Textured Notes for Colour INKspiration 190

 

Welcome to the 190th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday July 7, 7pm AEST.

This colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member, Nikki Spencer. It's a warm, rustic, neutral palette just perfect for the winter season. Now the shortest day is behind us, we can start looking forward to warmer weather soon! 😀

If you haven't played with us before, we are a group of Stampin' Up Demonstrators from the South Pacific. Challenges are shown and entered via our Facebook Group page. If you don't belong, and would like to, click here. Don't forget to answer the three easy questions you'll be asked when you ask to join the group.

Each challenge, Top Picks and a winner are chosen by the crew and the winner offered a chance to Guest Design with us for a future challenge. We welcome Yvonne Spikmans Van-Bruggan as our Guest Designer for this challenge.

If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Very Vanilla for Basic Beige. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

These colours just seemed perfect for one of my favourite sets of the moment, Textured Notes - especially when paired up with Elements of Text. Both of these items are Online Exclusives, so you need to go to the online store to see them. It's a section well worth checking out. 

I used Cajun Craze for the card base, a matte of Basic Beige and then used the largest Textured Notes dies to cut a rectangle. 

I used a favourite technique of mine, which is Faux Torn Paper. I ripped a piece of copy paper in half and used the halves as a mask on the white rectangle to create gap in the centre. I started by sponging some Basic Beige in the centre, using Blending Brushes, and started adding in some Crumb Cake towards each edge.  Then I stamped some text in Basic Beige using one of the text stamps from Elements of Text. Then I stamped some leaves in Cajun Craze and Crumb Cake, using foliage stamps from Textured Notes. Finally, I added in some half strength Cajun Craze splatters using one of the splatter stamps from Elements of Text. Note - do this before removing the masks.

The scariest part was stamping the sentiment in Cajun Craze directly onto the card front. The final part was to add in a trio of Neutral Matte Dots. 

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with these colours in the Crew Inspiration Album on the Colour INKspiration Challenge Facebook page.

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Textured Notes for Paper Players 743

Well, Elizabeth has given us an interesting sketch for this week's challenge at The Paper Players!

Her only requirement is that we make a ONE LAYER CARD. 

So that means that all we have to work with is a folded card base and all stamping and inking is applied directly to that. One team member said that if it needs glue, it isn't one layer! That's a handy thing to remember when you're doing this challenge.

I've used masks to create  the illusion of layers. I masked off the edge of the card front with carefully placed painter's tape. Then I stamped the leaves from Notes of Texture in Mossy Meadow and added some splatter in Crushed Curry from Elements of Text.

Then I used a rectangle of card to mask off the stamping, leaving half centimetre gap between the painters tape and the rectangle. Then I sponged in some Old Olive starting at the corner and letting it bleed out in each direction. When you take away the rectangle of card, you're left with a solid line of colour that gives the illusion of a layer. 

Then I sponged in some Crushed Curry lightly around the stamping to give it some grounding.

I repeated this in the diagonally opposite corner but instead of foliage I used one of the greetings and I deliberately scaled this corner to be slightly smaller than the top one. 

Once all the sponging and stamping had been completed, I carefully (very carefully) removed the tape from the edges of the card front. Voila - all done!

I'm really interested to see how everyone goes about creating a one layer card - and remember that if you've used glue it probably isn't one layer!

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

1. Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
3. Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
4. Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
5. Have fun, and thank you for playing with us!

Don't forget to check out the great inspiration from the rest of the design team.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

 

Thankful Garden for Stampin' Fancy Friday

This month at Stampin' Fancy Friday, our challenge inspiration is flowers: you'll see the team all playing with some kind of flowers.

The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday don't blog hop but we do a daily inspiration post on Instagram (and Facebook). The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday are all current or past members of Stampin' Up!'s Artisan Design Team, so it really is a great place to pick up ideas or recharge your creative mojo. 

You can view our interpretations of the month's challenge on both Instagram and Facebook. 

Follow @stampinfancyfriday if you don't already. 😀

So, one of my favourite floral sets is the Thankful Garden bundle. It's found in Online Exclusives and is a set of stamps, dies and stencils which can be used separately or together. 

I love the softly coloured look that comes from the layered stencils. 

I was also trying out some of the new In Colors 2025-27. The dark blue/grey is Secret Sea, the softer blue/grey is Cloud Cover and the pink is Strawberry Slush. I've added in some Daffodil Delight to the flower centres with a dauber.

I've stamped and coloured two of the floral image so I could cut out one of the flowers and add it to create a trio. The third is popped up on dimensionals to add some height.

The softly patterned, slightly brick-like DSP is from the In Color paper stack but the big find in the Online Exclusive drop is these fabulous stitched edge Everyday Arches dies! I can't believe I've lived so long without them!

Finally, I added some of the flat pearl In Color embellishments for a bit more colour. 

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking here. 

Impressions Abloom for CAS Colours & Sketches 562

Every now and then I remind myself of my New Year crafting resolution, which was to play along with more challenges just for fun and to forget about class projects and design team commitments.  To be honest, it's not going so well! Today I decided to have a look around my favourite challenges and see what I could play along with, since it's a public holiday. 

CAS Colours & Sketches had a highly unusual challenge. Usually a sketch is a creative springboard but this one had serious restrictions. It had to include 9 rectangles exactly and they had to be white  or plain coloured with no pattern.  

Well, that cut out my first response which was to emboss the rectangles to add some texture and my second - which was to try some faux tiling. I was about to run for the hills and find somewhere else to play when I felt a bit of stubborn come on... I would make this sketch work!

Here's where it ended up....

To create the rectangles I used the smallest rounded corner rectangle die from Nested Essentials. I spaced them evenly over a piece of Basic White because at that stage I wasn't sure whether I'd used a coloured card base. Ultimately I chose to use Thick Basic White cardstock for the base to help keep the CAS look.

Then I had a bit of fun playing around with the dies from Impressions Abloom to create a floral bouquet. I used Petunia Pop, Pretty in Pink, Shy Shamrock and Daffodil Delight because I wanted a punch of colour.

By now, it was looking quite cheery so it seemed more like a birthday card that anything else. I used the sentiment from The Right Words and a banner die from Stylish Shapes. 

To finish off, I added in three Basic Rhinestones to help draw the eye to the sentiment. 

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Masculine Cards for Creativity Abounds June

 

This month the international team at Creativity Abounds are exploring masculine cards.This hop - and the associated tutorial bundle - is always popular and will give you a lot of examples for all sorts ideas for masculine cards: colours, layouts, sets, papers, techniques, bundles.

Even if you don't have the exact sets, you'll find inspiration in the different projects each of us has created. If you get the tutorial bundle, you'll have step-by-step instructions for thirteen projects, all of which you'll see as you go around the hop.

You can earn the Tutorial Bundle as a free gift from me with a purchase of $100 or more (excluding P&P) or by being a member of my team. You can shop with me, and join my team, from anywhere in New Zealand. If you would like to buy the tutorial from me for $25, message me.

This card is a bonus project: a masculine card to give you some ideas. I think the Country Woods DSP (and also the Botanical Textures DSP) are just perfect for a masculine style card.  The stamped tools and sentiment are from Trusty Tools - a set that's just right if you have a DIY-er or handyman in the family. 

And here's a sneak peek of the card I made for the June tutorial bundle.  There are step-by-step instructions on how to make it - as well as the other twelve projects. 

Here's a sneak peek at all the projects in the tutorial.

Here's the whole team and where we're from.

There's still time to join the Celebratory Sips Stamp Camp

Our next International Virtual Stamp Camp is June 28-29 (South Pacific)

This time, we're using the Celebratory Sips bundle from Online Exclusives as our Featured Product for the Camp.

Purchase of the suite from a member demonstrator gets you free access to the camp, a 13 project tutorial complete with make and take kits, and 13 completely different projects demonstrated throughout the Stamp Camp Weekend. 

If you live in New Zealand and plan to join the camp, you will need to order the Featured Product not later than 14 June to be sure you will have the products by the time camp starts. you can still order and if they don't arrive in time, you can access the camp group and watch the live presentations at your leisure.

You can find the details here. Note that a postage charge applies if make and take kits are posted out and you cannot purchase the featured products from us using Stampin' Rewards.

 If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Painterly Pears for Freshly Made Sketches 690

 

My pre-order for the next Online Exclusive drop in July arrived during the week, so I'm having a bit of an explore around the suite to see what it can do. My pick was the Painterly Pears suite - a bit out of my comfort zone being fruit based but it's got such a lovely vintage feel, I've given it a go. 

For inspiration, I've used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

I've gone for a very straight forward sketch interpretation so I could play around with the DSP, the stamps and the die cuts from the Perfectly Pears bundle. 

The DSP that I've used is the moodiest of the lot, with a Secret Sea background and a profusion of flowers, pears and foliage. Certainly one to use in small doses! The reverse is a more restrained Darling Duckling hand-drawn grid which I've used for the second strip of the sketch. 

I stamped the pear in Old Olive and die cut it, adding leaves and stem from a larger die cut from the Perfectly Pears set. I built up the background using various die cuts from the set, mounted onto a circle from Spotlight on Nature. 

The sentiment, stamped in Secret Sea, is from the Perfectly Pears set but the label is from Stylish Shapes.

I finished off with a trio of Secret Sea Sparkle Dots, also a part of the suite.

The card base is also Secret Sea and I used the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder for the front of the card. 

I'm happy with the result and now that I've seen the products in person and used some of them, I'm happy with my pre-order choice too! I think you'll be seeing more of this suite!

These products, and many others, will be available as Online Exclusives from 1 July. 

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Cheers & Sips for Paper Players 742

Hello everyone! Time for a new challenge at The Paper Players and our hostess this week is Claire. She has given us a two fold challenge this week. It's both a Clean and Simple Challenge and with  the theme of Fresh and Fruity.

So, what does Clean and Simple mean? It means that your project should have a lot of clean, white space. There should be few layers or embellishments. The finished project should feel crisp and uncluttered. 

I've been playing around a lot with the Celebratory Sips suite from Online Exclusives. and there are the sweetest little strawberries, citrus slices and mint leaves with which to embellish your drinks. 

 

I used the dies to cut a tall and short class but did not stamp them first. They were cut from a piece of the Celebratory Sips DSP but not stamped with an outline, although I did stamp in some ice cubes. I ran the tall glass through the Cut and Emboss machine with the impression die to give the effect of cut glass. 

I used the glass embossing folder from the Glass & Gardens embossing folder duo to give some texture to the background. Then I stamped some berries, citrus and mint and coloured them in with Stampin' Blends. The strawberries are coloured with Strawberry Slush and Lemon-Lime Twist. The lemons with Daffodil Delight and the limes with Granny Apple Green. 

Once they were die cut - and some of the citrus split to fit the edge of the glass or cut into smaller segments - I had fun arranging them in and around the glasses. 

I added in a sentiment from Cheers & Sips and some Holographic Resin Dots (perhaps pushing the boundary of CAS but I did it anyway)!

I can't wait to see all the Clean and Simple creations in this week's challenge!

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

1. Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
3. Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
4. Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
5. Have fun, and thank you for playing with us!

Don't forget to check out the great inspiration from the rest of the design team.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page.