National Cocoa Day with Stamps of Life!

Happy National Cocoa Day and welcome to our celebration of Cocoa!  Today the Coffee Loving Cardmakers and Stamps of Life Design Teams are hopping together and featuring the Hot Chocolate 2 Stamps and Hot Chocolate Dies (and maybe a few other wonderful Stamps of Life products)!  Hop along to each stop along the way and leave some love and you will have a chance to win a $25 Gift card to The Stamps of Life Shop!  You have until the 20th to comment and the winner will be announced on the Coffee Loving Cardmaker's Blog on the 22nd!  And if you stick with me until the end I'm having a little giveaway here too!

***Edited to add winner info!  The winner of the gift certificate has been announced on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog today, December 22nd at 7am Pacific time and Amy has added her winner to her hop post as well!  The winner here at my place is Donna Mundinger!!  Congrats to Donna!  I'll be messaging her and thanks so much to all who joined us for this hop!***

You should be coming here from the oh so talented Kathy Schweinfurth's Blog!  If you get lost along the way you can always head back to the Coffee Loving Cardmaker's Blog here where you'll find the entire hop list!

And here's how I was inspired:

So... can I just say... this cup die!!  It's a fantastic size and shape and I LOVE that the handle cuts out!  The "inside" of the cup cuts out at the top too, so I can tuck the awesome whipped topping die just inside it... or add some paper to it for cocoa and add some or lots of the marshmallows from the stamp set.  And the whipped cream!  The lines are actually cuts rather than just embossed, so it's easy to slip the spoon die cut (also included in the set) right through it... or a straw... or some marshmallows... or whatever!  I cut mine from white glitter paper and my spoon from some silver foiled paper.  I added a few marshmallows and the steam... we'll talk about that in a minute.

For this next one, I was inspired by our cool desert evenings here in Buckeye, Arizona:

I got these cool Succulent 2 Dies recently at a stamp show in Mesa.  So... it does get really cold here in the southwestern part of Arizona!  In fact, it's not uncommon to see a cactus with a hat on!  I mean .. usually it's not a cute knit beanie like the sticker I added... but instead maybe a styrofoam cup...lol!  But wouldn't beanies be cuter!?  Lately it's been in the 40's in the morning... but don't feel bad for me... it's 70 by the afternoon!

That sentiment, right??  I blended some distress oxides onto the cup and used a stencil to add more of the same color to decorate my cup this time and built my sentiment from the Hot Chocolate 2 Stamp Set and stamped it right on the cup.   I'd buy that cup!  And I just LOVE the steam in this set... each piece cuts out separately so you can add them however you want!

And I couldn't let the day go by without shaking things up!

I just cut the cup from the snowflake paper and the cup outline die from a coordinating paper (the die set has outlines for the cup, the whipped topping AND the spoon!  Perfect for cutting out the stamped images or to outline the dies).  Then I cut a heart shaped window out of the center of my cup die cut, added some acetate inside the window and then some popup tape around the heart window.  I added sequins and beads and attached the cup to the background.  Since I added gold splatters, I cut the spoon from gold foil cardstock this time.  I built my sentiment from one of the sentiments from the Coffee Statement Stamp Set along with the Hot Cocoa words from the Hot Chocolate 2 Stamp Set we're featuring today!  So many of the Coffee Statement sentiments work really well with "Hot Cocoa" in place of "Coffee"!  So maybe we just need a "Hot Cocoa" word die??  Stephanie?  Maybe? :)

I'm playing along over at Double Trouble to create something using embossing and I've added the twist of snowflakes!  You should check this one out!  You have a couple days left to play along over there for a sweet prize!

So that's me for today!  Oh... AND I'm giving away one of these fantastic Stamps of Life Hot Chocolate die sets too!

It is quite awesome and you do need this in your cup die collection!  You have until the 20th to leave me some love here and I'll announce the winner on the 22nd also!

The next stop on the hop is the wonderful Laurel Seabrook!  You're sure to be wowed over there!  Thanks for stopping here and good luck!!