Welcome to my crafty blog on a very hot evening here in the UK. You definitely need a hat on if you’re out in these temperatures, so I decided the photo over at Fusion was the perfect starting point. I’ve included the central row of birthday, flowers & sequins from TicTacToe‘s grid and the optional twist of ‘summer’ from Can You Handle The Pressure. I’m also going to share it with Happy Little Stampers for their watercolour challenge.

I started by die cutting a circle of cream card and cut the centre out with a smaller die, to form the hat. I ran both pieces through Stampin’ Up!’s ‘tasteful textiles’ embossing folder to give it the effect of a straw hat. I cut a square fo white card to fit a 6×6 card blank, ran that through the ‘subtles’ embossing folder, then attached it and the outer circle to the card front.

I cracked open my new ‘happiness abounds’ stamps & co-ordinating dies to decorate the hat. I stamped the flowers with WOW’s clear ink, then heat embossed them with superfine white powder. I watercoloured them with ‘dried marigold’ & ‘mermaid lagoon’ Distress Oxides, then die cut them. I stamped the leaves in ‘fern’ Archival ink and watercoloured them in ‘mowed lawn’ before cutting them out as well. I attached the flowers to the hat with foam pads, then glued the leaves in place around them.

I added the small circle back on top to form the crown of the hat. It didn’t look quite right, though, so I cut another circle using the next size die, mounted it and then attaced both to the centre of the image with a foam pad. I stamped the sentiment in ‘watering can’ Archival, fussy cut it and glued it across the brim of the hat. A few adhesive sequins finished the look!

Perfect for a summer’s day!