Tropical Oasis sponged card

So much for being organised! I had this card ready to go for Crafty Friday this month, but had to change my plans due to the Lockdown as this doesn’t lend itself well to distance crafting.

It is inspired by Tina Wardell at tinascraftyinkspot.com and uses products from the Tropical Oasis Suite. I love a technique card and this one is packed with fun techniques; sponging, masking, embossing paste to name but a few.

It uses products from the Tropical Oasis Suite, which is well worth checking out.

Take a look at your dies; can you create something different from them? This card uses a couple of leaves to make a grassy mound.

Seven Tropical Oasis projects with measurements for a simple card wallet

It may not feel particularly tropical as I type this but it was on Saturday when I held my All-Day Craft Event using the Tropical Oasis Suite.

Everyone received the stamp set to use at the event, plus half a pack of Memories & More Cards to use on their projects. We made a simple card wallet to hold six cards, which used the Magnolia Lane Memories & More Large Specialty Cards & Envelopes (item 149487) for ease and speed. 

These are the measurements for a wallet which will comfortably hold six multi-layered cards. Once you have scored as above, cut the grey areas away as shown here...

And these are the cards we made to go inside. Well, these are my samples – some people went quite a bit off-piste! That's the beauty of having all that choice in the Memories & More Cards.

Inspired by Gail Ellis of Blue Rose Paper Treasures

Inspired by Brian King of Stamp With Brian

 Plus the one you’ve already seen...

To colour the image quickly, use sponge daubers! Simply swirl in the centre of the big flower with one colour, then add a paler colour to the edges. Or keep going with the same colour, working outwards so it gets paler towards the petal tips. Because you’re die-cutting or fussy-cutting the flowers, it doesn’t matter if you go over the edges.

Choices, choices... with Tropical Oasis Memories and More cards

I’m busy preparing for my Spring All-Day Craft Event tomorrow, where we’ll be using the Tropical Oasis Suite to make one big project which should take all day. Intrigued? All will become clear sooner or later.

While designing projects for this session, some inevitably were rejected. Here’s one that got away. One of these is NOT one of the planned projects for tomorrow, but can you guess which one I rejected?

However, the nature of the event means the guests will have lots of choice; they can copy my designs or make the projects just how they want to. Flexibility is the key!

These projects both use the Tropical Oasis Memories & More cards, which are ideal if you like quick projects. You get the same designs of the Designer Series Paper plus many more, so they’re perfect if you rarely use big pieces of DSP or if you find you’re reluctant to cut it up! There are sticker sheets, too, which make projects even quicker. 

Two ways to use Pigment Sprinkles

Pigment sprinkles add a watercoloured, naturalistic look to any project and I love them! I just wish I'd bought them sooner.

I’ve used them in two ways for this project. For the pineapple, I wet the watercolour paper, sprinkled on my pigment and spritzed it liberally with more water to give this washy look.

For the background, I flicked on some sprinkles using a dry brush and only spritzed very lightly. This made the different colours within the pigment separate to give this fun multi-coloured look.

When I ran the pineapple body through the Big Shot, because it was watercolour paper, the pieces didn’t fall out easily, so I quickly taped them in place from behind as I liked the look. I hesitate to advise how to recreate this look, as all die-cutting machines are calibrated differently but you can try thicker cardstock or maybe two pieces – the top one will be cut all the way through while the bottom one should be cut partially to give you the pattern without all the pieces falling out. 
 

Meerkat Week: Silhouetted meerkats

I take my hat off to the first person to come up with this silhouette idea. But there are so many versions of this by now that I can’t work out who was the originator.

Begin by masking and brayering a lovely bright sunset, then all you do is stamp your image, then colour the whole lot in black. How easy is that?

Brayering is easy but most people, in my experience, give up too early and are disappointed with their results. The keys are:

1. Start OFF the edge of the paper so you don't get a hard line where the ink begins... AND

2 Keep going: brayer over and over and over again until you get a good even colour distribution. 
 

Timeless Tropical with the brightest of brights

On cold winter days, a splash of tropical colour is always welcome. The beautiful Tropical Oasis Suite is perfect for brightening up dark days but it’s easy to go overboard and end up with a project which takes you until spring to complete.

For my Stampy Buffet, I kept things relatively simple with this project CASEd from Cindy Elam. Guests could die-cut or fussy-cut the stamped flowers, and the punched greeting is as quick as they come.

With a juicy ink pad such as Lovely Lipstick, used here, you don’t need more ink on your blender pen when colouring the image; in fact, adding extra ink can just make it blotchy. Instead, I just dragged the ink from the centre of the flower to add some depth.

Sneak Peek: Timeless Tropical

Happy New Year! In the crafting world, a new year does, of course, mean new stamps!

Flower power is not my area but something odd has happened: I've gone bafflingly botanical! I honestly don't know what's come over me but I do know that I love this new stamp set, Timeless Tropical, which is coming to Stampin' Up!® on 3rd Jan. What do you think? Looks great stamped in brown Stazon, doesn't it? Yep, that's another fabulous new product we can look forward to.

When creating cards with lots of elements, it's a good idea to lay them all how you want them then take a quick photo with your phone. It makes it a lot easier to recreate the same layout when you start adding adhesives. 

Sneak peek: Peaceful Poppies bundle

It’s Boxing Day here in the UK but I’m ready to move on to 2020, so do you fancy a sneak peek? You'll love the Peaceful Poppies Suite from the new Spring/Summer catalogue, which goes live on 3rd January.

The suite includes the Painted Poppies Bundle which I've used to create the greeting frame and to stamp the inside. But the star of the show here is the Peaceful Poppies Designer Series Paper. This sheet is perfect for the crafter in a hurry as it has this wide floral border down both edges so you can cut it into six 6x4 pieces and then trim them to fit your card fronts.

Mixing and matching allows you to get more from your products. I was still waiting for my coordinating Peaceful Moments stamp set when I made these cards so I stamped the greetings with another new set – Timeless Tropical – instead, which works just as well. The ribbon and twine are from the Magnolia Lane Suite in the Annual Catalogue.