Building the Perfect Snowman with Layered Backgrounds: Making the Cut
Hi friend! Happy Friday! Please join me in welcoming special guest Nichol Spohr to our blog back in our monthly installment of Making the Cut – our monthly blog series that celebrates the love of all things die cutting! Nichol is showcasing some darling new products JUST released in our exclusive Heart to Heart collection including the Bundled Snowman die set, Chunky Scalloped Oval dies, Warm Thoughts dies, Lots of Snowflakes stamps, and Swirling Snowbreeze embossing folder! Be sure to watch the video for all the details!
WATCH THE VIDEO:
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A big thank you to YOU, our reader — and to Nichol for being our guest!
Soft Neutrals and Texture with Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year
Welcome back friends, it’s Nina-Marie Trapani here with you today! Every year I enjoy sharing a project inspired by the Pantone Color of the Year. 2026 has brought us Cloud Dancer—it evokes quiet beauty, offering a light, airy foundation that lets texture and detail shine! I was excited to stretch my creative muscles and focus my project on exactly that.
I used many products from our Simon Says Stamp exclusive collection—the Lots of Snowflakes stamp and die set, the Balcony Windows dies, the Label Slides Love and Friendship stamp and die set, as well as the Snowfall and Banks stencil.
Utilizing those pieces, I added texture and detail with things such as Tim Holtz Texture Paste, Rock Candy Chunky Glitter, Opal Dazzling Gems, Iridescent cording, and even Shimmer Vellum as the base for my stamped and embossed snowflakes!
The card also has a coordinating envelope that I stamped with the Lots of Snowflakes stamp set, which really ties the whole project together.
It can be an inspiring exercise to base your project on a specific color and let the simplicity of it highlight the fantastic details you add for embellishment. I hope you will watch the video below to see this project come together!
WATCH THE VIDEO
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Heart to Heart Blog Hop WINNERS
Hello, friends! We hope you are loving our Heart to Heart release!
To celebrate this incredible release, we hosted two amazing blog hops! The hops featured many talented designers and each one created wonderful projects to inspire you. If you missed either of the hops, you can find the direct links here: DAY ONE and DAY TWO.
A BIG thank you to all of YOU who joined us for the hops! We enjoy hearing from each of you, and your words of encouragement and appreciation to each of the designers mean so much to us here at Simon and to them. It’s our tradition to give away gift certificates to random commenters on each blog stop, and today we are revealing all of the winners! So without further ado, I present to you our winners!
from Simon Says Stamp’s blog: Kristen Snoozy!
from Nina-Marie Trapani’s blog: Tee Hall!
from Heather Hoffman’s blog: Rochelle!
from Suzy Plantamura’s blog: Selena Bennett!
from Jennifer McGuire’s blog: Margarita Navarro-Rivera!
from Laura Bassen’s blog: Lora Knudsen!
from Mindy Eggen’s blog: Kathy Dumpert!
from Anne Fiene’s blog: Virginia Folsom!
from Jessica Vasher’s blog: Jenn Borjeson!
from Revati Panickar’s blog: Rebecca Stevenson!
from Amy Rysavy’s blog: Amy M Troska!
from Kim Hamilton’s blog: Anna Given!
from Anna-Karin Evaldsson’s blog: Berina RGA!
from Simon Says Stamp’s blog: Danielle Tetreault!
from Nichol Spohr’s blog: Rebekka Reed!
from Barbara Tarayao’s blog: Marcia Shannon!
from Emily Midgett’s blog: Daria Z!
from Lisa Addesa’s blog: Fran Smith!
from Tina Smith’s blog: Patti Bailey!
from Keisha Charles’s blog: Beth Merrill!
from Heather Ruwe’s blog: Michele Lee!
from Barb Engler’s blog: ginger!
from Lea Lawson’s blog: Barbara-Jean K!
from Charlene Madrid’s blog: Helen Langlais!
from Maggie Haas’s blog: Kathy Eddy!
from Maura Hibbitts’s blog: Robin Mermer!
from Sandi MacIver’s blog: Jeanne Beam!
from Cathy Zielske’s blog: Sally Weinberg!
If you see your name listed above, CONGRATULATIONS! Please email [email protected] and let him know that you are one of our Heart to Heart release blog hop winners! You’ll receive a $25 Gift Card.
Thanks again for hopping along with us! We hope you enjoy our fantastic Heart to Heart release and that it gives you creative enjoyment for months to come!
We hope you will join us on Instagram on Friday, January 16, for an Instagram Hop featuring our Heart to Heart release! We are excited to share awesome ideas from several creative minds using these fantastic products.
You’ll love browsing our Heart to Heart gallery on our blog for loads of additional inspiration, and you can add your projects to these galleries as well!
Winning ROCKS, and so do you!
