Going Tropical

It is October first, the official start of my favorite month of the entire year, with all things fall and pumpkin spice and Halloween which are all the best things ever, and I'm posting a tropical card?  WHAT AM I EVEN DOING.  I think I need to head up to my craft room and make a fall/pumpkin/Halloween/something October card immediately.  I am at least wearing a Halloween shirt.  But first, the tropics:

I have been trying so hard to manifest fall and it just wasn't working, so I gave up and made a tropical card on Sunday and then today the high temperature is 69 degrees, which is 12 degrees cooler than yesterday.  So I should have been making tropical things because the weather is into reverse psychology?

Let's start with the Retro Rubber sketch:

Artfully Layered is two years old and it was my faaaaaavorite when it came out in 2022, so I was delighted to play with it again for this card.  The DSP is even older, it's the Tropical Escape stack that was made to go with the Tropical Chic stamp set and dies in 2019.  I had several scraps that were already trimmed to 3/4" strips, so I trimmed a few more and built my pattern on a piece of Whisper White, and cut off the edges as I went.  It was fun to piece together which pattern should go where so I had a variety of green shades.

Check out the Paper Players challenge:

I was aiming for the diagonal of leaves - die cut - enamel dots, but I also ended up doing the top row of leaves - patterned paper - embossing.

The As You See It color challenge is what made me go tropical today:

I'm glad I remembered the Tropical Escape DSP stack when I saw this challenge, it has Shaded Spruce and Granny Apple Green in it so that made my background super easy.  This card actually went out in the mail yesterday : )  Now I need to go make something orange.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Versamark
Paper:  Azure Afternoon, Shaded Spruce, Thick Basic White, Tropical Escape DSP Stack
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, white enamel dots, Dimensionals

Tropical Lolly

Happy Friday, y'all!  I spent some time in my craft room yesterday but I was working a little slower than usual because of my two doggo guests...every time I stood up to get cardstock or die cut something, they'd spring up too like WHAT IS GOING ON and then I'd have to convince them to lay down again.  Even so, I have really missed having dogs in the house!

Anyway, here's the one card I made yesterday.

That, my friends, is the brand new Lemon Lolly in action with Parakeet Party and Shaded Spruce and Lemon Lolly might be the new color I was the most excited about seeing in person, followed by Azure Afternoon, Bubble Bath, and Pecan Pie.  (TBH I am not feeling the new In Colors at all.  Especially Barley Barf...I mean, Wild Wheat. I like brighter colors and they're all so...muted.  And one is barfy.)

Anyway!  I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

As I mentioned earlier, I used Lemon Lolly, Shaded Spruce, and Parakeet Party for my colors.  This was giving me a tropical vibe so I had to dust off last year's Artfully Layered and you know what?  I still love it : )  It was fun to play with it again!

Okay, I'm going to try to work on some scrapbook pages today.  Wish me luck!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Lemon Lolly, Shaded Spruce, Versamark
Paper:  Lemon Lolly, Parakeet Party, Shaded Spruce, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, Dimensionals, white sequins

Cool Colors with the Paper Players

I was just typing the title for this blog post and somehow instead of typing a P it typed the Greek symbol pi, I have no idea how that happened : )  At any rate, it's time for a new challenge from the Paper Players!

New In Colors?  Yes, please.  And they immediately made my little brain think tropical, so of course...

...I had to use Artfully Layered again.  I don't know why I love those leaves so much, I just do!  So this time around I was going to try a technique I've seen floating around for a bit where you scribble on vellum with alcohol markers (Stampin' Blends) and then spritz with alcohol to get a cool marbley pattern.  But it didn't work at all for me, maybe because my alcohol is only 70% and not 90%?  After some experimentation, I did make something I rather liked (and also a big mess).  So I inked up two acrylic blocks, one with Tahitian Tide and the other with Parakeet Party, then I stamped those on the vellum.  Then I can't remember if I spritzed with the alcohol, just water, or both (I made this a few weeks ago), but I used something, and my vellum curled up like a scroll so I used my heat tool to dry the ink.  So that's how I got the background. 

Then I die-cut my rectangle out of the Tahitian Tide card front (slightly crooked, but that's the charm of handmade cards, right?) and used Tombow glue to adhere the vellum to the backside of the Tahitian Tide--gotta hide the adhesive when you use vellum.  Then I stuck both pieces to a white card with regular SNAIL adhesive and squished it all flat under several catalogs while I did the rest of the stamping and made another card, I wanted to give the adhesive a good chance to dry and get that vellum as flat as I could.  Then I just added the leaf, sentiment, and a few matte dots.

I like how the background looks but I don't know how often I'll be trying this technique.  Most of my fingers were blue and green for a day or two after I finished.  I do have a trick though if you're doing techniques that involve spritzing with water or alcohol:  I have a couple of super-cheap plastic placemats that I put on my work area, and I spritz on top of those.  Usually they come clean with a spritz of water when I'm done, and the rest of my work area stays protected.

Wow that was a lot of talking from me today.  I hope you'll give these colors a whirl and share your card with us on the Paper Players blog.  Have fun and get inky!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Tahitian Tide, Parakeet Party, Versamark
Paper:  Thick Basic White, Tahitian Tide, Parakeet Party, vellum
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, White EP, In Color Matte Dots, Dimensionals

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford <-- You are here : )

Jennie Maier

Sketchy Series for the Paper Players

Hey stampy friends!  Ready for a wonderful new sketch from the Paper Players?  I hope so, because it's coming at you right now!

Isn't that a great sketch?  Here's what I made:

Yep, still obsessed with Artfully Layered, the coordinating dies and papers.  Better hurry up and grab 'em before they retire on July 1!  I thought this sketch was a great way to showcase a couple of  patterned papers together, and after I made this card I just couldn't resist trying out the sketch with some other papers.  I, uh, made several more cards with the sketch :)

Here's the Butterfly Kisses DSP stack in action, sentiment courtesy of Simply Fabulous (don't you love that font?!).  My biggest problem was narrowing down which butterfly to cut out and what papers to use for the layers of the sketch.

Next up, I used the He's the Man specialty paper to make this one, no stamps required.  The hubs and I have talked about getting an RV or something and spending a year or two traveling around the US after he retires.  Don't know if we'll do that if gas prices continue to be so astronomical, though.

You know I wouldn't leave out Cup of Tea and the coordinating Tea Boutique DSP stack!

Finally, I was able to squeak out just one more quick card with the Design a Daydream DSP that's a host option.  I don't like this card quite as well as the other ones, but by the time I got to this one I was in a rush and didn't have time to add a stamped image or some embellishments.  I do like the giant floral pattern though.

If y'all like this sketch even half as much as I did, then the Paper Players gallery is going to be full of beautiful cards this week!  Have fun and get inky!

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford <-- You are here : )

Jennie Maier

Supplies, Artfully Composed card:
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Just Jade
Paper:  Just Jade, Thick Basic White, Artfully Composed DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, sequins from a past Paper Pumpkin kit

Supplies, Butterfly Kisses card:
Stamps:  Simply Fabulous
Ink:  Starry Sky
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Thick Basic White, Butterfly Kisses DSP
Accessories:  Potted Succulents dies, Dimensionals

Supplies, He's the Man card:
Stamps:  None
Ink:  None
Paper:  Sahara Sand, He's the Man DSP
Accessories:  He's the Man die cut shapes, Dimensionals

Supplies, Tea Boutique card:
Stamps:  Cup of Tea
Ink:  Starry Sky, Stampin' Blends in Fresh Freesia & Parakeet Party
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Thick Basic White, Tea Boutique DSP Stack
Accessories:  Teacup dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Supplies, Design a Daydream card:
Stamps:  Flowing Flowers
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Petal Pink, Thick Basic White, Design a Daydream DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals

SUO Challenges Goes Tropical

Howdy friends!  It's time for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

Our theme is tropical!  And of course you know what stamp set I used for it...

Ahh, I love Artfully Layered and it's about to retire.  Get it while you can!  This time I didn't use the coordinating Artfully Composed DSP; I had some fun making leaves in Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point, Polished Pink, and gold.  Hey, two of my color names are tropical!  My Polished Pink DSP retired with the last catalog, because I don't have the new DSP in all the color families, but you could easily sub in a different pattern.  I have had fun several times coming up with color combinations for this stamp set.

Grab a fruity drink and a little paper umbrella and have some fun with ink and paper, then post your card over at the SUO Challenges blog.  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Pacific Point, Coastal Cabana, Polished Pink
Paper:  Pacific Point, Coastal Cabana, Thick Basic White, gold foil, Polished Pink DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, rhinestones from a prior Paper Pumpkin kit

Pink & Purple Hugs

So here I sit wondering why my blog post hadn't shown up today...and then I remembered that I hadn't actually written it yet, I only took a picture of my card before I mailed it off yesterday.  Ha!  This morning I went through three rooms at Ryan's daycare looking for his backpack with a change of clothes in it, only to find the backpack in the back seat of my car.  Yeah today is not the day for me to be doing anything intellectually challenging.  But I do have a card to share!

I continue my personal goal to stamp these leaves in All The Colors.  Wish I'd gotten a better picture of it, but I had this card in an envelope and on the way to the post office 10 minutes after taking this picture yesterday afternoon.  Using Artfully Layered was a no-brainer when I saw this week's Global Design Project theme:

Which I paired with the colors from Cupcake Inspirations:

Pink and purple leaves?  Why not!  After all, Hawaiian shirts come in pretty much every color ever, and they frequently have leaves and/or flowers on them.  I used Polished Pink, Highland Heather, and Gorgeous Grape for my colors.

I'm off to my craft room.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Polished Pink, Versamark
Paper:  Highland Heather, Polished Pink, Gorgeous Grape, Thick Basic White, Polished Pink DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, clear EP, white EP, Dimensionals, Glitter Enamel Dots

Inlaid Leaves

Ooooooookay the house is pretty much as clean as it's going to get, I have two more loads of towels to wash and I'm done!  Which means I have a little bit of time to spend in my craft room before the hordes descend : p

Thought I'd try something different with the Tropical Layers dies and do an inlaid design.  I only used two colors of cardstock, Bermuda Bay and Coastal Cabana; I sponged on the insides of the leaves to make a darker version of Bermuda Bay.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Which I paired with the color challenge from CAS Colours & Sketches:

Then I worried that my card wasn't CAS enough, and I really liked those colors together, so I made this:

Yep, definitely more CAS this time.  For the Bermuda Bay leaf, I inked up the stamp with Versamark, then Bermuda Bay ink, and heat embossed with clear embossing powder so I could watercolor without the ink running.  The background leaves are cut out of silver foil paper; I cut the one on the left backwards (with the foil facing down instead of up towards the die) so I could have the leaves facing different directions.  The upside-down one ended up having more texture than the normal one, so I put the normal one back on my die cut machine facedown and ran it through with no die.  My cutting plates are well-used (like, a LOT) so doing that gave me some nice texture on the silver paper.  I used a blending brush to make a light Coastal Cabana background for my leaves and popped the sentiment on there.  Done!

Okay, the washer is squawking that it's done.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!, first card:
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Versamark
Paper:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Silver EP, silver gems that are retired, Dimensionals

Supplies, all SU!, second card:
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Versamark
Paper:  Thick Basic White, Coastal Cabana, Silver Foil
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, clear EP, Dimensionals

Birthday Butterfly Stripes

Hey y'all, I missed posting yesterday because we're getting ready for the hubs' extended family to visit next week.  I did make a card to share today and I've gotta write this blog post quickly so I can get to cleaning up.  So here we go!

This is a triple challenge card!  First up is the sketch from Hand Stamped Sentiments:

I probably should have chosen a smaller sentiment to be a bit more in line with the sketch.  I like this one, I can see using it over and over.

Next is the Global Design Project theme challenge:

Butterflies are definitely the supermodels of the bug world ; )

Last up is the Cupcake Inspirations challenge:

You would think I would add bugs + stripes and get bees, but nope.  I started out by looking through several packs of patterned paper for some stripes and had lots of options to choose from, but I chose the gold and white stripes and went from there.  I accented the butterflies with some small gold sequins from a past Paper Pumpkin kit.

Okay, I'm off to go vacuum the boy's room, there's a sandbox at his daycare and I think he's trying to bring it home one shoe-full of sand at a time.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Versamark
Paper:  Granny Apple Green, Basic Black, Tahitian Tide, Polished Pink, Abstract Beauty DSP Stack
Accessories:  white EP, Brilliant Wings dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, gold sequins

Tropical Calypso

Hey y'all, how's your Tuesday going?  I'm glad I have today off because I have a nasty headache.  Took me a while to make a card for today because my brain no worky :p  Then I turned to my current favorite stamp sets and made this:

The cloud pattern is in the Flowering Fields DSP, you know the one with the tulips?  But I figured it would work just fine with some tropical not-green greenery : )  I do love stamping these leaves in colors other than green.

I used the Just Add Ink sketch:

And the Global Design Project color challenge:

That's it for me today, folks.  I might go lay down for a bit while my laundry is going...cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered, Happy & Heartfelt
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Pale Papaya, Soft Suede
Paper:  Pale Papaya, Pool Party, Thick Basic White, Flowering Fields DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Mini Dimensionals, Happiness Blooms Enamel Dots

Paper Players: Sketch on the Side

Hey Paper Players friends!  You ready for a new challenge?

I must admit, Joanne's sketch was a challenge for me!  I had an idea for what I wanted to do and it just did NOT work for me, so I went back to the craft room after a day or two to try again.  Much happier with this attempt, maybe because I used one of my favorite recent stamp sets:

Yep, Artfully Layered for the win!  I've used this bundle several times for design team cards and I just can't stay away from it : )  I let the two Calypso Coral fronds in the background stand in for two of the squares on the sketch, with my Just Jade leaf as the third one.  There are LOTS of beautiful patterns in the Artfully Composed DSP, but I chose that Pale Papaya pattern because I knew it would let my sentiment be legible even stamped on top of the pattern.

I hope you'll create your own sketchtastic card and share it on the Paper Players blog.  Have fun!  As for me, I've got to get packin'...Ryan and I are flying out tomorrow to meet the hubs in London for a couple of days.  I haven't been to the UK since 2014 so I'm looking forward to it!  Did you know the world's largest Lego store is in London?  I'm sure Ryan will be very excited to learn that, ha!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Paper:  Just Jade, Calypso Coral, Artfully Composed DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, White EP, Dimensionals

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford <-- You are here : )

Jennie Maier

Paper Players: Tropical Colors

Greetings, stampy friends!  Most of the snow from Friday night has melted, but we still have a large pile of it that the hubs shoveled off the driveway and Ryan used for a mini sledding hill yesterday.  We got over six inches of snow...in April!  Crazy.

But enough about that, it's time for some fun new tropical colors courtesy of Ann Marie from the Paper Players!

Fun and bright, right?  I chose black as my neutral and made this:

Yep, Artfully Layered again...I can't help it, I love these tropical leaves.  I actually made this before the card I shared on Friday; in fact, the Coastal Cabana leaf I used on that card was leftover from this one.

Your turn!  Share your colorful card creation at the Paper Players blog, and have fun.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Daffodil Delight, Polished Pink, Thick Basic White, Pattern Party DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Hippo Friends dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, white EP, Dimensionals

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford

Jennie Maier

Tropical Celebration

Happy Friday y'all!  I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better than I was yesterday (perhaps yesterday's 3-hour nap contributed to me feeling better today?) and I spent some time in my craft room today playing with ink and paper.  And water.

I haven't dug out my watercolor paper in a looooong time but I did today!  I do have some green splotches on my hands now but it's all part of the process.  Bee tee dubs, if you're on the fence about the Artfully Layered bundle, just know that it is *not* carrying over to the new catalog, so buy it now ;)  Happy & Heartfelt too, for that matter--it's got great sentiments in a fun and casual font.  I also used the "We have to celebrate this!" on the inside of the card.

Anywha, I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And as per standard, I paired it with the Color Throwdown:

I used Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, and gold foil paper for my colors, plus some white.  And now I have about 30 minutes to work on my current stitching project before I go to pick up the spawn.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered, Happy & Heartfelt
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Versamark
Paper:  Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Thick Basic White, Gold foil, watercolor paper
Accessories:  Tropical Layers dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, corner rounder punch, white EP, Gold Glitter enamel dots, Dimensionals

Sketchtastic Paper Players

Hey y'all stamping friends!  I'm a bit late with my post today because the hubs was using the computer to do our taxes.  But here I am at last with the new Paper Players sketch:

Lots of layers equals lots of fun!  I couldn't resist playing with a new stamp set and coordinating paper for my card today:

I kept the sketch on my craft table right in front of me to make sure I wouldn't skip any of the layers :)  And really I added an extra layer with the stamped leafy frond on there.  I am digging the tropical vibes from this stamp set and papers!  I really went for the dies on this one too, I used FOUR different sets to construct all those pretty layers.

Now it's your turn to join the fun!  Be sure to upload your sketchtastic card at the Paper Players blog.  Enjoy!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Artfully Layered
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Versamark
Paper:  Pale Papaya, Calypso Coral, Thick Basic White, Artfully Composed DSP
Accessories:  Rectangles Stitched dies, Hippo Friends dies, Potted Succulents dies, Tropical Layers dies, White EP, Polished Dots

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford

Jennie Maier