Summer Silhouettes | The Maui Stamper

Aloha, and welcome to Maui! You’ve reached the western-most destination on today’s World Card Making Day RemARKable Blog Hop!! (Go ahead – say that 5 times!!!) I’m happy to be part of this adventure and hope you’ll enjoy all the fabulous cards the talented RemARKable artists have created.

There will be FIVE posts today in honor of WCMD, so be sure you check in throughout the day. The posts aren’t going anywhere, so if you want to come back and browse we hope you will. Be sure you leave these hard-working bloggers a little bloggin’ love – we appreciate each and every one of your comments so much.

I think I’ve found a fun way to organize my posts – we’ll explore one of the Stampin’ Up! color families each round. I’ve packed a lot into each post, so if you’re looking for specifics on each card, check back later this week. I’ll start with the most popular, so be sure and “vote” for yours!

Let’s get started with the 2012-2014 In Color Collection – Gumball Green, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit, Midnight Muse and Raspberry Ripple:

Love that Patio Party Designer Series paper and I will tell you right now that it was a struggle not to use that Summer Silhouettes stamp set for EVERY SINGLE POST. My absolute fave! This is definitely a card for that girlfriend who lives out loud!!

I’ll confess that I wasn’t a big fan of this particular crop of In Colors until I started to play with them, but I’m a convert now! Oh, Summer Starfruit! I apologize for saying you looked like – well, I don’t want to share the exact words I used but it wasn’t pretty! This not-quite-yellow, not-really-green hue is a natural companion to loads of combinations, but especially my favorite blues and greens. The versatiity of this color caught me completely by surprise and once again I must admit I was wrong to judge a book by it’s cover.

Gotta have some bling on a Christmas card, don’t we?? Our latest glimmer paper is Champagne (ooh, just the word makes me think party!) Love that sparkle – and just for good measure, I added some Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint AND a couple of rhinestone jewels.

The Watercolor Winter set in our Holiday Catalog is my favorite of all the Christmas sets. I’m a poinsettia girl, and they grow – and bloom – all over in the islands. Not at my house, of course – I grow bugs on plants much more successfully than the plants themselves – but I catch my breath when I come around the corner on certain roads and see an entire poinsettia hedge blazing in red on the side of the road.

And yes, for you eagle-eyed, rules-checking blog readers, I DID use Early Espresso and Crumb Cake on that card. It had to be done. And she who makes the rules gets to break them too.

All right!! Hele on (get going) to see what Maria has in store for you! Mahalo for stopping by, and see you back in 6 hours 🙂

I can’t begin to tell you all of the things that have taken place in the past month. Let’s just say there have been amazing peaks and terrifying valleys and I am grateful that we are all where we are today. Mr Maui Stamper and I are in the midst of fledging the last little stamper – well, he wouldn’t care for that title – let’s call him Son of Stamper 🙂 He is moved into his new home in the dorms at Notre Dame and tomorrow we begin Freshman Orientation, which is targeted to the parents as much as to the newly admitted students. Our oldest daughter graduated from ND in 2009 so this familiar territory. Notre Dame is a very special place and we have already had so many affirmations that our son is right where he belongs. Thank you to all of you who have kept my family in your prayers.

Through the recent ups and downs I did manage to do a little bit of stamping – when I was able to get back to stamping that’s when I knew life was regaining a semblance of normalcy. A couple of weeks ago I had a special day of stamping for the Maui Stamper All Stars, the teammates that promoted this past year. One of our projects was inspired by Sara Douglass’ convention demonstration:

LOVE those new Flourish Designer frames from the Holiday Mini catalog! They are absolutely beautiful and they have just enough give that you can curve them to fit around the shape of the Mason jar. (Hint: if you’re going to do that, shape them BEFORE you attach them to the jar – much easier – ask me how I know!)

I cut a scallop circle from our Twitterpated fabric for the top, attached ribbon to the rim with sticky strip, and sewed a button through Cherry Cobbler scalloped dotted ribbon to embellish the top.

I think Summer Silhouettes is my favorite new stamp set this year. Just remember you heard it from me first!

I made some bookmarks to put inside. I wanted something a little unexpected. At convention, Sara put a vintage photo inside. I really liked that concept, but since we were doing this as a group project I wanted it to be fun and stress free for my team – no searching for that perfect photo!!

It’s late and we’ve had a very full day. I think we’ve made 4 trips to a certain popular “You want it, we’ve got it” type of store as well as half a dozen other stops. If Son of Stamper doesn’t have it now, he doesn’t need it. We were blessed with a beautiful day on this beautiful campus – I think you’ll agree: