New at SU blog hop Two-Tone Summer

I'm delighted to be back joining the New at SU! monthly blog hop.  I've been away for awhile as we had various other things going on in life that took my time, but I'm back for my first hop of 2026.

We're sharing some fabulous ideas and tips for using the relatively new to Stampin' Up! card stock.  I've chosen to use one of the beautiful new In Colors which is called Hydrangea Hue.  It's a mix of Blue, Lilac and hints of Purple, but is just so so pretty and doesn't it look great with Cajun Craze!  I saw the Duchess of Edinburgh in the media for a recent royal visit wearing a very smart dress in just this colour and she teamed it with a Cinnamon/Cajun Craze coloured hat and she looked stunning and so that was me sold and ready with my colour combo for this hop. 

I made the above card in advance of the hop, but have created a similar version in my youtube tutorial below.  On the day of filming my phone decided it was full so there are a couple of selective edits, but I'm sure it now flows and you can pick up my tips.  I hope you enjoy it. 

Two-tone cardstock is so flexible.  It comes in 12 x 12 inch sheets and is between Stampin' Up!'s usual card stock weight and our designer series papers.  Each sheet has as it says on the tin 2 tones one lighter than the other on one side and the slightly darker on the other.  You can flip a piece to add a frame to the other tone, emboss it and sand it as you'll see in the video, it's lighter for matt layers and therefore cheaper for postage potentially and you can stamp on it, heat emboss on it and more.  You can buy individual colour packs or mixed packs with a couple of sheets each of a selection of colours.  What more could a paper crafter want.  

On a  previous POST I used the Barely Blush for a girly sailing card using the Sunset Coast bundle.  There are even more ideas as you click around the hop using the links below.  

 Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the hop.

Happy stamping

Zoe x

Blog Hop Index

Supplies Used

Hydrangea Hue two-tone cardstock

Springtime scenes bundle

Flower accents

Amazing Friend - Happy Birthday

Amazing You + Lovely Inside and Out + Cake Soiree = Stampin' Up!

Earlier this week I shared a couple of cards that I made using the fabulous Cake Soiree stamp set from the Stampin Up spring catalogue.  I also shared a video tutorial of how I created the 'smoosh' effect on the flowers of the cards.  I had several flowers left over and like many of you I'm sure I didn't want them to go to waste so I created this card which was for a dear friend of mine on her birthday.

To begin with I flicked ink from a calypso coral and berry burst marker pens by simply putting the end of the pen nib just into the lid and flicking it out of the lid over the card stock.  You can see it creates a very gentle and subtle spatter effect.  I stamped 'friend' from Stampin Up set Lovely Words in fresh fig ink and also 'for a great' onto a spare piece of whisper white which was then punched out with the classic label punch. This is adhered with stampin dimensionals also.   I added the remaining flowers from my earlier project using glue dots and stampin dimensionals.  My amazing die cut is also one I had spare from a stampin up party I held and was die cut with the double sided adhesive sheets as described in my you tube video here.

You can just see my addition of a little fresh fig card stock at the bottom of my design which was created using the ticket tear border punch.  This is a particularly good punch for mens cards.  The design layer of the card had a bow of white baker's twine added around it prior to being stuck on with stampin dimensionals.   The card is a DL size the base is cut at 21cm x 21cm and scored at 10.5cm and fits in a DL envelope.

As crafters we tend to keep every little scrap and off cut, but sometimes it's actually a good thing to use them and find a use for them rather than overloading your craft room.

Thanks for checking in and I hope you like my short and sweet video with some helpful smooshing, heat embossing and delicate die cut tips.

Hugs
Zoe x