Big News, Baby!

Posted on July 27, 2015 by mauistamper

They say babies like bright colors – I certainly hope so!

This was another card I brought to convention as a general swap. I confess that I struggled with the colors a bit, and when they were all completed I wished I’d stamped the lamb in Watermelon Wonder – but it is what it is.

Stamps: Big News, Barnyard Babies
Color Palette: Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Watermelon Wonder, Early Espresso
Accessories: Hearts Border punch, Blushing Bride cotton ribbon, Two-way Glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds, the Big Shot and Large Polka Dot TIEF

The embossed background just doesn’t show up in this photo, and I’m sorry. It makes a difference.But I made a special tool to position those hearts:

It’s a strip of card stock – I must throw out a hundred of these a month – with holes punched in it. And it just so happens that those holes line up perfectly with those hearts:

I decided where I wanted the hearts on the first card and made a template. I placed the template across the bottom of the sentiment and made tiny dots with the tip of a sharp pencil. Remove the template, put a dab of Tombo (the Wonder Adhesive) on each pencil mark, and drop in the punched hearts. As Mr. Maui Stamper and I like to say when we’re working on a project, it’s CUSTOM.

Speaking of Mr. Maui Stamper, I tried to be as clandestine as possible with the Dazzling Diamonds. He was traveling a bit around the time I made these, so I had a little extra time to try and cover my tracks. My observation when all was said and done is that there is no hiding Dazzling Diamonds. You either do it or you don’t. And for now, I think I won’t.

I mentioned that I struggled with the colors…This was how I began. But I didn’t have a Watermelon Wonder ribbon that I could put in the corner, and using markers to get two colors on the Big News stamp wasn’t something I wanted to do 25 times over. Sometimes these decisions make themselves.

Still Wild About Flowers

Posted on July 16, 2015 by mauistamper

Really love this set!

Stamps: Wild About Flowers, Butterfly Basics
Color Palette: Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Tip Top Taupe, Hello Honey, So Saffron
Accessories: Sweet Li’l Things DSP, Hello Honey ribbon (retired), Pearl Jewels, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stampin’ Write markers

And I love the way Tip Top Taupe (T3) works with yellows! I started with a T3 card base, but it was overwhelming – I switched it to Sahara Sand and liked the difference.

I saw another blogger use a Stampin’ Write marker to add some depth to the flowers – I tried it, but I don’t think I have her expert technique. It’s not bad from a distance, but I think it looks a little clunky up close.

Just for fun, I tried the same layout with the addition of Mossy Meadow – and a different flower technique. I used a Hello Honey Stampin’ Write marker to add definition directly to the stamp after inking the image with So Saffron, then stamped onto my Very Vanilla panel. The sentiment is from An Open Heart – love that font.

Which one do you like better? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The RemARKable In Colors for 2015

Posted on July 9, 2015 by mauistamper

Each new Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog brings a new In Color collection, and everyone anxiously awaits the reveal of those new colors. One thing that is often lost in the excitement is the In Color Bundle – a selection of the 5 new ink pads plus an assortment of the new In Color card stock – for the price of the ink pads.

Maui Stamper 2015-2016 In Color Ink and Cardstock bundle

2015-2016 In Color Bundle #138358 $32.50

I have my favorites (and some not-so-favorites) this year. Today’s projects confirmed some of my opinions, but there was a surprise too!

Stamps: Awesomely Artistic, Watercolor Wings, Tin of Cards
Color Palette: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Watermelon Wonder, Blushing Bride
Accessories: Word Window Punch, Bold Butterfly Framelits, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Sticky Note, Paper Snips

I love tone-on-tone looks, but these In Colors are predominantly bold colors, and they needed a little softening to fit the vision in my head. I used a sticky note to create a mask for the floral image, allowing me to add leaves and texture “behind” the image.

Color Palette: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Mint Macaron, Lost Lagoon

Bermuda Bay complements Mint Macaron very well, but it was just too bright a look for this card and I switched to Lost Lagoon.

That little bitty Crumb Cake butterfly body could have been fussy cut, but I have a really hard time with straight lines. Here’s what I used:

Can you see the tape? Just a tiny bit held the word window punched piece to the end of the card stock, allowing me to feed it into the punch again and create that skinny little bit.

One last combination:

Color Palette: Whisper White, Soft Suede, So Saffron, Delightful Dijon, Crumb Cake

This combination surprised me – I didn’t expect to like it because I DON’T LIKE DELIGHTFUL DIJON. I don’t wear that color, I don’t decorate with that color, although I do like Dijon mustard. That’s as far as it goes.

What do YOU think – which combination is your favorite?

I couldn’t make this design work with Cucumber Crush. I’m waiting for Christmas before I try to make friends – that one has me stumped for now. And as much as I love Tip Top Taupe, it didn’t want to stand alone in this concept either. It would be a nice accent in place of Crumb Cake, but I chose Crumb Cake. My projects, my rules.

However, I am SURE some of the other RemARKables have featured Cucumber Crush or Tip Top Taupe or maybe even BOTH of them! You’ll have to make your way through the tour to find out…but there could be worse things to do, couldn’t there?

Next up is Heather Mathieson!

Nancy Amato
Melissa Bolinger
Tamra Davis
Anne Matasci – YOU ARE HERE!
Heather Mathieson
Audra Monk
Maria Pane
Michele Reynolds
Pam Staples
Janet Wakeland

Breakin’ out the Butterflies

Posted on July 2, 2015 by mauistamper

…and there are a LOT of butterflies to break out! This card uses the stamp and framelit bundle that was SO hard to get earlier this year. Thank goodness it’s easy as can be to order now!

Stamps: Butterfly Basics
Color Palette: Whisper White, Mint Macaron, Tip Top Taupe
Accessories: Butterflies thinlets, All is Calm DSP (retired from Holiday 2014), Rhinestone jewels, Glue Dots

I grabbed the retired All is Calm DSP because it was close by, and found rather serendipitously that it was a very close (but not exact) match for Mint Macaron. Life can be sweet that way! There are beautiful Mint Macaron papers in my new 2015-2016 In Color paper stack, but when I made this card, that stack was not in my stash.

This is a very simple look to create. The top Whisper White layer is 3 3/4″ x 5″ and the butterfly is carefully positioned using the magnetic platform to be cut out of the top 40%. The top layer, sans butterfly, is stamped and then adhered to a DSP layer measuring 4″ x 5 1/4″, and that whole assembly is adhered to the card front (in this case, the GLORIOUS new THICK Whisper White). Finally, a couple of Glue Dots put the butterfly back in place, with a gentle bend in the wings to provide additional dimension. Easy and done!

Shop HERE to add these goodies to your stash!

Con-grat-YOU-lations!

Posted on June 23, 2015 by mauistamper

BRAVO is a sleeper stamp set that has made the cut for 2015-2016:

Stamps: Bravo
Color Palette: Whisper White, Night of Navy, Encore Gold
Accessories: Itty Bitty Accents punch pack, Gold Glimmer paper, White Jute ribbon, Gold Sequin trim

Bravo Photopolymer #135380 $26.00

These messages are perfect for graduations, weddings, new babies, or any special event where congratulations are in order. The variety of fonts, image sizes, and orientations increases the versatility of this set (I especially love that there’s a “tall” option!)

Cards that acknowledge an accomplishment mean so much – who needs to hear “Way to Go!” from you?

Shop HERE.

Exploring the new catalog: Wild About Flowers

Posted on June 17, 2015 by mauistamper

I’ve found a lot of beautiful stamp sets in the new Stampin’ Up! annual catalog:

Stamps: Wild About Flowers
Color Palette: Whisper White, Pear Pizazz, Watermelon Wonder, Tip Top Taupe
Accessories: Boho Chic TIEF, 2 1/2″ circle punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Wild About Flowers features Two-Step Stampin’ making it simple to use multiple colors – and it’s a photopolymer, so it’s easy to line up. It also includes sentiments that are a little out of the ordinary, but are really nice to have.

Wild About Flowers 12 photopolymer stamps #138728 $21.00 US

Our new 2015-2017 In Colors are great new shades that mix well with our existing color palette. I’ve used Tip Top Taupe and Watermelon Wonder with Pear Pizazz – love the pop in that Watermelon Wonder! And you can’t tell from the photo, but my card base is our new heavy weight Whisper White card stock. I have been asking, pleading, begging Stampin’ Up! for this and I am thrilled with it!

What’s your favorite new stamp set?

Happy Happy Birthday

Posted on May 31, 2015 by mauistamper

A friend celebrated a special birthday recently:

Stamps: Amazing Birthday
Color Palette: Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Daffodil Delight
Accessories: Park Lane DSP, Mellow Moss ribbon, Stampin’ Trimmer, Stampin’ Dimensionals

The technique is a very simple one, but there are nearly endless options. I cut rectangles of DSP at 4″ x 1 1/2″ and then used my paper trimmer to cut them diagonally from corner to corner, creating a series of triangles. At that point, it’s just a matter of assembling them in a pleasing pattern.

I kept the sentiment and embellishment simple, as this is a Manly Card. The stamp from Amazing Birthday was inked in 3 colors and then cut into pieces with paper snips to create texture and color for the sentiment.

Just a couple of days until the new catalog goes live! June 2nd is the first day to order, and it’s going to be a busy day. Order early in the day – the system is supposed to open at 2am Mountain time, which is 10pm on June 1st Hawaii time. You can place your order HERE.

Banner Blessings

Posted on May 17, 2015 by mauistamper

It’s hard to keep track of all the great stamp sets we have!

This is Banner Blessings, a photopolymer set that was released in November. You won’t find it in a catalog, but it does appear in the Online Store under Stamps > Photopolymer.

It’s product #136720, and the price is $15.95. Sometimes you have to do a little looking around to find these gems!

It’s RemARKably hard to say GOODBYE

Posted on May 14, 2015 by mauistamper

Welcome to the May 2015 RemARKable Blog tour, where we explore all things GOODBYE. I’ve chosen to focus on the Stampin’ Up! 2014-2015 catalog retiring list, and I’ve based my projects around one of my favorite all-around stamp sets, For the Birds:

This is a (sort of) Clean and Simple card. There’s just one image, and there are no sentiments, but there are multiple layers. It’s a very quick card to assemble and employs one of my favorite card-making tricks: have plenty of cards on hand with NO SENTIMENT.

I could add Miss You, Sorry, Love You, Thinking of You, even Happy Birthday – or Happy New Baby in a real pinch! (It’s a nest – get it?)

If you’re lucky enough to have Blendbilities, For the Birds is a great choice because of the detail and variety, but today I chose to use colored pencils. If you’ve ever had a kid in grade school, you more than likely have colored pencils in your house. Even if there are no kids, colored pencils are inexpensive and working with them is easy and generally trouble free.

With this much magnification, you can see the shading, but the general effect is much more subtle. If you see a few fuzzy bits in that top left corner, your birdie-eye has spotted bits of the white jute ribbon cut apart and tucked behind the image.

For the Birds Clear #126407 $24.95 Wood #132001 $32.95

I must confess that when I spotted this DSP from the Back to Black (retiring) collection I did a little happy dance around my studio. FEATHERS. Need I say more?

Look closely and you’ll realize that I am no rock-star-pencil-colorist. But I do find it relaxing and enjoyable to play with shading and color, and this stamp set is a great all-around addition to your stamping birdhouse!

Enjoy the tour – I love the unique manner with which everyone interprets the theme – and I’ll see you here next month. Head over to see what Heather Mathiesen has created!

The Maui Stamper

papercrafts, my stories, and the occasional insight

Category Archives: cards

Still Wild About Flowers

The RemARKable In Colors for 2015

Breakin’ out the Butterflies

Con-grat-YOU-lations!

Exploring the new catalog: Wild About Flowers

Happy Happy Birthday

Banner Blessings

It’s RemARKably hard to say GOODBYE

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: