Aloha, all!
I am finally back in Hawaii after more than two weeks away from home, the last week in the 109 degree plus temperatures of the desert southwest. Yep, in Las Vegas. I am SOOOO happy to be home out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, whose currents do a wonderful job of moderating our Big Island of Hawaii summer temperatures.
To celebrate the sea around us, as well as to bring back my partnership with Cheryl Hamilton, who lives and crafts on Maui, to continue with our budding Blog Hop, Island Hopping.
The stamp that we’ve chosen for this month’s hop is Seaside Notions. What better set to highlight our being out in the middle of the ocean than a stamp set that features sea creatures and shells, along with some wonderful sentiments. For my part in the hop, I’ve chosen to share with you three different cards made with the same basic colors, along with the Seaside Notions Stamp Set, the Stitched Shapes Dies, the brand new High Seas 3D Embossing Folder and the Basic Adhesive-Backed Sequins. I switched up colors and ribbons a bit just to keep it a bit more interesting!
My first card is a layout that I use frequently in cards where I want to show off one stamp in a set. In this case, I chose to show off the Sand Dollar in this stamp set. I stamped the image, as well as the sentiment, using Bermuda Bay Ink. For some accents, I used a background layer of Bermuda Bay Cardstock and some Bermuda Bay 1/4″ Mini Striped Ribbon. In the background right behind the squares is a sheet of Coastal Cabana colors Designer Series Paper (from the Follow Your Art Designer Series Paper set.
For my second card, I added most of the rest of the sea shells in the stamp set, stamped in either Bermuda Bay Ink or Coastal Cabana Ink. While I didn’t color any of the shells in my first card, for this card, I put a hint of color in each shell AND I stamped one of the shells with a fun technique. There’s not much room here today, so my next post will go into more detail about how I made this card. The tasseled-look ribbon in this card is the 5/8″ Woven Threads Trim. In the catalog, it looks like a textured ribbon. But, in the fine print, we are told that we can remove the “top” thread to create the tassled look. My “top” thread is more at the “bottom,” and I think the tassles look perfect with this picture!
I really mixed up the colors a bit in this final card of this blog hop post. I looked up some photos of Sea Horses and found many of them with brown or orange colors. So I stamped this little critter using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink so that I could color him (her?) using my Pumpkin Pie Blends markers. I used the light pen to color the whole figure, then accented it using the darker Pumpkin Pie color down the middle, shaded off to the left and right. For the eye, I colored a small adhesive-backed pearl using the Basic Black Dark Blends marker. I have to say that, while I enjoyed fussy-cutting the shells in the second card, I did not particularly enjoy fussy cutting these seaweed shapes. I’d intended to put three of them behind the main picture, but I have to tell you that two was enough.
Once I got this card laid out as I wanted it, I realized that I’d left out any sentiment on the front of the card. Not to worry – I added the sentiment, along with a simply-stamped piece of seaweed, on the inside of the card. I think that will do just fine!
Now that you’ve gotten this far with me and all the fun I had with this stamp set, I’m sure you’ll want to see what Cheryl has made for her side of this hop! Here is the link to her blog post. I love what she does with fun-fold cards!!
And, as always, I have a list of most of the Stampin’ Up! products that I’ve used for this project below. The pictures are linked to the very same product in my own personal Stampin’ Up! online store – open 27/4/365 for you to research any of these products and even buy them if you wish! If you have any questions, just let me know!
