pop you'll see that there's this really cool motion oh my gosh it's so much fun so we've already got our interactive mechanism is working and now we need to work on some pieces to decorate with it so the swivel surprise comes with this larger Circle and we're going to be die cutting the circle from this gorgeous rainbow Ever After paper this is going to be the sky for our design so we're going to die cut that with the circle that's included in the so surprise and you can see that that's going to go right there on our card and it's going to be a perfect place for our desert Critters now I went ahead and die cut that same circle out of some white card stock and then what we're going to do is just trim this down with our paper trimmer to create a little ground here and you can see that I have my wonderful helper miles again and so now we have this super cute ground and we have our beautiful sky background so now we're going to do a little bit of inking and we're going to use some Salvage patina ink just on the edge of this pattern paper just to bright it up just a little bit I wanted there to be just a little bit more blue on this and this is an idea from Timmy from our design team so I just love how she did this I thought it made the most gorgeous Sky I just love this pattern paper so much and by adding a little bit of that blue I think it's really going to pop on all of our Stripes then we need to work on some sand so we're going to take some anti linon distress ink and just brush that right on to our little piece to create our sand we're going to build up the color with the antique linen you can see that miles is doing an awesome job and at this point we realized that the antique linen was a little bit too light it kind of mixed and matched with our paper just a little bit too much so then we're going to take some vintage photo which is a darker brown and we're going to add that to the edges so that it has a little bit more of a pop on our Sky once that Sandy color is just perfect we wanted to add a little bit of texture so I'm taking a brown marker and just adding some tiny little dots and this is going to help make it look a little bit more like sand and then I also took a white gel pen and added some dots with that too and you can see by layering these dots on there it really gave it a cool texture then we'll just add some tape runner to the back of the sand and layer it into this beautiful sky oh my gosh this is already looking so pretty and now we need to start working on some of the other mechanism pieces for the swivel surprise so this is some pint-sized pattern summertime paper and this red is actually a beautiful and perfect match to the red in the brand new Candy Cane Lane paper so we're going to be die cutting this with the ring Dy that's included in the swivel surprise and so you'll see this die creates a little circle in the center which I'm going to save for a later card and it creates a ring and this ring is going to layer behind and be a cute little frame for our scene now we still need a circle there for the top piece but I wanted it to be of this beautiful spiffier Speckles paper which is so gorgeous with the gold foil and so I went ahead and die cut the ring piece again but this time we're just going to use the center piece and I'll put the ring aside and this is kind of what it's going to look like and I love that have the gold foil paper with the gold foil pin stripes in the background so now we're going to start working on putting this together and you'll see at the top of this mechanism it kind of looks like a butter knife well we're going to add some adhesive just to that kind of knife part of the butter knife and we're going to line up that edge with the edge of this smaller Circle here so the edge of the knife you'll see is that perfect rounded Edge that's going to match up with the edge of our Circle just like that and then we can press down and secure that in place now I like to push and pull the mechanism and make sure it's working so you can see you would close it and as you pull the mechanism that Circle moves now we're going to add some adhesive to the very bottom part here you can see it's kind of like a little rounded piece then we're going to take our ring and we're going to put the mechanism there right through the center of the ring and the ring is going to line up with that bottom part of the mechanism perfectly so you'll see once you don't see any of that white card stock you can press down we can push and pull our mechanism again and you can see that really awesome movement now the next step is to take this small rectangle piece and included in the Cil surprise we're going to die cut this from some white card stock as well and then here you'll see that the die creates a little score line and also a little tiny X well that little tiny X is going to line up with the X that's on our mechanism so we're going to fold up against that score line and of course we can take our bone folder and reinforce that fold and you'll see that this little piece kind of looks like a little seat there well that seat is going to be attached onto a little triangle so you'll see where that X is we're going to add some liquid glue right where the x marks the spot is and then we're going to line up those two little X's together so we're just adding just a little bit of liquid glue and then we can line up our two little embossed x's and press down and hold that in place and once again if you've never made a svil surprise make sure to check out that intro video that we've Linked In the description so we're going to hold that in place make sure that it dries and now we need to add some adhesive to the back of that fold there so we're going to take some of that double-sided tape and we're going to be adding it to the back of the fold so the fold is folded up we're adding it to the back of that little tab there and then we can go ahead and peel up that liner paper and then we're going to be adding that beautiful desert scene that we created and as we add this we're going to make sure it's nice and centered so I'm just going of eyeball it on that red ring make sure that there's an even ring all the way around and then we can press down and secure that in place once that's nice and secure we can try the mechanism we can push and pull and you can see how the whole thing is rotating which is so cool the next thing that we need to do is add some tape here to the other side of that score line right there so we're going to add some more double-sided tape nice strong tape and then we can go ahead and peel up that liner paper then we'll push in that mechanism just like that and all we need to do is close our card shut and you'll see that that's going to pick up the adhesive right there and now you can open the card and look we have this amazing interactive mechanism that is so cool and ready to decorate so I'm going to take some more of that same pattern paper that we cut the ring piece with and I'm going to trim it down to be 1 and 1/2 in by 1 in and I'm going to use that to cover up the white part of my mechanism and kind of help it blend into my design a little bit more so I'll just add some tape runner behind that and you'll see you can just layer that right on top sometimes I cut it from the same paper as the ring and sometimes I do it as the same paper as my background just kind of depends on the design but I think this turned out pretty cute just like that now we can bring in our Christmas in the desert stamp set and all of those beautiful Critters that we colored earlier on in the video and so I'm going to start creating my super cute scene onto this panel so we're going to add this adorable Cactus onto there and then we can start to add some more of these Cute Critters so our fenic Fox is going to layer on top of the cactus which oh my gosh I mean look at this it's just adorable and then we're going to add the little present in the sand and of course I wanted to add a little ornament hanging down from the cactus because there's something about that it's one of my favorite parts of the set I just think that looks so cute next I'm going to take this super cute Road Runner and I'm going to add them to the circle cuz I want it to look like the Road Runner is running across the scene and it's going to line up with something that I'm going to put on the front of the card in just a little bit then I'm going to add a Santa hat to the top of the cactus which is so super cute and now miles is showing us as you open the card the Road Runner runs across as if he's added the string of lights to the cactus now now miles thought that the card would be a lot cuter if we added more of the critters and he thought the turtle seemed lonely without being on a card so now we're going to layer some things on to the card right here along the bottom which I think is so cute the SEL surprise comes with this really cool rounded banner and we're going to be adding a sentiment onto that but I decided that I wanted to work on the front of the card first because I want to have a sentiment that starts on the front and kind of finishes on the inside so now it's time to start working on the front of the card so we're going to put our whole Soo surprise to the side and we're going to take this brand new string of lights backdrop D which is so beautiful and we're going to be die cutting that from some Falling Leaves paper and this is fall paper but there's this really great green that's perfect for the holidays too so we're going to be die cutting this really cool string of lights backdrop from this peer and that green is really going to look like that kind of like classic green on Christmas lights now next we need to add our bulbs on there so I'm going to be die cutting using the extra bulbs Dy I'm I'm going to be die cutting those from some white card stock and we're going to be adding color to them using the same markers that we used on the cactus so that everything's going to coordinate together and so I'm just doing a swipe of a dark marker and then blending it out with a light marker on all of these little bulbs and I'm doing four of each color with five different colors which is going to look absolutely amazing then once all of these bulbs are done we can start to add them to the backdrop so I'm using a little bit of liquid glue with a glue tube just adding it onto the there and then we can layer our beautiful rainbowy lights right on top and this is just oh my gosh I just think it just looks so happy and sweet and so perfect for the holidays now I decided to take that second string and I am just going to use my scissors to trim it out because what I want to do there is I want to have the Road Runner running with the string of lights with the first part of the sentiment and then have the second part of the sentiment be on the surprise interactive swiv surprise on the inside I think it's going to be really fun so I went ahead and trimmed out that string of lights and now we can start adding the rest of our lights onto there and I just love seeing this come to life and seeing all of those super cute rainbow lights appear onto the backdrop the next thing we need is a background for these string of lights and so once again I wanted it to look like what's going to be on the inside of the card so I'm using that same rainbow Ever After paper but I'm using the 12 X2 size which has the uh kind of bigger gradient of it and so we're going to trim that down to be 5 and 1/2 by 4 and a/ qu and this paper is oh my gosh it's just so gorgeous I also wanted there to be a white border around this because there's a white border around the pattern paper on the inside of the card so I love the idea of being inspired by the inside to create the outside of this so I'm using a stitched rectangle frame here the largest one and it's a perfect match for this backdrop now just like we did on the inside we're going to take some Salvage patina ink and just ink up the edges of this just to add a little bit more of a bold look to the very top of this so that we have a really nice gradient kind of helps bring this paper from Spring into the holidays then we can start to layer all of these pieces together so I'm going to add some liquid glue onto the frame and then we can layer the frame onto this whole scene and then I think I want to pop this whole thing up so that there's like a fun kind of Dimension to it but before I started popping I wanted to add some white gel pen lines to these little ornaments and by adding the white gel pen lines it gives that little shine Mark and I think is really going to help them pop on this scene then I'm going to add some foam strips around all of the edges of the frame and then I just cut up some little foam squares to layer them behind all of the bulbs to make sure everything is nice and supported then I can go ahead and peel up the liner paper on all of these and then layer that on to this beautiful background and look how cool this is I love these string of lights and I love how much it looks like the string of lights on the Road Runner and the cactus too then now we can bring back our soil surprise and we can layer that on to the front and now you can see the surprise that there's going to be so I'm just going to add some tape runner to the front of this card and then we can layer this whole panel on top and of course I need to open the card up again because I just love playing with these soil surprises so much it's just so cool oh my gosh can you imagine when someone receives this it's just so much fun now it's time to finish up the front of the card so I stamped and colored another road runner just like the one on the inside so it looks like he's like running from the front of the card into the inside and then he's going to be holding a little sentiment Banner so I'm going to use a wavy sentiment banner and die cut that and then I'm going to be using the desert a Merry Christmas and so we're going to do part of the sentiment on the front and part of the sentiment on the inside so I went ahead and curved that little clear stamp there to match the curve of my banner and I'm going to stamp in some clear sticky embossing ink onto the banner and then we're going to sprinkle on some gold embossing powder and then heat it up with the heat tool to have a nice beautiful Shiny Gold sentiment that's going to match that beautiful gold foil on the paper on the inside then to continue the sentiment on the inside we're going to be using that curved Banner that comes in the swivel surprise die and so we're going to take the phrase Merry Christmas and we're going to curve that to match that Banner now at this point this Banner was a little bit long but you can use your D to create a custom length for this curved Banner so I'm just going to line my D up and then I'm just going to shift it down just a little bit you'll see how it just lines up perfectly I'm going to use a piece of Post-It note tape to hold it in place there you can see I'm checking the length to make sure my sentiment is still going to fit so we're going to hold that place and then we can run that through the die cut machine and now we're going to have a shorter Banner that's going to be perfect for the merry Christmas phrase so just like we did before we're going to prep it with an anti-static powder tool stamp in some clear embossing ink and then add some gold embossing powder right onto this and then we can heat it up with the heat tool to have another beautiful sentiment now I'm going to add some adhesive to the back of my Road Runner and layer it onto the sentiment so it looks like he's not only dragging the lights across the card but he's also dragging the sentiment across the card and then we can use some foam SES on the back of this so that it has a nice pop just like all of those diecut string of lights have onto the card and so we're just going to layer this on here and I just love that it's like you desert uh hm what's going to happen and then you're going to get the amazing surprise of what's inside oh my gosh of course I'm going to play around with this and open it up again and then we can go ahead and start adding the sentiment in there so I'm going to layer the sentiment there towards the bottom so it kind of balances against the white gold foil piece we have at the top I like that they're going of kind of echo each other I added some adhesive to the back of that and then we can just layer that right on to that ring and now as you open the card you get this awesome surprise of the swivel surprise it is so much fun I love the idea of having the little road run around the front and then continuing the idea to the inside and I just love thinking about the surprise that the recipients going to get when they open up this card I mean it's just so much fun soil surprises are so much fun to make and Christmas in the desert is just the most adorable unique Christmas set I just love it so much oh my goodness and next up you are in for a treat because shie has some really cute cards for you so take it away shie so the first thing I'm going to do is Stamp Out the images for my card and I will be stamping these in some River Rock ink this is a Copic friendly ink but today I'm going to do some coloring with the coloring stencils but I chose River Rock ink so that I have a bit more of a muted look to the lines and the images rather than the Stark black so I've Stamped Out all my images I'm stamping an extra little ornament there and here are the coloring stencils that coordinate with Christmas in the desert and I am going to start with the big Cactus so for my Cactus I am using some celery stick ink and a little blending brush and adding my color to the image now I am adding a little bit more at the top so it's a little heavier I'm going to go a little bit lighter through the center where the Christmas lights are and then a little heavier at the bottom so you can see I have some fun shading while I have my green out I'm going to go ahead and color this little cactus in the pot now I'm moving on to the sand at the bottom I'm using some dough ink for the sand and I figured while I had this dough ink out I would just grab my other stencils and color the sand in these other places where I have it so I have the sand underneath that little present as well as the sand pile underneath that candy cane now for my little fenic fox I am using some sugar cookie ink this is a lighter kind of yellowy brown ink and I'm trying to be very light-handed so that he's not very dark then I'm pulling out some ballet slippers I'll shift my stencil over so now I have the stencil lined up to color inside his ears and I'll just add a little bit of pink to the inside of his ears this one actually gets his nose too so I have a pink little nose and then I can grab the one that colors his muzzle I'm just taking that dough ink I didn't even tap it onto my ink pad again I just used whatever Brown was left to color in his muzzle and I'll do the same for the antlers just being very light-handed with a little bit of that dough ink as well now for my snake I did want him to be a little bit more colorful so I'm using some number two pencil ink so he is nice and yellow I'm also going back and catching that bow on the present with my green and now for the bulbs on the cactus for this I'm doing something a little different I'm using my oxide inks because they have a pigment property and they sit on top of the ink that is below it rather than mixing the colors and I'm using a really small brush to color in my light bulbs so there where I had the green on the cactus this pigment ink will sit right on top of that green and I'll get some nice bright Christmas bulbs so I used festive berries for the red then I am using Salvage patina for this aqua color here and I really like this little small brush to get in those little places you don't want it too juicy though because this is pigment ink and you don't want to smudge it underneath the stencil and then a little bit of mustard seed for some yellow Christmas bulbs now I can move on to my red what I found when I colored these the first time is that the red is really intense and I found that this was the last color I wanted to color on my images so I'm coloring in all the little Santa hats there's also this little headband on my finic box and that's the last thing I needed to color in I have a Santa hat on my little snake here and then I need to add some red to my other little images so I'm going to create a red present of course a red candy cane and I'll leave the other stripes white although there is a stencil to you could color them in a different color if you wanted the little blooms on top of the cactus and the bow around the pot now I do need to go back and color my pot I'm using some mermaid ink to kind of match the Salvage patina distress oxide I used on the cactus so there are stencils for the little ornaments and you can color the body of that ornament as well as the little Stripes so I'm using some mermaid ink to color the whole ornament that aqua color and then the stripe on one for the round one I'm going to use yellow and you'll see I'll move this down and I did the stripe but I had some blue ink on there and I basically made green so when I go back and do the main part of this ornament at the top I just decided to go ahead and make that green and then there's also a little tiny part on there to color the tops of the ornaments and it is hard to see on here the etching but there is etching on these so that you can line these up perfectly with your images so you can see that there is etching for the round ornament versus the kind of more teardrop pointy ornament and I'm just going in with some narwhal to color the tops of them then I'll use my coordinating dyes and cut them all out and now I'm moving on to my background and I'm using the canyon backdrop for this I've cut this from some craft card stock and then I'm going to do some inking on this to really kind of liven up the color I'm starting out with some some rusty hinge distress oxide and I'm going to pull that color down from the tops of my Canyon mountains towards the bottom you can see I put a piece of typing paper in there to kind of mask off the two little Hills at the bottom because I want to Ink them separately now I'm pulling in gathered Twigs which is a darker brown color to give some more shading to the tops of my Canyon and you can see how this really transforms this piece of craft card stock by adding these two distress oxide colors I did pull my piece of paper out but I decided to stick that back in I want to add some texture to these Canyon mountains here by adding some splatters of brown watercolor so I'm just flicking this tapping it to get some big splatters and then flicking it off the block for some smaller splatters and I'll do the same to the BR but I'm going to use a different color of watercolor so that's why I left it masked off now I've moved my typing paper down to where it is through the other slit that the die creates and I'm adding some ink to that kind of middle Hill and then I can add some to the bottom and masking it off like this just kind of gives you a little break where the dye is cut now I'm going to put it in the other direction mask off just to where I have the bottom one and I'm going to add a little bit more Darkness to this one this will make this little Hill stand out from the one above it and then now I can do the same to this just kind of touching the top edge with that gathered Twigs now I'm leaving that piece of paper there to mask off the top of my Canyon and now I'm adding little tiny flexs of white water color to the bottom to make it look like sand and then here is my Canyon all ready to go for my sky I have a piece of spiffy Speckles paper that I've cut down to 4 and 1/4 by 5 and a half and then I'm also going to create a pretty red frame with some barn red card stock and this will cover up that inking around the frame of my Canyon and give it a nice holiday finished look I am going to add a little bit of inking to my sky this is some Salvage patina distress ink so not oxide and I think it just adds a nice little Shadow to the top so now that I have that spiffy Speckles pattern paper looking the way I like I'm just going to add this to a card base then I can take my Canyon backdrop and add my frame I'll just put a little bit of liquid glue all the way around all four sides and drop that frame into place now I'm adding some foam adhesive all over the back you can see I have some Thin foam strips all the way around the frame and some foam squares and strips on the inside and I did avoid crossing over any of those cuts so that I have some openings to slide my little images down into those hillsides if I want to then I can add this to the card base and I have that nice Dimension off that background now I wanted to decorate my Canyon a little bit so I'm starting out with that main cactus in the center giving him a Santa hat and I thought it would be fun to see that the critters have decorated the canyon for Christmas so those little ornaments that I stamped out I'm going to hang them off the top of those Canyon Peaks and then I'll just trim off the little piece that's sticking up at the top but I just thought this was a really fun idea so once I have all three of those little ornaments in place you can see that one's a little tall so that I have some different heights I'm just going to take my scissors and since this is popped up I can kind of fit them in there and just trim off the top I did have that little piece kind of fall down in there so I want to make sure I clean that up and get that out and then I'm not quite done decorating my canyon yet I thought it would be really fun to take those little Sanda hats and put it on top of these little towers that are sticking up here which makes them match the cactus and I just think that's so cute now for my sentiment I'm using the sentiment that says have a sensational Christmas and I'm stamping this onto a piece of speckled eggshell card stock using some Walnut ink so this is a brown ink and then I can take my sentiment Banner Dy I'm lining this up where it is kind of left justified in there I'll run that through and then I can line it back up and trim off the other end for that little fishtail look and now I have a custom length Banner that fits my sentiment I'll add some foam squares to the back of this and then I'm going to layer this sentiment right along the bottom but not all the way at the bottom I wanted to see a little bit of that red frame right below it but I think this is a fun look where it kind of overlaps the frame but not completely then I can start to add all my images to my little scene now for my Cactus the bottom of the cactus is right on that Canyon but the top is going to be up in the sky so I need to add some foam squares to the top and a little bit of glue to the Bottom now for my other images I will use some foam squares I have thin foam squares for this little cactus in the pot that's basically sitting under the tree right and then for my characters I'll use some regular thickness foam squares so that they are popped up a bit more than the little cactus in the pot so I have my little fox over there and then my little snake and there are a lot of Critters in this set almost too many to fit on here so I had to be selective about which ones now for the little present and the candy cane they're sitting down in little piles of sand and so I'm going to tuck them into the hillsides up here so they look like they're kind of sitting down on those little hillsides and this is why I did not put my foam all the way across all of those cuts that the die created now I need some sparkle so I want to add some embellishments up in the sky and I'm using the new sequin mix diee there is a star- shaped sequin in here and I cut some out of gold glitter card stock using the smallest star and the medium siiz star and I just thought these were some nice little embellishments for up in the sky they look very festive in that gold GL glitter but I also want to add glitter to my images so I'm adding some Stardust tickles to the tops of the Canyons so it looks like they've been dusted with glitter to the white parts of my Santa hats I'll also add it to all the bulbs on the cactus and some accents here and there like the bow on the present the headband on the finck fox the candy cane and the bow on the cactus so basically every image gets a little bit of glitter and then I added some to those little succulents that the canyon D creates there so that they stand out a bit more as well and then here is my finished card with those fun Critters wishing you a sand stational christmas in the desert I also wanted to create a simple card using that cute little cactus from Christmas in the desert I love those little string of lights wrapped around it I'm using the string of lights backdrop cut from some narwhal card stock I'll also be using the giant Feliz Navidad cut from some silver glitter card stock and some rainforest card stock so that I can layer these together and get a drop shadow for my background I'm using this really fun ice blue bokeh pattern paper and I'm just going to cut that down to 4 and A4 by 5 and 1 half so it will fit perfectly behind my backdrop now I need to cut some bulbs in some bright pretty colors to layer over this backdrop and I'm using the extra bulbs Dy this Cuts five at a time I will just be layering this bulb with a little shy Mark right on top of that narwhal card stock you can see I've cut a bunch of bulbs out of five different colors of card stock up there and then I'm also going ahead and layering together my sentiment so that you get that really fun drop shadow I will go ahead and put my card together by putting my bokeh background onto my card base then I'm going to layer on my bulbs I want to do all of this before I start to glue my bulbs to that background and I'm just going around all four sides and then a DOT of glue on the back side of each little bulb should hold it in place nicely so I'll just line this up and stick this down and then I'll be ready to start adding all my colorful bulbs to my background to do this I'm just adding a little bit of liquid glue and then I'll just pick up each bulb and drop it into place the extra bulbs Dy also cuts a solid one if you wanted to layer a white piece behind it for that shine Mark or some glitter would be fun too and I'm just kind of going in a rainbow combination and I will keep this same order but kind of shift it around so that I don't end up with red bulbs all on the left side and all my colors get evenly distributed across my background for my bulbs I'm using raspberry card stock fake tan sunflower peacock and sugar plum and as I work my way to the bottom I did have to cut a couple more of two different colors just to get that bottom row nice and rainbowy so now my bulbs are done and you can see that I will layer my sentiment and my Cactus together together right here kind of towards the bottom I want to go ahead and glue my sentiment to my Cactus so it's all acting as one piece I'm just layering that Cactus behind the sentiment and I'll add a little bit of glue on that little arm of the cactus there and the reason why I did this is because I want to pop this whole thing up so you can see I've put some foam tape all over the back I have those thin foam strips behind the letters and foam squares behind my Cactus and this will just pop this sentiment and this image up off the background and make it really stand out then the final touches to add some more glitter I'm adding some Stardust stickles to all the light bulbs the ones on the cactus as well as the diecut ones and now they all Shimmer and shine and I just love the way this simple card turned out with that cute little cactus from Christmas in the desert oh my goodness shie this card is too cute and I love how sparkly it is and then the card that you made earlier oh my gosh the background everything about it is just so much fun and now we have some incredible cards by the design team and this card by Tammy is so sweet I love how she added all of our desert Critters into a snow globe to create the most adorable holiday card next we have a gorgeous nighttime scene by Nicole I love the background it's so beautiful and this scene just makes me smile this card by Ellena is so much fun I love those red and pink and white stripes with all of the red Christmas lights it is just adorable this scene here by Audrey is so beautiful and just a perfect holiday card and then I love how Mindy used our peekaboo backdrop to create four little scenes just perfect for this Christmas in the desert Stamp Set this beautiful pink scene by Jen is so pretty and so much fun for this gorgeous card I love those glittery cactuses in the background too and then this card by Marine is just adorable I love that she use the Slimline style to be able to create this huge big scene with all of these Cute Critters and all of the C it is just adorable I love the gorgeous pop of purple on this card by Megan it's so pretty and I just think these colors are just so unique and perfect for a Christmas card Melissa created a gorgeous background I love that sky and I love how she used the Desert Canyon backdrop to help set the scene and then she created a coordinating tag which is so much fun to have a coordinating tag for your gift and then the beautiful card that goes along with it this card by Laticia is so much fun I love her rainbow colors they're so bright and happy for the holidays so we cannot wait to see your Christmas in the desert stamp set so make sure to share them with us thank you so much for watching today and I hope you have an absolutely amazing day bye hi there I'm Heidi Simon's mama and founder at simones stamp.com thank you so much for watching our video if you like what you just saw be sure to press the Thumbs Up And 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