Me! I would love to be strolling on a tropical beach!

Sadly that’s not likely to be an option for a while so maybe I will lose myself in some crafty endeavours instead, who’s with me?

This week’s Monday Facebook Live featured the Sand & Sea Suite and I mentioned that after jumping in and getting both the stamp set ‘Friends Are Like Seashells’ and the fantastic Seashells 3D Embossing Folder, on preorder for the January to June Mini, I had failed to purchase the matching Seaside Seashells die set. Well yesterday my die set arrived (yes, I caved in!) and I couldn’t wait to get cutting. I had seen so many great projects using the full capabilities of this Bundle that I could hold off no longer.

I’ve been on a bit of a roll in recent times creating my own patterned and inked papers to die cut or stamp images on, adding texture and colour in a more unconventional way. Today I used that approach again and was happy with the outcome. I decided to use our Shimmery White Cardstock for my technique today as i was using our inkpads and some water and this Card has a slight coating to the surface that enables it to take a bit more water than our Basic White Card. I chose not to use our Fluid 100 Watercolour Paper as I just wanted texture as opposed to a full watercolour wash effect.

I used one of our acetate ‘Window Sheets’ as a base and added ink from a few different, but similar inks using a water brush after squezzing the ink pads to create a small pool of ink in the lids. I was careful not to muddy the inks by keeping them slightly apart I then spritzed a small amount of water onto the ink and then placed my shimmery cardstock ontop and pressed and allowed it to absorb the colour. It takes a little while to dry so I sped up the process with my heat tool. I repeated this process on a smaller pieces of shimmery cardstock with some green inks and some blue inks to stamp and die cut the starfish and seaweed elements and the small shells. The pink seashell was fussy cut from the Sand & Sea Designer Series Paper.

Seaside Spray (outgoing in-colour) seemed like an appropriate base for my card and I added some colour with our new incoming in-colour Soft Succulent using the Blending Brushes just to make the diecut pop and add some background interest.

The dimension that the Embossing Folder adds is a real wow! I enhanced this by adding some Wink of Stella to the raised sections of the shells. There’s another sneak peek right here too, this fabulous tag element is from a brnnd new die set called Tailor Made Tags, the set has two different tag shapes in multiple sizes and these little reinforcers that finish the tag and add such great detail. Expect to see a lot of these in my crafting going forward, I love these!

You can watch the recording of my Facebook Live session from Monday 19th April 4pm in the UK by clicking the image below. You will get to see how I put this card together.

Thanks for joining me today and happy crafting daydreaming of that beach!

You can shop for any Stampin’ Up! items with me including everything I used in my Live to create this project. By Clicking HERE to visit my Online Store. Please use the HOST CODE below when shopping to receive an extra gift from me at the end of the month as I share the rewards from cummulative customer orders throughout each month. (The Host Code box appears at the top of the checkout area as a clickable drop down option)

Back soon, love Bel x