The Maui Stamper

There is such fabulous inspiration in the January-June mini catalog! Pretty Perennials was the first stamp set that caught my eye, and I’m an absolute pushover for black-and-white, so pairing those stamps with the True Love Designer Series paper was inevitable.

• Stamps: Pretty Perennials
• Color Palette: Basic White, Basic Black, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay
• Accessories: Big Boss, Perennial Petals dies, Stitched Shapes dies (retiring May 3), Scripty Embossing Folder (retiring May 3), Matte Black Dots, Stampin Dimensionals, Paper Snips

I based this card very closely on one I saw somewhere in the interwebs, but despite spending a good thirty minutes searching, I cannot find my source. If you created and shared something that looks a lot like this, please message me and I’ll gladly update the post to give you credit! (Pandemic Brain. That’s my story and I’m standing by it.)

The Stitched Shapes dies are still available in the Online store, although they are on the Retiring Products list. I recently heard them described as indispensable to a craft room the way salt and pepper are to a kitchen, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. If you don’t have these dies in your craft stash, I highly recommend you add them to your collection ASAP. I bought a second set for myself.

The Pretty Perennial flowers are whimsical and fresh. Stampin’ Up! has loads of realistic flowers, and flowers that are great for coloring, but these are gloriously happy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get flowers. They stamp quickly and can be made a little more fancy with the addition of a few die cuts, but WUSIWUG with these babies.

I’ll be honest: fussy cutting the word happy is the very definition of FUSSY cutting. I love the effect, and I really love this font, but it takes some time to cut it out. Do it while you’re waiting for someone, or watching TV, or doing anything possible to avoid finishing your taxes. It works well in all of those circumstances. Or design your card around happy stamped directly onto the card! It’s your project, do it the way you want to do it. And if you don’t like the way it turned out, remember that it’s pennies worth of paper and just THROW IT OUT. Don’t hang onto it hoping to change it like you did your first boyfriend. We know how that went. Throw it out.

Oops. Guess I took a wild turn there, didn’t I?

Turn yourself to shopping and pick up Pretty Perennials. You don’t have to change them – they’re perfect, just as they are. Shop HERE. (nb: It says they’re low inventory as of right now. Don’t wait.)