Thinking Stamping

Friday, 31 July 2026

A Beachy Combination for AYSI 378

This week at As You See It, we have a theme challenge for you: Summer Days. There are so many wonderful things to choose from when thinking about summer but for my family, it's the beach.

There are several good beaches less than half an hour from home but for a holiday, we like to go north where it's just a tad warmer. We often end up at Ohope. We've gone there with various of our adult children and our granddaughter for the last three summers, so there's a few scrapbooking opportunities awaiting me in the craft room. This challenge seemed a good chance to tuck one of them away.

It's a nice simple, one-photo layout and I started by laying down some watery background using the Water mask from Water and Dotted Lines, a blending brush and some Hydrangea Hue ink. This was on a piece of 12 x12 White Willow.

Using one of the wave dies from Rolling Waves, I cut two pieces of frothy wave from Blueberry Bushel to lay down a strong horizontal. I drew on Blueberry Bushel and Hydrangea Hue as best matches to the blues in the sky.

After that, it was simply a matter of adding some beach themed bits: the starfish and shells are from Rolling Waves while the jandals and sunglasses are from Summer Happiness. In my stable of colours, I didn't have a pink that matched little Miss's outfit but the Melon Mambo went well with it. The Coastal Cabana tied in nicely with her Crocs and as for the Daffodil Delight - well, there's the sunshine for you!

To finish off, I made a signpost out of the words from Summer Happiness.

I added a touch of journalling and the date at the bottom of the page, just in case any of us who were there should ever forget the hullaballo that broke out seconds after this photo was taken, when the wind grabbed the Bluey Hat and tossed it into the ocean - never to be seen again!

And of course, Little Miss 3 does not have a Starfish face. That's just my attempt to give her a shade more privacy. 😀

The team and I would love to see your summer themed project - maybe a card, maybe a layout, maybe a 3D item.

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done, and link up your entry, on the As You See It page. The team and I are all keen to see how you see it!

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 July 2026

Hot Foiling for Paper Players 796

It's a new week at The Paper Players and our hostess is Stef. LeAnne's CAS Beach Challenge saw some gorgeous entries in the gallery, so thank you to all who entered. I'm sure Stef's lovely sketch will fire up your creativity just as much!

I recently indulged myself by purchasing Stampin' Up!'s new Hot Foil system and I'm still having a lot of fun experimenting with it.

I started by stamping Botanical Glow in Peaceful Pine on a piece of White Willow, then gold foiling over it with the Botanical Glow Hot Foil die. I cut out three squares using Stylish Shapes and attached them to the card front, which I then attached to the Peaceful Pine base.

The butterfly was made using the Butterfly Flight hot foil dies and Gold Foil. This set has the option of bundling with stencils that colour the butterflies - which, of course, I have too! I coloured it using Flirty Flamingo, Melon Mambo and Berry Burst. I used the matching cutting dies to cut out the butterfly, then added it up on dimensionals to the card.

For a little card, I managed to try out a lot of products because I used Gold Foil and the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies to create the sentiment!

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

I hope you find some time during the week to join us in this challenge. Visit The Paper Players page to see what the rest of the Design Team have done, to link up your entry or to get more details on the challenge.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Garden Gatherings for Colour INKspiration 214

Welcome to the 214th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's cheerful colours come from a photograph taken by our Crew Member, Lou Kitzelmann, at the Yuushien Garden, Daikonshima while on holiday in Japan.

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 10 August, 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 Sandra Hebel 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 Highland Heather for Fresh Freesia. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

Well, with an image like this and the colours, it was hard to go past a floral set. I've been having a lot of fun with the Garden Gatherings bundle recently, so reached for it once again.

I used Basic Black for the card base and Tuxedo Black to stamp the sentiment.

Using Old Olive ink, I stamped two stems and then used the daisy-like stamp to create one stem in Melon Mambo and the other in Berry Burst.

Then I used the smaller leaf stem with Granny Apple Green and stamped the berries in Fresh Freesia.

These three stems were die cut out.

I cut two of the squat vases, one in Fresh Freesia and one in Melon Mambo, then embossed them with the Lazy Daisy folder. Then I sponged the left hand edges with the matching ink to add some shading.

I cut the taller vase in Berry Burst and stamped over it with the small flower head stamp to add a pattern, then added some Berry Burst ink to the left side to add shading.

I die cut a small flower in Fresh Freesia and a leaf stem in Old Olive.

For the background, I embossed a piece of Basic White with the Lazy Daisy folder before tearing the top and bottom edges. This was adhered to the Basic White card front.

Then I added the three vases of flowers, each popped up on dimensionals.

The sentiment was die cut using a banner die from Stylish Shapes.

To finish off, I added some Fresh Freesia gems from the retired Purple Fine Shimmer Gem pack.

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.

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

Sunday, 19 July 2026

Rolling Waves for The Paper Players 795

After Jaydee's gorgeous colour challenge - and the lovely vibrant entries it brought in - we have a Clean and Simple Beach theme challenge for you this week from our hostess, LeAnne.

So this week is a double challenge. Your project must use a beach theme AND be in Clean-and-Simple style. At the Paper Players, we take this to mean that there should be lots of clean, white space with minimal layers, minimal embellishments and an overall uncluttered look.

I started with a Thick Basic White card base and a Basic White card front. I sponged some Pool Party ink with a blending brush onto the central area of the card to suggest the ocean.

Of course, my go to beach bundle at the moment is Rolling Waves. I cut one of the wave dies out of Basic White and added it as a horizontal axis for the card design.

Using Basic Gray ink, I stamped the sentiment.

A bit of scurry around in my bits box unearthed some diecuts left over from previous projects so I was happy to use a Coastal Cabana palm leaf and some sea shells /starfish in Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Petal Pink.

I played around with the idea of adding some sparkly embellishments but decided that they added nothing but some distraction and left them off. I often think it takes a bit more courage to leave things out than it does to add things in!

Anyway, I hope you find some time during the week to join us in this challenge. Visit The Paper Players page to see what the rest of the Design Team have done, to link up your entry or to get more details on the challenge.

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.

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.

Friday, 17 July 2026

Magical Hot Foil for Freshly Made Sketches 745

It's been a long time since something truly different, and truly exciting, has arrived in my craft room: something never before seen or used or played with. And that folks, is Stampin' Up!'s brand spanking new Hot Foil System.

Once I'd worked out the technicalities of how to operate it (actually, really simple) I tried out a few things like using different dies, using different coloured foils and trying out different papers to foil. Now it was time to actually make something with it all, so I turned to the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to do just that.

As part of my experimentation, I'd used the Garden Silhouette Hot Foil Die with gold foil on vellum.

Then I coloured the flowers from the back using Melon Mambo Stampin' Blends, with some touches of Granny Apple Green and Daffodil Delight.

I cut this down to a long strip 9cm wide then folded it over a 9cm square of Bubble Bath card stock, attaching it with Stampin' Seal from behind.

I can see that one possible negative of this lovely Hot Foiling is going to be the trouble in getting a good photo of it!

I used a Bubble Bath card base. The Basic White card front is embossed with the retired (but never to be parted with) Subtle embossing folder. I wanted some texture for interest but nothing that would compete with the busy gold foiled square, so it was the perfect choice.

I ran a narrow strip of Bubble Bath through the same folder as a base for the sentiment. For the sentiment, I hot foiled the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies, then cut them out with the matching cutting dies. There were a bunch of sentiments, which are great to have on hand ready to use - but I liked this one for a wedding. It's popped up on dimensionals.

While looking for embellishments, I wanted something elegant but not too flashy. I chose the sparkling white Shimmering Dots to finish things off.

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

Recipe Challenge for As You See It 377

At As You See It, after the Fill in the Blank challenge comes the Recipe Challenge. Just take the five given ingredients, add whatever you like from your own stash and see what you can cook up. Be sure to visit the As You See It page so you can see what our Guest Designer has done. The winner of our Colour Challenges is invited to be Guest Designer at our next Recipe Challenge.

The five ingredients: Enamel Dots, Flower, Large bold sentiment, die cut and shades of yellow had me going down a retro path straight down to my craft library. One of the delights of crafting is building up a library of useful and pretty things to use for future projects, all the while adding new items and weeding out the less useful, just as you do in a traditional library.

I don't have a lot of DSP so I went to the very pretty retired Floral Delight DSP since I remembered that it used a lot of yellows - and lots of florals so it would kill two birds with one stone. I cut some scrap rectangles into triangles and created a strip-pieced background, making sure to keep the florals in the most prominent positions at the centre and at the edges.

I mounted the strip-pieced panel onto a piece of Daffodil Delight adn then adhered it to an Old Olive card base.

The big, bold sentiment and die cut ingredients were also ticked off in one step with this retired die cut 'Happy Birthday' from the craft library. I cut one from Old Olive and one from Daffodil Delight then layered them so the Daffodil acted like a shadow. Then I applied a liberal coat of Wink of Stella before adhering it to the card front.

Then the final ingredient, Enamel Dots, was also taken care of from the craft library: I still have some of those wonderful Glossy Enamel Dot Assortments, which included some in a golden yellow.

The team and I would love to see what you cook up with our five ingredients and your own flair!

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done, and link up your entry, on the As You See It page. The team and I are all keen to see how you see it!

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

Sunday, 12 July 2026

Garden Gatherings for Paper Players 794

This week at The Paper Players, our hostess is JayDee. She's given us a bright and summery colour challenge to play with. We had such gorgeous entries last week with Ann's theme challenge, I'm excited to see what everyone does this week.

My first task was to decide which SU colours I'd use. I went for Timid Tiger as my coral, Flirty Flamingo as my pink, Granny Apple Green for my green and Daffodil Delight for my yellow.

For further inspiration, I used the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and you can still play along there for another day or two.

My current play set is Garden Gatherings because I'm enjoying the mix of leaves, florals and vases to play around with. I'm pairing it up with the very pretty Beautiful Ordinary Life DSP, which I'd overlooked on my first looks through the catalogue. The colours in it are just so pretty!

I started by cutting a piece of the honeycomb DSP, then a smaller piece of Basic White to fit inside it while leaving a wide border to show off the design. I stamped a stem and added some Flirty Flamingo flowers and then some softer Timid Tiger blossoms. I cut a vase from another piece of DSP, making sure to pick a part where there was a mix of the coral and pink colours.

I decided to emboss the background with the Lazy Daisy folder to carry the floral theme through. Then a strip of Flirty Flamingo coloured DSP for the horizontal element.

Then I added the sentiment, stamped onto Flirty Flamingo, cut with a die from Stylish Shapes and popped up on dimensionals.

Finally, I added a trio of yellow dots from Array of Dots, making two of them flower centres.

Update: Delighted to be a Perfect Princess at Freshly Made Sketches.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Jaydee's colours. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players.

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)

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.