Beside Me for Paper Players 729

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. This week, it's CLEAN and SIMPLE week. Joanne has challenged us to use only one single stamped image in our projects.  You can also use a sentiment stamp. 

Don't forget that in addition to using a single stamped image (and the option of a sentiment) you must keep your project CLEAN and SiMPLE:

• Lot of uncluttered 'white' space
• Minimal layering
• Minimal embellishments

I have had the lovely Father's Day set, Beside Me, for a long time but haven't really used it much. I really like this image of a dad pointing out the way for his young one so that's what I used as my single stamped image. 

Beside Me $55

I used a Basic White Thick cardstock for the base and stamped on a Basic White card front in Tuxedo Black ink.

 I coloured the image with Stampin' Blends: Bronze, Ivory, Pool Party, Misty Moonlight, Fresh Freesia, Balmy Blue, Highland Heather and Pretty in Pink. The Bronze & Ivory combo give a great range of skin tones depending how they're blended. 

I linked the image and sentiment together with a triangle of Purple Fine Shimmer Gems.

We'd all love to see your CAS Single Image creations. 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.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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.

 

Textured Notes for Colour INKspiration 183

Welcome to the 183rd challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday March 24, 7pm AEST.

I'm especially invested in this challenge since it's my Crew Pick. Apart from the beautiful butterfly image itself, I was drawn to the possibilities of creating with the rich, complementary colours. I hope you enjoy crafting with these colours too. 

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 Sharon Cheatle 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 Night of Navy for Blueberry Bushel. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.

I was delighted to have a chance to play around with one of the new Online Exclusive bundles, Textured Notes.

I'm in love with the images in this set and they were perfect for what I wanted to do. 

I'm not sure what the name of this technique is but it's a thing I do often. I blended Crushed Curry, Balmy Blue and Blueberry Bushel onto a piece of Basic White card with a blending brush. Then I spritzed and splattered it with water. Once it was dry, I stamped images in Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue. 

After mounting it on a Blueberry Bushel card base, I added a strip of Crushed Curry, embossed with the Corrugated 3D Embossing folder, which is also an Online Exclusive and part of the Botanical Textures suite.

The sentiment is stamped in Blueberry Bushel and the label dies are from Something Fancy. The embellishments are from the Glossy Dots Assortment. 

We'd love to see what you do with the challenge colours. You can join the group in the following link, if you aren't already a member. Don't forget to answer the questions when you ask to join. 

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.

Beautiful Butterflies for The Paper Players 728

Hello Stampers! 

Claire's Spring Flowers Theme challenge last week really brought out everyone's creativity and we had such beautiful projects. I'm sure that Jaydee's colour challenge will likewise bring out everyone's creativity. 

Jaydee's challenge to us was to create using any combination of pastel colours. I loved this challenge as I have a soft spot for Stampin' Up!'s Subtle collection of colours. In fact, when I first started stamping, it was the Subtles family that I first bought. 

The softness of the colour put me in mind of butterflies and reflectiveness. So I started by die-cutting the large butterfly from the Beautiful Butterflies bundle and blending in Lemon Lolly, Balmy Blue and Fresh Freesia with blending brushes. The resultant mix created some areas of a most pleasing pale green as a bonus.

I mounted that to a larger solid butterfly die and also added in a smaller Lemon Lolly die cut butterfly.  The thorax is decorated with some Fresh Freesia tinsel gems. 

Well, now I had a butterfly and she needed a setting. So the rest of the card evolved! 😀

I embossed a piece of Basic White with the Beautiful Butterflies hybrid embossing folder that is part of the Beautiful Butterflies bundle. I chose a piece of mottled Fresh Freesia paper from the Beautiful Bokeh DSP stack, stamped the sentiment in Smoky Slate and flagged the end. 

And just like that, the card was done!

We'd all love to see your pastel creations. 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.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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.

Going Dotty for Stampin' Fancy Friday

This month, the theme at Stampin' Fancy Friday is Going Dotty! We were challenged to showcase dots in some way.

The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday don't blog hop but we do a daily inspiration post on Instagram. The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday are all current or past members of Stampin' Up!'s Artisan Design Team, so it really is a great place to pick up ideas or recharge your creative mojo. 

Follow @stampinfancyfriday if you don't already. 😀

I started with wetting a sheet of Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper then smooshing Shaded Spruce, Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue onto it. Once it dried, I cut a series of circles from it using the Stylish Shapes dies.

The card base is Blueberry Bushel and the Basic White card front is embossed with the hybrid Seaside Wishes folder, available as part of the Seaside Wishes bundle.

I stamped the fish and seaweed from Beauty of the Deep with  Jet Black Stazon onto Fluid 100 Water Color paper. I water-coloured them using a Water Painter and ink in Blueberry Bushel, Crushed Curry and Shaded Spruce. then die cut them out with Beauty of the Deep dies

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

The trio of embellishments are Tinsel Gems.

So, quite a mix of products in this one but I really like the bubbles of sea that climb the card front. 

Don't forget to follow @stampinfancyfriday on Instagram, or Stampin' Fancy Friday on Facebook, for more daily ideas.

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. 

Modern Oval Punch for AYSI 343

Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It. The last challenge in our rota of six types of challenge is the Speed Stamping challenge. It's a love it or hate it kind of challenge and generally, I love it. 

It's simple: just make a new project on the given theme in TEN MINUTES OR LESS.

That might sound impossible, here's what you need to know:

• Thinking time isn't included. So you can plan out what you're going to do before the clock starts.
• Gathering supplies isn't included. So you can get out your stamp set, block it up, put the dies or folders or punches on the table, get the embellishments to hand etc. 
• Clean up time isn't included. Just as well, or we'd never get inside the time limit!

BUT

     Once you cut, ink or punch the clock has to start.

If you've never tried a speed challenge before, give it a go. It can be quite addictive and often very satisfying to see what you can achieve in such a short crafting time.

For this challenge, Joanne has challenged us to get speedy by using a punch. This challenge made me realise that I don't really use punches that often. It turns out I'm more of a die cut crafter!

I do have a Modern Oval punch, so that's what I used. I got out my Neutrals DSP stack and punched out a variety of patterns, then arranged them on a piece of Basic White.  I made sure that a light pattern went where I wanted to have a sentiment then I trimmed off any overhangs.

I stamped the sentiment in Early Espresso. This 'thank you' is from Something Fancy. I mounted that onto a piece of Pecan Pie and adhered the whole thing to an Early Espresso card base.

I added three Antique Pearls as embellishments.

And here's the time. 

Not bad! 

Another time, I might have the first column of ovals as vertical halves so that the unadorned right side strip is more obvious and perhaps run the whole thing through an embossing folder. Or maybe not! 😀

Anyway, we'd love to see what you create in ten minutes or less using a punch. 

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 March 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.

Thankful Garden for Freshly Made Sketches 676

Today I was meant to be packing to go to OnStage Brisbane but the imminent arrival of Tropical Cyclone Alfred has mucked that up somewhat. So what's a person to do when they're feeling a bit stressed? Well, it's to the craft room, of course! And a bit of a take on the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. 

I wasn't really at my best but I found the colouring of the lovely hydrangea images in Thankful Garden really relaxing! This bundle is one of the new Online Exclusives which has just dropped. They're worth a look as there's some really interesting things there, some of which you'll see in the coming weeks. 😀

As much as I enjoy using the stencils which are part of the bundle to with, today I was in the mood to colour with Stampin' Blends so the flowers are a mix of Bubble Bath, Fresh Freesia and Highland Heather with Granny Apple Green for the leaves. 

I added in a more than usual number of Fine Purple Shimmer Gems to finish off. The base is Highland Heather.

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.

Thankful Garden for Paper Players 727

It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players. Claire, our hostess this week, has given us a theme of Spring Flowers to work with. I loved seeing last week's entries for Stef's sketch challenge: so many great ideas and so many lovely cards!

I used Claire's challenge to play around with one of the bundles in my preorder for the next drop of Online Exclusives. These open for up in my Online Store on March 4.

The Thankful Garden bundle is a winner to me as it includes stamped floral images suitable for colouring, sentiments in interesting fonts, matching dies that offer extra bits of foliage AND a set of stencils that give the option of colouring the images or stencilling alone for a soft look. 

Here's my first play around with them.

I stamped one of the floral images twice, coloured them using the stencils. I coloured one with Pretty in Pink, Flirty Flamingo and Melon Mambo and the other with Petal Pink, Pretty in Pink and Flirty Flamingo. Then I fussy cut one of the flowers out to create a cluster of three. 

I used some of the dies to cut some extra foliage to build up the bunch of flowers. 

Another new product from the new Online Exclusives is the Textured Notes die set. I've used one of them to make a label for the sentiment, which is also from Thankful Garden. 

The text stamp that I've used in the background is also an Online Exclusive set, Elements of Text. I'm so glad that I got that set as the various font stamps are endlessly useful in backgrounds. 

The embossing folder is the Distressed Tile 3D folder, one of my favourites. 

Below you can see my second play around with this bundle. It's basically the same card but I've used the other large floral image, a different sentiment and die (but from the same sets) and different embossing folder. Instead of stamping a background, I added in some splattered ink. So, two related but different cards using the same products. Don't you love it when that happens?

We'd all love to see what you do with Spring Flowers. 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.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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.

 

Darling Dinos for Paper Players 726

Many thanks to everyone who played along with my CAS Masculine challenge last week. That's two toughies in the one challenge so well done for being brave enough to take on both things in the one project!

This week, Stef has given us a great sketch to work with. 

My card this week was inspired by this photo of my granddaughter visiting a local sunflower field a few weeks ago. She just loved those sunflowers and talked about them a lot!

She also loves dinosaurs, her favourite being triceratops. So I used Stef's sketch to make her a Valentine's card. 

Darling Dinos had everything I needed! I started by stamping a row of sunflowers top and bottom of the Basic White card front. I coloured them in Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight and Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends. Hard to see in the photo, but the centres have a nice glimmer from Wink of Stella.

I embossed a smaller piece of Basic White with the Sale-a-Bration Starburst folder, since the design reminded me of flowers, and attached it to the centre of the card front

 
I stamped, coloured and cut Miss Triceratops. She's a mix of Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight and Pretty in Pink. I used  one of the Spotlight on Nature dies to cut a circle on which I sponged some Granny Apple Green with a Blending Brush, then stamped on some grass.

After popping on Miss Triceratops up on dimensionals, I added in some Pretty in Pink love hearts.

Finally, I stamped the 'Love You' in Crumb Cake and flagged the ends before adding it.

All done (and hopefully perfect) for little Miss Three. 💕

We'd all love to see what you do with Stef'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.

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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.

Country Birdhouse for AYS 342

I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone who played along with my Recipe Challenge last week. It was a pleasure to see what everyone cooked up! 

This week, it's theme week and Jane has given us 'BIRDS' to work with. 

I got out the Country Birdhouse bundle because I like the wee bird that's part of the set. I started by mirror stamping him in Tuxedo Black so that I could have a bird facing each way. I coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Pool Party and a touch of Daffodil Delight. 

I used the Stylish Shapes dies to cut a circle out of Basic Beige. I used the same die set to cut the banner for the sentiment. I've used this 'happy birthday' so much! It's the most used part of the whole bundle. 

Using the Country Birdhouse dies, I cut various flowers in Pool Party, Flirty Flamingo and Petal Pink as well as some leaves in Lost Lagoon. I also cut the bow from Petal Pink. 

I stamped the chain to hang the hoop in Tuxedo Black before embossing the card front with the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder. 

Once all that was done, it was a simple matter to arrange the birds and flowers then attach them. Some are on dimensionals to give more depth to the scene. The sentiment is popped up too. 

I added small Basic Rhinestones to the flower centres and used some Petal Pink Foiled Gems as embellishment. 

The team and I would love to see what wonderful bird creations you make. 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 March 6, 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.