Noel Tidings for AYSI 382

It's fill in the blank time at As You See It this week. Although I've now made more Christmas cards, this was the SECOND card I made, so that's how I'll fill in the blank. How about you?

I did rather fall in love with the Neutral Noel suite from the September-December Mini Catalogue. There was something about the richness of the DSP and the traditional nature of the greetings and imagery that won me over. In fact, it was that lovely but simple 'Merry Christmas' that did it for me. 

I started with a Mossy Meadow card base. I cut a piece of DSP - and with the gorgeous patterns in the Neutral Noel DSP collection, I was spoilt for choice. Then I used the oval die from the Noel Tidings bundle to cut out the centre.

I stamped the sentiment on a piece of Very Vanilla in Pecan Pie ink and added it behind the DSP before adhering it all to the card base. 

I cut two of the oval pine wreath dies, one in Mossy Meadow and one in Old Olive. I adhered them around the oval aperture, off-setting them slightly to give a sense of depth. I cut out some berries from scraps of Cherry Cobbler to add some colour to the wreath.

The two little pinecones were stamped in Pecan Pie on Very Vanilla and coloured with Pecan Pie Stampin' Blends before I die cut them out and added them to the top of the wreath. To finish it off, I tied a double bow from Linen Thread.

Then, I added a trio of Gold Dots around the sentiment. 

I'm so pleased with this card that we'll be making it in next month's classes. 😀

We'd love to see how you fill in the blank. You can see what the rest of the design team have done and link up your own entry on 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.

 

Classic Greetings for Colour INKspiration 218

Welcome to the 218th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's colours offer up a rustic charm or a masculine vibe, depending how you see it. You might see something else! The colours were chosen by team member, Vicki Boucher. 

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 12 October, 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 Sonja Zierer as our Guest Designer this time around. 

If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Cherry Cobbler for Real Red. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

I originally thought I'd do something along the lines of a rustic Christmas with the colours but once I sat at my desk, other things happened!

I cut some hexagons using the smallest hexagon die from Nested Essentials and arranged them on a panel of Basic Beige. I mounted that on a panel of Basic Beige and then attached it to a Basic Black card base.

I used the Hot Foil system to create the sentiment. I used the Classic Greetings hot foil dies and Red foil on Basic Beige cardstock. Once it was die cut out, I popped it up on dimensionals then added some Neutral Matte Dots in Basic Black, Pecan Pie and Basic Beige.

So, this masculine card came together pretty quickly and would work well in lots of colour combinations. I toyed with either stamping tone on tone or embossing the hexagons but went for a cleaner look in this instance. Worth an experiment in the future though. 😀

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.

Lustrous Leaves for Atlantic Hearts Challenge 700

Today's gloriously warm and sunny spring morning has now turned into a wet and cold spring (autumn?)  afternoon. Go figure. 

I retreated to my craft room and, instead of prepping upcoming classes, decided to play with the Lustrous Leaves Hot Foil dies. Luckily, the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge was on hand to provide much needed inspiration. 😀

I started by using the Hot Foil System with copper foil to make a set of the Lustrous Leaves. This die set can be bundled with a set of stencils perfect for colouring the outline images. I used a mix of Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Calypso Coral and Cajun Craze, applied with blending brushes, before die cutting the foiled images. I also used the leaf dies to cut a set of small leaves from scraps of Cajun Craze.

With the foliage under control, it was time to work on the rest of the design. I cut a piece of Basic White and added some splatter stamping in Old Olive using an image from Gears & Textures. After that, I matted the piece to a rectangle of Old Olive. The card front was embossed with the Softly Woven 3D folder. This I attached to a Cajun Craze card base. You can tell from these colours that I was recreating the crazy weather day with a mix of spring and autumn!

The centre panel was attached to the card base and then the fun part began: playing with the grouping of foliage. Some were adhered flat and some were popped up on dimensionals. 

The sentiment is also hot foiled in copper using the Sweetly Sentimental hot foil dies. I used the die that cuts the sentiments up to create an Old Olive shadow to emphasise the chosen sentiment. 

Then, to finish, I added a trio of autumn toned Sunset Sparkle sequins. 

Sadly, the day outside my window continues to resemble autumn rather than spring... but tomorrow is another day! 

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.

Elegant Leaves for CAS Colours and Sketches 594

Today's card is inspired by the colour combination at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I love leaves so of course, I've taken advantage of the new offerings at Stampin' Up!. The Elegant Leaves bundle came out to play for this card. 

I started by creating an inkpad from a baby wipe that had been dripped with dots of Highland Heather re-inker and Bubble Bath re-inker. I stamped the solid shape of two types of leaf with this (plus some on the inside of the card) before using the leaf vein stamp in Peaceful Pine over the top. These have matching dies to cut them out with. 

Then I used some of the Elegant Leaves dies to cut leaf shapes in the solid colours. I cut a circle with Stylish Shapes and embossed it with the Softly Woven folder.  And because I can't help  myself where texture is concerned, I also embossed the card front with more foliage from the Fern & Flora 3D embossing folder. 😀

When it came to sentiment, the colours seemed reflective and elegiac so I went with wording that could be for sympathy, get well or just for tough times. 

To finish off, I added a trio of Peaceful Pine flat pearls.

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.

 

Silly Old Bear for Paper Players 804

Thank you for all the lovely entries in LeAnne's colour challenge last week. There were stunning cards in the gallery. Let's see what you do with Christy's Clean and Simple Challenge this week. At The Paper Players, we take Clean and Simple to mean an uncluttered design with lots of open space, minimal layers and few embellishments. 

So this week, it's a double challenge: to make a card on the theme of BEARS and in a CAS style.

I'm a big fan of Winnie the Pooh (original, not Disney) as are my children and granddaughter. The stories, while seemingly simple, work well with both adults and children. They're possessed of both quiet humour and wisdom while the characters are iconic. And, it's the 100th birthday of the first publication of Pooh this year.

I was very disappointed that when Stampin' Up! brought out the Silly Old Bear suite it was only available in the American market. I was delighted to receive it due to the kindness of a friend. What a gift!

This card was my first play around with the suite. I used an Early Espresso card base and a Very Vanilla card front. 

I partially embossed the card front with the embossing folder that has the Hundred Acre Wood map on it - recognisable from the endpapers of many editions of the book. 

I stamped the image of Pooh and Piglet in Early Espresso then coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Golden Glow, Barely There and Hydrangea Hue. I die cut them out and popped them up on dimensionals beside the sentiment. 

I added in a trio of Flat Pearls in Hydrangea Hue.

We'd love to see your bear creations - and don't forget to make them in a Clean and Simple style.

You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, on 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.

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 Paper Players 803

Many thanks to everyone who entered into Joanne's candle theme challenge last week. This week, our hostess is LeAnne and she's chosen an autumnal colour palette for us to play with. As always, you can include black and white too. 

Here in New Zealand, we're moving towards spring but I love leaves so am always happy for an excuse to break out a foliage set. In this case, it's the newly released Elegant Leaves bundle. Although the leaves have many options for layering, I've just used the large leaf skeleton die cut and cut one from each of the three colours. 

Then, I've used one of the leaf stamps and randomly stamped over each of the leaves in the same coloured ink to give some colour variations. 

Before attaching the leaves to the card front, I used the bark pattern embossing die to create a horizontal for the leaves to lie on.

After that, it was a simple matter to add a sentiment, attach the card front to the Crushed Curry mat layer and then add it to Basic Black card base. 

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

The team and I would love to see what you do with these colours. Will it be leaves or something completely different?

You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, on 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.

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.

Silly Old Bear for Freshly Made Sketches 753

I'm back from a lovely holiday and have finally made it back into the craft room, now that the unpacking is done and the washing mountain is taken care of. I was looking for inspiration to try out a wonderful gift from a friend and that came from the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

And that was the beautiful Silly Old Bear suite. I don't think anyone of Commonwealth background doesn't love Winnie the Pooh, especially with the original EH Shepard illustrations. I loved it as a child, my children did and now, so does my granddaughter. Oh, to be frolicking in the Hundred Acre Wood in pursuit of a heffalump!

I was torn between hoarding the irreplaceable items forever and cracking on and using some of them. You can see that I have no willpower...

I enjoyed getting out the papers, dies and stamps and just having a good old play. I think I'm in love with the Hundred Acre Wood map embossing folder already!

Unfortunately, this suite of products is not available in New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom.

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.