Tag Archives: Tropical Chic

2020 DIY Calendar Review

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s not have a review of 2020 The Year, okay? I don’t know about you, but much beyond early March the story is all the same. But there was a DIY Easel Calendar every month in 2020, and we can take a look through those! Click on the link for the details on each project.

First up, January and The Gang’s All Meer from Sale-a-bration:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up The Gang's All Meer SAB 2020
RETIRED!!!!

Those happy faces put a smile on my face every time I see them! In February it was Lovely Lilypad for Leap Year 2020:

RETIRED!!!!

This was one of my favorites – another beautiful Sale-a-bration selection for 2020. I loved the soft colors with that crazy pop of Lovely Lipstick.

In March, I went back to critters and featured the Little Ladybug Host Set:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Little Ladybug March 2020 DIY Easel Calendar
RETIRED!!!!

Not my usual style, but really fun in this format. These petite easel calendars are really satisfying in that way – there’s just a little space to design, but plenty of room for creativity.

Next up is April with the Chunky Lamb from Welcome Easter:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar April 2020
RETIRED!!!!

She’s so fluffy! And she’s sparkly, too.

In May I chose a retiring favorite – Tropical Chic:

Maui Stamper Tropical Chic May 2020 DIY Easel Calendar
RETIRED!!!!

Oh, I was sad to see this stamp set and the beautiful accompanying dies hit the retiring list! It’s in my archive of favorites and I know I’ll use it again and again.

In June I previewed Birds and Branches. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know I have a soft spot for birds:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar June 2020 Birds & Branches

These aren’t colored after any particular species, they’re just happy, pudgy little brown-and-yellow birds!

For July I decided to Celebrate Sunflowers:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Celebrate Sunflowers DIY Calendar July 2020

This is the smaller flower, and the way it fit made me think of sunflower fields. I colored the images with Stampin’ Blends, which are one of the most forgiving coloring tools I’ve ever used.

In August I featured Timeless Tropical, our new tropical set. While it doesn’t replace Tropical Chic, I am thrilled to have these palms in my creative stash:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar August 2020 Timeless Tropical

A simple design for a simple setting – there’s an ocean out there somewhere! Check the original post if you’d like to see my first, more detailed version.

September was created with Love of Leaves:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar September 2020 Love of Leaves

Stampin’ Up! has gifted us with a wonderful assortment of stitched dies, and these leaves really take it to the limit (one more tiiiiime….🎶) They’re gorgeous left plain, but they were a lot of fun to spritz and watch the color move where it wanted.

October featured the Stitched Triangles and my favorite DSP ever:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up October 2020 DIY Easel Calendar Stitched Triangles

I didn’t buy pumpkins or make a jack-o-lantern this year since there wouldn’t be trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood. I just wasn’t feeling Halloween, so it was a forest instead.

For November I previewed Dragonfly Garden, a gorgeous stamp set with a coordinating punch:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up DIY Easel Calendar November 2020 Dragonfly Garden

This stamp set will be available on January 5, 2021 as part of an entire garden suite and I predict you will LOVE it!

Finally, the beginning of this month I featured my out-of-this-word Poinsettias:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Poinsettia Petals December 2020 DIY Easel Calendar

I’ve loved looking at these all month and I’m going to really have to work at it to top this one! (Who am I kidding? It’s done already and you’ll see it tomorrow 🤓)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little stroll through my 2020 DIY year. If you’d like to make your own DIY for 2021, there’s still plenty of time! Contact me and give me your email address and I’ll send you an invoice via Square. For just $5 you’ll have a pdf of the calendars plus a set of covers so you can gift them to the people you love best.

And if you need supplies for any of the above, SHOP HERE. I appreciate it!

Farewell to Tropical Chic: May DIY Calendar

Posted on by
2

Tropical Chic is one of my favorite, go-to suites, and it’s retiring on June 2, 2020. It will have a permanent place in my archives, for both practical and sentimental reasons. This set is the one I am most sorry to see retire this year.

Maui Stamper Tropical Chic May 2020 DIY Easel Calendar

The Tropical Dies are on sale for $18.90, and I can highly recommend them even as a standalone product without the stamps (although why you would do that is beyond me, but a lot of things are beyond me, especially lately). There are beautiful tropical leaves and a versatile “leaf window”.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Tropical Dies 146831

I used these dies to create the Save the Date cards for my daughter and son-in-law’s wedding this past January, and I cut a LOT of Tropical Leaves!!! It’s amazing that my dies are still working so well, because I really put them to the test.

Maui Stamper Tropical Chic May 2020 DIY Easel Calendar

I used the last few Grapefruit Grove Enamel Dots from my stash of Happiness Blooms embellishments for the center of these hibiscus. A true hibiscus has a gorgeous, feathery style, but that’s a very difficult thing to create out of paper, much less embellishments. I’m happy with this look even if it’s not perfectly botanically correct.

As always, Cheryl and Crystal have creations to share in our little monthly Blog Tour. I hope you’ll stop by and see what they’ve come up with for May. If you’d like to add a set of Tropical dies or any other Stampin’ Up! product to your craft archive, please shop HERE.

Family First

Posted on by
11

I’ve neglected the Maui Stamper all month, and sorry, but I’m not sorry. Our family celebrated a wedding last weekend and the past few weeks have been abundant with love and joy. The last of the family is headed back to the mainland today, and I am trying my best to re-enter my version of the real world.

Let’s go back to the beginning – at least the Maui Stamper beginning! Here’s the Save-the-Date I collaboratively created for my daughter Sara and her fiancé Ben:

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Ben and Sara Save the Date

I’m not going to tell you how many of these I made, but I will tell you that my die cutting machine and my dies may never be the same and my fingers were WORN OUT. But it was worth it – I loved how they turned out, and so did Sara and Ben.

Next project was an invitation:

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Ben and Sara Invitation
  • Stamps: Climbing Orchid (retired), Beauty Abounds, Wonderful Romance (retired)
  • Color Palette: Whisper White, Granny Apple Green, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral
  • Accessories: Orchid Builder framelits (retired), Die cutting machine, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Sponge Daubers

In both cases I printed the text onto Whisper White card stock, formatting with Microsoft Publisher. There was an additional card included with the invitation with a few more details, and it was cut to to the size of the interior panel. The Save-the-Date measures 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ and the Invitation is 5″ x 7″. We ordered yellow envelopes that coordinated well, since Stampin’ Up! doesn’t sell that size.

I sent Sara and Ben a sample of EVERY color of Stampin’ Up! card stock, as well as some samples of embellishments and embossing folders. Most of our design work was done via text and photo, with a couple of FaceTime sessions as we narrowed things down. It was such an enjoyable process, and an honor for me to make the invitations.

Fast forward to last weekend:

The ceremony was at Olowalu Plantation House, and despite some iffy weather earlier in January, the day was spectacularly gorgeous. Everything went smoothly, and the whales provided a nice touch as they spouted, breached, and showed their tales all afternoon. The flowers were amazing, done by Dellables and of exceptional quality. Look at the bride’s bouquet three days AFTER the ceremony:

There are advantages to being Mother of the Bride at a destination wedding – Mr. Maui Stamper and I brought home a lot of beautiful flowers!

Speaking of The Mister, he’s a craftsman in his own right. He created an extraordinary marker for the event: a redwood sign with the home town and distance of every wedding guest on arrows:

That’s the beautiful Maid of Honor, our oldest daughter Carol, with her wonderful partner, Shanti. There are more home towns and distances on the other side of the sign, and as an engineer, Mr. Maui Stamper made sure that each arrow pointed correctly towards its destination (within 22°). He also made quite precise measurements, and used the appropriate unit of measurement for the country. This sign was a big attraction!

A late addition to the décor was a set of table numbers and escort cards to help the guests find their seats. There wasn’t a set seating chart, but guests were grouped at their tables so that family and friends would be able to sit together.

I can’t say enough about White Orchid Weddings and my dear friend, Jackie Ishikawa. I’ve known her since our kids were in grade school together, and when it came time to find a wedding coordinator there was no question about who to ask. Jackie did a fabulous job of guiding Sara and Ben through the process, and made sure that on the day of the celebration we were all guests at the party!

The bride and groom kicked off the festivities and the celebration was one to remember. My family is spread across the globe, and having an occasion like this to gather made my heart sing.

Tropical Chic Birthday Wreath

Posted on by
2

 

It seems everyone has made wreath cards and it’s time for me to get with the program already! This is such an easy technique that I’m chagrinned to have taken so long. A simple template – and the amazing Stamparatus – make this a very simple project:

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Tropical Chic Square Wreath with the Stamparatus

I chose to make this a 5″ x 5″ square card in order to use the hibiscus stamp from Tropical Chic. In order to add the palm leaves, I created a double mask. You can see by looking that if you mask only one flower, you won’t get the desired results. I created a mask with 2 flowers stamped on the Stamparatus to set the leaves behind the wreath.

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Tropical Chic Wreath card with Stamparatus

This card could just as easily be a wedding card, a graduation card (think a lei – although we don’t make them from hibiscus because the real thing doesn’t last) or any assortment of other happy occasion cards. It would be fun in bold tropical prints too, but I chose Petal Pink to coordinate with one of my favorite suites of paper of all time, now sadly retired. I hope you have some in your stash!

Need to shop for supplies? Visit my SHOP for everything you need. Don’t forget to use your Bonus Days Bucks!

Maui Stamper Stampin Up Bonus Days July 2019

Tropical Chic Colour INKspiration 52

Posted on by
2

The Colour INKspiration team always selects fabulous inspiration images for their color challenges, and #CI52 made me think Manly Cards. It was timely inspiration, as I needed a Manly Card for a good friend who happens to be a man!

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Colour INKspiration 52 Tropical Chic
Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! CI52

I didn’t add the Soft Sea Foam, but focused on the other 3 colours. I was pretty pleased with myself to discover how nicely the Wood Textures Designer Series paper stack worked in this project!

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Colour INKspiration 52 Tropical Chic

Those little Tropical Elements are a really nice addition to a card, and they’re not especially bulky. If you add an extra sheet of card stock to the front of the card when you put it in the mail, most Post Offices will send it through!

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Colour INKspiration 52 Tropical Chic

In this case, I chickened out. As I prepared the card to mail, I added DSP to the envelope flap (I just traced the shape and adhered it with Tombo, the Wonder Adhesive). Then I pulled off the embellishment and added the flower on a dimensional. Melon Mambo isn’t part of the challenge, though, so I’m sharing both versions!

Visit the Colour INKspiration facebook page for more projects using this great colour palette. They’re such a lovely bunch of crafters!

A Very Chic – Tropical Chic – September

Posted on by
4

Are you in love with Tropical Chic? I certainly am! These gorgeous leaves and that beautiful hibiscus are growing all around me, and I have them at my fingertips to ink in any color I like. I’ve chosen two of my favorite flower combinations to grace my September desk:

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic DIY Easel Calendar September 2018

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic DIY Easel Calendar September 2018

I inked up each flower and dragged the Blender pen across the center of each one. Then I dripped a little ink from an ink refill into the lid of my ink pad and used an Aquapainter to pick up the intense color and add it to the space I cleared on the stamp. I tried using daubers to add the color, but I couldn’t avoid a really round shape, and this time I was looking for something more linear.

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic DIY Easel Calendar September 2018

The Tropical Chic stamps and thinlits are available in a discounted bundle. If you’ve been studying your catalogs, you’ll know that the first year stamps and dies are introduced, they’re generally sold individually as well as in the bundle. If they continue beyond that first catalog, the money-saving bundle is discontinued. Conclusion: Buy the bundle when it comes out. (I know, such rocket science.)

Crystal and Cheryl have created September calendars for your inspiration – check them out, and leave a comment if you do!

Ready to treat yourself to the Tropical Chic Bundle? Shop HERE.

Tropical Playtime

Posted on by
6

The Tropical Escape Suite is Right. Up. My. Alley.

Holy Moly. These stamps, the DSP, the accessories – they speak my language! I love the splash of Blushing Bride mixed in with all of the green tones. These leaves are growing in my back yard – literally – and the thinlit shapes are gorgeous. This is a set I’ll keep!

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic Tropical Escape DSP

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic Tropical Escape DSP

I had such fun with the details. I used a sponge dauber to add a little Flirty Flamingo ink to the center of the flower. The thinlits cut out the stamped images, but there are also dies to cut detailed leaves out of cardstock. The possibilities are endless.

The Designer Series Paper is Buy 3, Get One Free for the rest of July. I purchased multiple packages.

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic Tropical Escape DSP

Using this darker DSP in the background completely changed the feeling of the card. The designs are gorgeous, and can stand on their own as a card front with minimal embellishment. (I was not feeling minimalistic.)

Maui Stamper Stampin' Up! Tropical Chic Tropical Escape DSP

As you can see, I just kept going! I didn’t know that I needed Tropical Elements until I opened the package, but now I’m convinced. I think they look particularly smashing with Linen Thread (everything looks smashing with Linen Thread.)

Need a little Tropical Escape? Shop HERE.