Sunday, 9 February 2025

Cheerful Daisies for Paper Players 724

 I really enjoyed last week's gallery, looking at all those lovely romantically themed cards. This week, LeAnne has a bright colour challenge for us to play with. 


Of course, three colours including a green and my mind went straight to florals! Predictable, I know - but when the colours are so pretty, what can you do but go with it!

What I did do though was to get out a set I hadn't used for a while and that was Cheerful Daisies. I used this one so much when it first came out but not so much lately, so I felt it was due a turn. 

I wanted to tone down the colours a notch so I made all my die cuts in Basic White then added colour with Blending Brushes.


I cut my front panel into three and embossed the strips using the Starstruck embossing folder. If you want one of these, you'll have to be quick as it is one of the free items you can earn with a qualifying purchases during Sale-a-Bration - which finishes at the end of February. You can see all the free items here


I've always been fond of this sentiment and the matching label in the Cheerful Daisies stamps and dies. It looks good stamped in Summer Splash. I finished off with three Summer Splash gems. 

We'd all love to see what you do with LeAnne's colours. 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:
  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, including ours
  5. 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.

Jan Clothier - You are 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. 

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


Friday, 7 February 2025

Beautiful Butterflies for AYSI 341

 It was so great to see so many entries in our last  As You See It challenge where people posted their crafting resolutions for 2025. I hope you enjoy this next challenge because it's my first challenge of the year. It's a recipe challenge: just take the five given ingredients, add your own bits and bobs, and see what you can cook up!


When I sat down to create this card, I did begin to wonder what planet I'd been on when I thought up a mixture of a celebration theme, heat embossing, ribbon or twine, punch or die and pastel colours!

A deep breath and a look over at the Beautiful Butterflies bundle sitting on my desk lead me to this....


The sentiment, which ticked off the 'celebration' part of the recipe, is from the Beautiful Butterflies stamp set - which this month is one of the free items you can choose as a Sale-a-Bration reward with a qualifying purchase. 


To get the heat embossing part of the recipe in, I white heat embossed the sentiment onto a strip of Beautiful Bokeh DSP. Pleasingly, it was an off-cut from another project so was technically a scrap!

I also used Resist Embossing to create the large butterfly. I heat embossed the image in white onto Basic White card, then sponged over Lemon Lolly, Balmy Blue and Fresh Freesia inks with blending brushes to colour the unembossed spaces.  These colour choices ticked off the 'pastel colours' part of the recipe. They are all members of Stampin' Up!'s subtle colour family.

The large butterfly was die cut out, and I also die cut a small butterfly, and these ticked off the 'use a die' part of the recipe. I sponged the small butterfly with some Lemon Lolly ink and layered it over the large one. 

The final element was to use ribbon or twine. I added in a small silver bow using the regrettably retired silver twine from the Elegant Trim pack. If you're like me, you'll have a sizeable stash of it tucked away!

In case you're wondering about that gorgeous embossed butterfly background, it's the Beautiful Butterflies embossing folder. As it's a hybrid folder, it is part of the Beautiful Butterflies die set and cannot be purchased separately. 

The team and I would love to see what you cook up with this recipe. Visit the As You See It page to see what the rest of the team have done and to link up your entry. You can join in the challenge until Wednesday February 19, 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 here.

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Layers of Beauty for The Paper Players 723

Goodness, The Paper Players had some wonderful entries last week for Joanne's sketch challenge. I'm interested to see what everyone does with Ann's theme challenge this week. Love is in the air - what will it be? Friendship? Engagement? Wedding? Anniversary? No reason except you're wonderful?


For me, it was Anniversary as our wedding anniversary is in just a few days time.

I do love the Layers of Beauty bundle as there's just something so relaxing about the way the five layers of stencils come together in such a satisfying manner.

For the flowers, I used three inks: Fresh Freesia, Petunia Pop and Berry Burst and for the leaves, I used Granny Apple Green for both leaf layers. 


It's such a simple card to make: stamp the outline in Tuxedo Black, sponge in the colours through the stencils with Blending Brushes and die cut out. 

To add in a little bit extra, I stamped and coloured the flower bouquet image twice. I fussy cut the large centre flower and the bottom rose, then dimensionaled them in place to give a better sense of depth. 

I added the die cut bouquet to the card front with dimensionals for further lift. The card front was embossed using the Forever Plaid 3D folder.


The card base is Petunia Pop. The I masked the sentiment so I could stamp each word separately, then cut them into banners. To finish, I added three Purple Shimmer Gems.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Ann'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:
  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, including ours
  5. 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


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


Monday, 27 January 2025

Layers of Beauty for CAS Colours & Sketches 552

 In keeping with my New Year crafting resolution to play more challenges for fun, I'm joining in with an old favourite challenge of mine, CAS Colours & Sketches. This time round, it's a sketch.



I'd been playing around with the Layers of Beauty bundle for something else and it seemed a perfect choice for this sketch. The bundle is a special one because in addition to stamps and dies (the usual bundle) this one includes five layering stencils that can be used to colour the images. 

This card is very straightforward. I stamped part of the large roses image in one corner with Tuxedo Black ink and added the sentiment. 


Using blending brushes, I coloured the flowers in Lemon Lolly, Daffodil Delight and Peach Pie. The leaves are two layers of Granny Apple Green.

The thing that took the longest time was deciding whether to add embellishments or not! After lots of vacillation I went with some of the green sequins from the Shiny Sequins pack.

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

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

Sunday, 26 January 2025

Floral Delight for The Paper Players 722

 Welcome to a new challenge at The Paper Players. We had so many fantastic entries in Jaydee's Clean and Simple Postal challenge that it was hard to choose from them all. This week, our hostess is Joanne and she has a great sketch for us to play with. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!


I've been playing around with the Floral Delight suite since I'm involved in presenting the Creativity Abounds Virtual Stamp Camp next month. I'm not usually a big user of DSP but the papers in this suite are just so pretty that they kind of called to me. 😀

I used the hexagonal stitched die from Nested Essentials to cut a piece of Floral Delight DSP as the 'rectangle' element of the sketch. I used the banner die from the same set to cut two flags of contrasting DSP to make the two side pieces of the sketch. The line of Daffodil Delight ribbon, and the bow, were additions to the sketch.


The background is Basic White, embossed with the Forever Plaid 3D embossing folder, on a Thick Basic White card base.


Of course, the sentiments are what this bundle does best: The lovely two layer 'wishing' and the choose-your-own ending to it: in this case, 'all the best' for a congratulations card. 

The embellishment is one of the Tiny Bee Trinkets that are part of the suite, or which can be purchased on their own.  Little sweethearts, aren't they?

We'd all love to see what you do with Joanne's sketch. 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:
  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, including ours
  5. 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.

Jan Clothier - You are 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. 

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



Friday, 24 January 2025

Seaside Wishes for As You See It 340 and Atlantic Hearts 613

 At As You See It, we had some very pretty and clever entries for our last colour challenge. As always, after a colour challenge comes a 'fill in the blank' challenge. This one asks us to consider our crafting resolution.

When I first started making cards, I was delighted to discover the world of the on-line card challenges. I had notebook where I wrote down my favourite challenges and when they came out. Each Saturday, I'd shut myself in my craft room and while away some time making entries for the ones I was most inspired by each week. 

Somewhere in the journey, much of my time now goes into  designing and prepping classes and designing projects for the various challenges I'm now on the Design Teams for. While the teams and classes are a new way of enjoying card making, entering a challenge 'just for fun' is somehow quite a different feeling. 

So my resolution is to do more 'just for no-reason' creating by entering a few more challenges as a player

As part of this resolution, I've not only made a 'just for no-reason' card but joined in at a challenge I've never played with before. The Atlantic Hearts Challenge is one I've seen played by a few players through other challenges, so I looked it up to see what was on offer this week. Isn't it a fun sketch?



As we're off for a family beach holiday soon, I was thinking of the beach. Here's my version of it, using the Seaside Wishes bundle - which includes a hybrid embossing folder. It makes realistic little sand dollars. While I love the sand dollars, I'm also very fond of the starfish and the lacy coral too.  I made a little cluster of sea life for the main element of the sketch. 


I used a strip of the Country Woods DSP for the horizontal line. The weather colours work well for a marine theme. I've used Crumb Cake, Pool Party, Petal Pink and Misty Moonlight for the sea life since those colours were in the DSP.  After adding it to the card front, I embossed with the Seaside Wishes hybrid embossing folder. 


The card base is Pool Party and I've added in some splashes of water in the same colour, around the focal point cluster. 

The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse, cut with the Stylish Shapes dies. The embellishments are Tinsel Gems. 

Update: Delighted to be in the Top 3 Picks at Atlantic Hearts Challenge.

The team and I would love to see what your crafting resolution for the year is. Visit the As You See It page to see what the rest of the team have done and to link up your entry. You can join in the challenge until Wednesday February 5, 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 here.


Sunday, 19 January 2025

Unbounded Love for The Paper Players 721

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. It was great to start the year with Elizabeth's bright colour challenge. I so enjoyed looking through all the great cards in the gallery. There were several I wished I'd made! I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with for this challenge.

This week, it's a Clean and Simple Challenge and our hostess this week is Jaydee.


In general, we consider a Clean and Simple card to be uncluttered with lots of open white space and minimal layering or embellishment.

This challenge threw me for two reasons. Firstly, not one stamp set I own - current, retired, Stampin' Up! or not Stampin' Up! - contained anything remotely postal. The closest I could come to was my Perennial Postage dies.

The dilemma of the dies brings me to my second reason for finding this challenge tricky. It's a CAS challenge and generally I like to limit my layering for a Clean and Simple card. I'm not entirely sure that I'd class the card I produced as being CAS. All I can really say is that it's on the cusp of CAS-ness! 😀

I solved my lack of postal stamps by making three mini-envelopes out of some 2024-2026 In Color DSP squares. Then I cut some Basic White to fit inside them. I used the Unbounded Love set to add a sentiment to the first two envelopes.


I used a die from the retired Give it A Whirl dies to cut three stitched hearts in Pretty in Pink to add to the third envelope and to scatter around the cluster.

Because the colours (Shy Shamrock and Pretty in Pink) are quite sweet, I used a Basic Gray card base to help tone them down. 

In the end, with both Valentine's Day and my wedding anniversary on the horizon, this card is going to be useful. 💕

We'd all love to see what you do with this CAS 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:
  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, including ours
  5. 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.

Jan Clothier - You are 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. 

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

Thursday, 16 January 2025

Get Ready for the Creativity Abounds Floral Delight Stamp Camp!

 


Exciting times at Creativity Abounds as our next stamp camp is nearly here! This time, we're featuring the gorgeous summery suite, Floral Delight.  Each of the members of the team have put together one project for the tutorial bundle. We've all done a second project to share with you during Stamp Camp. That's 26 projects in total.

How often do you buy a suite then run out of ideas for it? Get this suite and you'll get access to all 26 projects - plus make and take kits for thirteen of them - for no extra. You can find all the details for Stamp Camp right here.

Usually on our monthly hops we give you a sneak peek of the tutorial project for the bundle(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.

This is the project I'll be sharing with you in a Facebook Live during Stamp Camp on the weekend of February 22-23 (or recorded if you can't make it to the camp live.)

It's a slimline slider card.


It opens to reveal whatever hidden message you'd like.


And this is the card you'll receive a kit and PDF/ Video instructions for as part of the tutorial bundle. You'll receive the 13 kits from your demonstrator prior to camp starting.

Here's a sneak peek of the whole PDF/Video Tutorial bundle of projects: one from each of us in the team. 

If you live in New Zealand and would like to join the Stamp Camp, visit the link above for details, or you can message me. All that's required is that you purchase the Floral Delight Suite from me (or a demonstrator in your area who is part of the team).

Don't delay purchasing in case it sells out or there are shipping delays.

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


If you already have the suite but would still like to join in, simply purchase items of equivalent value from my online store. Let me know that's what you've done so I can send you the kits and your invitation. It's as simple as that. 😀

You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand here.

Follow the hop to see all the 26 projects you'll get instructions for at Stamp Camp, plus a look at the projects included in the make and take tutorial bundle.

Sunday, 12 January 2025

Pretty Petals for The Paper Players 720

Welcome to a new year of challenges here at The Paper Players! I hope you are all feeling relaxed and keen to play along with us. Our hostess, Elizabeth, has started the year with a bright colour challenge.


I couldn't help but think floral with this combination. I'd recently purchased the Pretty Petals bundle from the Online Exclusives, so had a play around with it with these colours. 

The first job was to choose which pink, orange and green to use. I opted for Garden Green, Melon Mambo and Pumpkin Pie. 

The leaves and flowers are separate stamps. I started by stamping the leaves in Garden Green and adding in flowers in Melon Mambo onto Fluid 100 Water Colour Paper. Then I painted over the images with a Water Painter so that it created a kind of faux no-line watercolour.

While it was wet, I added in some touches of Pumpkin Pie to the flowers, using a drop of ink. As the flowers also have a separate die, I stamped and water-coloured a second set so I could add some popped up flowers for extra dimension.


I diluted the remainder of the Pumpkin Pie ink drop further and splattered it over the image before cutting the flowers out with one of the dies from Spotlight on Nature. I cut a different circle with the same set from Melon Mambo. 
 

I stamped the sentiment in Garden Green from the same piece of splattered water-colour paper using the banner from Stylish Shapes as well as a shadow from Pumpkin Pie. The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse.

I embossed the Garden Green card front with the Starstruck embossing folder, which is one of the free gifts you can earn with a qualifying purchase during Sale-a-bration. Isn't it a pretty folder?

The finishing touch was a trio of Peach Pie Glimmer gems.
We'd all love to see what you do with these colours. 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:
  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, including ours
  5. 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.

Jan Clothier - You are 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. 

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