I have a second card today; this one uses Michelle L's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I'm squeaking in my entry over at Colour Inkspiration with that pretty ice-cream coloured palette:

I wanted to have a first play with the new Rolling Waves bundle and these colours had a definite summery feel to me! I thought Michelle's layout might work for a beach scene, so set to work. Take a look at what I came up with:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I used a base of Basic Beige to emulate white sand, then stamped the Coastal Cabana stamp onto a piece of the same colour cardstock and used this for my sea bae, before adding Pool Party and Shimmer White sea foam. I layered a couple of beach umbrellas in the challenge colours and for the smaller third circle of the sketch I blended some Bubble Bath and Daffodil Delight inks onto some white cardstock with a blending brush and die cut a trio of shells, adding a few pink sparkly sequins for some seaside shimmer:

 A happy birthday sentiment finished on the inside with another greeting and another trio of those pretty shells complete my card:

I think I need a little more practice with the layering and I do wish the dies were a little longer (I had to get a little creative to extend my sea to cover the height of my card) but otherwise for a first try I'm quite happy with how this card turned out.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

I've been away for a couple of days and not been into my craft room for over a week, so having been out for a long walk around a local reservoir this morning which the hubs was paddleboard training the rescue crew for some local open water swimmers, I rewarded myself this after noon with some crafting just for fun! I took my inspiration from a number of challenges:

I was intrigued by the squared background layout over at Atlantic Hearts Challenge (you should definitely checked out the embossed card that my sweet friend LeAnne, who is on their DT, created - it's fabulous!) but I wanted to combine with the challenge over at Just Us Girls where I haven't managed to play along for a few weeks as life keeps getting in the way and this week I had found the perfect piece of paper covered in umbrellas and flowers, inspired by their photo mood board. My sentiment was chosen with the challenge over at Time Out in mind: I chose rain (umbrellas),bloom (flowers) and hope (my sentiment) - take a look at the card I created:

My card is pretty self-explanatory and I used up a bunch of retired product: Pleased As Punch designer paper, Stitched Shapes dies to cut out the squares and circle, some coordinating flowers cut using the Pierced Blooms Dies to embellish my sentiment, which is from the 'Under My Umbrella' stamp stamp set:

I added another piece of that pretty designer paper to the envelope flap for a co-ordinated finishing touch.

That's all from me; enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project for our new challenge over at The Paper Players. Until then, happy stampin'!