Spotlight on Nature for Colour INKspiration 170

Welcome to the 170th challenge at Colour INKspiration! We have a challenge I'm sure you will embrace: Use your three favourite Stampin' Up! colours. How great is that? And how great is this delicious looking graphic, chosen for us by Crew Member, Rose Packer.

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.

This challenge is open for three weeks and closes Monday August 12, 7pm AEST.

Well, what are your three favourite colours? Tough question. 

The truth is, that my favourite colours change on an almost daily basis. It depends on my mood, what I'm trying to do, what I'm experimenting with. So, all I can say is that this week, my favourite colours turned out to be Lost Lagoon, Pool Party and Melon Mambo.

I'm still enjoying experimenting with the Spotlight on Nature and those colours just suit the set well. I've teamed the stamps up with the Perennial Postage dies for a change.

I embossed a piece of Lost Lagoon with the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder then added some Lost Lagoon ink with a blending brush to bring out the texture and create a vignette effect.

After stamping three lots of flower images in Tuxedo Black, I coloured them with Lost Lagoon and Melon Mambo Stampin' Blends. Then I added in some pollen-like Pool Party splatters before cutting out with the second largest Perennial Postage die.

I added in some faux ribbon: a strip of Melon Mambo, stamped with the leaf image in the same coloured ink. After flagging the ends, I tucked it under the main panel before popping the panel onto the card front on dimensionals.

The sentiment is stamped in Tuxedo Black on Pool Party. It, and the Melon Mambo shadow, are both cut with a die from Perennial Postage. 

The finishing touch was a trio of Pool Party Glossy Enamel dots from the Glossy Dots Assortment.

I'm excited to see what your three favourite colours are!

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

 

Hooray for Surprises for The Paper Players 699

We've got a great challenge for you this week at The Paper Players. As always after a colour challenge comes a CAS challenge. This time, Joanne has given us a Happy Birthday theme to play with. 

I started out my crafting journey very much a CAS crafter. Turns out that when I was working on this challenge, it seems things have moved on a bit for me! I had to make a real effort to pare back the layers, keep a lot of clean space, keep away from too much texture and to keep embellishments discrete! 

I think I got to CAS in the end though....

I used the wonderful Hooray for Surprises stamps and dies for this one, although I resisted adding in any hidden panels or messages - which is the true beauty of these products. Instead I made a rainbow of birthday cakes: Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, Azure Afternoon and Gorgeous Grape and a little flower of each colour too.

After die cutting the cakes and working out where they would be in the final arrangement, I went in and stamped a candle on the card front. I decided to pop all the cakes up on dimensionals, although originally I'd intended to make a mix heights.  Then I added in the small flowers as decoration and popped a small Basic Rhinestone Jewel in the centres.

The card base is Azure Afternoon and the sentiment is stamped in that colour too. 

Don't get so carried away with the idea of a Birthday Theme that you forget about the CAS part of the challenge: Keep it Clean And Simple. 

You can pop over to The Paper Players page to see what the rest of the design team have done and to add in your own entry.

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

Cynthia Stevenson

Jolanda Johnstone

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 here.

Simply Zinnia and friends for FMS 645

What better way to spend a wintery Sunday afternoon than playing around in the craft room? 

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

Although I started out using the Simply Zinnia bundle, a few friends were drafted in to complete the job: a sweet foliage die cut from Lifetime of Love, a sentiment from Country Birdhouse and the invaluable Stylish Shapes dies.

The background is the very pretty Cute Crochet embossing folder. The base is Lemon Lolly and the foliage and mat are Soft Sea Foam.

To help ground the flowers and foliage, I've stamped some of the little pollen stars in Lemon Lolly from Simply Zinnia.

I like the clean, simple look of this card. 

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 here.

Beach Day for AYSI 328

 The latest challenge at As You See It is the Fill in the Blank challenge. Once again, I got to dream of warmer days ahead by thinking about what my favourite beach activity is!

There are so many things I like to do at the beach. I love to stand knee-deep in the shallows and let the waves pass me by while I daydream. I love the swim. I love to walk along the shoreline and take in the smell of the sea. I love the sit in the sun and feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. I love to pick up shells and interesting rocks. But one of the newest pleasures is to be at the beach with my granddaughter as she learns to love the beach too - chasing seagulls, digging holes, building sand castles and picking up shells.

It was this last thing that I tried to get the feel of in this card, using one of my latest purchases: Beach Day stamps and dies.

I used some of the Full of Life DSP for the umbrella, floatie ring and a seashell. I used Crumb Cake and Coastal Cabana card stock for the rest of the scene.  

I used the Painted Texture 3D Embossing Folder for the background panel because I thought the swirls were reminiscent of sea foam on the water. I had to do some very careful die-extension to get the lovely stitched banner die from Stylish Shapes long enough to go round the sentiment! I used a trio of pink sequins from the Adhesive Backed Sequin Trio pack. Once again, I couldn't go past the amazing Spotlight on Nature circle dies for the frame of the scene.

The team and I would love to know what your favourite beach activity is. Visit the As You See It page to see what the rest of the team have done and to link up your entry. You can join in the challenge until Wednesday July 31, 11.59pm PST.

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 here.

Creativity Abounds Christmas in July

 

This month the international team at Creativity Abounds has a great theme for our bundle and hop: Christmas in July. This hop - and the associated tutorial bundle - will give you a lot of ideas for Christmas, not just in July but for the real thing!

All thirteen members of the international Creativity Abounds team  have contributed a project to our Exclusive Tutorial Bundle, which you can earn as a free gift from me with a purchase of $100 or more (excluding P&P) or by being a member of my team. 

There's a sneak peek of my tutorial project and the whole tutorial bundle at the end of this post but this post offers you an alternative project to get you thinking about Christmas in July.

This project is a great way to refresh your Christmas look with a couple of inexpensive items. All you need is some of the gorgeous Season of Green & Gold DSP and a set of Christmas sentiments like the new Greetings of the Season. You can mix and match the sentiments with dies you already have and voila - a fresh new Christmas range of cards!

Both Greetings of the Season and Season of Green & Gold are Online Exclusives.

This Strip technique is really easy but if you've never done it before, I've got a quick video tutorial to get you going. 

Measurements

Metric

• Mossy Meadow Card Base: 21cm x 14.8cm, scored @ 10.5cm
• Gold Foil mat: 14.3cm x 10cm
• Very Vanilla base for strips 13.8cm x 9.5cm
• Very Vanilla for sentiment 9cm x 8cm (depends which sentiment you choose)
• Very Vanilla inner 14.3cm x 10cm
• 10-12 strips of coordinating DSP, any width ranging from 7mm-2.5cm

Imperial

• Mossy Meadow Card Base: 8 1/2" x 11", scored at 4 1/4"
• Gold Foil mat: 4" x 5 1/4"
• Very Vanilla base for strips:3 3/4" x 5"
• Very Vanilla for sentiment 3 1/2" x 3" (depends which sentiment you choose)
• Very Vanilla inner: 4" x 5 1/4"
• 10-12 strips of coordinating DSP, any width ranging from 1/4"-1"

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. 

Here's a peek at the project I've put into the tutorial bundle. It's a great way of converting a set you might already  have to a Christmas purpose. Remember that if you live in New Zealand you can earn the tutorial bundle for free with a purchase of $100 or more.

Here's a peek at the whole bundle.

If you don't live in New Zealand, here's a peek at the rest of the team. You can earn the bundle from any of the team members in your market.

Trusty Toolbox for Paper Players 698

It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players! Jaydee has given us an interesting colour palette to work with this week. 

To me, the colours had a masculine feel. I turned to my go-to masculine set, Trusty Tools stamps and dies.

I'll admit that most of the men in my life are absolutely NOT handymen in any way but this set is just so much fun to play with! I'm enjoying putting together the tools and colouring the images plus I love those tiny nuts, bolt and screw die cuts.

My favourite thing is probably the peg-board die cut. It just calls out the have tools arranged over it!

I used some Basic Gray DSP from the Neutrals 6"x6" DSP pack as a background and paired it with my favourite red, Cherry Cobbler. After stamping the images in Tuxedo Black, I coloured them with Stampin' Blends: Cherry Cobbler and Smoky Slate. 

The sentiment is  from the Trusty Tools set but the label is from Everyday Details dies. In keeping with the masculine vibe I was going for, I resisted adding bling and instead added some of those dinky little die cut nuts and bolts in Smoky Slate. 

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. Please be considerate of our requests; entries that do not follow any of these rules will be deleted without notification.
6. 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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

Cynthia Stevenson

Jolanda Johnstone

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 here.

Thoughtful Wishes for Stampin' Fancy Friday

This month, the theme at Stampin' Fancy Friday is the Colour Combo Challenge. The challenge was to create a colour combo based on something: an item in the catalogue, home decor, fashion - whatever.

We don't blog hop as such but the team at Stampin' Fancy Friday do a daily inspiration post on Instagram. 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. Follow @stampinfancyfriday if you don't already. 😀

For my colour combo, I took a closer look at my new curtains. They are multi-coloured but I did notice these colours together in one part of the pattern and thought I could translate them into SU colours. Of course, left to my own devices, I usually turn to rich, earthy colours. The surprise addition to the mix was Peach Pie.

So, my combination is Copper Clay, Peach Pie, Pretty Peacock and Blackberry Bliss. To showcase them, I turned to one of my favourite bundles, Thoughtul Wishes.

I cut die cuts from the Thoughtful Wishes set in the four colours and arranged a cluster. Before attaching to the Basic White base, I embossed the Basic White with the Exposed Brick 3D Embossing Folder. I used the splatter stamp to stamp some Peach Pie around the area where I was going to place the cluster. Then I used some dilute ink and a Water Painter to splatter some touched of Pretty Peacock and Copper Clay on the base.

I used some of the 2023-25 In Color Jute in Copper Clay, split into strands, to wrap around the card front. The sentiment  used two stamps from the set. The 'dearest friend' was embossed in white on Blackberry Bliss. This was  popped up on dimensionals on the label where the 'I appreciate you' had been stamped in Blackberry Bliss. The label is from Something Fancy dies.

The final touch was the addition of three sequins from the Adhesive Backed Sequin Trio.

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. 

The latest Step-by-Step Class

Join my friend Joanne Jame (The Crafty Owl) and I in a Step-by-Step Class for four beautiful projects. Simply purchase the Thoughtful Wishes Bundle and Thoughtful Journey DSP from either of us and we'll send you the PDF. 

If you already have these products but would like the class, simply order products of corresponding value from us, let us know that's what you've done and we'll send you the class. If you live in NZ, you can buy from me anywhere in the country here.