Azure Afternoon Archives - What Cathy Made

Stampin’ Up! Azure Afternoon Layers of Beauty Card

by What Cathy Made | Jun 12, 2024 | Azure Afternoon, Distressed Tile Embossing folder, Layers of Beauty, What Cathy Made

Welcome to week seven of our Art With Heart 2024-25 Colour Creations blog hop!

Now that we’ve featured the five new In Colors and the new neutral/core colour, Basic Beige, we are returning to our alphabetical showcasing of the Stampin’ Up! colour range, starting with Azure Afternoon.

Azure Afternoon is in the brights family and this bold aqua blue really makes me happy. For my card this week I’ve combined it with Balmy Blue, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive, Basic Black and Basic White, such a gorgeous colour combination.

Although Azure Afternoon reminds me of the sea and the sky, I decided to create a blue rose floral birthday card.

Apologies in advice – my photos this week are not the best as I make this card just before giving it to the recipient, so I had to photograph it using inside lights long after the sun had set.

The bundle I used for this card is a brand new favourite of mine, the Layers of Beauty bundle. In addition to a stamp set and matching dies it has a set of layering masks, fabulous for colouring techniques.

The masks are numbered 1–5 and there are notches in the masks to help with perfect alignment. After stamping the large floral spray stamp in Memento Ink, I used blending brushes to add the following colours to the numbered masks.

Balmy Blue – bottom floral mask
Azure Afternoon – middle floral mask
Azure Afternoon – top floral mask
Old Olive – bottom leaf mask
Mossy Meadow – top leaf mask

I stamped and coloured two identical floral sprays using these masks so I had extra flowers to decorate the envelope and add an extra layer to the front of the card.

Using one of the smaller dies, I cut out one of the roses from second floral spray and adhered with Stampin’ Dimensionals on the main floral spray.

The embossed layer of the card is created with the Distressed Tile embossing folder. I think its vintage vibe really suits this floral image.

A bow of linen thread attached the “Happy Birthday” sentiment from the Country Birdhouse stamp set is stamped over two lines so it fits into the cute little tag from the Layers of Beauty dies.

I also die cut an extra tag in Azure Afternoon to add interest and dimension to the card.

Not wanting to waste the rest of my second coloured floral spray I used the largest die and my paper snips to fussy cut a rose to decorate the back of my envelope.

Now it’s time to hop in over to our next participant, the lovely Kate Morgan – I can’t wait to see what Kate has made this week!

If at any time you find a broken link, you can find the complete list of all participants below.

Catherine Proctor – you are here!

We’ll be back next Wednesday, 19th June, showcasing Balmy Blue.

I hope you can join us then!

Azure Afternoon On the Ocean Birthday Card

by What Cathy Made | Jun 7, 2023 | Azure Afternoon, Fresh as a Daisy DSP, On the Ocean dies, On the Ocean stamp set, What Cathy Made, Wild Wheat

Welcome to week six of our Art With Heart 2023-24 Colour Creations blog hop!

This week we are showcasing a brand new colour in the Brights family: Azure Afternoon. Azure Afternoon is gorgeous blue that sits somewhere between Tahitian Tide and the recently retired Pacific Point, the perfect colour for both a summer’s sky or the ocean.

Today’s card uses the the On the Ocean stamp set and the coordinating On the Ocean dies as well as the Fresh as a Daisy DSP, which is one of the selected Designer Series Papers on sale at 15% off for the entire month of June (you can see the entire list of papers on sale here).

My colour scheme for my card was inspired by this DSP.

There’s a couple of wave dies in the On the Ocean dies – I’ve used the border wave die to cut Basic White cardstock waves and then layer up an ocean.

Waves are given dimension and colour by alternating between plain white die cut layers (for the foam) and waves coloured with Azure Afternoon, using one of the small blending brushes to blend the colour from the ink pad to the card stock.

The top background sky layer is from this pattern sheet in the Fresh as a Daisy DSP (bottom left) as are the sails on the boat (top middle stripes).

For the background sky I’ve stamped Early Espresso seagulls from the On the Ocean Stamp set directly onto the background DSP. The “happy birthday” sentiment is also from the On the Ocean Stamp set, stamped onto a die cut cloud.

I’d originally die cut the sail from Crumb Cake card stock, however as soon as I swapped the crumb cake sail out for a sail die cut from the Wild Wheat striped DSP the whole card really came together as the sails reflected the background layer.