GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Tropic Like It's Hot w/Wanda Guess

Hello everyone! My name is Wanda Guess and I'm very happy to be sharing some cards today on the WPlus9 Blog! Hope you are having a wonderful day! I am an avid paper crafter and blogger and I love to share art with people. I try to do something creative every day. I hope you'll visit my blog - A Blog Called Wanda. If I'm not blogging, you will most likely find me sharing photos on Instagram. My Instagram is @stampcatwg.

I'm so excited to be joining the crew at WPlus9. I've been a fan for a very long time! Last year, when WPlus9 launched their tropical themed release, well, my jaw about dropped to the floor! I immediately wanted all of it, and the ideas started flowing right away! I love anything with a tiki, tropical, flamingo vibe. And I love to create with bright bold colors. When Dawn asked me to guest design for today, I went straight for this collection. I have two cards to show you, so let's get started! In the midst of Winter, I'm bringing you a bit of Summer!

What's better than flamingos and flowers? Not much!

I started this card by die cutting the beautiful Trellis Background 2 Die from bright white paper. I cut and folded a horizontal A2 card base. Here's the tricky part... I cut the top of the card base off, leaving about 1/4 of an inch left at the top. Then I lined the inside of the card base with pretty blue paper. I used liquid glue to glue the edge of the Trellis Die to that little folded over part at the top of the card. This makes the Trellis Die Cut piece the front of the card now! I set this part under a stack of books to make it lay flat and continued to make the rest of the card.

I stamped and die cut out leaves, flowers and the flamingo using the Tropic Fever Stamp Set and the Flock Yeah Stamp Set. I colored all the images in tropical colors using Copic Markers.

Next I die cut out a black panel using a Stitched Rectangle Die. I used the Flock Yeah stamp set to stamp the sentiment and heat emboss it with white embossing powder. Now all of my pieces were ready to assemble.

I used small foam squares to attach the center sentiment panel and the flowers, leaves, flamingo to the front of the card. This is a bit tricky since the front of the card is a trellis! However, there is enough room to attach the foam squares so everything will hold tight. On the back of the trellis, I die cut another black rectangle and mirrored that to the front one.

For this next card I used the Flock Yeah Stamp Set along with another WPlus9 set called Summer Citrus. Those pineapples! Oh my! The sentiment is from the Southern Sentiment Stamp Set. It all works together so nicely for a Hello card!

I used Stitched Rectangles Dies to die cut a green layer and a white layer for the front of the card. The finished card is an A2 size cut from white cardstock. I used Mermaid Lagoon and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks to create a blue background on that top layer. I splattered Mermaid Lagoon Ink and Copic Opaque White ink over the blue blended background.

Next I stamped and die cut the palm trees, the pineapples and the little flowers. I colored them in with Copic Markers. I also used Copic Opaque White ink to splatter white over the images and then set them aside to dry.

I stamped the sentiment in rich black ink in the upper corner of the card. This is only part of a larger sentiment. I masked off the other part of the sentiment with washi tape and only stamped the "hello" portion.

I layered the green and blue layers onto the card base. I used foam squares to attach the palm trees and pineapples to the card. Then I sprinkled a few clear gems to finish it off!

Big thank you to everyone at WPlus9 for inviting me to be a guest designer today! I had fun working with these beautiful stamps and dies. I hope I've inspired you to create something today.

Aloha! ~Wanda

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured Wplus9 supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase.

Summer Citrus Shop at: WP9	Summer Citrus Die Shop at: WP9	Tropic Fever Shop at: WP9 | SSS | EH	Tropic Fever Die Shop at: WP9
Flock Yeah! Shop at: WP9	Flock Yeah! Die Shop at: WP9	Trellis Background 2 Die Shop at: WP9	Southern Sentiments Shop at: WP9