Thoughtful Wishes for Sunday Stamps 336

In keeping with my resolution to create more just for fun, I decided to play along with the lovely sketch challenge at Sunday Stamps.

I'm still enjoying playing with the Thoughtful Wishes bundle and stunning Thoughtful Journey DSP so happily turned to those products for this challenge.

I started by die cutting out part of the DSP with one of the labels from Something Fancy, and I cut a shadow piece from Petunia Pop.

I cut some of the foliage from Thoughtful Wishes dies from Boho Blue, Petunia Pop and from the reverse of some of the Thoughtful Journey DSP in colours that coordinated with the picture panel. I used these to build a cluster around the sentiment.

I wanted to keep the background quite plain so that the sentiment was clearly the focal point, so I used the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder to texture two strips of Basic White to create the split panel of the sketch.

To finish off, I added three 2024-26 In Color Shimmer Gems in Petunia Pop. The bow is my all-time favourite Linen Thread.

Thank you for a great sketch, Sunday Stamps!

If you also love the look of the Thoughtful Wishes bundle and Thoughtful Journey DSP, then here's your chance to get a step-by-step class for four projects put together by me and my UK friend Joanne James aka The Crafty Owl. Order from either of us and we'll send you the PDF tutorial free. You can shop with me from  anywhere in New Zealand here.

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. 

Lifetime of Love for As You See It 324

 This week at As You See It, it's theme week. We're getting romantic with a wedding theme for you to play with.

I recently purchased the Lifetime of Love bundle, which is now only available as separate dies and stamps.  I'm sorry that I waited so long for it. The sentiments are really useful for weddings, engagements and anniversaries, while the images work for other occasions too. 

For this card, I made the centrepiece one of the very pretty die cuts. I cut it first in gold foil, then again in Basic White.  I coloured the flowers with Stampin' Blends (Soft Sea Foam, Flirty Flamingo and Lemon Lolly), cut them out of the frame and overlaid them on the foil die cut.

Then I took the centre of the white die cut, gold embossed the sentiment and inlaid it back into the frame.

When I write it down like that, it sounds complicated and difficult but in reality it's actually straightforward!

The card base is Lemon Lolly and the embossing folder is my favourite - Distressed Tile 3D.

Make sure you visit the As You See It Challenge page to see what the rest of the team have done and to add your link. We love to see how you see the theme! The challenge ends on Wednesday 5 June, 11.59pm PST.

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 here. 

Magnolia Mood for CCS 537

I've got a class this weekend featuring the Magnolia Mood bundle, so it's been on my mind the last few days. So when I saw the sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches today it was a bit of a lightbulb moment! 

I'd been trying to think of something to showcase the rather pretty single die cut magnolia flower that's part of the Magnolia Mood bundle - and suddenly... there it was!

I lightly sponged the centres of the flowers with some Flirty Flamingo ink and filled the centre with a Basic Rhinestone Jewel.  Aren't those textured die cut leaves great too?

I tried various things for the horizontal strips but settled on stamping the magnolia bud stamp in Garden Green onto Basic White then cutting it into strips. I'd originally intended to leave the card front totally plain but just couldn't help myself - the paper almost put itself into the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder and then attached itself to the card base! 😉

Update: Delighted to be a Fabulous Favourite at CAS Colours and Sketches.

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 here. 

Spotlight on Nature for Colour INKspiration 166

 

Welcome to the 166th challenge at Colour INKspiration. It's that time of the year when welcome the newest set of In-Colors, so this challenge uses two of them: Petunia Pop and Summer Splash - with a little help from Lemon-Lime Twist and Melon Mambo. Of course, if you don't have the new colours yet (or the others)  you can substitute the nearest colour you have. This gorgeous palette was chosen for us by Crew Member, Lou Kitzelman.

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. This challenge is open for three weeks and closes Monday 10 June, 7pm AEST.

If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Berry Burst for Melon Mambo. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.

I was delighted to crack open the Spotlight on Nature bundle for this challenge. This bundle is interesting with a set of sentiments and images from nature while the dies are an exciting set of circle with a mix of decorative edging. They'll work with any set at all but I've chosen to use them with the floral and leaf images and one of the grunge splatters.

Summer Splash is a colour that is rapidly becoming a go-to green. I love the vibrancy of the colour and it's very well named - it just give off happy summer vibes.

I was surprised at how happily it played with Lemon-Lime Twist.

The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse and is cut with my old favourite, Stylish Shapes.

I'm excited to see what you do with these pretty colours!

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with these 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 shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking here. 

Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp

The next international virtual Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp is being held the weekend of June 15-16. The featured products for the camp are the Country Birdhouse Bundle, Country Woods DSP, Eyelet 3D embossing folder, Petal Pink and White 1/4" ribbon pack and the Basic Gray and Smoky Slate pearls.

To get your invitation to Stamp Camp, simply purchase the featured products from me by the 25 May.

If you are a demonstrator and already own these products, simply order goods of equivalent value from me, message me to let me know you want to come to camp and you will still receive your invitation and kits.

What do you get from the Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp?

• PDF and Video tutorials for 13 projects using the products
• Make and Take kits for the projects (excluding the items you've purchased)
• Access to the exclusive Stamp Camp Facebook Group where you can interact with the team and other participants from around the world, join in the challenges and chats and share your projects.
• View the Facebook Lives for an additional 13 projects made using the products -that's a total of 26 projects for your purchased products. The Lives are recorded so you can access them at any time.

If you do not live in New Zealand but would like to participate, there are team members in all Stampin' Up! markets I can refer you to. 

 

Magnolia Mood for JAI 702

In keeping with my resolution to get back to doing craft things just for fun, I decided to join in with the challenge at Just Add Ink. It's been far too long since I played there.

I was having a bit of a play around with Magnolia Mood and wanted to use parts of the set that were not the absolutely stunning large magnolia image. The sketch was perfect in that it was asking for smaller imagery. 

It's really a simple card. I stamped three of the bud images in Basic Gray, coloured them with Pretty in Pink and Old Olive Stampin' Blends then die cut them.

The circles were cut using the Spotlight on Nature dies, and the two with cut outs I backed with Old Olive circles cut with Stylish Shapes dies.

The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse and cut with banners from Stylish Shapes.

The background is embossed with my favourite folder, Distressed Tile 3D.

Update: Delighted to get an Honourable Mention at Just Add Ink.

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 here.

Country Birdhouse for Creativity Abounds

Exciting times at Creativity Abounds as our next stamp camp draws near! This time, we're featuring the Country Birdhouse bundle. Each of the thirteen members of the team have put together one project for the tutorial bundle you'll get with purchase. We've all done a second project too to teach you during Stamp Camp. 

Usually on our monthly hops we give you a sneak peek at the tutorial project (that will still happen) and then we go on to give you a bonus project and tutorial on the same theme. This time we'll  be giving you a look at what the Stamp Camp Live project is going to be. You'll learn how to make it during the Camp.

So my project for Stamp Camp is a simple photo album. It's great for special events like a graduation, a special place or special occasion gathering. It would also work as a way for people to leave messages and memories for someone leaving a workplace or retiring, or even as a special recipe book. It holds about a dozen or so pictures, depending on how large they are and how you arrange them. 

I'll be showing you how to create the actual book and give you some ideas on how you might go about filling it.

Here's the cover. As you see, the album has a pretty ribbon closure.

This is an example from one of the inside pages. Of course, my granddaughter really does have a face! I just felt better obscuring it a little before popping her online. 😀

How you use and fill the album is up to you but I'll share some ideas and things I've learned along the way with you. 

Here's a look at the project I've contributed to the tutorial bundle. You'll receive the tutorial project PDF and kits before Stamp Camp and there'll be a video tutorial for each of them as well. 

Here's all the details about the camp and how you can get your invitation.

As you follow the hop, you'll see all the 26 projects you'll get to make!

Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp

The next international virtual Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp is being held the weekend of June 15-16. The featured products for the camp are the Country Birdhouse Bundle, Country Woods DSP, Eyelet 3D embossing folder, Petal Pink and White 1/4" ribbon pack and the Basic Gray and Smoky Slate pearls.

To get your invitation to Stamp Camp, simply purchase the featured products from me by the 25 May.

If you are a demonstrator and already own these products, simply order goods of equivalent value from me, message me to let me know you want to come to camp and you will still receive your invitation and kits.

What do you get from the Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp?

• PDF and Video tutorials for 13 projects using the products
• Make and Take kits for the projects (excluding the items you've purchased)
• Access to the exclusive Stamp Camp Facebook Group where you can interact with the team and other participants from around the world, join in the challenges and chats and share your projects.
• View the Facebook Lives for an additional 13 projects made using the products -that's a total of 26 projects for your purchased products. The Lives are recorded so you can access them at any time.

If you do not live in New Zealand but would like to participate, there are team members in all Stampin' Up! markets I can refer you to. 

Here's the team and where they're from.

Follow the hop to see all the 26 projects you'll get instructions for at Stamp Camp.

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 here.

Layers of Beauty for CAS CCS 536

 I thought it was a bit of a tough challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches this week. 

However, since I kept thinking about the combination I decided to have a go and see what happened.

Since I quite liked the result, I'm sharing it after all. 😀

I had my new Layers of Beauty stamps, along with the coordinating Layers of Beauty masks on my desk from their first play out of the box yesterday. I had a different idea in my head but somehow I couldn't go past using them again.

I used Pool Party and Lost Lagoon for the flowers, then soft Pebbled Path and a second layer of the same for the leaves. 

The sentiment, stamped in Pebbled Path, is from the new Unbounded Love stamp set. 

Update: Delighted to be named as a Fabulous Favourite at CAS Colours & Sketches.

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 here.

Layering Beauty for Freshly Made Sketches 635

Today is Mother's Day, so I treated myself to some free time in my craft room - not doing Design Team or Class related things, but just playing. Along the way, I realised I have very little self-control as I did buy myself a new set in my last order, despite telling myself I didn't need anything else. It just looked so pretty! And that was the Layering Beauty bundle which includes a set of coordinating masks. So more like things plural, really. 😀

Anyway, I was looking for something to try it out on and turned to one of my favourite challenges, Freshly Made Sketches.

Since this was an all-round try out of new things, I added in some of the new 2024-2026 In Colors as well for good measure. 

Although the stamps and stencils can be used separately, I went the whole hog and used the stamps, dies and all five layers of stencils.

I stamped the large floral spray stamp in Tuxedo Black and used the first three layers of stencils to colour the flowers: Pretty in Pink for layer 1, Flirty Flamingo for layer 2 and Melon Mambo for layer 3. The notch and number for each stencil made layering very easy to do. 

I used Summer Splash and Shy Shamrock for the last two leaf layers, then die cut out the whole thing.

It was at that point that I ran into a slight problem, which is that the stamped image fits perfectly on a whole card front. Of course, with the sketch, I was working with a narrower front than usual to accommodate the size strip. What to do?

Option 1: Place the spray on the front and let it cover both the white and DSP panel

Option 2: Cut up the spray and rearrange it into a narrower zone.

As you see, I went for Option 2. It also helped that one of the dies in the set cuts out the largest rose and its leaves. In the end, this worked well as it let me pop up some sections of the spray on dimensionals.

The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse and is cut with Stylish Shapes dies.

On the back of this, I also made another card using the same colours. It's such an easy suite of products, I can see I'll be coming back to this one repeatedly. 😀

Update: Delighted to be a made a Perfect Princess at Freshly Made Sketches.

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 here.

 

Latte Love for As You See It 323

 Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It. This time, it's our Recipe Challenge: just take the five ingredients and see what happens. 

I quite like the idea of keeping the colour to black, white and one other colour - although it did turn out to be a little trickier than I thought at first. 😉

The colour I chose was one of the new In Colours - Petunia Pop.

I stamped the mug from Latte Love onto scraps of Petunia Pop DSP from the new Colour Family stack, then die cut them out. I did shade the edges with a light Petunia Pop Stampin' Blend - still not sure whether that was a good idea or not! On the whole, I think so. I certainly would have done it if I'd been colouring the whole mug in.

I used the Painted Texture 3D Embossing folder for the background. I like this one for the coffee because it reminds me of the crema on top of a flat white.

I white embossed the sentiment on to Basic Black card. While the sentiment is from the Latte Love set, the label is from the new Unbounded Love die set.

So, five ingredients:

• Black ✓
• White ✓
• One other colour - Petunia Pop ✓
• Embossing folder - Painted Texture ✓
• Die Cut - Latte Love for the mug and Unbounded Love for the sentiment label ✓

I'm excited to see what you do with these five ingredients!

Make sure you visit the As You See It page to see what the rest of the Design Team have done with them - and to link up your own entry.

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 here.

Magnolia Mood for Around the World on Wednesday

 

Welcome to a new hop with the crew at Around the World on Wednesday. On the second Wednesday of each month, the team put together a thematic hop to give you some inspiration for your own crafting. We love it when you try out something new or CAS(E) one of our projects. The team is truly international, with members from each time zone of the world that Stampin' Up! operates. You're with me, in New Zealand - the first place in the Stampin' Up! world to change the date. 😀

This month, our inspiration is a sketch challenge. I love a sketch - they're my favourite kind of challenge because I find a sketch really gets me thinking and the ideas flowing.

I'm really enjoying the Magnolia Mood bundle, which is one of the Online Exclusive products. Online Exclusives exist outside of any catalogue. You'll only find them in the Online Exclusive section of the online store. It's worth a look as you'll not only find new products but also a few things you thought had retired too. 😀

For the three vertical strips of the sketch, I used three narrow strips of DSP from the new Country Woods range. I used the Timber 3D Embossing Folder to carry on the wood theme. I used Petal Pink Stampin' Blends to colour the flowers and Old Olive for the leaves. I added in some die cut leaves in Old Olive to fill out the focal point.

My favourite ribbon is Linen Thread. With its warm, natural look it was perfect for the rustic feel of this card.

Next up on the hop is the wonderful Leonie Stuart, where you'll see another interpretation of the sketch.

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 here.

If you get lost around the hop, or want to revisit someone, here's a blog roll for you.

Jan Clothier - NZ - You are here

Leonie Stuart - AU

Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU

Cheryll Miller - AU

Aurélie Fabre - FR

Mikaela Titheridge - US

Angie McKenzie - US

Kelly Taranto - US

Shel Anderson - CA

Sharon Hashimoto Burkert - US

Chris Smith - US

Tricia Butts - US

Theresa McEntee - US

Bree Renwick - US

Lori Willcox - CA

Teri West - US

Lifetime of Love for Colour INKspiration 165

 

Welcome to the 165th challenge at Colour INKspiration. It's that time of the year when welcome the newest set of In-Colors, so this challenge uses two of them: Peach Pie and Shy Shamrock. Of course, if you don't have them yet you can substitute the nearest colour you have. I'm excited to see what you do with this, since the graphic was my choice this time around. 😀

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're very pleased to welcome Yvon Doensen as our Guest Designer for this challenge. This challenge is open for two weeks and closes Monday 20 May, 7pm AEST.

If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Pale Papaya for Peach Pie. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.

I wanted to do something floral with these colours. I purchased the Lifetime of Love bundle, which is a great wedding set, last month before it stopped being a bundle but had yet to open it up. So this is my first play with it.

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with these 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 shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking here. 

Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp

The next international virtual Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp is being held the weekend of June 15-16. The featured products for the camp are the Country Birdhouse Bundle, Country Woods DSP, Eyelet 3D embossing folder, Petal Pink and White 1/4" ribbon pack and the Basic Gray and Smoky Slate pearls.

To get your invitation to Stamp Camp, simply purchase the featured products from me by the 25 May.

If you are a demonstrator and already own these products, simply order goods of equivalent value from me, message me to let me know you want to come to camp and you will still receive your invitation and kits.

What do you get from the Creativity Abounds Stamp Camp?

• PDF and Video tutorials for 13 projects using the products
• Make and Take kits for the projects (excluding the items you've purchased)
• Access to the exclusive Stamp Camp Facebook Group where you can interact with the team and other participants from around the world, join in the challenges and chats and share your projects.
• View the Facebook Lives for an additional 13 projects made using the products -that's a total of 26 projects for your purchased products. The Lives are recorded so you can access them at any time.

If you do not live in New Zealand but would like to participate, there are team members in all Stampin' Up! markets I can refer you to.