Branching Out for Colour INKspiration 196

Welcome to the 196th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday October 7, 7pm AEST.

This colour 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. We welcome Mariel Altamirano 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 Smoky Slate for Gray Granite. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

I used these colours to play with a new bundle from the September-December Mini Catalogue, which is now available. Branching Out is an interesting bundle. There's all kinds of branches and cones and berries to let you build your own tree as well as a good mix of sentiments, yet it can also easily be a Christmas set too.

This card grew as it went along. I started with a piece of DSP from Woven Textures that used Gray Granite. While thinking on how I might use it, I decided to stamp the design directly onto the paper. After stamping the branch in Early Espresso, I added some pine boughs in Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash. The I stamped some background splatter in Gray Granite using the berry die and the pollen die. Then I stamped in some pinecones in Early Espresso. 

With the background work done, I die cut some pine boughs in Summer Splash, some berries in Shy Shamrock and some pinecones in Early Espresso. I arranged these around where I wanted the sentiment to go. The greenery got a coat of Wink of Stella for a bit of shine.

The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso and cut with a die from Nested Essentials. The finishing touch was the addition of some Flat Pearls in Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash.

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