Thursday, 22 May 2025

Get Ready for Creativity Abounds Celebratory Sips Stamp Camp!

 


It seems like hardly any time at all since our last Stamp Camp but here we are again, getting ready for a weekend of fun with you all! 

If you haven't already caught up with things, our next Stamp Camp is June 28-29 (South Pacific). Our  Featured Product for camp is the Celebratory Sips Suite. All the finer details can be found here. If you live in New Zealand, you can only get your Stamp Camp invitation from me.

As always with our Stamp Camps, you'll get a PDF and Video tutorial for 13 projects. This will be sent to you before camp starts, along with make and take kits (excluding the items you've purchased for camp).

This is the card I've put into the Tutorial Bundle. I hope you'll love making it!


And, as always with Stamp Camps, you'll get an additional 13 projects during the Stamp Camp. Each of us will do a Face Book Live presentation of a bonus project. These are usually fancy affairs with lots of techniques and fancy folds - sometimes both in the one project!

This is a bit of a sneak peek at my bonus project. Folded up, you can't see the hidden extra bits but I'm sure you'll love making this one too. 😀


Here's a sneak peek of all the tutorial projects.



And here's a peek of the whole team and where they're from. 


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.



Sunday, 18 May 2025

Beautiful Butterflies for PP 738

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players! We had some gorgeous entries last week for Ann's colour challenge. I'm sure everyone will step up for Stef's CAS Things that Fly Challenge. 


So this week, it's a double challenge. Not only is the theme things that fly but it  must be done in a CLEAN and SIMPLE style: minimal layers, lots of open space, minimal embellishments.

To help keep a clean feel, I opted for a Thick Basic White card base. I die cut a large white butterfly from Beautiful Butterflies. Butterflies are one of my favourite flying things. 😀


 
I used one of the retired Seasonal Masks from my stash to create an airy rainbow across the card front. 


The sentiment, also from Beautiful Butterflies, was stamped in Gorgeous Grape. To tie in with that, I used three dark Purple Shimmer Gems to finish off the card.

The rest of the team and I look forward to seeing what you create. 😀

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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)
Jan Clothier - You are here


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. 



Friday, 16 May 2025

Impressions Abloom for AYSI 348

Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It! Let's hope that this round is not as challenging as our last recipe challenge when the As You See It Challenge page was out of action for most the entry period! Thank you to our loyal followers who stuck with us and entered as and how they could, or messaged us to tell us there were problems.

This challenge is my pick and I owe thanks to my fellow team member Joanne for the inspiration for it. 
Which is your favourite? Spots or stripes?



It's a bit of a tough call, right? I like them both. As I was stiing at my desk pondering what to do, I leafed through the patterns of the new Floral Impressions DSP, one of then new Online Exclusives. I noticed that one of the 'B' sides had very pretty little circles on it. I decided to make that the base of my card.


Then I used the Stylish Shapes dies to cut out several circles of various sizes from one of the floral 'A' sides of the paper, then arranged them to the left of the page. I was wanting them to look like floral bubbles floating upwards. Whimsical, I know!


After white heat embossing the sentiment onto Pool Party card, I used another of the Stylish Shapes dies to cut it out. I popped it up on dimensionals over some strands of Linen Thread and added a Linen Thread bow. 

To complete the spotty theme, I added in three of the new In Color Flat Pearls, choosing to use Timid Tiger to pick up the Timid Tiger florals in the bubbles.

The whole team would love to see whether your prefer spots or stripes. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at the As You See It Challenge page. (At least, this week you can!)

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.


 

Sunday, 11 May 2025

Cheers & Sips for Paper Players 737

Hard to believe it but it's already time for a new challenge at The Paper Players. We were delighted by the entries in Joanne's 'Something Old, Something New' challenge. We hope you'll have as much fun with Ann's colour challenge. 


While these colours did sing of flowers to me, it was the Cheers & Sips bundle that ended up getting an outing instead. It's still on my desk as I'm prepping for the Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp at the end of June. If you're interested in joining me, and the other 12 members of the international crew, for this stamp camp you can read the details here.

The card base is Lost Lagoon, with a jauntily  askew piece of Berry Burst as a matte. The Basic White card front is embossed with one of the Glass & Garden embossing folders.


 
I used Versamark to stamp an image of each of the glasses and added some ice cubes to each. Then I used WOW White Embossing Powder and heated it up. Then I sponged over Bubble Bath ink and Berry Burst ink with a blending brush


I used the same resist emboss technique to create the umbrella, strawberry and mint leaf. The sentiments were stamped in Lost Lagoon ink. 

Then I added the mocktail glasses to the card front, popping the Bubble Bath long glass up on dimensionals.

To finish off, I added in a trio of Berry Burst tinsel gems - which have sadly just retired but can still be snapped up on the Last Chance list.

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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)
Jan Clothier - You are here


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.



Sunday, 4 May 2025

Celebratory Sips for Paper Players 736

 Claire's gorgeous sketch gave us such wonderful entries last week at The Paper Players. Thank you to everyone who joined in with us. I'm interested to see what everyone makes with Joanne's theme challenge this week. 


All of us manage to find new bits and bobs for our craft room. If you're a Stampin' Up! demonstrator you might well have added some new things in the last month as it's been the pre-order period for the 2025-6 Annual Catalogue. I certainly have!

One of the great pleasures of new things, I think, is mixing and matching them with the existing things in your stash. 

I thought I'd share something easy with you this week, that mixes some fun new DSP with an old set of dies and an old sentiment set. 

I've been playing around a lot with the Celebratory Sips DSP because the suite is the featured product for the Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp. If you're interested in joining in, the details are here

Anyway, the playing around has lead to some strips of off-cut pieces and some scraps, so I decided to use them up with a strippy background.

I took my scraps and cut them into trapezoid shapes, then adhered them in a pleasing pattern  on to a piece of Blackberry Bliss card. After trimming off the excess, I adhered that onto a piece of Lemon-Lime Twist.


Before adhering the panel to the Blackberry Bliss card base, I added a piece of the lovely Gold Mesh ribbon that's part of the suite. 



Since the background is quite busy, I wanted to keep the sentiment simple. So I chose a sentiment from Simply Said, stamped it in Blackberry Bliss and cut it out with one of the dies from Nested Essentials.

I finished off by adding a trio of Holographic Resin Dots, another great part of the Celebratory Sips suite.

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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)
Jan Clothier - You are here


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.





Gallery Blooms for Freshly Made Sketches 684

 I haven't been very good at keeping up my New Year Crafting Resolution to play along with more challenges just for fun. After just completing a run of customised wedding invitations, I sat at my desk and decided to play 'just for fun'. I turned to the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration.


 I wanted to give the Beautiful Gallery suite a bit of a try out so the choice was easy about what to play with. Here's how that ended up...



I used the Gallery Blooms bundle and twice stamped one of the images, then coloured in with Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon, Petal Pink and Calypso Coral. I die cut some flowers and foliage in Lost Lagoon, Petal Pink and Crumb Cake.  These were arranged into a bouquet on a small circle from the Stylish Shapes dies. 


I used DSP from the Beautiful Gallery DSP 6x6 stack for the right edge panel, then used a torn edge showing the reverse as the scalloped vertical in the sketch. 

I used the Damask Designs embossing folder for the card front and some of the Pressed Flower Motif embellishments to finish off.

The sentiment is from the second stamp set in the suite, Beautiful Motifs, and is cut from using another of the dies from Stylish Shapes.

All of the elements of the Beautiful Gallery Suite will be available from 6 May. 

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.



Friday, 2 May 2025

Darling Dinos for AYSI 347

I'm excited for the  new challenge at As You See It - it's a recipe challenge. All you need to do is to take the five ingredients and see what you can cook up with them.


Dinosaurs are favourites of mine, as in the Darling Dino bundle. I chose two of the dinosaurs from the stamp set, inked them up with Tuxedo Black and coloured them using Stampin' Blends in Gray Granite, Old Olive, Crumb Cake and Pecan Pie.

So that's two of the recipe ingredients ticked off: animals and colouring.


I die cut out my dinosaurs and also a rectangular panel using one of the Textured Notes dies.

So that ticked off a third ingredient of the recipe: punch or die cut.


A fourth ingredient was texture or embossing. Now normally, I'm all over embossing. I use embossing far more than I use patterned paper but.... in this instance, I really wanted to use the Woven Textures DSP. So, no embossing but definitely texture. I think that the decorative edge of the rectangle counts as texture too.

So that ticked off ingredient four: texture or embossing

Twine was the final ingredient. That was easily ticked off by adding some lines of Crumb Cake twine from the Basic Essentials Baker's Twine pack along with a bow. 

Then to finish off, I added a trio of Pecan Pie dots from the Neutral Matte Dots pack.

The whole team would love to see what you can cook up with these five ingredients plus your own extras. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at the As You See It Challenge 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.



Celebratory Sips Stamp Camp

If you're interested in joining me for an international virtual Stamp Camp featuring the Celebratory Sips Suite, all the details are here.

You'll get PDF and Video tutorials for 13 projects using the suite, plus make and take kits for them
PLUS
an additional 13 projects delivered as Facebook Lives during the Stamp Camp weekend.
A total of 26 ready-to-go projects.