Magical Hot Foil for Freshly Made Sketches 745

It's been a long time since something truly different, and truly exciting, has arrived in my craft room: something never before seen or used or played with. And that folks, is Stampin' Up!'s brand spanking new Hot Foil System.

Once I'd worked out the technicalities of how to operate it (actually, really simple) I tried out a few things like using different dies, using different coloured foils and trying out different papers to foil. Now it was time to actually make something with it all, so I turned to the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to do just that. 

As part of my experimentation, I'd used the Garden Silhouette Hot Foil Die with gold foil on vellum.

Then I coloured the flowers from the back using Melon Mambo Stampin' Blends, with some  touches of Granny Apple Green and Daffodil Delight.

I cut this down to a long strip 9cm wide then folded it over a 9cm square of Bubble Bath card stock, attaching it with Stampin' Seal from behind. 

I can see that one possible negative of this lovely Hot Foiling is going to be the trouble in getting a good photo of it!

I used a Bubble Bath card base. The Basic White card front is embossed with the retired (but never to be parted with) Subtle embossing folder. I wanted some texture for interest but nothing that would compete with the busy gold foiled square, so it was the perfect choice. 

I ran a narrow strip of Bubble Bath through the same folder as a base for the sentiment.  For the sentiment, I hot foiled the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies, then cut them out with the matching cutting dies. There were a bunch of sentiments, which are great to have on hand ready to use - but I liked this one for a wedding. It's popped up on dimensionals.

While looking for embellishments, I wanted something elegant but not too flashy. I chose the sparkling white Shimmering Dots to finish things off. 

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.

Recipe Challenge for As You See It 377

 At As You See It, after the Fill in the Blank challenge comes the Recipe Challenge. Just take the five given ingredients, add whatever you like from your own stash and see what you can cook up. Be sure to visit the As You See It page so you can see what our Guest Designer has done. The winner of our Colour Challenges is invited to be Guest Designer at our next Recipe Challenge. 

The five ingredients: Enamel Dots, Flower, Large bold sentiment, die cut and shades of yellow had me going down a retro path straight down to my craft library. One of the delights of crafting is  building up a library of useful and pretty things to use for future projects, all the while adding new items and weeding out the less useful, just as you do in a traditional library.

I don't have a lot of DSP so I went to the very pretty retired Floral Delight DSP since I remembered that it used a lot of yellows - and lots of florals so it would kill two birds with one stone. I cut some scrap rectangles into triangles and created a strip-pieced background, making sure to keep the florals in the most prominent positions at the centre and at the edges. 

I mounted the strip-pieced panel onto a piece of Daffodil Delight adn then adhered it to an Old Olive card base. 

The big, bold sentiment and die cut ingredients were also ticked off in one step with this retired die cut 'Happy Birthday' from the craft library. I cut one from Old Olive and one from Daffodil Delight then layered them so the Daffodil acted like a shadow. Then I applied a liberal coat of Wink of Stella before adhering it to the card front. 

Then the final ingredient, Enamel Dots, was also taken care of from the craft library: I still have some of those wonderful Glossy Enamel Dot Assortments, which included some in a golden  yellow.

The team and I would love to see what you cook up with our five ingredients and your own flair!

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.

Garden Gatherings for Paper Players 794

This week at The Paper Players, our hostess is JayDee. She's given us a bright and summery colour challenge to play with. We had such gorgeous entries last week with Ann's theme challenge, I'm excited to see what everyone does this week. 

My first task was to decide which SU colours I'd use. I went for Timid Tiger as my coral, Flirty Flamingo as my pink, Granny Apple Green for my green and Daffodil Delight for my yellow. 

For further inspiration, I used the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and you can still play along there for another day or two. 

My current play set is Garden Gatherings because I'm enjoying the mix of leaves, florals and vases to play around with. I'm pairing it up with the very pretty Beautiful Ordinary Life DSP, which I'd overlooked on my first looks through the catalogue. The colours in it are just so pretty!

I started by cutting a piece of the honeycomb DSP, then a smaller piece of Basic White to fit inside it while leaving a wide border to show off the design. I stamped a stem and added some Flirty Flamingo flowers and then some softer Timid Tiger blossoms. I cut a vase from another piece of DSP, making sure to pick a part where there was a mix of the coral and pink colours.

I decided to emboss the background with the Lazy Daisy folder to carry the floral theme through. Then a strip of Flirty Flamingo coloured DSP for the horizontal element. 

Then I added the sentiment, stamped onto Flirty Flamingo, cut with a die from Stylish Shapes and popped up on dimensionals.

Finally, I added a trio of yellow dots from Array of Dots, making two of them flower centres.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Jaydee's colours. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your 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.

Gears & Textures for CAS Colours & Sketches 589

Just a quick post today. I was procrastinating at my desk, avoiding planning next month's class, when I spied the new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. Next thing you know, stuff has jumped onto my desk, rather like a boisterous puppy, wanting to be played with. 

Nothing to be done but go with it!

I started with a scrap of Nature Walk DSP and cut a stitched square from it using Stylish Shapes.

From a scrap of retired  copper Specialty Metallic papers, I cut two cogs in different sizes from the Gears & Textures dies. From Pecan Pie, I cut an outer cog and from Early Espresso a ladder.

I stamped the Pecan Pie outer wheel with a Pecan Pie and a splatter stamp from Gears & Textures before adhering it over the copper die cut cog so there was the appearance of an inner and outer ring.

Note: Gears & Textures is still available as a bundle for a 10% saving.

The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso and is from Garden Gatherings.

After layering up the elements with respect to the sketch, I added a trio of Faux Bronze Pentagons. 

Masculine birthday card all done!

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 213

 

Welcome to the 213th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's colours are a strong and moody combination, chosen by Crew Member Sharon Dalton.  

This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday 20 July, 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 Kerstin Stempelmessi 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 Night of Navy for Secret Sea. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

To begin with, these colours had me a bit stumped and there were a couple of false starts. But that is one of the joys of joining in challenges - you get pushed to try new things. 

Regular readers will know that I've been having quite a love affair with the Fern & Flora bundle. The fern die cuts are wonderful but the negatives are also pretty. So I decided to use them as a stencil. The largest fern I stencilled with Timid Tiger and the medium sized fern I stencilled with Strawberry Slush. I really like the way that there are tonal variations in the ferns from the way they were stencilled. Blending brushes make the ink blending very easy.

I trimmed the panel down and matted it onto a piece of Strawberry Slush then adhered it to a Secret Sea card base. 

I experimented a bit with the sentiment, originally having a narrow horizontal of Secret Sea and then trying some linen thread. In the end, I decided to leave it just like this: a sentiment from Rolling Waves cut with a die from Nested Essentials with a shadow of Secret Sea. 

The sentiment is popped up on dimensionals. The finishing touch is a trio of Flat Pearls in Timid Tiger. 

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.

Summer Happiness for Paper Players 793

Last week, we had such wonderful entries for Joanne's sketch challenge - thank you everyone! This week, Ann is our hostess and she has a theme challenge for us.

Summer Love is asking for any kind of romantic occasion card. I'll confess that my card is very summery and less romantic because I love summer and the beach. Somehow, the beach and summer seems closely linked to a spot of romance - or at least, it did when I was young! So I broke out the new Summer Happiness bundle, new from Online Exclusives.

I started by adding a wave die from Rolling Waves to start the beach feeling. Then I had a bit of fun choosing which of the summer images from Summer Happiness to stamp and die cut. I settled on a pair of flowers and a camera, cut from Basic White and coloured with Stampin' Blends: Daffodil Delight, Flirty Flamingo and Pool Party. The sunglasses were stamped onto Pool Party and the jandals onto Flirty Flamingo. The glasses and camera are popped up on dimensionals.

I finished off with a trio of Strawberry Slush flat pearls.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Ann's theme. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your 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.

Garden Gatherings for As You See It 376

Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It. It's our Fill in the Blank challenge and we're asking you to tell us about your favourite Embossing Folder.  

This is a tricky thing for me because I love embossing folders. I use them all the time. I choose to use them over patterned paper almost always. So asking me for my favourite embossing folder is a bit like asking me which is my favourite child... I love them all! Over the years, my favourites have been the Subtle folder, Exposed Brick and Softly Falling. 

Of current folders, my favourite changes pretty much daily. The new Floral Spray is awesome but the one I keep coming back to is Lazy Daisy, so that's what I've used today. 

To add a bit of interest, I embossed a piece of Basic White, then tore one edge of it before attaching it to the card front. 

I've used my latest acquisition, Garden Gatherings for the flowers. I cut two vases from scraps of Beautiful Ordinary Life  DSP. The squat one, I ran through the Lazy Daisy folder to give it some patterning.

The flower stems were stamped in Pretty Peacock. The flowers were stamped in Flirty Flamingo, daubed with touches of Melon Mambo. The front vase and flowers are popped up on dimensionals. 

The sentiment is from the same set and is cut using a banner die from Stylish Shapes. I finished off with a trio of dots from Array of Dots.

The team and I would love to see what you do with your favourite embossing folder for this challenge. 

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.