Fern & Flora for Colour INKspiration 220

Welcome to the 220th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's inspiration picture is of a European Bee Eater and was chosen by Crew Member, Lou Kitzelman. 

This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday 9 November, 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 the fabulous Sandra Hebel 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 Crushed Curry for Darling Duckling. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

One of my favourite bundles of 2026 has been the Fern & Flora bundle (and, of course, the Fern & Flora embossing folder). I love the fern die cuts, so started with three different cuts - one in each of the challenge colours. 

I used one of the background texture stamps from the set and stamped a roughly rectangular panel in Darkling Duckling, then arranged the trio of fern fronds over it. The whole panel was attached to a Cajun Craze card base. 

The sentiment is from a different set, Friendly Foliage and is stamped in Pretty Peacock and cut using the label die from Fern & Flora. I added the same die cut in Pretty Peacock underneath the sentiment to accent it.

The finishing touch was the addition of a trio of Darling Duckling flat pearls. 

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.

 

Creative Celebrations for Paper Players 809

After last week's Clean-and-Simple Challenge, this week Christy has a sketch challenge for us to play with. 

I'm still working on my experiments with using Ephemera packs. I just can't make myself craft with notecards and the ephemera pack alone. So I've included an embossing folder - because really, I can't craft without one - and some coordinating DSP. 

So my products are the Season of Celebration Mix and Match Ephemera Pack, the coordinating Creative Celebrations DSP and the Softly Woven 3D embossing folder. I ended up with these products because I was looking for some crafting to take away on holiday with me that wouldn't require a lot of gear. So armed with my paper trimmer, the ephemera pack and DSP plus some pre-cut card bases and some pre-embossed card fronts away I went to Australia. 

As holiday crafting, it worked well but I still have a lot of it to play with, so out it came for today's challenge.

Christy's sketch called for a slightly narrowed card front with a decorative edge. I've been a bit creative with that by adding in some DSP in the same colour as the card base as the decorative edge. 

 

The horizontal row of presents came straight from the DSP. The gorgeous reindeer was from one of the die cut pop-out pages of the DSP while the sentiment was from the ephemera pack. 

After that, it was a simple matter to add in a trio of sequins from the Sparkle Sequins pack.

Using the ephemera packs and the matching DSP is a different crafting experience from doing it all from scratch but I've discovered it's a nice way to create with limited supplies and space, and that you can create nice things quickly. Most importantly, I discovered that you still have to apply your creative skills to get a good result and so it is still a satisfying craft experience. Previously, I always skipped that part of the catalogue but it turns out to be worth a look. 😀

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

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.

Best Birds for AYSI 384

 This week at As You See It, it's theme week and the theme is feathers. 

Maybe you're going to play with just feathers, or maybe you're going to play with the feathers that are still attached to a bird?

Since I sold my Feathery set, it was down to feathers-still-on-a-bird! And my favourite ever bird set is a really old one: Best Birds. Long since retired, it still has a place in my craft library. 

For inspiration, I used this picture of a NZ  Wren, or Piwauwau because I liked the bright greens of the feathers.

After stamping the bird and bough in black, I coloured using Stampin' Blends: Crumb Cake, Granny Apple Green and Lemon-Lime Twist. 

I used the retired Stitched Rectangles to give some more detailing to the card front. 

I stamped a trio of blooms in black ink, coloured them with Petal Pink Stampin' Blends and die cut them out. They're popped up on dimensionals to give a bit of a lift. The centres of the flowers are tiny Iridescent Pearls. 

We'd love to see how you see the feathers theme.  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.

Holly Jolly Branches for CAS Colours & Sketches 596

 Well, I did manage to procrastinate inside my craftroom again. This time it was the colour palette at CAS Colours & Sketches. In my defence, I did make it to the ironing board and tame the ironing mountain as well. 😀

I thought I'd use one of my Christmas sets, the Holly Jolly Branches bundle but for a non-Christmas purpose. I love those funky shaped trees. 

I die cut one of the largest trees in Mossy Meadow and two of the middle sized trees: one in Cajun Craze and one in Golden Glow. I stamped a small pattern over each of them in matching ink.

I embossed a strip of Basic White with the Rustic Check embossing folder then ripped a bit from each side to create a distressed edge. After adhering it to a Basic White card front, then attaching it to a Mossy Meadow card base, I added the three trees. 

I stamped the sentiment, from Elegant Leaves, in Cajun Craze ink. I cut it using a banner die from Stylish Shapes. This is popped up on dimensionals. To finish off, I added a trio of Golden Glow 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.

Elegant Leaves for Paper Players 808

Thank you to the people who played along with my colour challenge last week. I was delighted by the varied uses people found for the one set of colours.

This week at The Paper Players, Stef has a double challenge for us: make something on the theme of 'Happy Autumn' AND make it in a Clean and Simple style. 

At The Paper Players, we have a reasonably relaxed view of clean and simple, or CAS, cards.

We are looking for cards that:

• Have lots of open, white space
• One focal point
• Minimal layers
• Simple embellishments (or even no embellishments)

Even though it is spring here, I've had a lot of autumn stuff on my desk largely because I love leaves and there have been some great new leaf sets at Stampin' Up! I've used the Elegant Leaves bundle (again!).

I started by stamping the leaf vein stamp in Cajun Craze on a scrap of Basic White. Then I coloured the filler stamp with sponge daubers using Timid Tiger, Crushed Curry and a touch of Cajun Craze. This two-step stamping let me have a pretty variegated autumn leaf, which I then die cut. 

I used one of the small skeleton leaf dies and a scrap of Gold Foil to make the tiny leaf. 

I used the new Rustic Check 3D embossing folder on a piece of Basic White to make the horizontal strip. With a linear pattern like this one, it's easier to tear the strip once it's embossed to help keep the lines straight. When it's a less obvious pattern, I usually emboss a torn strip.

The sentiment is made using the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies and Gold Hot Foil. 

Note: To do this, you also need the Stampin' Up! Hot Foil System.

I mounted the card front onto a base of Thick Basic White. No further embellishment was needed. 😀

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

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.

Botanical Glow for FMS 758

Procrastination is so easy once you enter the craftroom... that is, it's easy to put off anything that's outside the room!

I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to justify not doing the ironing. 😁

Really, I just wanted to have a bit more time with some of the Hot Foil System and accessories that I have now. 

So I started with some Secret Sea Two-tone cardstock and used the Botanical Glow Hot Foil die with the Silver Hot Foil Roll to get started on the card.

I trimmed it down slightly and matted it to a piece of Basic White cardstock before adhering it to a Secret Sea card base. 

Although I was going for a simple dark, white, silver colour palette I thought it needed something else, so I added in some dots with a White Gel pen.

Generally speaking, I try not to use hot foil all over a card. I usually use it in the imagery or in the sentiment because it feels a bit like double denim otherwise. However, in this case, it just seemed right to carry on the colour scheme. 

So I kept it simple by hot foiling, again with silver foil, and one of the Classic Greetings Hot Foil dies.

After die cutting it out, I popped it up on dimensionals. Then I added a subtle trio of dark blue Dew Drop embellishments to finish.

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 Freshly Made Sketches 757

Well, it turns out that I do my best procrastination in my craft room. I'll blame the lovely sketch at Freshly Made Sketches but the score for today is: jobs ticked off the list 2, cards made 3. And if I did it in minutes, it would be more like: job list 45 minutes, craft room 3 hours. 😀

I just wanted to create my own way today so I went back to my roots: lots of white space, layering of elements, pretty colours, nature imagery - in this case Elegant Leaves, since foliage is one of my go to things. 

The card base is Thick Basic White. The card front is embossed with the Textured Tree Ring 3D embossing folder. I was late to the party on that one - I bought it a couple of weeks ago but now it's on the Last Chance List. So it's still not too late to add it to your craft library. 

I replaced the small rectangle in the sketch with a small arch cut using the Everyday Arches dies. I added some background patterning using Gears & Textures in both Granny Apple Green and Lemon-Lime Twist inks.

The fun part was making the leaves. The Elegant Leaves bundle has so many options for creating leaves both stamped and die cut - not to mention two-step stamping options and layering stamps with die cuts - that my desk ended up littered with leaves in various configurations. 

The ones that made the final cut were: large leaf stamped with Granny Apple Green on Lemon-Lime Twist cardstock and sponged around the edges with Granny Apple Green ink, large skeleton leaf die cut from some DSP from Valley in Bloom, and medium leaf done in two steps. The outline/vein stamp is in Granny Apple Green and the infill stamp a mix of Granny Apple Green, Garden Green and Lemon-Lime Twist which were applied with sponge daubers.

I added a double bow made with Linen Thread to give the impression they'd been tied together as a bouquet of leaves and then added a trio of Shimmering Dots in Granny Apple Green.

The sentiment is made with the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies and some Gold Hot Foil. Note that this requires the Stampin' Up! Hot Foil system but you could add any sentiment, either stamped or embossed. 

I enjoyed making this card much more than I would have enjoyed spring cleaning the bathroom cupboards or cleaning out the garage then making a dump run... and those jobs will still be there tomorrow. 😀

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.