Thinking Stamping: 2025

Jan Clothier - You are here

Sunday, 1 June 2025

Beautiful Motifs - and some recycling - for Paper Players 740

Welcome everyone to a new week at The Paper Players! We had some wonderful entries last week for LeAnne's sketch and I'm looking forward to seeing what you all come up with for this week.

I'm delighted to be the hostess this week and I hope you'll be excited by the theme I've set which is to recycle something or re-purpose something in your creation.

I have a small stash of deleted library books, picked up for next to nothing at sales, chosen for the interesting text or illustrations. One that has repaid the pittance price many times over is a broken-spined, tired looking "Book of Illustrated Fashion".

I've cut down a reproduction of an advertisement from November 1899 showing off the latest fashions for ladies. As gorgeous as they look, I imagine they were not at all comfortable to wear! It was however, a lot of fun turning them into cards.

I started by looking at the colours in the illustration and matched them to Early Espresso, Gray Granite and Cajun Craze.

Because I wanted these fabulous clothes to be the star of the show, I kept the treatment very simple. I matted each half of the advertisement onto a piece of Gray Granite, after trimming down to a card front size. The card base is Early Espresso and then I used Cajun Craze (a colour I rarely use) for the card front.

In keeping with the vintage feel of the images, I used the new Damask Designs embossing folder. I stamped the sentiments from Beautiful Motifs in Early Espresso onto Gray Granite and cut them using a small die from Perennial Postage.

To ground the sentiment, I added some Gray Granite twine from the Baker's Twine Essentials pack. To keep with the vintage feel, I added in a trio of Pressed Flower motifs as embellishment.

I can't wait to see what creative ways everyone recycles something for this week's challenge!

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here

Friday, 30 May 2025

Beautiful Gallery for AYSI 349

Time moves quickly and it's already rolled around to our most feared challenge of the roster - the SPEED CHALLENGE! For this challenge, the theme is water but the time remains the same: create your card in ten minutes or less.

Before you decide that's impossible, here's how it works.

Thinking time is not included. So you can have it all planned out before you start the timer.
Prepping equipment is not included. So you can get out the stamps and have them blocked up, the embellishments and dies can be on the table ready to go. The cardstock can be on the desk.
Thankfully, clean up is not included either.

BUT

The moment you ink a stamp, cut a piece of card, die-cut or emboss anything, then the timer has to start.

Over the years of doing the speed challenge, I've worked out a couple of tricks. One is to use pretty papers so they'll do all the heavy lifting that time-consuming techniques would usually do.

In this instance, I've turned to the Beautiful Gallery 6x6 DSP stack and I chose a moody water scene.

Part of the Gallery Blooms dies is one that cuts out three inset rectangles in a single pass. So I used it once on the scenic DSP and once on a piece of Cloud Cover. Then I replaced the centre scene rectangle with the matching Cloud Cover piece.

I stamped the sentiment, from Beautiful Motifs, in Secret Sea onto the Cloud Cover frame. The whole thing was adhered to a Secret Sea card base.

As I still had some time to spare, I added in three Secret Sea In Color Flat Pearls.

How long did this take? I was pleasantly surprised to see that it only took...

The whole team would love to see what marvels you can create in ten minutes or less. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at the As You See It Challenge page.

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

5minutes 17 seconds

Sunday, 25 May 2025

Impressions Abloom for PP739

This week our hostess is LeAnne and she has a gorgeous sketch to inspire us with. Last week's Clean and Simple challenge brought out people's creativity and we look forward to seeing what you do with the sketch.

I think this is such a great inspiration that I'm going to keep it tucked away to use again.

I'm holding class this weekend and we're playing with the Floral Impressions suite which includes the very versatile Impressions Abloom bundle. Since it was on my desk still, it seemed to be begging for a go at this challenge. 😀

The Floral Impressions DSP is really lovely but I wanted to move away from the (pretty) colours in it and try something else. So I went with blues: Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue.

I started by stamping three flowers in Blueberry Bushel - one large and two medium. Although the stamps are two step, I like the effect of stamping the details straight on to Basic White card. I added in some Daffodil Delight centres.

I used the extra elements from the dies to cut some small Balmy Blue flowers and some detailed Granny Apple Green leaves.

The sentiment is white heat embossed onto Blueberry Bushel card, hand cut into a banner.

For the three vertical elements of the sketch I cut three pieces of Basic White card and embossed them using the Pressed Flowers embossing folder.

The embellishments, including the small flower centres, are Basic Rhinestone Jewels.

The rest of the team and I look forward to seeing what you create. 😀

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here

Thursday, 22 May 2025

Get Ready for Creativity Abounds Celebratory Sips Stamp Camp!

It seems like hardly any time at all since our last Stamp Camp but here we are again, getting ready for a weekend of fun with you all!

If you haven't already caught up with things, our next Stamp Camp is June 28-29 (South Pacific). Our Featured Product for camp is the Celebratory Sips Suite. All the finer details can be found here. If you live in New Zealand, you can only get your Stamp Camp invitation from me.

As always with our Stamp Camps, you'll get a PDF and Video tutorial for 13 projects. This will be sent to you before camp starts, along with make and take kits (excluding the items you've purchased for camp).

This is the card I've put into the Tutorial Bundle. I hope you'll love making it!

And, as always with Stamp Camps, you'll get an additional 13 projects during the Stamp Camp. Each of us will do a Face Book Live presentation of a bonus project. These are usually fancy affairs with lots of techniques and fancy folds - sometimes both in the one project!

This is a bit of a sneak peek at my bonus project. Folded up, you can't see the hidden extra bits but I'm sure you'll love making this one too. 😀

Here's a sneak peek of all the tutorial projects.

And here's a peek of the whole team and where they're from.

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Sunday, 18 May 2025

Beautiful Butterflies for PP 738

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players! We had some gorgeous entries last week for Ann's colour challenge. I'm sure everyone will step up for Stef's CAS Things that Fly Challenge.

So this week, it's a double challenge. Not only is the theme things that fly but it must be done in a CLEAN and SIMPLE style: minimal layers, lots of open space, minimal embellishments.

To help keep a clean feel, I opted for a Thick Basic White card base. I die cut a large white butterfly from Beautiful Butterflies. Butterflies are one of my favourite flying things. 😀

I used one of the retired Seasonal Masks from my stash to create an airy rainbow across the card front.

The sentiment, also from Beautiful Butterflies, was stamped in Gorgeous Grape. To tie in with that, I used three dark Purple Shimmer Gems to finish off the card.

The rest of the team and I look forward to seeing what you create. 😀

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here

Friday, 16 May 2025

Impressions Abloom for AYSI 348

Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It! Let's hope that this round is not as challenging as our last recipe challenge when the As You See It Challenge page was out of action for most the entry period! Thank you to our loyal followers who stuck with us and entered as and how they could, or messaged us to tell us there were problems.

This challenge is my pick and I owe thanks to my fellow team member Joanne for the inspiration for it.

Which is your favourite? Spots or stripes?

It's a bit of a tough call, right? I like them both. As I was stiing at my desk pondering what to do, I leafed through the patterns of the new Floral Impressions DSP, one of then new Online Exclusives. I noticed that one of the 'B' sides had very pretty little circles on it. I decided to make that the base of my card.

Then I used the Stylish Shapes dies to cut out several circles of various sizes from one of the floral 'A' sides of the paper, then arranged them to the left of the page. I was wanting them to look like floral bubbles floating upwards. Whimsical, I know!

After white heat embossing the sentiment onto Pool Party card, I used another of the Stylish Shapes dies to cut it out. I popped it up on dimensionals over some strands of Linen Thread and added a Linen Thread bow.

To complete the spotty theme, I added in three of the new In Color Flat Pearls, choosing to use Timid Tiger to pick up the Timid Tiger florals in the bubbles.

The whole team would love to see whether your prefer spots or stripes. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at the As You See It Challenge page. (At least, this week you can!)

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.

Sunday, 11 May 2025

Cheers & Sips for Paper Players 737

Hard to believe it but it's already time for a new challenge at The Paper Players. We were delighted by the entries in Joanne's 'Something Old, Something New' challenge. We hope you'll have as much fun with Ann's colour challenge.

While these colours did sing of flowers to me, it was the Cheers & Sips bundle that ended up getting an outing instead. It's still on my desk as I'm prepping for the Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp at the end of June. If you're interested in joining me, and the other 12 members of the international crew, for this stamp camp you can read the details here.

The card base is Lost Lagoon, with a jauntily askew piece of Berry Burst as a matte. The Basic White card front is embossed with one of the Glass & Garden embossing folders.

I used Versamark to stamp an image of each of the glasses and added some ice cubes to each. Then I used WOW White Embossing Powder and heated it up. Then I sponged over Bubble Bath ink and Berry Burst ink with a blending brush.

I used the same resist emboss technique to create the umbrella, strawberry and mint leaf. The sentiments were stamped in Lost Lagoon ink.

Then I added the mocktail glasses to the card front, popping the Bubble Bath long glass up on dimensionals.

To finish off, I added in a trio of Berry Burst tinsel gems - which have sadly just retired but can still be snapped up on the Last Chance list.

You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players page.

Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here