Welcome to week six of our Art With Heart 2025-26 Colour Creations Insta hop!
This week we’re celebrating the vibrant and cheerful Azure Afternoon — a bold, bright blue that just sings on a handmade card. It also happens to be one of my favourite colours in the Stampin’ Up! palette.
Blending Brushes with Masks or Stampin’ Blends?
Using blending brushes and Stampin’ Blends actually makes looks like I’ve used an assortment of different blue inks to create my hydrangeas.
Both cards start with half a A4 sheet of Basic White cardstock (folding in half) and topped with a layer of black and white striped DSP from the Lovely Garden 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper.
The hydrangeas on both cards are from the Thankful Garden stamp set, stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento and die cut using the Thankful Garden dies.
Layering Masks and Blending Brushes
Card one is a vertical Happy Birthday card that uses the blending brushes and the Thankful Garden Decorative Masks to softly colour the petals and background.
Here’s a close-up so you can see the detail. All three layers of the hydrangea are coloured using Azure Afternoon. The black stamens at the centre of the card are a tiny stamp in the Thankful Garden stamp set.
I love the different layers of intensity these layering masks give to the flower!
Card Coloured With Stampin’ Blends
Card two is a horizontal card that uses Stampin’ Blends in Azure Afternoon and Old Olive for a more vibrant, hand-coloured look.
Here’s a close-up so you can see the detail.
On both cards the extra Old Olive leaves behind the flowers are die cut from Basic White card stock that I’ve then coloured using blending brushes, adding extra detail with the dark Old Olive Stampin’ Blend.
The Azure Afternoon twine is from the Pack Your Bags Twine 3-Pack and the sparkling embellishments are Rhinestone Basic Jewels coloured using the dark Azure Afternoon Stampin’ Blend.
The cute little “Happy Birthday “sentiment is from the Charming Duck Pond Stamp Set which is on sale right now in the Last Chance section of the website. The Azure Afternoon layer behind the sentiment is die cut with the Textured Notes Dies.
Take a look at some more Azure Afternoo inspiration on our Insta Hop!
Our blog hop is now an Instagram hop but the good news is that you don’t need to have an Instagram account to view all of the other projects!
Simply copy any of the Insta handles below into a new search window to follow the Instagram hop at any point.
Next in our Hop is Kate @craftwithkate. Be sure to check out her gorgeous project/s.
The full list of this week’s InstaHop are listed below:
Kate @craftwithkate
Kirsty @crafty.littlemiss
Rosa @hum.and.stamp
Rachel P @rachelpalmieristampin
Vicki @vickiboucher
Leanne @createwithleanne2
Rachel W @handstamped_by_rachel
Andrea @andreaksargent
Cathy @whatcathymade – you are here!
Our AWH Colour Creations team will be back next Wednesday, 18th June, showcasing Balmy Blue.
I hope you can join us then!