Thinking Stamping: 2025

Jan Clothier - You are here

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

Friday, 17 October 2025

Delightful Wishes meets Branching Out for AYSI 359

Hello and welcome to a new challenge at As You See It. It's recipe week and Deborah has given us these five ingredients to cook with: Flowers, Frame, Happy Sentiment, Dies or Punches, Shades of Orange. You're free to add any other ingredients from your pantry to the recipe.

Ahh, so many choices to make for this one!

Did shades of orange mean I couldn't use any green? My self-appointed answer was that green came under the heading of 'other pantry ingredients' so as long as it was mostly orange, that was ok.

What counts as a shade of orange? I dragged out all the ink pads that matched and came up with Cajun Craze, Peach Pie, Timid Tiger, Pumpkin Pie and Calypso Coral.

What stamp set to use? Well, I went with the Delightful Wishes bundle since it hadn't seen any love lately but paired it up with the new Branching Out bundle for dies and sentiment.

In keeping with the shades of orange, I used Very Vanilla for the card front and frame interior as it added further warmth.

The five recipe ingredients?

1. The Frame - made using the Branching Out dies.

2. Flowers - the blossoms from Delightful Wishes.

3. Happy sentiment - "Happiest Birthday Wishes" from Branching Out

4. Die Cut - the frame, the flowers, leaves and branch.

5. Shades of Orange - Cajun Craze, Timid Tiger, Peach Pie

What can you cook up with these five ingredients? Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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, 13 October 2025

Seaside Wishes for Freshly Made Sketches 707

Sometimes, a stamp set just takes hold of you. So today's project is one from the stamp archive. I had a hankering to play with the retired Seaside Wishes bundle and Freshly Made Sketches had just the sketch for it.

To make the four panels of the sketch, I cut a piece of Basic White into four sections, then embossed the top left and bottom right with the Seaside Wishes embossing folder. I added in some Pool Party splatters using a stamp from the set.

I die cut a sea urchin in Basic White and coloured with Misty Moonlight and a blending brush. I cut some seaweed in Pool Party then stamped and die cut a pair of starfish in Pretty in Pink.

The sentiment, stamped in Misty Moonlight, is from Simply Said. The embellishments are from pink gems. The card base is Misty Moonlight.

This card has quietened the hankering to play with this set but.... if only I hadn't misplaced the sea urchin die somewhere in the process!

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

Sunday, 12 October 2025

Gallery Blooms for Paper Players 759

Thanks to everyone who entered Claire's fun theme challenge last week. There were certainly some entertaining costumes in the gallery!

This week, we have a colour challenge for you. I'm interested to see where these colours - purple and green- take you.

The place they took me to was florals. I can't get enough of that gorgeous three flowered image in Gallery Blooms. So I inked it up in Tuxedo Black on the card front in the position I wanted it then coloured it with Stampin' Blends: Fresh Freesia, Highland Heather and Old Olive. I die cut it out, being careful to keep the little pieces from between the flowers.

After stamping the sentiment from Unbounded Love, I ran the bottom part of the card front through the Cut and Emboss machine using the cut glass folder from Glass and Gardens.

Before attaching the card front to the Thick Basic White base, I added a layer of Highland Heather card between the layers. Once the two layers were attached, I put the die cut bloom back in place on dimensionals so that a hint of the Highland Heather card can be glimpsed. The small die cut pieces from between the blooms were easily added with the aid of the Take Your Pick tool.

To draw the eye to the sentiment, I added three Fine Purple Shimmer gems for accent.

Where do these colours take you? You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your entry on 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

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

Saturday, 11 October 2025

Perfectly Pears for CAS Colours & Sketches 570

I celebrated the end of class week with a little craft room tidying and then, as a reward to self, a playtime to enter the latest challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I do like a sketch challenge and I thought this one was lovely. For some reason, I wanted to use Perfectly Pears for this card and although I got out several other sets, the Pears just wouldn't let go!

So, quite a simple card really. Two strips of DSP from Painterly Pears DSP Collection: two sides of the same page.

Then I stamped the duo of small pears, coloured it with the fill-in stamp with Darling Duckling and Old Olive along with Old Olive and Crumb Cake Stampin' Blends for the leaves before die cutting it out. The same image is stamped on the inside of the card.

I added a die cut lattice behind the pear, which was popped up on dimensionals. Using Secret Sea ink, I stamped the sentiment in two halves and die cut each one before adding them over the pears.

I finished off with a trio of Secret Sea Sparkle Dots. Being me, I just couldn't leave the Basic White card front completely plain, so I got out an old retired favourite - the Subtle Embossing folder. I've always loved the way it just adds a quiet texture and turns the plainest card into a linen-look paper instead.

The card base is Secret Sea.

This is such a great sketch, I'm going to tuck it away for future use. 😀

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

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Country Woods for Colour INKspiration 197

Welcome to the 197th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday October 20, 7pm AEST.

This colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member, Vicki Boucher.

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 Jan McQueen 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 Secret Sea for Night of Navy. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

To me, the colours were rustic in feel, so I looked through the papers in the Country Woods collection because I was certain there was a lovely weathered looking paper using Misty Moonlight. Turned out that I was right - and there was also a woody weathered looking paper using Crumb Cake. From there, a card was born!

I wanted some large foliage so used the Thankful Garden dies to cut some in Crumb Cake and Night of Navy. (If you don't already have the fabulous Thankful Garden bundle, then go check out the Last Chance list.)

Then I decided that I wanted a compact sentiment that would fit into a circle die. So out came Simply Said and the Spotlight on Nature dies. The sentiment is stamped in Night of Navy to match the card base. There is a matte layer of Misty Moonlight.

Since I had some die cuts left over, and some offcuts of the DSP, I used some of them to decorate the inside of the card.

To finish off, I added some classic bling with the Rhinestone Jewels.

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.

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

Sunday, 5 October 2025

Almost Harry Potter for The Paper Players 758

Goodness me, there were some fabulous entries in Stef's sketch challenge last week! Thank you, to everyone who entered. This week at The Paper Players, our hostess is Claire. She has an interesting theme challenge for us: Halloween Costumes.

I'll admit that this one caused me quite a bit of difficulty given that we don't celebrate Halloween in New Zealand. Of course, I know what it is but I never buy Halloween inspired sets.

I put my thinking cap on and thought about what my children would have loved to dress up in when they were young. Harry Potter was a favourite of every member of the family - and still is. In fact, while tattoos are ubiquitous in New Zealand, there's only one to be seen in our whole family and that is Harry Potter related! They dressed up in Harry Potter style for many fancy dress events and birthday parties so....

I had to ask my daughter for a loan of the Harry Potter-esque stamps I once bought her from Kindred. That caused a bit of flurry, since they had to be located: were they at her house or mine? And if so, where?

But, we found them (at hers and not in the box labelled 'stamps') and I set to work.

I kept things simple, stamping a faux Ron, Harry and Hermione in Tuxedo Black and colouring them in Gryffindor colours with Stampin' Blends. I added a sentiment and some wand power, then cut it out using a frame from Textured Notes.

I hunted through my retired embossing folders to find the one with stars (the name of which I've forgotten) because stars seemed the right background. I matted the Hogwarts trio with a piece of Crushed Curry, added in some retired Crushed Curry Glossy Dots and things were pretty much done.

What's your favourite Halloween costume? You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your entry on 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

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

Friday, 3 October 2025

Thankful Garden for AYSI 358

It's time for a new challenge at As You See It. Thanks to everyone who entered in our colour challenge last time round. We had some great entries and I enjoyed seeing the different uses for the same set of colours.

As always, after the colour challenge comes the fill in the blank challenge. This time, inspiration comes from however you complete the sentence. There's many things to love about autumn and it is my favourite season. I love the cool nights followed by crisp days of clear blue sky. I love the abundance of vegetables and fruits to be found at the Farmer's Market and a return of hearty casseroles and delicious pies to the kitchen - along with hot drinks in the evening. However, I'm not completing my sentence with any of those things, since there's something I love even more about autumn.

My favourite thing about autumn is watching the leaves turn from greens to golds and reds. That's what I've tried to show in this card.

I started by ink smooshing some scraps of Fluid 100 Watercolor paper using Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Old Olive and a touch of Cherry Cobbler. Once the paper had dried I cut some leaves using one of the dies from Thankful Garden.

I thought they'd look smart against a dark background, so embossed a piece of Basic Black with the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder and attached that to a Basic Black card base.

I arranged three stems of leaves and attached them to the card front. I thought a touch of gold would work well, so heat embossed a gold 'thank you' from Perfectly Pears and cut it out using one of the banner dies from Stylish Shapes.

To pick out the gold some more, I used something I seldom use - ribbon. I added in a twist of Gold Mesh ribbon. Bling was difficult to choose. I thought of using Flower Accents but felt they were the wrong gold. After trying out a few other things, I settled on using some Flat Pearls in Darling Duckling. I like how they've picked up the yellows and the golds.

What do YOU love about autumn? Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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

Sunday, 28 September 2025

Modern Christmas for The Paper Players 757

It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players but before I share that with you I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who entered my CAS Watercolour challenge last week. I was blown away by the beautiful entries and choosing the Headliner was not an easy task!

This week, Stef has a sketch challenge for us. I love a sketch challenge because I'm always delighted by the great variation in the projects that all had the same starting point.

I'll admit that when the September-December Mini Catalogue, and the associated On Line Exclusives, came out I was frugal in my preordering. But the Modern Christmas suite did keep poking at me and I was a late purchaser. In fact, it's only just arrived and this is my first play around with it.

This card pretty much made itself and is one that you could easily make multiples of. There is a large circle die that's part of the bundle but I started with one of the decorative circle dies from Spotlight on Nature. The large and small stars were cut from gold foil using the Ornamental Christmas dies.

The DSP is Modern Christmas Specialty DSP, layered on a Gold Foil mat on a Basic Black card base.

The decorative circle is popped up on dimensionals. I added a bow using the gold and white twine, before attaching the sentiment.

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

You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your entry on 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