Flowers Fair for AYSI 369

 It's colour week at As You See It this week and LeAnne has chosen this gorgeous combination of colours for us to work with. Isn't it wonderful?

Full confession - today's card is entirely the fault of my team mate, Joanne. I'd been ignoring the siren call of the Flowers Fair background stamp from the March Online Exclusive drop. But she didn't... and then she started posting wonderful cards made with it. Nek minnit, it had fallen into my cart and arrived at my house yesterday.

This is the first thing I've made with it, so it's a fairly straightforward use of the stamp. 

I stamped it in Tuxedo Black, then coloured the flowers and leaves with Stampin' Blends: Pretty in Pink for the petals, Soft Sea Foam for the leaves and Pool Party for the flowers centres and to create shadows under and around the images. I like the way the shadowing gives a subtle 3D effect, making it seem at first glance that the images are lifted off the page.  Using a blending brush, I sponged some Pool Party ink at the bottom of the page to define the edge and to let the Pool Party bleed up the image.

Once I'd had my fun colouring in the stamp, serious thinking had to happen. It looked as though it would be a good birthday card, so I had to have a rummage through my sets to find a sentiment that would fit a circle. Why a circle? It just seemed right. I lit upon a sentiment from Simply Said, which I've used a lot recently.  

The sentiment caused me quite a problem. If you look in my bits box, you'll find one stamped black on white and one white-embossed onto Pool Party. If you look in my bin, you'll find one stamped black on Pool Party with a rounded rectangle die from Nested Essentials (just proving to myself that it had to be a circle) and a white embossed one on black using a circle from Spotlight on Nature. Honestly, it took me as long as the colouring! For the record, this one is white embossed on black and cut using Stylish Shapes.

After (even more) deliberating, I went with Black Baker's Twine from the Essentials Pack to tie in with the stamp outline. I added in a Pool Party shadow circle to peep out and break the black and finally a trio of Pretty in Pink gems. 

I look forward to more experiments with Flowers Fair!

What will you do with these soft, pretty colours?

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.

Help Me Grow for Colour INKspiration 206

Welcome to the 206th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Thanks for all the gorgeous entries for last challenge. We have another pretty combination for you this time around, chosen by Crew Member Vicki Boucher. The rabbits might have you thinking Easter but of course, you can go in whatever direction the colours take you!

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 15 April, 5pm AEST.

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 Kisha Cook 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 Granny Apple Green for Shaded Spruce. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

To be honest, these colours stumped me to begin with. However, this morning a box of goodies from Stampin' Up! arrived, including the Help Me Grow bundle from the last drop of Online Exclusives, which hadn't made it into my cart until recently. A timely arrival, as I gave it an immediate outing for this challenge. 😀

I used Blending Brushes to  roughly ink up a couple of scraps of Basic White, one in Pumpkin Pie and one in Shaded Spruce. Then I cut some bunches of tiny flowers and a pair of stems. I added adhesive foam to the back of a couple of sets of the flowers to get some height into the mix. 

I cut the pot and saucer from Gray Granite and sponged the edges with ink to help create some shadows. The saucer die cuts a slot for the pot to fit into - very clever thinking by SU! Once the pot and saucer were adhered together, I started creating the plant by overlapping the leaves and adding in the bunches of flowers. 

To ground the pot, I added a strip of Basic White embossed with the Stone & Vine folder. All of this was attached to a Gray Granite card base. 

I was going to add a sentiment with a banner over the pot when I saw that the die set contains a die for a little plant label, like you'd use in a herb garden to name each plant. When I realised that the 'thanks' sentiment fitted into it I decided that would be my sentiment. 

The stem of the label die is very thin and delicate. I could have added it to a stouter version of the plant label that's also in the set but I really wanted to keep the delicate look of the stem. So I killed two birds at once by using adhesive foam again. Not only did it give the narrow stem strength it also added the height I wanted to the sentiment. 

The finishing touch was a trio of Basic Rhinestones, coloured with a dark Pumpkin Pie blend. 

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.

Gears & Textures for Paper Players 774

Thank you to everyone who entered into JayDee's CAS Floral Challenge last week. Great entries! 

This week, Claire is our hostess and she has a lovely sketch challenge for us to play with. I love a sketch and I especially enjoy seeing the different cards that come from the same starting point.  

I was going for a masculine card so reached for the Gears & Textures bundle. The various gears and steam-punky bits are a lot of fun and look different with a switch up of colour and arrangements. 

I took my colour choices from a scrap of Nature Walk DSP. The pointy shape was cut down from the last remaining triangle of that pattern and fortunately, worked in well with the sketch! I eked out enough of the reverse from another scrap to use the reverse side for the horizontal - ask me why the strip is that width!

The sketch had some curly elements in the horizontal, so I added in some die cuts in Early Espresso. In the interest of adding in some other colours to lift it, I added in a third die-cut in Pecan Pie for the centre.

The large cog was cut from a scrap of the bronze sheet in Metallic Textured Specialty paper. The circle is cut from Early Espresso and, although it's hard to see in the photo, stamped with Early Espresso ink splatter to add some texture. 

I wanted something subtle to emboss the background with, so went to the retired (but very useful) Subtle embossing folder. I'll bet many of you still have this one in your stash!

The sentiment is from Sweet Jar, stamped in Early Espresso and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes.

The embellishment is a trio of Pecan Pie dots from the Natural Matte Dots pack.

I'd love to see what you do with this sketch!

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

Christy Stanford

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

Shell Collecting for CAS Colours and Sketches 581

 Joanne had a sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches that really intrigued me, so I played along with it this afternoon. 

It turned out to be a little trickier than I'd thought, mainly because the inset image needs to be small enough to not crowd the space but not so small as to be lost. I decided on using Shell Collecting, since I'm trying to hang on to the last vestiges of summer even as the cool mornings and turning leaves are telling a different story! Plus, who doesn't love shells? 

That then brought me to what the larger piece would be. My natural self was shouting for an embossed panel because I'm always going to choose texture over pattern but.... it just wasn't working out for me. So I have broken out the DSP which is something I seldom do in cards. To me the obvious partner for sea shells is the wonderful Country Woods. But which pattern? And should I buy another whole packet of it in case it retires?

Anyway, this is where I came to....

Product details for this one include: Image and sentiment stamped in Early Espresso, Colouring with Petal Pink Stampin' Blends, Sentiment from Sweet Jar, Sentiment label from Textured Notes, Embellishments Rhinestones coloured with Misty Moonlight Stampin' Blend, Wink of Stella on the shell, Stylish Shapes to cut the circular notch, dimensionals for the sentiment and shell, Misty Moonlight card base.

I enjoyed the making of this card so much - and had changed my mind on it so many times - that I made another two to create a small gift set. 

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.

 

Simply Zinnia for The Paper Players 777

This week at the Paper Players, JayDee is our hostess. She's got a fabulous double challenge for us: it's not only a floral theme but it's also to be done in a CAS (Clean and Simple style). We had wonderful entries last week in Joanne's Rainbow Colours challenge and I look forward to seeing what everyone does with this one!

By Clean and Simple, we mean that your creation should have lots of open white space, minimal layers and minimal embellishments. It's a time for paring back, and not adding lots of extras. 

I've been having a craft room clean up and sort out - confession, it's been going on for some months now - but it's reminded me of the wonderful library of stamps and dies that I've built up over the years. Many of them haven't seen love because there's always something new coming in the door. But it's been both liberating and enjoyable to use retired things - especially when they can be married up with new things. 

One of my favourite florals is the retired Simply Zinnia and I enjoyed getting it out to play with for this challenge. I stamped the image in Tuxedo Black and coloured in with Stampin' Blends: Strawberry Slush, Pretty in Pink, Granny Apple Green, Daffodil Delight and Crumb Cake. Doing the colouring in was both relaxing and therapeutic. Then I die cut the image out so it could be popped up on dimensionals. 

I stamped the sentiment in Tuxedo Black on the Basic White card front, then did a partial emboss with the Damask Designs embossing folder.

The finishing touch was a trio of pink gems. 

What will you make for JayDee's challenge? Don't forget that it must both be floral AND CAS. 😀

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

Christy Stanford

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

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Delicate Dreams for CAS Colours & Sketches 580

This afternoon, I joined in with the latest colour challenge from CAS Colours & Sketches. Joanne has given us a bright, cheery palette to play along with. 

On my desk was the new Delicate Whispers bundle, fresh from the March Online Exclusives drop so I thought I'd give it a run with these colours.

I stamped a couple of the floral images and some small flowers in Blueberry Bushel, then coloured them with Stampin' Blends: Granny Apple Green and Daffodil Delight. Then I die cut them with the matching dies. I also cut a pair of foliage pieces from Granny Apple Green.

To let more of the Blueberry Bushel card base show, I cut the card front using the largest die from Perennial Postage. Note: if you are doing this with metric cardstock, you'll have to trim down the standard card base to get an even border around the postage stamp piece.

Then I arrange the die cuts into a corner spray before adhering with liquid glue and dimensionals.  The sentiment is stamped in Blueberry Bushel ink. The flower centres were filled with the smallest Iridescent

 Pearls. 

Update: Delighted to be chosen as a Fab Fave at CAS Colours & Sketches.

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.

 

Nature's Symphony for As You See It 368

We're back to a sketch challenge on the roster this week at As You See It Challenge. I love a sketch - they're my favourite kind of challenge. 

I had to think about this one though. Initially I couldn't decide whether I needed to have something circular as my main element or just something large that the sentiment could be centred over. Clearly, I've come down on the latter!

I've used the wonderful Nature's Symphony as my bundle of choice for this card. I inked up the foliage stamp in Old Olive and added in some generous daubs of Shaded Spruce, then die cut it out. 

I also die cut a leafy spray in Silver Foil from my stash. Together, these made up my focal point.

The sketch seemed to be asking for a matted frame, so I've used Basic White as a 'separator' between the Secret Sea card base and the Secret Sea DSP from Nature Walk.

Before adhering the DSP to the Basic White matte, I ran it through the die cutting machine using the dotty die from Nature's Symphony, just to add a little more interest. Then, even though I was thinking masculine for this card, I added a white twine bow, using the white Baker's Twine from the Twine Essentials pack. 

The sentiment is stamped in Secret Sea and cut with a die from Textured Notes. I've added the 'Happy Birthday to the inside, although it's from Rolling Waves.

I added a trio of green Sparkle Dots (retired) to finish off. 

What will you do with this sketch?

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.