Neutral Noel for Paper Players 802

I hope everyone had a great time playing with Jaydee's Tic Tac Toe challenge last week. From the wonderful entries we had in the gallery, it would seem you did!

This week, our hostess is Joanne and she has a theme challenge for us: Candles. Birthday, Christmas, whenever... you decide. 

I'm afraid that I was rather literal in my interpretation of the theme. I was looking through my stamp library seeing what inspired me with candles and I kept coming back to some fun stamped candles I did a couple of years ago. 

I took myself down to the local discount store to see what they had in the way of plain white candles. I wasn't too happy with the size of them as I'd hoped for something more substantial but sometimes, you just have to make do. 😀

Anyway, I assembled my supplies: Noel Tidings and Welcome Noel stamps, Mossy Meadow and Pecan Pie Ink, Daffodil Delight blend, plain white tissue paper, some waxed lunch wrap and a heat tool.

If you've never stamped on candles before, it's really very easy to do. 

1. Stamp the design you want onto tissue paper.
2. Do any colouring you like. I've coloured the windows of the house.
3. Trim around the stamping, leaving about 2-3mm. There's not really a rule about the margin but you don't need a lot of excess tissue to deal with. 
4. Place the tissue design on the desired position on the candle.
5. Cut a strip of waxed lunch wrap that's tall enough to cover the stamped area and that is long enough to wrap around the candle with some overlap so you can hold the ends and keep the waxed paper tight over the tissue paper. Make sure the waxy side is towards the candle.
6. Gently heat the stamped area with a heat tool. This won't take very long. Within seconds, you'll see the waxed paper go glossy. That's enough. Lift the waxed paper off carefully. You shouldn't be able to see any tissue paper - it should be sealed over with wax. 
7. If you can still identify the tissue paper, then reposition the waxy paper and give it another few seconds of heat. 
8. That's all there is to it!

The team and I would love to see your take on the candle theme. You can see what everyone has done and link up your entry at The Paper Players. And again, thank you for continuing to play along with us!

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

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.

Butterfly Flight for Paper Players 801

Jaydee has an exciting Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge for us this week at The Paper Players. Firstly though, a big thank you to everyone who played along with our 800th challenge. The look back to the very first sketch challenge brought out such gorgeous entries to the gallery, it was even more difficult than usual to choose winners. I hope you all have as much fun with this week's inspiration. 

I've chosen the centre column: things that fly, free and texture. Butterflies are my things that fly, my free choice is Hot Foiling and texture comes from an embossing folder and tone-on-tone diecuts.

I started by using the Butterfly Flight Hot Foil dies and silver foil to create the butterflies. I coloured them using the Butterfly Flight decorative masks, blending brushes and Fresh Freesia, Highland Heather and Gorgeous Grape inks.

After die cutting them out, I cut a second set of outlines in Fresh Freesia so that I could add them as shadows under the dimesionaled up butterflies on the card front.

I cut out a Basic White rounded corner rectangle from Nested Essentials. Then I cut some foliage from the Butterfly Flight Hot Foil dies and added them to the rectangle for a background for the butterflies.

The sentiment is hot foiled in silver with the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies.

The card front is embossed with the Floral Spray 3D embossing folder, because butterflies need flowers, right?

To finish off, I added a trio of Purple Shimmer Gems (retired).

The team and I would love to see what you will choose to use from the Tic Tac Toe Challenge. You can see what everyone has done and link up your entry at The Paper Players. And again, thank you for continuing to play along with us!

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

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.

Butterfly Flight for As You See It 380

It's time for at new challenge at As You See It and sketch week is always my favourite. I love sketch challenges because they give guidance but also give plenty of leeway to do your own thing. I'm also always amazed at the way the one sketch can lead to so many different interpretations.

For the quartered panels, I used pieces embossed with the Stone & Vine 3D folder. 

For the horizontal, I used a fishtailed banner, embossed with the retired Subtle 3D folder. Then for the sentiment, I used one the sentiments from the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies.

The sentiment was mounted onto one of the butterflies from the Butterfly Flight Hot Foil dies. The butterfly was coloured with the Butterfly Flight decorative masks. I used blending brushes with Flirty Flamingo and Melon Mambo inks.

To finish off, I added a trio of retired pink gems.

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done, and link up your entry, on the As You See It page. The team and I are all keen to see how you see it!

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.

 

Lily of the Valley for Colour INKspiration 216

 

Welcome to the 216th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's colour challenge palette was chosen by me, so I hope you enjoy playing along with us!

This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday 7 September, 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 Mariel Altamirano 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 Highland Heather for Fresh Freesia. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

I felt that these colours lent themselves to something floral and delicate so that had me reaching for the Lily of the Valley bundle.

My card base is Blackberry Bliss. I embossed the card front with the Floral Spray 3D folder.

Although the large Lily of the Valley stamp and die is a showstopper, I've always had a soft spot for the smaller stamped image. So I stamped two of them and coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Fresh Freesia, Blackberry Bliss and Soft Sea Foam. Then I die cut them out. I also cut out a piece of the trellis from Blackberry Bliss cardstock.

I used a piece of retired Beautiful Bokeh DSP to create a horizontal bar then arranged the trellis and the flowers over it. 

As it happened, I'd been experimenting with the new Hot Foil system and had a pile of sentiments from the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies and chose this one 'here's to another year'. I liked that it would work for both a birthday or an anniversary. 

To finish off this simple little card, I added a trio of Sunset Sparkle sequins.

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with the 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.

Neutral Noel for Paper Players 800

This week is a special week for us at The Paper Players as it is our 800th challenge! That's some dedication from the women who started up the challenge, some of whom are still on the team. At roughly 50 challenges a year, that means it all started up sixteen years ago. Sixteen years ago, I didn't even know what a rubber stamp was, let alone how to use one!

To celebrate this wonderful milestone, our hostess Ann has brought out the very first Paper Players Challenge for you to play with again for Challenge 800.  We also thank the many of you who loyally play along with us so often. We're all interested to see what you do with it!

Since this challenge landed on my desk at about the same time as the pre-order for the September-December Mini Catalogue, the choice of set was made for me! It was going to be the Neutral Noel suite and a Christmas card. 

Instead of the central rectangle of the sketch, I used the large oval die from Noel Tidings to cut a Basic White oval which was then embossed with the Softly Woven folder. This folder has quickly become a favourite of mine already. 

For the strong horizontal element, I used one of the beautiful foil-heavy patterns from the Neutral Noel DSP pack. All of these are beautiful, single-sided and heavy-weight papers. 

For the Christmas cluster I used a mix of the stamps and dies from both Noel Tidings and Welcome Noel bundles. The little houses were stamped in Crumb Cake and Pecan Pie. The foliage was stamped in Mossy Meadow, the branches in Pecan Pie, the deer in Early Espresso while the berries were cut from Cherry Cobbler and the wreath from Mossy Meadow. This was all arranged and adhered, some on dimensionals.

The sentiment is gold embossed and cut with a label die from Noel Tidings. The trio of embellishments are the Gold Adhesive Backed Dots that are part of the suite. Pretty, aren't they?

The team and I would love to see what you do with this very special sketch challenge. You can see what everyone has done and link up your entry at The Paper Players. And again, thank you for continuing to play along with us!

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

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.

Elegant Leaves for Atlantic Hearts Challenge 695

 Let's face it. I don't really need much encouragement to abandon real life and escape into my craft room. Today, it wasn't bad weather. It was that the warm spring sunshine was filling my room with light and I'd seen a sweet sketch challenge to play along with. 😀

The sketch was the latest challenge from Atlantic Hearts Challenge. 

It enabled me to have another play with my new Elegant Leaves bundle (available from September).

I started by inking the spade shaped solid leaf stamp in Crushed Curry and adding extra colours with a sponge dauber. Over the two leaves I daubed Cajun Craze and touches of either Old Olive or Cherry Cobbler. Then I stamped over it with the vein stamp in Cajun Craze. I did similar with the smaller leaf.

I also cut a medium leaf skeleton in Cajun Craze and a small gold foil leaf skeleton. For the final foliage, I cut a small leaf trio in gold foil and the matching skeleton from Crushed Curry. I daubed some touches of Cajun Craze over that before layering the two together. 

I arranged, and attached, all of these over a stitched circle cut with Stylish Shapes. I stamped the sentiment in Cajun Craze, cut it then popped it up on dimensionals. Then I put is aside while I prepared the rest of the card.

I cut three Basic White panels, one 4cm and two 2.5cm. The narrow two were embossed using the Fern & Flora 3D embossing folder. The wider one was embossed with the Softly Woven 3D embossing folder. This folder will be available once the September-December Mini Catalogue goes live next month.

I arranged these over a panel of Basic White and adhered them before adhering the card front to a Cajun Craze card base. 

Then it was a simple matter of adhering the leafy sentiment circle to it and adding a trio of Sunset Sparkle sequins in autumn shades. And just because I love Linen Thread, I added a generous bow into the final mix. 

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.

Lustrous Leaves for CAS Colours & Sketches 591

I fell down the rabbit hole of the new Stampin' Up! Hot Foil system. It's a lovely place to be! I have purchased, as part of the next pre-order of Hot Foil products, the Lustrous Leaves dies and some copper foil. Leaves are like catnip - I just can't have enough of them. And as to copper.... irresistible!

So, I needed to try them out and CAS Colours & Sketches came to the rescue with inspiration. I think I'll just sneak in under the wire for the end date. 😀

I started by hot foiling the leaf die using the copper foil and Willow White card. As part of the Lustrous Leaves bundle, there is a set of decorative masks (or stencils) perfect for colouring the images. I've used Timid Tiger, Cajun Craze and Pecan Pie inks, applied with Blending Brushes.

Because the die makes five leaves, I used the cutting dies to cut them apart and chose three for the front to represent the rectangle shape of the sketch. The others were very handy for the inside of the card.

I used the Sweetly Sentimental hot foil dies, again with copper, to make a number of sentiment labels. I chose 'Here's to Another Year' because it worked for both birthday and anniversary occasion. 

Given the lovely shine of the copper foil, I didn't add any embellishments but left it naked instead. 

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.