Pumpkins for AYSI 383

 It's Recipe Week at As You See It this week. I like a recipe challenge and it's a challenge type that's not around as much as some, so there's novelty value in it too. If you've never played with our Recipe Challenge before, it's pretty simple: take the five given ingredients, mix them in with your craft stash and see what you can cook up. Or in MasterChef terms, take the mystery box and add your chosen pantry staples and see what you can make. 😀

Having said how much I like a recipe challenge, this one did throw me a bit. It was the PUMPKIN... There are lots of pumpkins in the Stampin' Up! repertoire but just not in my Craft Library. We don't have Halloween or Thanksgiving so, apart from making soup, I don't have a lot of call for them!

Some creative thinking was called for. I made my own pumpkins out of the insides of the letter O from the Alphabet a la mode set and from stitched circles from Stylish Shapes. Then I cut some foliage from the Help Me Grow dies in what I hoped was a pumpkinesque style! I used Pumpkin Pie, Timid Tiger and Golden Glow card for the pumpkins and I blended the same coloured inks around the edges to add som depth. The foliage is cut from Old Olive and Garden Green.

The rest of the recipe was easy: Forever Plaid embossing folder for the card front to add the checked element, Linen Thread to create the crossover and Sunset Sparkle sequins for some shine.

As well as two of the pumpkins, the sentiment also uses die cuts. It's cut using the ever-useful Stylish Shapes dies. The sentiment is white embossed on Garden Green and is from Elegant Leaves.

We'd love to see what you cook up with these ingredients. You can see what the rest of the design team have done, and link up your own entry, on the As You See It Challenge 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.

Welcome Noel for Paper Players 806

 I thought that JayDee's sketch for last week's challenge was a keeper and, judging from the beautiful entries in the gallery, so did many of you. This week at The Paper Players, our hostess is Ann. Her chosen theme is Nature's Landscapes. Anything from mountains to deserts and anything in between!

I do seem to be in Christmas card mode at present, probably because I'm planning out a number of Christmas classes. I've been doing a lot with Noel Tidings and Welcome Noel bundles and I've used Welcome Noel again for this card, along with some library items.

I started with a piece of Basic White, some torn Post-it Notes, a blending brush, Hydrangea Hue ink, Shaded Spruce ink and the small pine tree stamp from Welcome Noel to create a snowy scene.

Once the scene was created, I used the bauble die from the (retired) Ornamental Christmas from the 2025 Christmas catalogue to cut out a bauble from it. From a scrap of Gold Foil I cut the bauble topper. Using the star die from Welcome Noel, I cut the small star. 

I blended Hydrangea Hue ink around the edge of the bauble and stamped in the tiny deer in Early Espresso ink. 

To bring in more of the forest idea, I embossed the card front with the (retired) Evergreen Forest 3D embossing folder from my craft library.

After ruling in a hanging wire for the bauble, I attached it with dimensionals. 

The sentiment is one of the greetings in the Magical Christmas Hot Foil Dies, created with Gold Hot Foil. It too is popped up on dimensionals. 

Note: Hot Foiling requires the Stampin' Up! Hot Foil System and a Stampin' Up! Cut and Emboss Machine.

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:

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Christy Stanford

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.

Butterfly Flight for CAS Colours & Sketches 595

I'm always keen for a sketch challenge. To be honest, I'm also always looking for a reason not to be doing chores. Happy marriage = wet day + craft room time + sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches. 😀

So, I saw the circle shapes as butterflies. I used my Butterfly Flight Hot Foil dies and Gold Hot Foil to create a set of butterflies. Then I used the matching Butterfly Flight decorative masks to colour them with a blending brush and a mix of Daffodil Delight, Timid Tiger and Calpyso Coral before die cutting them out. Special tip: these decorative masks make beautiful butterflies even without the Hot Foil dies.

To give the butterflies something to ground them, I added in some stencilled lines using the dotted lines from the Water and Dotted Lines duo.  I used Granny Apple Green ink and a blending brush.

The sentiment used the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies, again with Gold Hot Foil. To finish off, I added a trio of Granny Apple Green shimmering dots.

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.

New Music Stuff for FMS 755

 I'm having a play around with the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches today because I have new stuff to play with. Although I've been a Stampin' Up! woman for some time now, sometimes you just have to go off piste. I'm always on the lookout for good music themed items for my collection as I have musical family members. When my Paper Players buddy JayDee used some Spellbinders musical items recently, I tracked them down within New Zealand so avoided heavy shipping costs.  They are now in my possession. 😀

The die sets and embossing folder come from Spellbinders Bibi Cameron Musical Notes Collection. All other products are Stampin' Up!.

I enjoyed creating the violin and bow from Pecan Pie, Early Espresso, Basic Black and some copper foil. I added in some adhesive sheet to give both height and strength, especially to the very delicate bow die cut. 

Since I used copper foil for the bow, I used the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil die with Copper Hot Foil to create the sentiment.

It was nice to get a first card done with these items - already I have ideas for other projects. 

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.

Creative Celebrations for Paper Players 805

Christy's CAS Bear challenge threw up some gorgeous bear themed cards. Thank you, if you were one of the people who took up the challenge. This week at The Paper Players, JayDee is our hostess and she has a lovely sketch for us to be inspired by. I love a sketch challenge - they're my favourite kind. 😀

Today I've played with a type of product I don't usually have in my craft room and that's items from the Quick and Easy Section of the catalogue - because I like crafting from scratch. Bit of a masochist like that! 

You might laugh at the reason why I ended up with the Season of Celebration Mix and Match Ephemera Pack and the coordinating Creative Celebrations Mix and Match 6x6 DSP pack. My husband and I recently went for a winter escape to tropical North Queensland for a couple of weeks. I couldn't face the prospect of no crafting for that long, so I got the above mentioned items, cut some coordinating card bases, pre-embossed some card fronts with the Softly Woven 3D embossing folder and took them on holiday with me.... along with some embellishments, a paper trimmer and my basic tools.

True craft minded people will understand it. My husband was rather less understanding when I pulled the items out of my suitcase. You can't spend all your time on The Great Barrier Reef or exploring the Daintree Rainforest! 😎

Anyway, I still have things left to use up so I used some of the remnants for this card. 

The wreath and the sentiment are from the ephemera pack. The Softly Woven embossed card front is well travelled, having been to Australia and back. The card base is Real Red. It too is well travelled.

The embellishments are from the adhesive backed Sparkle Sequins. 

The reason I love a sketch challenge is that I'm always fascinated at how the same starting point can lead to so many different interpretations. How will you approach this sketch? The team and I would love to see. 

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:

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Christy Stanford

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

Noel Tidings for AYSI 382

It's fill in the blank time at As You See It this week. Although I've now made more Christmas cards, this was the SECOND card I made, so that's how I'll fill in the blank. How about you?

I did rather fall in love with the Neutral Noel suite from the September-December Mini Catalogue. There was something about the richness of the DSP and the traditional nature of the greetings and imagery that won me over. In fact, it was that lovely but simple 'Merry Christmas' that did it for me. 

I started with a Mossy Meadow card base. I cut a piece of DSP - and with the gorgeous patterns in the Neutral Noel DSP collection, I was spoilt for choice. Then I used the oval die from the Noel Tidings bundle to cut out the centre.

I stamped the sentiment on a piece of Very Vanilla in Pecan Pie ink and added it behind the DSP before adhering it all to the card base. 

I cut two of the oval pine wreath dies, one in Mossy Meadow and one in Old Olive. I adhered them around the oval aperture, off-setting them slightly to give a sense of depth. I cut out some berries from scraps of Cherry Cobbler to add some colour to the wreath.

The two little pinecones were stamped in Pecan Pie on Very Vanilla and coloured with Pecan Pie Stampin' Blends before I die cut them out and added them to the top of the wreath. To finish it off, I tied a double bow from Linen Thread.

Then, I added a trio of Gold Dots around the sentiment. 

I'm so pleased with this card that we'll be making it in next month's classes. 😀

We'd love to see how you fill in the blank. You can see what the rest of the design team have done and link up your own entry on the As You See It Challenge 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.

 

Classic Greetings for Colour INKspiration 218

Welcome to the 218th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's colours offer up a rustic charm or a masculine vibe, depending how you see it. You might see something else! The colours were chosen by team member, Vicki Boucher. 

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 12 October, 5pm AEST.

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 Sonja Zierer as our Guest Designer this time around. 

If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Cherry Cobbler for Real Red. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

I originally thought I'd do something along the lines of a rustic Christmas with the colours but once I sat at my desk, other things happened!

I cut some hexagons using the smallest hexagon die from Nested Essentials and arranged them on a panel of Basic Beige. I mounted that on a panel of Basic Beige and then attached it to a Basic Black card base.

I used the Hot Foil system to create the sentiment. I used the Classic Greetings hot foil dies and Red foil on Basic Beige cardstock. Once it was die cut out, I popped it up on dimensionals then added some Neutral Matte Dots in Basic Black, Pecan Pie and Basic Beige.

So, this masculine card came together pretty quickly and would work well in lots of colour combinations. I toyed with either stamping tone on tone or embossing the hexagons but went for a cleaner look in this instance. Worth an experiment in the future though. 😀

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done with the 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.

Lustrous Leaves for Atlantic Hearts Challenge 700

Today's gloriously warm and sunny spring morning has now turned into a wet and cold spring (autumn?)  afternoon. Go figure. 

I retreated to my craft room and, instead of prepping upcoming classes, decided to play with the Lustrous Leaves Hot Foil dies. Luckily, the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge was on hand to provide much needed inspiration. 😀

I started by using the Hot Foil System with copper foil to make a set of the Lustrous Leaves. This die set can be bundled with a set of stencils perfect for colouring the outline images. I used a mix of Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Calypso Coral and Cajun Craze, applied with blending brushes, before die cutting the foiled images. I also used the leaf dies to cut a set of small leaves from scraps of Cajun Craze.

With the foliage under control, it was time to work on the rest of the design. I cut a piece of Basic White and added some splatter stamping in Old Olive using an image from Gears & Textures. After that, I matted the piece to a rectangle of Old Olive. The card front was embossed with the Softly Woven 3D folder. This I attached to a Cajun Craze card base. You can tell from these colours that I was recreating the crazy weather day with a mix of spring and autumn!

The centre panel was attached to the card base and then the fun part began: playing with the grouping of foliage. Some were adhered flat and some were popped up on dimensionals. 

The sentiment is also hot foiled in copper using the Sweetly Sentimental hot foil dies. I used the die that cuts the sentiments up to create an Old Olive shadow to emphasise the chosen sentiment. 

Then, to finish, I added a trio of autumn toned Sunset Sparkle sequins. 

Sadly, the day outside my window continues to resemble autumn rather than spring... but tomorrow is another day! 

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.

Elegant Leaves for CAS Colours and Sketches 594

Today's card is inspired by the colour combination at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I love leaves so of course, I've taken advantage of the new offerings at Stampin' Up!. The Elegant Leaves bundle came out to play for this card. 

I started by creating an inkpad from a baby wipe that had been dripped with dots of Highland Heather re-inker and Bubble Bath re-inker. I stamped the solid shape of two types of leaf with this (plus some on the inside of the card) before using the leaf vein stamp in Peaceful Pine over the top. These have matching dies to cut them out with. 

Then I used some of the Elegant Leaves dies to cut leaf shapes in the solid colours. I cut a circle with Stylish Shapes and embossed it with the Softly Woven folder.  And because I can't help  myself where texture is concerned, I also embossed the card front with more foliage from the Fern & Flora 3D embossing folder. 😀

When it came to sentiment, the colours seemed reflective and elegiac so I went with wording that could be for sympathy, get well or just for tough times. 

To finish off, I added a trio of Peaceful Pine flat pearls.

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.

 

Silly Old Bear for Paper Players 804

Thank you for all the lovely entries in LeAnne's colour challenge last week. There were stunning cards in the gallery. Let's see what you do with Christy's Clean and Simple Challenge this week. At The Paper Players, we take Clean and Simple to mean an uncluttered design with lots of open space, minimal layers and few embellishments. 

So this week, it's a double challenge: to make a card on the theme of BEARS and in a CAS style.

I'm a big fan of Winnie the Pooh (original, not Disney) as are my children and granddaughter. The stories, while seemingly simple, work well with both adults and children. They're possessed of both quiet humour and wisdom while the characters are iconic. And, it's the 100th birthday of the first publication of Pooh this year.

I was very disappointed that when Stampin' Up! brought out the Silly Old Bear suite it was only available in the American market. I was delighted to receive it due to the kindness of a friend. What a gift!

This card was my first play around with the suite. I used an Early Espresso card base and a Very Vanilla card front. 

I partially embossed the card front with the embossing folder that has the Hundred Acre Wood map on it - recognisable from the endpapers of many editions of the book. 

I stamped the image of Pooh and Piglet in Early Espresso then coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Golden Glow, Barely There and Hydrangea Hue. I die cut them out and popped them up on dimensionals beside the sentiment. 

I added in a trio of Flat Pearls in Hydrangea Hue.

We'd love to see your bear creations - and don't forget to make them in a Clean and Simple style.

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:

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Christy Stanford

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

Elegant Leaves for Paper Players 803

Many thanks to everyone who entered into Joanne's candle theme challenge last week. This week, our hostess is LeAnne and she's chosen an autumnal colour palette for us to play with. As always, you can include black and white too. 

Here in New Zealand, we're moving towards spring but I love leaves so am always happy for an excuse to break out a foliage set. In this case, it's the newly released Elegant Leaves bundle. Although the leaves have many options for layering, I've just used the large leaf skeleton die cut and cut one from each of the three colours. 

Then, I've used one of the leaf stamps and randomly stamped over each of the leaves in the same coloured ink to give some colour variations. 

Before attaching the leaves to the card front, I used the bark pattern embossing die to create a horizontal for the leaves to lie on.

After that, it was a simple matter to add a sentiment, attach the card front to the Crushed Curry mat layer and then add it to Basic Black card base. 

To finish, I added a trio of sequins from the Sunset Sparkle sequins to finish off.

The team and I would love to see what you do with these colours. Will it be leaves or something completely different?

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:

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Christy Stanford

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