It's a Pink Elephant!

Animal Story is one of the irresistably cute new stamp sets in this year's Idea Book and Catalog. It consists of an owl, a whale, a giraffe and this adorable elephant. I don't use a lot of solid stamps, so it took some practice to get good images, but I did find a very helpful suggestion - before using the stamp lightly sand it with a sanding block. It worked very well! I've also found that cleaning it with Stampin' Mist and Stampin' Scrub just before using it helps. Stampin' Mist not only cleans your stamps, it conditions them as well.

Have I mentioned how much I like this year's In Colors? I used three of them here, the card base and two of the elephants are Melon Mambo, the third elephant, mat and ribbon are Soft Suede, and the saying (from the Smarty Pants stamp set) is matted on Crushed Curry and Melon Mambo. I embossed the large Soft Suede mat with my Big Shot and the Stampin' Up Perfect Detail Texturz Plate. It is also new in this catalog, and is going to be one of my favorites.