Author Archives: mauistamper

Hope Changes Everything: Love of Leaves

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This past week I’ve had a number of friends and family members experience changes in their relationship with the Big C: Cancer. It’s such an insidious disease, and when you add in the uncertainty of life caused by the pandemic, things can get a little uncomfortable. I’ve been leaning pretty heavily on HOPE, and made this card yesterday to send to someone dear to me:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING Love of Leaves
  • Stamps: Love of Leaves
  • Color Palette: Very Vanilla, Cinnamon Cider, Cajun Craze, Calypso Coral, So Saffron
  • Accessories: Stampin’ Cut & Emboss (available September 1, 2020), Stitched Leaves Dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Old World Paper Embossing Folder, Metallic Pearls, Cinnamon Cider ribbon, Gold trim (Forever Greenery Combo Pack), Stampin’ Sponges, Stampin’ Dimensionals

I’ve had the Love of Leaves bundle on my desk a lot recently. We don’t really have autumn leaves here in Hawaii, but some trees do experience an autumn change of color. I love these beautiful shapes and the way they work so well together (it’s what Stampin’ Up! does best!).

Maui Stamper Stampin Up HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING Love of Leaves

I made a huge mess of my ink pads creating this project. I kept pressing stamps with dark ink into the light ink pads without cleaning them – I was really into the process! I’ve found if you use a paper towel to blot the place in an ink pad where the “stain” has appeared, you can generally pull out most of the offending ink. A quick re-ink and the pad is *almost* as good as new.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING Love of Leaves

I was inspired by a card shared on Instagram by the Stampin’ Up! concept artists @stampinup. This color palette is similar to theirs, but not the same. I’d love to see it in shades of pale greens for spring, or even reds and burgundies for December. I guess it’s back to the drawing board!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Love of Leaves bundle
# 155195 $47.50 usd

If you’ve got fall leaves – or a heart filled with hope – on your mind, shop HERE.

Watercolor Backgrounds on Blocks

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You know how some techniques look simple but just don’t turn out right? I’ve always felt that way about the watercolor background. I watch the videos, I study the instructions, and STILL…

If you’re anything like me, you will LOVE this technique (sorry, the Mister and I are still staying at home and I find myself shouting quite a bit when I have the chance to talk to someone else). Anyway…I started using blocks to apply color to paper and discovered to my delight that I could make it work!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Acrylic Block Watercolor Technique Love of Leaves
  • Stamps: Love of Leaves
  • Color Palette: Whisper White, Early Espresso, Cinnamon Cider, Sahara Sand
  • Accessories: H Acrylic block, Stampin’ Spritzer, Linen Thread, Stampin’ Write markers

The technique is just about fail-proof. Choose your colors, scribble on an acrylic block, spritz with water and stamp. Voila! If you add color to the block while it’s on a piece of white paper, it’s easy to see where you’ve added color and where the block is blank.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Acrylic Block Watercolor Technique Love of Leaves

You can see that I created pretty regular color patches. I’ve since experimented a little more (stay tuned!) and found larger, less regular patches and more water give more “watercolored” results. I thought the way this one turned out was interesting as it reminded me of granite. Do you see that, or am I imagining things? (This would not be the first time.)

The font used in this set is something a little different for Stampin’ Up! and it reminds me of a printing style I used when I was in school. This particular sentiment is one I will use over and over. In fact, it may be my theme song for 2020.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Acrylic Block Watercolor Technique Love of Leaves

There are coordinating dies for this set but I chose to keep it super simple and stamp that leaf – maybe a Hawthorne? – directly on the card. I can’t remember the last time I made a one-layer card.

Could you please help me with something? In the past I’ve added a direct link to the store for every product I’ve used. It takes a little extra time, and I’m wondering if I should continue investing my time that way. If you use those links, I’d love your feedback. And if you don’t, well, you can tell me that, too!

In the meantime, you can shop my beautiful, new, easier-to-navigate Online Store here.

Painted Poppies Split Card

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I playing with the Split Card technique again. Sometimes I like my results, and sometimes I don’t. Therein lies the beauty of paper-craft: paper, in general, is cheap. Don’t like it? Throw it away! The Split Cards I made with Painted Poppies were keepers:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Painted Poppies Split Card technique

Working with Stampin’ Blends allows you to get deep, intense images while still allowing you highlights and shadows. The bold colors of this card pop right off the page! I stamped the flowers with Poppy Parade ink, then used my Poppy Parade Blends to color them in. I did the same with the leaves in Mossy Meadow. Since I used the same color to stamp the image as to color it in, I didn’t have to worry if the outline ran a little.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Painted Poppies Split Card technique

This card front was a split card project so I had another side to color. I chose to go the opposite direction and use colored pencils. They are much more nuanced, and allowed me to create a much softer look:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Painted Poppies Split Card technique

The color palette is the same, but I used our Watercolor Pencils and a Blender pen to create this more subdued look. The sentiment is from Beautiful Friendship, and the trim is our new Braided Red Linen. I also slipped in a few splooshes (that is the technical term, btw) from the Forever Fern stamp set.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Painted Poppies Split Card technique

You can fluff and stretch and unravel that red trim to get a BUNCH of different looks. The natural linen is still my favorite, but this is going to be a great addition to my embellishment stash.

So tell me, what do you think? Do you like the bold, intense poppies, or do you prefer the gentler version? I want to try this again using watercolor paper and our new Water Painters. The possibilities are endless! It’s amazing I ever get anything done.

Need supplies for your next project? Shop HERE.

August 2020 DIY: Timeless Tropical

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August…who would have imagined this is where we would be???

A tropical scene seems like a soothing vision for this month, and I think many of us need that right now. I feel so fortunate that I can take a walk and place myself in this setting, but if that’s not available to you, I invite you to enjoy this paper version!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar August 2020 Timeless Tropical
Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar August 2020 Timeless Tropical

I worked a bit outside my comfort zone with this project – lots of sponging and improvising and experimentation. I managed to cover up some of the printed dates, but to be honest, I hardly ever use these DIY calendars to actually check the DATE.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar August 2020 Timeless Tropical

This is the second version I did for August. I got a little carried away with the first version, and after sleeping on it decided I would go back to the simpler version. Here’s the “I couldn’t stop myself” calendar:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Timeless Tropical DIY August 2020 desktop calendar

I kept adding layers and details, and at some point I set it down and said enough. This one has a lot more sponging, some Wink of Stella, and a fair amount of glossing using the glue from the Fine Tip Glue pen. I kept looking at it and asking myself if I would be happy with it for 31 days, and it became pretty clear that the answer was NO. What do you think? Would you choose the calmer, simpler calendar, or would you take it over the top?

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

Just a few more days to take advantage of Bonus Days – earn a $5 savings coupon for every $50 you spend. Those $5 coupons can be redeemed beginning Tuesday, August 4 – which just happens to be the first day that the August-December mini catalog is available to customers! Shop Here.

Cheryl and Crystal have their own versions of August for your inspiration, and I hope you’ll stop by and see what they’ve done.

If you’d like to create your own calendar, please click on Contact Me and provide me with your email. I’ll invoice you for the bargain price of $5 and you’ll have your own pdf to print and enjoy for all of 2021.

Technique Tuesday: Split Card

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You’ve probably seen it – stamp once, split the results, and BOOM! two cards. It’s been on my list of things to try, and today I can share the happy results.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Beautiful Friendship Split Card Technique

This is an easy technique. In order to make your double card front, you start with a half sheet of card stock, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. I use a pencil to make a light mark at the 4 1/4 inch point along the top and bottom of the paper. (If you have eagle eyes, you can just see it in this image.) Then just stamp down the middle…

Just like that! You might notice a couple of things: I used two different accent leaves in different colors from left to right, and I smudged on the right. Smudges are not always an insurmountable problem! It depends on the location of the smudge, and this one was easy to cover

The next step is to cut your half sheet of card stock into quarters. This yields two pieces, 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inches – the perfect size to create a card front!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Beautiful Friendship Split Card Technique

I love this gold trim – just tie a knot where you want it to stop fraying. It frays all by itself, such a time saver!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Beautiful Friendship Split Card Technique

This side of the split panel uses Gray Granite ink instead of Cinnamon Cider, so my accessories and accents use that color. The ribbon is retired, and I’m sorry, but I have been waiting since Moses signed up to be a demonstrator for my 1/4 inch Gray Granite shimmer ribbon!! This was in the archives and I dragged it out for this card. I used the Layering Ovals dies for the sentiment on this card.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Beautiful Friendship Split Card Technique

Adding a little extra color to the sentiment panel helps to tie it together with the rest of the card.

Ready to make your own? Grab some stamps, ink and a half sheet of card stock and have some fun. I used some sticky notes to mask my images, creating a sense of depth, but do whatever it is that makes you happy. Try monochromatic color schemes as I used here, or go big and bold with bright colors. Flowers are a great way to start, but other images will work too. Just a note: I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory card using images of people or animals. They look odd cut in half, and inevitably one side gets stuck with a “back side”.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

Just 10 more days to earn Bonus Days Bucks! Beautiful Friendship is one of my all-time favorite stamp sets for the lushness of the images and the many different types of cards they allow you to create. Shop HERE.

Lovely You: Miles Apart, Still in my Heart

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This sentiment was the first thing to catch my eye in the Lovely You stamp set. I have family and friends all over the world – literally – and I knew this would be a message I would use again and again.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Lovely You handmade card

I watched a video where a crafter used blue painters tape to mask off the center portion of the card. After she stamped all her beautiful images, she whisked off that tape like nothing doing and voila! she had a spot for her sentiment.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Lovely You handmade card

Crafty Friends, I did that FOUR TIMES. FOUR STINKIN’ TIMES. And every single time it tore my card stock. I was Not Amused. So I stamped my sentiment on a 3/4″ wide strip of card stock and adhered it to my card front and was Very Happy. Moral of the story? There’s always another way to get the result you want.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Lovely You handmade card

That Braided Red Linen Trim is a little sneak peek from the August-December mini catalog that will be available to all of you on August 4th. It’s a teeeeeny bit darker than the Poppy Parade ink, but it’s close enough for me.

And don’t miss the Lovely You bundle – it includes the amazing Lovely Labels Pick a Punch at a 10% savings!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

Don’t forget to shop Bonus Days – every $50 you spend will earn $5 to spend in that new August-December mini catalog! Shop HERE.

Celebrating Sunflowers – Anything but Yellow!

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On Sunday I shared a sunflower card in Just Jade and apparently I’m not the only one who wants to see alternative color palettes! I experimented with a few additional combinations, but had to stop when I ran out of White Crinkled Seam Binding (that stuff is AH-MAZING.) Here are some of my favorites:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

I got a little carried away with the Stampin’ Sponges here! This is Gorgeous Grape and Highland Heather ink, and mats in Purple Posy and Highland Heather.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

I used pearls to embellish the card, and have poked out some of the circles in the center of the flower. It’s completely random, because they tend to fall out as I remove the die cut from the die, and my objective is to just even up the look.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

Although this version is similar to the original Just Jade card, it’s Misty Moonlight, Balmy Blue and Seaside Spray. The Balmy Blue ink has a bit of a turquoise hue, which you can see under the petals.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

Oh, my goodness, you NEED that White Crinkled Seam Binding! It is so soft and molds so beautifully, but it also rather magically holds its shape. I’ve embellished again with the 20-22 In Color Enamel dots.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

BOOM!

Magenta Madness here, and wow, talk about madness! There isn’t a set of tonal inks that work well for this, so I just softened my sponging as I went outward on the card. Here’s a look before I put it together:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

Because I didn’t have the range of colors, I was actually even more careful when I sponged, and I like the results. I kept the deepest tone underneath the opening in the center of the flower, allowed it to lighten in the area where the petals open out, and then barely tapped the rest of the card.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers Anything but Yellow

This is the base before I add the detailed die cut. Note there are 4 mini dimensionals placed where they won’t obscure any of my carefully selected open spots on the flower (lol). The various stems are all adhered with Tombo Multipurpose glue – even the vellum. Because there’s so much detail, you don’t notice any adhesive.

For details on the supplies, see the post from Sunday.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

Shop in July and earn Bonus Bucks to spend in August!

Celebrate Sunflowers in Just Jade

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Every time I search Celebrate Sunflower images I get a sea of yellow and gold. I’ll be honest: I’ve discarded multiple versions trying to find other color options, but I think I’ve found one that’s a keeper.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers in Just Jade
Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers in Just Jade

I’ve LITERALLY just finished this card, and have taken photos in order to share this today. I’ve been crafting a lot but sharing, well, not so much. I am so pleased with this one I didn’t want to wait another minute!

I wanted more texture but with a soft focus, and sponging gave me the result I wanted. I almost kept the little leafy bits to white and vellum, but at the last minute decided to add a couple of stems in Just Jade at the very back of the leaf stack.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers in Just Jade

After determining where I would place the white sunflower die cut, I started sponging dark-to-light from the center out. I sponged across the bottom and nearly but not completely to the top, and used Pool Party ink to add a few speckles from the Forever Fern set.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers in Just Jade

If you NEED the Celebrate Sunflower bundle, don’t forget that you’ll earn Bonus Bucks – a $5 coupon to spend in August for every $50 you spend in July. Shop at the Maui Stamper Online Store.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

I’m off to try this in other colors. I promise I’ll be better at sharing!

DIY July 2020: Celebrate Sunflowers

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There are SO MANY GORGEOUS FLOWERS in the 2020-2021 Annual Catalog! I am a complete pushover for a gorgeous flower stamp set, and Celebrate Sunflowers definitely sent me over the edge. Two sizes of flowers, lots of leaves, great sentiments – well, what’s not to like?

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers DIY Calendar July 2020

These sunflowers are really fun to color with Stampin’ Blends. I have a pretty simple formula: follow the lines, start dark in the center and end up light on the ends.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers DIY Calendar July 2020

It’s hard to see, but I added a l’il Wink of Stella to the center of the flowers. Stella makes EVERYTHING better. I’ve also used the masking technique to add a little dimension. There are die cuts for this set if you prefer that look, and they’re sold as a bundle with the stamp set so you can save when you choose both!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers DIY Calendar July 2020

These little calendars are really fun to design, and they’re gratifyingly small when you need a little project to start and finish all in one go. I have both the 2020 and the 2021 calendar pdf available, and if you’d like one please click on Contact the Maui Stamper to securely provide your email address. Each pdf is $5 and you can make all the copies you like, making it a great purchase for a crafty gift. Be sure to let me know if you want 2020, 2021, or both!

Please visit Crystal and Cheryl to see their July calendars. It’s our pleasure to share these images with you every month for your inspiration and amusement!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days Promotion July 2020

Ready to add some sunflowers to your crafty stash? It’s a great day to do it – July marks the return of BONUS DAYS and you’ll earn a $5 reward to spend in August for every $50 in merchandise you purchase in July. You can get started right HERE.

Forever Greenery meets Lovely You

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The Forever Greenery Suite practically designs itself. These gorgeous colors lend themselves to any kind of card for anyone on your card-sending list!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Forever Greenery Suite

I am so delighted with this Forever Greenery Suite! The Old Olive/Pretty Peacock two-sided ribbon is absolutely gorgeous with this DSP, and right now I can honestly say this would be my marooned-on-a-deserted-island suite.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Forever Greenery Suite

I did a little stampin’ magic to create this sentiment. “Hello” is part of the Forever Fern stamp set, but I markered just the word “Friend” from the phrase “Cherished Friend” in the Lovely You set to finish this look. Stampin’ Up! found a winner in that font selection!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up June 2020 Bonus Host Dollars

Don’t forget that June 2020 Hosts (or regular shoppers with BIG budgets!) earn an extra $25 in Host Rewards when their workshop/order reaches $250. I’ve got the Zoom Workshop down to a science, and there’s room in my schedule for a couple before the end of the month. I’ve just done a couple of workshops with this suite, and everyone loved it!

Rather just order it for yourself? Shop HERE.