Today I’m using the Whale of a Time Suite for my project and it’s a very simple fun fold.

Welcome to the March Blog Hop! Who are the Casually Crafting Design Team you may ask? We are made up of Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators from around the world we love to hop each month with projects to inspire those who may be new to crafting or might like a simpler and more basic approach to crafting. The emphasis is on the use of our coordinating card, inks, DSP (patterned paper) and simple stamping with our fabulous stamp sets to create projects that are easy to duplicate, but are stylish and eyecatching.

I’ve thrown in a simple technique that I love to show my newer stampers. It’s so easy to do but each time you create a completely unique piece to work with and the combinations are endless.

To create this look I have used one of our Clear Blocks any of the blocks would work I chose a D Block, as I wanted to punch out my stamped piece with the 2 1/4 inch punch and this Block does the job well.

My ink colours for this part of the project were Mint Macaron and Just Jade. I inked with the Mint Macaron first as it’s easier going from light to dark and I pressed half of a flat side of the block onto the inkpad I then turned the block 180 degrees and did the same thing with the Just Jade inkpad on the other half of the block. I then used one of our Stampin’ Spritzers that contained water to lightly spritz the inked block with water until the colours started to merge. Too much water and the ink will drip off, not enough and the colours don’t bleed and give a good effect, so a little practice might be necessary.

Press the block onto a piece of Basic White card and leave it there for a few seconds for the ink to transfer. Each time you use this method the pattern will be different, which is one of the reasons I love this technique so much. It will take a short while for your inked piece to dry and it is best to wait until it’s fully dry before the next step.

I then cut out a circle with my 2 1/4 inch punch. I also cut a Label Me Lovely punched shape from Basic White and I cut this in half horizontally.

I felt that my inked piece reminded me of an undersea scene so I decided to pair it with the Whale Done stamp set and the matching Whale of a time patterned papers. I used the coral and the smaller seaweed stamps to stamp on my inked circle to the left at the bottom to create some underwater scenery. I stamped both of these in Just Jade ink.

I created my card base from Just Jade Card cutting my A4 card to 14.8cm and scoring at 5.25cm and 10.5cm. I cut 2 pieces of patterned paper at 5cm by 14.5cm one to decorate the folded section and one for the landscape front flat section. I chose the seaweed paper for the flat section and the watery paper for the folded pop up section.

I mounted my circle inked and stamped panel onto the basic white punched halves so that this back panel would appear wider than the circle. It’s a trick that works with many of our punches and I also frequently use the same punch pop out another colour and cut it in half elongating it over my first punched shape so it has the illusion of an extra layer. The cute Whale and Turtle were ‘fussy cut’ from the patterned paper and added to the easel front.

The sentiment was stamped in Pretty Peacock another colour featured in the patterned papers. I trimmed the sentiment with my paper snips and cut off the word ‘Deal’ I stuck this word flat and used a couple of our Stampin’ Dimensionals to pop up the rest of the sentiment to create a stopper for the easel section of the card.

All of the items I used to make my card are available from my online store the link is in my sidebar.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by today.

Love Bel x