Fern & Flora for Freshly Made Sketches 734

I took advantage of the fact that my husband is out on the golf course, and it's too nippy to be outside in the garden (good excuse) to play along with the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. 

I'm still putting my newly acquired Fern & Flora bundle through its paces so picked it up for this sketch to give it a further run. (Note: this bundle will be available to non-demonstrators on 5 May.)

Nothing too fancy going on here - just letting the paper and dies speak for themselves. 

Funnily enough, I was going to use the reverse sides of these pieces of Moonlit Flora DSP but they fell down this way and I did a quick change of heart on it.

Quite my favourite thing in this suite of products (not counting the fern dies) is this amazing Fern & Flora embossing folder. It's in the must-have box for me! But then, I'm a texture girl through and through. 😀

I like the label stamp that fits the various sentiments in the set and while I was ruminating on what colour to stamp the border, I hit on the idea of stamping it in Secret Sea along with the words and then colouring it with a Stampin' Blend. I'm pleased with that look.

While I've played quite a bit with the fern dies and the moth dies in the bundle, I haven't really played with these little flowers that can be assembled with them. They're very cute and of course, can be done in any colour.

Although there are gorgeous Dewdrop embellishments as part of the suite, I went with these Golden Glow dots instead.

I do love a good sketch and this is a great one. I'm tempted now to go off and make it up in the DSP that I originally intended.....

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.

Scenic Coast for Paper Players 783

Thanks to everyone who played along with Christy's CAS Baby Animals challenge last week. There were such pretty entries in the gallery! It's sketch week at The Paper Players and Stef, our hostess, has this lovely one for us to play with. 

I like this sketch - enough structure to get started and enough freedom to make something of it. As it happened, a box of stuff arrived from Stampin' Up! (funny how that happens) and in it was the new Sunset Coast bundle. Seemed rude not to give it an immediate try out! 😁

So it's a straightforward creation today, just to see how this set played out. I started by using the sailing boat die on a narrow piece of Basic White. At this point, there is a white sailing boat and two lines of water cut out. So I cut it again in Blueberry Bushel and snipped the boat off then layered it over the white boat. Then I took the little bits of wave that had fallen out of the die cut and inlaid them into the gaps in the white. 

I should say that I did stamp the sentiment before doing the add-in Blueberry Bushel bits just in case there was some kind of tragic stamping malfunction. 

After that, it was a simple matter of choosing one of the gorgeous water scenes from the Scenic Coast specialty DSP stack to use in the background. The photo below managed to capture the lovely metallic foil accent in the designs. 

To finish off, I added a trio of Sunset Sparkle sequins.

I think this bundle has a lot to offer beyond this simple treatment but isn't it great that a quick card can still look great?

The team and I would love to see what you do with this sketch. Visit The Paper Players to see what the rest of the team have done and to link up your 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 (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.

 

Flowering Fair for As You See It 371

 This week at As You See It, it's recipe week. All you have to do is use the 5 ingredients in the recipe below, add bits from your own pantry and see what you come up with!

So here's my check list.

• One Word Sentiment - 'Hello' from Beautiful Motifs.
• Die Cut - Frame from Gallery Blooms dies
• Frame - cut from Gallery Blooms dies
• Flowers - Flowers Fair stamp
• Shades of Pink - Melon Mambo card base, Flowers coloured in Melon Mambo and Flirty Flamingo and embellishments in Pretty in Pink and Strawberry Slush.

I am a little obsessed with the Flowers Fair background stamp, ever since team-mate Joanne James enabled me into buying it. 😀

Hence, it's come out to play again today! I stamped it in Tuxedo Black then coloured the centre portion only with Stampin' Blends: Melon Mambo, Flirty Flamingo, and Granny Apple Green.

After stamping the sentiment, I simply adhered the frame to a central position, making sure that all exposed flowers were coloured. I did consider popping it up on dimensionals and kind of wish I had now. Next time!

To finish off, I added the pink gems to the flower centres and around the sentiment. A nice easy card to do and one that could be done in any colour palette and with almost any linear sentiment. 

So what will you cook up with these five key ingredients? We'd love to see what you do.

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.

Fern & Flora for Colour INKspiration 208

 

Welcome to the 208th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Thanks for all the gorgeous entries for last challenge. This time around, we're saying farewell to the 2024-2026 In Colors: Pretty in Pink, Peach Pie, Petunia Pop, Summer Splash and Shy Shamrock. For this challenge you can use any or all of these retiring colours.

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 11 May, 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 Yvonne Spikmans - Van Bruggen 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 Shaded Spruce for Shy Shammrock. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

Today, I'm pairing up the retiring colours with a new bundle that will be available from 5 May. The Fern & Flora bundle is a lovely one with great leafy images and dies, along with some great sentiments. The embossing folder that is part of this suite is amazing too. 😀

The base of the card is Shy Shamrock. I embossed the white card front with the Fern & Flora embossing folder (gorgeous!) and cut some ferns from Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash. 

I used the dies to create the flowers from Petunia Pop and Peach Pie. The label and sentiment are in Petunia Pop and Shy Shamrock. The moths are stamped in Petunia Pop and brushed with Wink of Stella. The embellishments are Shy Shamrock flat pearls. 

The only odd thing about this card to me is that somehow I managed to not use Pretty in Pink -which is actually the colour I'll miss the most!

How will you say farewell to these retiring In Colors? Don't forget that if you want to stock up on any of them, do so ASAP as once they're gone, they're gone. 

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.

A Blast from the Past for The Paper Players 782

Thank you to everyone who played along with my colour challenge last week. It seems lots of people enjoyed the bold colours because there were wonderful cards in the gallery and choosing my Headliner was difficult. 

Christy has a Clean and Simple theme for us this week at The Paper Players.   It's a double challenge: create something with a Baby Animal theme AND create in a Clean and Simple Style.

At The Paper Players, by Clean and Simple we mean minimal layering, minimal use of embellishments and lots of open space. 

As soon as I saw Christy's theme, I knew exactly which (retired) set I wanted to use. Little Elephant was such a favourite of mine, especially for baby cards. Maybe it was my need for a baby card that brought the set to mind but once I'd thought of it, I couldn't see my way to using anything else.  I'm sure a few of you will have it sitting in  your stamping library too. 😀

Anyway, I also thought it was a good chance to try out some of the new In-Colors that will be available 5 May. When I first saw them, I thought they'd make good baby cards so I gave four of the five a run. 

In each of the cards, the sponged grass line is in Peaceful Pine, which is a really useful green unlike any of our current greens. 

Then I went for a boy card, a girl card and a gender neutral card using Hydrangea Hue, Barely Blush and Golden Glow. Note the new ink pad design, which at the moment is only available for the new  In Colors but will coming to other colours over time. 

The little hearts in each card are in Barely Blush, and I used coordinating embellishments for each colour. 

Originally, I'd planned on just using the elephant scene and sentiment on a coloured base but I let myself be persuaded to add a strip of In Color Painted Patterns DSP to each one as well. CAS or not-CAS? What do you think? I think I'm on the CAS side of the cusp. 😀

The team are all looking forward to seeing what you do with the baby animal theme and in a CAS style.  You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your own entry at The Paper Players.

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.

Rolling Waves for CAS Colours & Sketches 583

 I was taken by Deborah's sketch over at CAS Colour & Sketches this week, so made a bit of time to have a play with it. 

I liked the clean look of the sketch and the endless possibilities for the horizontal trio of elements. Since I'm still having an early acquisition romance with the Rolling Waves bundle (Online Exclusive) it seemed natural to go to that.

I've played quite a lot with the sea shell dies and the wave building stamps and dies but had yet to really try out the beach umbrellas. Here's where that ended up....

I stamped the water with Pool Party ink, daubed with some bits of Coastal Cabana. Then I sponged very lightly along the waterline with some Pecan Pie ink to suggest the sand. I stamped the sentiment in Basic Gray, saving the 'Happy Birthday' for the inside of the card.

The bit I enjoyed the most was die-cutting and assembling a trio of sun umbrellas from Flirty Flamingo, Pool Party and Daffodil Delight. There's a trio of rhinestones atop the umbrellas to simulate the end of the support pole and a tiny starfish as embellishment. 

In the bottom photo, if you squint your eyes just right, you might be able to detect the 'seafoam' on the wave - a band of Wink of Stella. Clear in real life, less so in the photo! Isn't that always the way?

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 Beautiful for The Paper Players 781

Hello everyone! It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players and this week, I'm your hostess. I've chosen a bold colour combination for us to play with this week: Basic Black, Smoky Slate and Daffodil Delight. Of course, white is a free colour.

I did have a brief moment when I wondered what I'd been thinking when I chose these colours but very quickly settled into creating and really enjoyed the challenge of combining them. 

Yellow had me thinking of roses, as I had a beautiful yellow rose at my old house called Yabadabadoo. So I stamped the gorgeous bloom from Simply Beautiful in Tuxedo Black and coloured it loosely with Daffodil Delight and a small blending brush. I stamped the foliage in Tuxedo Black and coloured them with Smoky Slate, again with a small blending brush. Then I die cut them.

I embossed a Basic Black card front with the Forever Plaid folder then splattered it with some diluted White Craft ink and some Wink of Stella. 

After attaching the card front to a Basic Black card base, I arranged the flower and leaves. The flower is popped up on dimensionals.

The sentiment is from Rolling Waves and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes.  The 'Happy Birthday' is on the inside.

I hope you take up the challenge of using these colours - and that you enjoy them. The whole team would love to see what you do. You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your own entry at The Paper Players.

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.