The Paper Players 368 - Design Team card

It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players and this week it's a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge from Jaydee. I had so many favourites from last week's sketch challenge that I had a hard time picking just one to be A Cut Above, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this.

To play, choose any line and make sure you include each element of the line in your creation.  Since I'd only recently made a tree-Christmas-gold card, this time I went for birthday-die-cut/punch-butterfly.

This card didn't really end up how I thought it would. I had in mind the masked and stamped Lemon-Lime Twist background, then stencilled over with glittery embossing paste. Sitting on that would be a pink die-cut butterfly with some foliage but after that... the vision was a bit vague.

The rest... evolved. Since I had the new in-colours out on my desk along with a spool of glorious crinkle Berry Burst ribbon, I suppose it was a case of natural selection.

In this photo, it is possible to see the lovely shimmer that mixing embossing paste with Diamond Dazzle glitter gives to the background. The outer part of the butterfly's wings have a coat of clear Wink of Stella.

We'd love to have you play along with us this week. If you do, there's a couple of things to keep in mind.

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients - All Products Stampin' Up

Card: Berry Burst, Whisper White, Powder Pink

Stamps: Big on Birthdays, Sheet Music, Oh So Eclectic

Inks: Lemon-Lime Twist, Tranquil Tide, Berry Burst

Other: Eclectic Layers framelits, Butterfly framelits, embossing paste, Dazzling Diamond glitter, palette knife, mini-dimensionals, clear Wink of Stella, clear faceted gems, rhinestones, Berry Burst Crinkle ribbon, linen twine, sponges, daubers.

Freshly Made Sketches 310

I was pleased to find time this afternoon to play with this week's challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

Merry Mistletoe is a quiet underachiever of the Christmas sets, having appeared first in the Annual Catalogue rather than the Holiday one. I like the sweet, slightly rustic images and the sentiments are lovely.

The Holly embossing folder is a fabulous addition to my Christmas kit - it so quickly adds a Christmas feel to any project.

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients - All products are Stampin' Up

Card: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White

Stamps: Merry Mistletoe

Inks: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Soft Suede

Other: Holly embossing folder, Stitched Shapes framelits, Gold mini-sequin trim, Linen twine, metallic enamel shapes.

Retro Rubber 74 - DT card

This week's sketch challenge at Retro Rubber got me thinking of Christmas. I wonder where it will lead you?

I did indulge in some sketch flipping but those flags just keep looking like trees to me!

The stars of this card are those lovely gold-embossed trees from Totally Trees, released in  Stampin' Up's 2016 Holiday catalogue. The sentiment is from SU's Endless Wishes, from 2015.

We'd love to see how you interpret this sketch. If you'd like to join us, there are only a couple of rules. The most important is that you must use at least one stamp older than a year - after all, we're a challenge site devoted to letting you love your old stamps! So, tell us roughly how old they are and don't join up to more than ten challenges in total. 

I'm also going to join up this card to a new challenge site I've just discovered that looks really exciting. It's called Inspire. Create. Challenge and this Festive theme is only their third outing.

Update: Delighted to win this challenge at Inspire.Create.

There's still plenty of time to join both Retro Rubber and Inspire.Create. and certainly at Retro Rubber we'd love to see you give your old stamps some love.

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Gold foil, Very Vanilla

Stamps: Totally Trees, Endless Wishes

Ink: Versamark, Cherry Cobbler

Other: Metallic shapes, gold mini-sequin trim, dimensionals

All products Stampin' Up.

The Paper Players 367 Design Team Card

There were so many creative and clever entries in last week's spooky theme challenge, I can't wait to see what you all do with Claire's lovely sketch this week.

I bought Beautiful Bouquet from this year's annual catalogue and have barely played with it, so I decided that I'd make sure I used it this week. I really enjoyed playing with all the various flower forms and foliage. I used some of them to create a bouquet for the shape element of the sketch.

I also used the new dynamic textured impression embossing folder, Pinewood Planks, and softly sponged the edges and some of the surface. I wanted a rustic, garden feel without it being too obvious which is why I did not use my beloved Hardwood background stamp.

I enjoyed building up the flower bouquet. I used the new Everyday label punch and the border from the co-ordinating set, Labels to Love, for the sentiment.

We would love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week for our sketch challenge.

Here's a reminder of the few rules we have:

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients

Card: Pool Party, Whisper White, Wild Wasabi, scrap of Powder Pink

Stamps: Beautiful Bouquet, Burlap, Labels to Love

Inks: Pool Party, Fresh Fig, Powder Pink, So Saffron

Other: Bouquet Bunch framelits, Copper trim, Pinewood Planks embossing folder, rhinestones, enamel shapes, dimensionals, sponges

As You See It 161 - DT Card

This week, at As You See It, we have a theme challenge for you. I doubt it will be as scary as last week's Speed Challenge anyway! The ticking clock certainly adds pressure - whoever said cardmaking wasn't exciting?

If you live in a part of the world that celebrates Halloween, then this challenge will be a great one for you to sink your teeth into, vampire or not. I like this challenge because it also makes it easier for people like me who live in parts of the world where Halloween isn't a thing.

I have taken some of the inspiration from the photo, especially the colours and the moody sky. I've also taken some of the conventions of the horror genre - the full moon, the night, the skeletal tree and deserted house. The tree and sky are dwarfing the house deliberately to make add to the sense of isolation.

However, the truly scary thing is in being lonely and in being without someone important. So that's why the sentiment is ' Missing You'.

You can join up with us until Wednesday 1 November, 11.55 p.m. PST. 

We'd love to see what you see as SCARY.

Ingredients

Card: Fresh Fig, Whisper White, Basic Black, Whisper White

Stamps: Thoughtful Banners

Inks: Fresh Fig, Island Indigo, Night of Navy

Other: Beautiful Branches thinlits, Hometown Greetings edgelits, sponges, circle punch for moon mask

All products Stampin' Up.

The Paper Players 366 - DT Card

Welcome to a new challenge at The Paper Players. This week, we have a CAS Theme Challenge for you.

Last time we had a CAS theme challenge, I somehow missed reading the 'CAS' part and ended up making a card much less CAS that I usually do, so this time round I was extra careful!

Spooky is a theme that's quite hard for me. I don't have any spooky/halloween stamps because halloween just isn't a thing in New Zealand. I did a Halloween themed card for another challenge I'm on the team for, Retro Rubber. I liked it a lot but thought that it didn't fit the CAS bill, so this card is my attempt to re-make my own card in cleaner, simpler style.

The house is made using the Hometown Greetings edgelits from this year's Christmas catalogue.
I cut it down to the one house, backed in with Hello Honey, then inlaid the architectural elements from a Tangerine Tango house I'd also cut.

The colours in the masked and sponged column are Hello Honey, Tangelo Twist and Blackberry Bliss. You can see the original card here.

We would love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week for our CAS Spooky challenge.

Here's a reminder of the few rules we have:

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients

Card: Tangelo Twist, Basic Black, scraps of Hello Honey

Stamps: SU Thoughtful Branches, Clearly Besotted Many Mini Messages

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Hello Honey, Tangelo Twist, Blackberry Bliss

Other: Hometown Greetings edgelits, sponges, black rhinestones, circle punch for the mask, post-it notes for the mask.

Freshly Made Sketches 308

School holidays are rapidly drawing to a close and with them, the extra crafting time not being at work gives! This morning, the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches was revealed and with time running out, I was keen to give it a try.

It's inspired me to make this Christmas card. I do like black, white and gold as a combination - it feels smart and unfussy.

I'd wondered, in the middle of the night last night, whether the Hometown Greeting edgelits would fit in the Delicate Ornaments dies. I'm delighted to say that they do!

I gold embossed a few stars from the Hearts Come Home set to give the houses a sky without going OTT.  Having already gone the over-the-top (for me) step of using not one but two designer papers, I then did something else I seldom do - added bows. To be fair, the Christmas bauble really does need some way to hang on the tree, so in this case, it's justified.

Thanks for another great sketch, team!

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Whisper White, Gold foil, Cheers to the Year Specialty DSP.

Stamps: Hearts Come Home, Holly Berry Happiness

Inks: Versamark

Other: Hometown Greetings thinlits, Delicate Ornaments framelit,  Gold cord trim (retired), Gold mini-sequin trim, Gold faceted gem, dimensionals, gold embossing powder.

All products Stampin' Up.

Retro Rubber 73 - DT Card

Welcome to a new challenge at Retro Rubber, the challenge site that gives you a reason to bring out your old stamps and give them some ink. This time, the challenge is to make a Halloween card.

This turned out to be a real challenge since in New Zealand, Halloween isn't a thing. I didn't think I had any Halloween stamps, old or new! After hunting around, I came across a set by Clearly Besotted called Many Mini Messages, which I bought when I first started stamping in 2015, because it does in deed have many, many mini-messages! Lo and behold, one of those was 'Happy Halloween'. The basis of the card was born!

I had been playing a lot with items from the Christmas catalogue, including Hearts Come Home and the co-ordinating dies, Hometown Greetings. So, I tried playing around with them in different colours. Here's the result.

I cut the edgelit in black and backed it with Hello Honey. I cut the edgelit again on a scrap of Tangelo Twist then inlaid the architectural details into the black houses as you can see in the photo below.

Since I was on a retro bender, I also dug out retired colours: Hello Honey, Tangelo Twist and Blackberry Bliss.

Another stamp retiree is Thoughtful Branches (mid-2016) which provided the skeletal trees in the background.

However, another 'new' thing is the black rhinestones on the sentiment, fresh and new from this year's Christmas catalogue.

We'd love to have you join our Halloween Challenge. If you do, there's just a couple of things to remember: use at least one stamp older than a year, give us an approximate age for it and don't link up to more than ten challenges in total.

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

I am also entering this card at The House of Cards, for their halloween challenge, which is to use the theme (Halloween), the colours or both. You can join in at The House of Cards for the rest of October.

Update: Delighted to be in the Top 5 at House of Card October Challenge.

Ingredients

Card: Tangelo Twist, Whisper White, Basic Black, Hello Honey

Stamps: SU Thoughtful Branches, Clearly Besotted Many Mini Messages.

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Hello Honey, Tangelo Twist, Blackberry Bliss

Other: Hometown Greetings edgelits, Black rhinestones, sponges, circle punch, dimensionals.

Just Add Ink 380

Since today is World Card Making Day, I found a bit of time to get into my craft room today. I used this sketch from Just Add Ink for inspiration.

I don't often use patterned paper when I make cards but I was seduced into buying the Fresh Florals DSP because it was just so jolly pretty! Today's task was to actually use some of - there's a lot in a pack, so even after using it for an Extravaganza project, I've still got a heap!

The sweet little flower from Bloomin' Love just seemed to fit in with this Fresh Florals paper so I used it to balance out the oval cut out 'friend'. Copper worked nicely as an accent to the Tranquil Tide too. Usually, I'm a big fan of lots of white space but it looked a bit too empty. I repeat stamped the 'thanks' but stamped it off first so that it's just a bit less bold than the main sentiment.

It was a quick card and  a bit of sketch flipping happened but I like how it turned out.

Ingredients

Card: Tranquil Tide, Whisper White, Fresh Florals DSP, copper foil

Stamps: Lovely Inside and Out, Bloomin' Love

Inks: Tranquil Tide

Other: Lovely Words thinlits, Layering Oval framelits, Stylish Stems thinlits, dimensionals, rhinestone, Year of Cheer washi tape.

The Paper Players 365 - DT Card

Last week's Autumn Floral theme challenge at The Paper Players bought in so many beautiful entries! We were all impressed. This week we have a colour challenge from Joanne.

This week's colour challenge did get me thinking autumn again and certainly these colours would make a spectacular autumn card. However, since it's coming in to spring in New Zealand, I gave myself a little side challenge - to make a not-autumn card from these autumn colours.

I did end up with some leaves and they are in autumn colours but I think a Jurassic or Cretaceous autumn is OK in terms of my self-imposed side challenge.

Regular readers will know that I'm averse to snipping stamps, so I had to mask off part of the sentiment to get the right words front and inside of the card.

If you'd like to join in with The Paper Players for this colour challenge, there's just a few things to remember.

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

We'd love to see what you do with this challenge this week.

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso, Whisper White

Stamps: No Bones About It

Inks: Crushed Curry, Peekaboo Peach, Early Espresso

Other: Sponges

As You See It 160 - DT Card

I was very impressed by the amazingly creative ways in which people used last week's recipe in the challenge. I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone sees this challenge too. This week at As You See It, we have a different challenge: a speed challenge.

The very first time I came across As You See It was late in 2015. I'd really only been obsessed with stamping for a few months and had only recently discovered the exciting universe of the on-line challenge. I found this site and they had a speed challenge using shades of white. I was intrigued and entered it. Completely loved the challenge and thrill of the clock on the countdown! I was hooked!

I hope you will find it as enjoyable as I did. The secret is to have done all your thinking before hand. I spent part of a sleepless night coming up with ways to approach this challenge. Tonight, after work, I laid out all my stamps and inks and bits and bobs. Then, I took a deep breath, started the clock and cut my card base.

I did think I might have been a bit crazy trying to fit in embossing and sponging in the time frame. There was a small intake of breath as I started to heat the white and realised I'd missed a section of the image and had to stop and re-powder it. Originally, I'd intended to put the sentiment on a strip raised up and with perhaps another touch of colour. However, with the clock rapidly hitting the final minute, a more... minimalist... approach to the sentiment prevailed. On the whole though, I like the contrast of the stark words above the strip of colour.

Here's my final timer...

9 minutes 34 seconds!

We'd love to see how you see this speed challenge. You have ten minutes from the moment you begin to make the card. You can use any shade(s) of orange plus you can use neutrals (white, vanilla, black, grey) but no other colours.

You can join up and play with us until 18 October.

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. You can message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog, or by leaving a comment below.

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, Shimmery cardstock, Tangelo Twist

Stamps: Awesomely Artistic, Thoughtful Banners

Inks: Peekaboo Peach, Calypso Coral, Tangelo Twist, versamark

Other: white embossing powder, sponges

Colour Inkspiration 18

It's been a while since I've had the time to play at Colour Inkspiration but extra craft time is one of the many bonuses of school holidays! Once again, there was a delicious colour combination to play with.

This colour combination, along with the inspiration photo, did seem to scream out for a garden but I couldn't get the image of a marbled background using these colours out of my head. So I started with making up a piece of paper using the 'Not Your Mother's Shaving Cream' method of making a shaving cream background that I've used before from Kim Jolley at Stampin' Artfully. I've used Sweet Sugarplum, Powder Pink and Sahara Sand in the background.

I've stamped over that background with the flower stamen image from Colourful Seasons in Sweet Sugarplum and Basic Gray. I've added in some touches of silver too in the leaves too.

Here's a  couple of close ups, which shows the background well. I like that the colours and the reasonably stark layout give the card an elegant, slightly melancholy feel that is suitable for a 'thinking of you' card but the use of the pinks give it a hopeful feeling too.

Update: Delighted to be chosen in the Top 5 at Colour Inkspiration.

I am also entering this card into the sketch challenge at AAA cards.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Gray, Whisper White. Sweet Sugarplum, Sahara Sand, Silver foil

Stamps: Colorful Seasons

Inks: Basic Gray, Sahara Sand, Sweet Sugarplum, Powder Pink, versamark

Other: silver embossing powder, sponges, Seasonal Layers thinlits.

The Paper Players 364 - DT card

There were so many beautiful cards in last week's gallery at The Paper Players that came from Nance's versatile and pretty sketch. Big congratulations to the Headliner and Cuts Above! I think you'll be excited by this week's theme challenge from Sandy too.

Because I got Oh So Eclectic at the same time as my Christmas pre-orders, I feel I've neglected it, so it was today's choice of set to use. I did sneak in a couple of bits and bobs from Beautiful Bouquet and Bouquet Bunch framelits too.

The distressed leaf stamp is one of my favourites. On two them, I rolled the edges of the stamp through Cajun Craze after inking with Old Olive first to get the two-toned leaves. I used some of the Year of Cheer washi tape from the Holiday Catalogue because of the lovely copper tones and then added in a touch of copper metallic thread and gave the main flower a copper foil centre too.

We would love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week, for our Autumn Floral theme challenge.

Here's a reminder of the few rules we have:

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

We'd love to see what you do with this challenge this week, so please play along with us.

Ingredients

Card: Cajun Craze, Whisper White, Crushed Curry, scrap of Copper Foil

Stamps: Oh So Eclectic, Beautiful Bouquet, Big on Birthdays

Inks: Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Old Olive

Other: Eclectic Layers dies, Bouquet Bunch dies, Year of Cheer specialty washi tape, dimensionals, Copper metallic thread