Retro Rubber Challenge 81 - Design Team Card

I hope you are as excited as I am about this sketch of Claire's! I think it's great and has just so many possibilities! Here at Retro Rubber Challenge, we love to get out our old stamps. If you do too then this is the challenge for you. Our rules are simple: use at least one stamp older than a year, give us an approximate age for your old stamp and don't link up to more than ten challenges in total.

As I was looking through my shelf of retired or older stamps, I came across Kinda Eclectic. I was so pleased to be reminded of it because it was once one of my favourites. It came out around the time I started seriously stamping: it was in the 2014-15 Stampin' Up Annual Catalogue.

I even dug out some brad bases and candy dots for this butterfly. I'd forgotten how great they were to use. At least linen twine - another of my favourites - is still current.

Anyway, at Retro Rubber Challenge, we love to see what you do with your trip down the stamp version of memory lane. You have two weeks to join us. Pop over to the site to see the rest of the Design Team's creations.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

If you live in New Zealand and you would like to join my Stampin' Up team, message me for a chat. And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up

Card: Crumb Cake, Whisper White, scrap of Rich Razzleberry

Stamps: Kinda Eclectic

Inks: Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Crumb Cake, Tuxedo Black

Other: Elegant Butterfly and Bitty Butterfly punches, dimensionals, brad base, Brights candy dots, linen twine.

The Paper Players 382 - Design Team Card

Sandie has a great new sketch challenge for us this week at The Paper Players. I love a sketch where there are so many possibilities about how it can be used.

I'm still playing with things from the Occasions catalogue and Sale-a-bration, even though it's been out since the start of January. This Lots of Lavender stamp set is a Sale-a-bration item, so not something that can be bought, only earned free with a qualifying order. Message me to find out how.

I started with a piece of Whisper White and stamped it using the bunch of lavender stamp and some of the leaves. Then I covered it with a layer of vellum. I like the soft, floaty, dreamy look a piece of vellum adds when used like this.

The centre image is the same bunch of lavender stamp but coloured using Stampin' Blends. To get variations in the flowers, I've used Pink Pirouette (light and dark) and Rich Razzleberry (light and dark). I've added in a double twine bow, although there is a perfectly lovely ribbon as part of the stamped image.

For the horizontal element of the sketch, I did something I rarely do. I used ribbon. This 5mm Old Olive ribbon is so lovely to work with as it has enough body to sit well but is soft enough to tie a sweet bow. It too is an item from the Occasions catalogue.

Just because there was no sentiment on the front, I'm showing you the inside as well this time.

We'd love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week. Here's a reminder of the rules of the challenge.

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!

Pop over to The Paper Players to see the creations of the rest of the Design Team.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand. If you make a qualifying order with me ($110 or more before postage) and you choose Lots of Lavender as your Sale-a-bration item, I'll send you step by step instructions for this card.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up

Card: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, vellum

Stamps: Lots of Lavender, Beautiful Bouquet (sentiment inside)

Ink: Tuxedo Black, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive

Other: Stampin' Blends, dimensionals, linen twine, 5mm Old Olive ribbon.

As You See It 170 - Design Team Card

This week's new challenge at As You See It is a lovely sketch by Amanda.

I've used Petal Palette as the basis for this card. It's a set from the Occasions Catalogue, released last month. I've stamped and coloured, with Stampin' Blends, the small flowers from the set then die cut them using the very convenient matching set of framelits, Petals and More. Bundled together, you can buy both at a 10% discount.

The gorgeous embossed strip comes from one of the folders in the Petal Pair embossing set. It makes a great background for the main image.

At As You See It, we like to see what you do with the challenge. You can join in with us up to 11.55 p.m. on Wednesday 7 March PST. Link up and show us how you see it!

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

If you live in New Zealand and you would like to join my Stampin' Up team, message me for a chat. And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Silver foil

Stamps: Petal Palette

Inks: Tuxedo Black

Other: Stampin' Blends alcohol markers, Petal Pair embossing folder, Petals and More framelits, Stitched Shapes framelits, Layering Circles framelits, pearls, rhinestones, mini-dimensionals, 1/4" organza ribbon

Guest Design at Casology

I was delighted to have a win at Casology recently with this card and even more delighted to be offered this Guest Design.

This week's cue card is one where I'm a bit out of my depth. Although I do love words and I do love a good pun, I've never been a punny stamper. So, hard on the heels of Valentine's Day (and my own wedding anniversary) I went all romantic.

The bee was stamped and coloured, then masked off. I sponged a heart onto the card base and unmasked the bee. I like the way she appears to be almost 3D.

The sentiment was added last, along with a bit of clear Wink of Stella for her wings. Originally I had stamped the BEE MINE all in plain capitals by adding stamping the 'BE MINE' in two halves and adding in an extra E. However, it just didn't stand out enough, so I stamped the 'BEE' separately with a different font and popped it up on dimensionals.

I hope that you'll be inspired to play along with the team at Cas-ology, where they have turned Clean and Simple into an art form! 

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up unless otherwise stated

Card: Powder Pink, Very Vanilla

Stamps: Dragonfly Dreams, Bloomin' Love, Labeller Alphabet

Inks: Early Espresso, Powder Pink

Other: sponges, Sweetheart Punch to create the paper mask, dimensionals, Watercolour pencils, clear Wink of Stella, Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles.

Paper Players 381 - Design Team Card

LeAnne has dreamt up a great CAS challenge for us this week - to use a sewing related item in a card. 

I'm feeling pleased with myself for actually paying attention to the Clean And Simple part of the challenge. Although my style is usually clean for some reason I post my card for a challenge like this only to discover that for once I've gone over the top. Not this time though - lots of clean white space and limited layers, even if I did sneak in a frame of Perfect Plum. 

My sewing and quilting days are largely done with since there's only room for one addiction at a time! However, I did have a box of Stampin' Up buttons from my earliest days of stamping.

I paired them up with the Beautiful Bouquet stamp set. It provided the stems and the sentiment.

At The Paper Players, we'd love to see what interesting sewing bits and bobs you include in your creation.  Here's a reminder of the few rules 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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

If you live in New Zealand and you would like to join my Stampin' Up team, message me for a chat. And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, Perfect Plum

Stamps: Beautiful Bouquet

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Wild Wasabi

Other: Buttons in Rose Red, Perfect Plum and Pretty in Pink

Retro Rubber 80 - Design Team Card

I'm excited about our new challenge at Retro Rubber. Jane's creative ideas just keep on coming and this week the idea is to use dots or circles on your card. Of course, because it's Retro Rubber, you must use at least one stamp that's older than a year and tell us approximately how old it is.

For me, there was only one choice - Dotty Angles from 2014-15 Annual Catalogue. I revisited a card I made with my card classes a couple of years ago and gave it a new colour palette and added in a few new things. Here I've used Fresh Fig for the base and I've repeat stamped the dotty stamp in Fresh Fig across the top and stamped the second generation as well to get some colour variation. Once that was done I repeat stamped again in versamark and silver embossed that layer. I like the way it looks a bit like confetti or balloons.

The die-cut 'celebrate' is from this year's Sale-a-bration offering, the Celebrate You thinlit set. I've stacked up three layers in Fresh Fig under the silver foil layer to give depth and to create a subtle shadow that makes the shiny layer stand out more.

The 'It's your day' is from Big on Birthdays, released in the 2017 Occasions Catalogue.

To finish off, I added in some silver mini-sequin trim to give more bling and more dottiness.

We'd love to see your take on the theme at Retro Rubber in the next fortnight. There are only three rules - use at least one stamp that's at least a year old, tell us how old it is (approximately) and don't link up to more than ten challenges in total.

Pop over to the Retro Rubber Challenge page and see what the rest of the team have done.

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. If you would like a copy of the new Special Occasions Catalogue or the Sale-a-bration brochure and don't have a demonstrator, then contact me. You can message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking on the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar.

Ingredients

Card: Fresh Fig, Smoky Slate, Whisper White, Silver foil

Stamps: Dotty Angles (retired), Big on Birthdays

Inks: Fresh Fig, Versamark

Other: silver embossing powder, 1/4" silver ribbon, silver mini-sequin trim, Celebrate You thinlit die

The Paper Players 380 - Design Team Card

Lots of you loved our Valentine's challenge last week, judging by the number and calibre of the entries. This week at The Paper Players, it's colour challenge week and Laurie has picked these:

I thought these would make a lovely Christmas card but I'm so not ready to start thinking about Christmas cards yet! From somewhere in my mind came the image of a great big red and white hot air balloon and it ended up like this...

The balloons are stamped onto Kraft with Real Red and I've coloured in and touched up using watercolour pencil and a bit of white gel pen. The edges of the Kraft panel are lightly sponged with Crumb Cake. The clouds are white embossed.

Where do these colours take you? We'd love to see what you make of them. Before you join up with us, there's just a couple of rules to keep in mind.

We'd love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week. Here's a reminder of the rules of the challenge.

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!

Pop over to The Paper Players and see what the rest of the team did.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Real Red, Whisper White, Kraft (retired)

Stamps: Lift Me Up

Inks: Real Red, versamark, crumb cake

Other: Up and Away thinlit dies, Watercolour pencils, white embossing powder, sponges, white gel pen, dimensionals, 

Freshly Made Sketches 323

This week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches was intriguing - so intriguing that I had to have a go at it!

I don't use DSP that often but I do like the Petal Passion DSP from the Occasions catalogue and I've picked a light and a dark from that suite as the basis for the card.

The lovely, lacy die-cut is from the Petals and More set as is the label shape for the sentiment and the bird framelit. Copper is the accent in this card. The wee bird and the sentiment are copper embossed, the die cut lace is from copper foil. The bird is coloured with Stampin' Blends.

So, simple but sweet.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Whisper White, Copper foil

Stamps: Petal Palette

Inks: Versamark

Other: Stampin' Blends (Crumb Cake and Cherry Cobbler), Petals and More thinlit dies, Copper embossing powder, Black rhinestones (retired), Basic Grey marker.

CAS Colours and Sketches 258

Just a quick post this morning. I loved the colours at CAS Colours and Sketches this week. They just screamed floral so I got out my Altenew Peony Bouquet set. It's so lovely, it needs little else with it. Everything is directly stamped onto the card front except the central bloom which is die cut and popped up on dimensionals.

Update: Delighted to be a Top Pick at CAS Colours and Sketches this week.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up unless otherwise stated
Card: Powder Pink, Whisper White
Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, Stampin' Up Big on Birthdays and Timeless Textures
Inks: Tuxedo Black, Powder Pink, Berry Burst, Wild Wasabi
Other: Altenew Peony Bouquet dies, Glitter enamel dots in Berry Burst, dimensionals

As You See It 169 - Design Team Card

Amanda has given us an interesting challenge at As You See It this week. It's to use our first ever stamp set or craft tool.

I had to do a bit of thinking about this as I got two stamp sets at the same time. The first two sets I ever bought were By the Seashore (this one) and Aviary. Soon afterwards, I got my first set of sentiment stamps - Say it in Style from Clearly Besotted. While I'm doing firsts, then Hardwood was the first background stamp I got (I think).

I have mixed in some new stuff as well. When I first got By the Seashore, I certainly didn't have Stampin' Blends to colour them with! The abstract beach and sky behind the sea creatures, I created using Kim Jolley's Not Your Mother's Shaving Foam method. I've posted a link to this wonderful tutorial before but if you google her or the method, you'll find it easily.

We'd love to have you join us and show us what your first stamp or tool was. As You See It lets you play along in whatever style you like - as you see it. Link up with us by Wednesday 21 February.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

For further inspiration in this card, I used the sketch challenge at Inspire. Create.

I'm entering this card there and you can join them up until 20 February.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up unless otherwise stated

Card: Bermuda Bay, Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Whisper White

Stamps: By the Seashore, Wetlands, Hardwood, Say it in Style (Clearly Besotted)

Inks: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Pool Party, Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo

Other: Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Bermuda Bay and Pool Party, Layering Circle framelits, linen twine, shaving foam, sponges, dimensionals

The Paper Players 379 - Design Team Card

I loved Nance's sketch from last week and from the calibre of the entries we got at The Paper Players, you did too! I hope you enjoy this week's theme challenge from Claire just as much.

Valentine's Day isn't such a big thing in New Zealand, although more of a thing that when I was a teenager. I feel like I'm making New Zealand sound like some sort of joyless society, since I've previously said we'd don't do Halloween either. Rest assured, that's not true - we celebrate a lot of things with a lot of pleasure! Love is one of them so although my card could be for Valentine's Day, it would work for any romantic occasion.

Pink and gold seem very romantic to me and it's hard to go past the glorious floral design in Fresh Florals for a bit more of a romantic vibe. In fact, for this card I let the paper and the large letters do all the work and resisted adding anything else.

I cut three layers of Powder Pink card and stacked it to give the sentiment some depth. I had originally intended to leave the letters plain but I'd seen this picture at Inspired By... Challenge and the texture of the gold chain made me think about adding some texture to the gold letters.

So, I will link up to their challenge too.  

We'd love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week. Here's a reminder of the rules of the challenge.

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. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Powder Pink, Gold Foil, Fresh Florals DSP, Whisper White.

Stamps: Sunshine Sayings

Inks: Early Espresso

Other: Large Letter framelits, Garden Trellis embossing folder, dimensionals

Freshly Made Sketches 322

Today's card is for the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

It uses items from Stampin' Up's Sale-a-bration promotion. The Amazing You stamp set and Celebrate You thinlits can only be earned as gifts with each qualifying purchase of $110.

The centre panel was created by using a kind of reverse resist embossing, where only the clear-embossed areas are left exposed. 

The sentiment is completed on the inside of the card.

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. If you would like a copy of the new Special Occasions Catalogue or the Sale-a-bration brochure and don't have a demonstrator, then contact me. You can message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, Shimmery cardstock, Old Olive

Stamps: Amazing You

Inks: Tuxedo Black. Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, versamark

Other: Celebrate You thinlits, Garden Trellis embossing folder, clear embossing powder, sponges

Paper Craft Crew 278

It's been ages since I've played with the Paper Craft Crew, even though I always look. This week however, I not only have more time, but I needed inspiration for a 21st birthday card. This week's sketch was perfect.

Thank you, Paper Craft Crew, for a great design to work with.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up

Card: Whisper White, Petal Passion DSP, silver glimmer paper

Stamps: Amazing You, Perennial Birthday

Inks: Powder Pink, Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends: Rich Razzleberry

Other: Large Number framelits, Bouquet Bunch thinlits, clear faceted gems, rhinestones, white gel pen, dimensionals