Thinking Stamping: April 2023

Wednesday 26 April 2023

Goodbye, Plentiful Plants for Colour INKspiration 141

Welcome to the latest challenge at Colour INKspiration! This green jungle of a colour challenge was chosen by Crew Member, Bronwyn Eastley.

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 Sarine Zijderveld 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 Shaded Spruce for Evening Evergreen. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Sahara Sand and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.

Once the retiring list is out I find I get nostalgic about the old friends and favourites that will be put aside for the new products. Today's card farewells many retiring friends: The Plentiful Plants bundle, the Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder as well as Soft Succulent and Evening Evergreen. Eveni those gorgeous In Colour Jewels are going! Some of these will still be available in the Last Chance Sale - or will be until the 1 May - so have a look in my online store because it really will be your last chance to get them!

This card was super easy to make. I stamped pots and some leaves, then die cut them along with leaves and a pot from the die set. Then I had some fun playing around with arranging them.

The sentiment is part of one of the sentiments in Plentiful Plants. I used a die from Something Fancy to cut it out.

We'd love to have you join in the challenge with us. Visit the Colour INKspiration site to check out the album of Crew Cards for inspiration. You can also add your entry there. We all enjoy seeing what you do with our colour palettes, so join in!

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 shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking on the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar or on any of the products below.

Product List

Plentiful Plants Photopolymer Stamp Set

[155693]

$45.00

Perfect Plants Dies

[155562]

$68.00

Evening Evergreen A4 Cardstock

[155575]

$19.50

Soft Succulent A4 Cardstock

[155777]

$19.50

Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate

[131291]

$19.50

Basic White A4 Cardstock

[159228]

$21.75

Basic Black A4 Card Stock

[121688]

$19.50

Evening Evergreen Classic Stampin' Pad

[155576]

$17.00

Soft Succulent Classic Stampin' Pad

[155778]

$17.00

Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad

[147113]

$17.00

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

[132708]

$12.75

Brick & Mortar 3D Embossing Folder

[149643]

$21.00

Something Fancy Dies

[160424]

$59.00

2021–2023 In Color Jewels

[155571]

$14.75

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

$9.00

Sneak Peek 2023-2025 In Colors and Cheerful Daisies

This time of the year is always exciting for Demonstrators. We're in the midst of the 2023-2024 pre-order period as we await the new catalogue going live on 2 May. My preorder box arrived this week so I've been having fun starting to play with some new things.

So today, I'm sharing with you a sneak peek at the five new In Colors and a super new bundle, Cheerful Daisies.

The new In Colors are: Moody Mauve, Boho Blue, Wild Wheat, Copper Clay and Pebbled Path.

And here they are, used in a simple monochrome card using the new Cheerful Daisies bundle.

If you'd like to try making one of these, here's a tutorial to show you the tricks and to give you a better look at the new In Colors.

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 shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand right here.

Monday 24 April 2023

Cheerful Daisies Sneak Peek for Paper Players 637

I was excited to see the new challenge at The Paper Players because I have preorder goodies and I'm ready to play! And nothing is quite as good as a sketch challenge to get me moving on thinking about what a set can do.

The first out of my preorder box was the Cheerful Daisies Bundle - available from 2 May. I like daisies and I like subtle and I like clean, so that was where I was heading with this design.

The Cheerful Daisies bundle is fantastic. The dies cut all the outlines of the main images, has a sentiment label AND some lovely other bits and pieces to bulk out the stamped images.

I've used the layering bits and some of the 'extra' bits to create this cluster.

I've used some of the new mini blending brushes to add some of the new Lemon Lolly to the daisies. I've paired it with an existing favourite, Soft Sea Foam.

Aren't these Solid Dot Adhesive Backed embellishments great? They're also available 2 May. They work well with the DSP in this suite but as you see, they're also amazing on their own.

And isn't Lemon Lolly such a beautiful yellow? Worth sacrificing So Saffron for, in my opinion. :-)

Product List

Cheerful Daisies bundle, Solid Dot embellishments and Lemon Lolly card and ink all available from 2 May

Basic White A4 Thick Cardstock

[159230]

$18.50

Basic White A4 Cardstock

[159228]

$21.75

Soft Sea Foam A4 Cardstock

[147012]

$19.50

Timeworn Type 3 D Embossing Folder

[156505]

$21.00

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

$9.00

Small Blending Brushes

[160518]

$24.25

Soft Sea Foam Stampin' Blends Combo Pack

[154902]

$19.00

Friday 21 April 2023

Artistic Expression for AYSI 297

As always at As You See It, Sketch week is followed by Colour week. Jane has picked us a very colourful and bright palette this time around so I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone does with it. Don't forget that our Featured Artist this week will be invited to join us in our next Recipe Challenge, so there's a little extra to play for this time!

To be honest, this colour palette scared me a little bit. SO many bright colours - and more than three colours is scary anyway, right?

I thought about all the ways I could tame them down like using them sparingly, using lots of white space, some water-colouring or by using some vellum. Then I decided I'd just embrace them and see what happened!

I'd been using Artistic Expression for something else and it was still on my desk, so I started by playing around stamping all over a piece of Basic White with some Gorgeous Grape flowers and then adding in the other colours in supporting roles. Then I added in some So Saffron with a blending brush around the edges.

Then I did the same thing but making Coastal Cabana the star of the show instead. When I couldn't decide which one I liked the best, I decided to just go ahead and make both and decide at the end. The decision was - why not use them both!

The sentiments and labels are from Something Fancy. The interesting thing to me is that although they are effectively the same card, the showcasing of a different colour in each has given them quite different feels.

The busy-ness of the central panel really needed that wider border of plain white to stop it becoming totally overwhelming but overall, I'm happy with how my 'embracing the colours' experiment turned out. Do you have a favourite?

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with these summery colours, and link up your own entry, at the As You See It Challenge site.

Product List

Artistically Inked Cling Stamp Set

[154542]

$51.00

Something Fancy Bundle (English)

[160425]

$97.00

Basic White A4 Cardstock

[159228]

$21.75

Gorgeous Grape A4 Cardstock

[147011]

$19.50

Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana

[131302]

$19.50

Gorgeous Grape Classic Stampin' Pad

[147099]

$17.00

Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad

[147097]

$17.00

Parakeet Party Classic Stampin' Pad

[159208]

$17.00

So Saffron Classic Stampin' Pad

[147109]

$17.00

Blending Brushes

[153611]

$26.25

Glossy Dots Assortment

[158827]

$17.00

Whisper White 1/4" (6.4 Mm) Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon

[151326]

$15.75

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

$9.00

Sunday 16 April 2023

Artistically Inked for Freshly Made Sketches 581

Clean up procrastination continues, although this time it was because clean up reminded me to play with a favourite set that hasn't seen action in a while. The gorgeous Artistically Inked stamps and dies are carrying over to the new 2023-24 Annual Catalogue and it's a die set that's worth having all by itself!

For inspiration, I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

It's a beautiful sketch. It immediately brought to mind the wonderful floral die cut from the Artistic die set.

I used blending brushes to layer on colour, using the negative of the die cut as a stencil, then popped the die cut back over the top. An easy, yet effective, technique.

The die cut and its underlying colour demanded a simple, clean treatment for the rest of the design. So I added in a 'Happy Birthday' from the Artistically Inked stamp set. I cut it with one of the Stitched Rectangle dies (sadly retiring) but did have to do a double cut to get the size I wanted for the sentiment.

Then I added in three Iridescent Rhinestone jewels and voila - done!

If you like this card, you can see how I did it in this video tutorial.