New Stamps!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! Please forgive my loooong absence...I've been struggling to recover from a particularly bad case of blog burnout!! But, hopefully, some new stamps will make up for that. First up is Keiko...she comes with an "extra hand" to allow her to hold a variety of items:



This set also comes with a branch stamp and a bunch of cherry blossoms to decorate the branch. Helpful hint: the flowers are really tiny, so I tried to line them up in a way that you can cut a couple of them together like this:



That way it will be a little easier to handle. (Sorry, I should have taken a photo of the rubber before I did a ton of stamping with it.) And here is a sample of the project that comes with each set:



As you open the card, the scenery starts to pop up:



Once the card is fully open, you see Keiko standing on a bridge surrounded by cherry blossom branches!!!



Also new for 2012...Year of the Dragon stamps:



and New Year stamps:



Mochi and "kadomatsu" are local traditions used to bring in the new year...bamboo signifies growth and strength...fresh pine represents long life and endurance.