STAMPlorations august release hop

Welcome to the grand finale of the STAMPlorations August Release celebration! Not only do we have some cool stamp sets for you this release, but there are the new CUTplorations dies too! I'm still SOOOO psyched about those. Sure hope y'all like 'em so Shery will keep producing more and more ;)

Which brings about a new situation. Die cut stamped images. Hmmm. Tends to mean less focus on backgrounds and techniques, more focus on patterned paper and coloring. Yikes!

Well anything that forces me to use up some of my PP stash is a good thing. As for coloring, I broke out the colored pencils (before I had my Polychromos) and gave it a go.

Meet Buttercups and Butterflies.

Stamped the images in black and colored the buttercups with colored pencils. Die cut them with the matching CUTplorations die (how I love saying that!!!). I stamped the sentiment onto a die cut circle and arranged the items in a flow from bottom to top. The arrangement was taller than a standard card, so I made a tall card. Added a panel of older Jillybean Soup PP to my cardbase. And for interest I adhered the items at the top with dimensional adhesive.

Meet Birds of Paradise.

How fun is it to work with Shirley's crazy birds?!?! But first things first. For my background I die cut the largest of the three Crazy Double Stitched Rectangles and inked it up with Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky and a touch of Mermaid Lagoon for brightness. Then I splattered water. Then I spritzed it with my Perfect Pearls/water mix.

I stamped and die cut the birds and colored them with yellow, orange and red colored pencils. Added two sentiments which I fussy cut in the shape of clouds keeping with my sky background. I was thinking mama and baby bird, but I guess it could be well and sick too. Anyhoo, I adhered mama and her sentiment with dimensional adhesive for interest.

Meet Tweet Love.

The tails, folks. Did you notice those tweet tails?!?! OK, the PP was out so I went PP crazy on this card. Grabbed an Elle's Studio kit and played. Stamped the giraffe and ellie onto the smallest pattern -polka dot. Die cut two Crazy Double Stitched Rectangles, one from a mid-size pattern and one from a large pattern. Heat embossed a sentiment from Noteworthy onto a blue scrap and attached it with a staple. A few Freckled Fawn enamel drops finished off my card.

TIP: When you have the dies, don't forget to use them! As I was pulling the backing off of about 20 little foam squares on my crazy bird, it dawned on me I could have die cut the bird from craft foam instead. Duh. So that's what I did with these tweet animals ;)

Meet Bloom Happy.

I like so many of these wonderful sentiments, I decided to make a set of mini cards. Easy peasy. Truly. Cut cardbases for 9x18 cm. Adhered 13 Arts "Faces of Spring" to them and stamped each with a border from Artsy Border Maker in gray. Then I stamped the sentiments onto rectangles die cut with the Bloom Happy die from CUTplorations.

Check out what the rest of the team made! You'll find links to all our projects here. Prizes? Yep, so be sure to leave lots of comments before August 16. AND special for blog followers and August stamp spotlight week blog hop participants, from August 8 - 15 all orders of at least $12 ship free worldwide! Use code STAMPWEEK.

Thanks for hopping! Have a great day.