Thinking Stamping: Anniversary cards

Showing posts with label Anniversary cards. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 August 2026

Lily of the Valley for Colour INKspiration 216

Welcome to the 216th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Today's colour challenge palette was chosen by me, so I hope you enjoy playing along with us!

This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday 7 September, 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 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 Highland Heather for Fresh Freesia. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

I felt that these colours lent themselves to something floral and delicate so that had me reaching for the Lily of the Valley bundle.

My card base is Blackberry Bliss. I embossed the card front with the Floral Spray 3D folder.

Although the large Lily of the Valley stamp and die is a showstopper, I've always had a soft spot for the smaller stamped image. So I stamped two of them and coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Fresh Freesia, Blackberry Bliss and Soft Sea Foam. Then I die cut them out. I also cut out a piece of the trellis from Blackberry Bliss cardstock.

I used a piece of retired Beautiful Bokeh DSP to create a horizontal bar then arranged the trellis and the flowers over it.

As it happened, I'd been experimenting with the new Hot Foil system and had a pile of sentiments from the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies and chose this one 'here's to another year'. I liked that it would work for both a birthday or an anniversary.

To finish off this simple little card, I added a trio of Sunset Sparkle sequins.

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.

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Layers of Beauty for The Paper Players 723

Goodness, The Paper Players had some wonderful entries last week for Joanne's sketch challenge. I'm interested to see what everyone does with Ann's theme challenge this week. Love is in the air - what will it be? Friendship? Engagement? Wedding? Anniversary? No reason except you're wonderful?

For me, it was Anniversary as our wedding anniversary is in just a few days time.

I do love the Layers of Beauty bundle as there's just something so relaxing about the way the five layers of stencils come together in such a satisfying manner.

For the flowers, I used three inks: Fresh Freesia, Petunia Pop and Berry Burst and for the leaves, I used Granny Apple Green for both leaf layers.

It's such a simple card to make: stamp the outline in Tuxedo Black, sponge in the colours through the stencils with Blending Brushes and die cut out.

To add in a little bit extra, I stamped and coloured the flower bouquet image twice. I fussy cut the large centre flower and the bottom rose, then dimensionaled them in place to give a better sense of depth.

I added the die cut bouquet to the card front with dimensionals for further lift. The card front was embossed using the Forever Plaid 3D folder.

The card base is Petunia Pop. The I masked the sentiment so I could stamp each word separately, then cut them into banners. To finish, I added three Purple Shimmer Gems.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Ann's challenge. 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:

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

Eliz Stewart

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

Sunday, 13 October 2024

Layers of Beauty for Paper Players 711

Doesn't time fly? It's already time for a new challenge at The Paper Players. Thanks to everyone who played along last week with my 'Love is in the Air' challenge. It was a delight to visit all the entries and something of a torment to have to choose only one winner from all the lovely creations! 😀

This week, our hostess is Joanne and she's choses an autumnal palette for our colour challenge: Shades of orange and brown.

As much as I love autumn colours, I promised myself that I'd stay away from autumn leaves - just because looking out my window, I'm surrounded by the bright greens of new spring growth!

So that did leave me in something of a dilemma about where to take these colours. I thought that the richness of them was for a special occasion or a special person. Maybe I just still had a romantic hangover from last week's theme challenge but I went with what I'm thinking of as an anniversary card.

As to my colours, I stuck with all the pies: Peach Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Pie with a cup of coffee - some Early Espresso! Actually, I did do the small flower centres in Crushed Curry - an orange/yellow colour - but it hardly shows! 😂

The Layers of Beauty stamp/die/stencil bundle was my starting point. I stamped the image in Early Espresso then used the five easy-to-layer stencils, with Blending Brushes, to colour. Then I partially die cut the image to create a bottom section of card front.

I embossed a whole card front using the Forever Plaid 3D embossing folder and layered the partial die cut section over the top.

The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso. Layered beneath it are three die cut pieces of foliage, cut from Basic White and sponged, using a Blending Brush, with Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie to softly colour them to match the flowers. The finishing touches were a trio of Shimmer Gems in Peach Pie around the sentiment.

We look forward to seeing your creations in shades of orange and brown. 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:

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

You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand here.

Sunday, 6 October 2024

Lifetime of Love for The Paper Players 710

Hello Stampers! It's my turn to host at The Paper Players and the theme I've chosen is 'Love is in the Air'. I think it was the fast approach of summer and wedding season that got me thinking of it but if you want to play along with us, think anything romantic: wedding, engagement, anniversary, a love note - even Valentine's if you want to be really organised!

It might not even have been the approach of summer that got me thinking on this theme. In more likelihood, it was the near un-used Lifetime of Love stamps and dies sitting on my desk, looking at me reproachfully! I got this set because I wanted a set of good romantic sentiments in my stash - plus the dies were so pretty!

I also tried out a (new to me) fancy fold that's been doing the rounds on the Internet of late. I liked it so much that I've used it for some Christmas cards and now, this wedding/anniversary card.

It looks pretty closed up too.

The DSP is from the Unbounded Beauty 12x12 DSP collection. Isn't it dreamily pretty?

I stamped the images in Tuxedo Black then coloured them with Pretty in Pink Blends and Shy Shamrock Blends. For extra interest, I stamped an extra set of the three flower image, then coloured and fussy cut the large centre bloom before popping it up on dimensionals in the wreath.

I cut two wreaths from Shy Shamrock and overlaid them, then added in some glimmery leaves from the 2024-26 In Color Glimmer Paper pack.

The final touch was a trio of In Color Shimmer Gems in Pretty in Pink.

We look forward to seeing your romantic 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:

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

You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand here.

Tuesday, 3 August 2021

Forever Blossoms for Retro Rubber 164

Welcome to a new challenge at Retro Rubber Challenge. This time, it's Anything Goes, which is almost true! Because it's RETRO rubber, of course you still need to use stamps that are a year or more old and give us an approximate age for them.

Forever Blossoms is a set that came out in the Occasions catalogue, January 2020. It's really a romantic occasions set, with some suitably romantic sentiments. While I was thinking of this as an Anniversary card, there are plenty of other times you might want to remind someone of how much they mean to you.

I started by stamping the large spray of flowers twice and colouring them with Stampin' Blends. Then I cut some flowers out of the second spray so I could layer them up on the final card.

I sponged some Pool Party onto the card front using a Blending Brush. The sponged area grounds the flowers while suggesting a hint of sky behind them.

For the Flirty Flamingo base, I stamped the flower spray stamp over it in Flirty Flamiingo ink. Then I set the white panel into one corner, rather than centrally, so that the pattern could be seen.

You can see what the rest of the Design Team have done, and link up your entry, by visiting the Retro Rubber Challenge site here.

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 on the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar or clicking on any of products below.

Product List

Forever Blossoms Cling Stamp Set (English)

[151457]

$48.00

Cherry Blossoms Dies

[151456]

$76.00

Flirty Flamingo A4 Cardstock

[141421]

$18.50

Basic White A4 Cardstock

[159228]

$20.50

Flirty Flamingo Classic Stampin' Pad

[147052]

$15.75

Pool Party Classic Stampin' Pad

[147107]

$15.75

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

[132708]

$12.00

Flirty Flamingo Stampin' Blends Combo Pack

[154884]

$19.00

Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends Combo Pack

[154885]

$19.00

Blending Brushes

[153611]

$25.25

Rhinestone Basic Jewels

[144220]

$10.50

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

$7.25

Tuesday, 5 May 2020

Beautiful Bouquet for RR134

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, autumn is in full swing. The big oak at the bottom of the neighbour's garden has lost almost all its leaves. It's still a pleasure to see this week's theme challenge at Retro Rubber - Spring Flowers. Flowers are always a pleasure.

With Demonstrator pre-order opening today for the next Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue there's a real temptation be so excited about what is coming that we forget about those old favourites that will be retiring. The retiring list has been out for a week or two now and one of the things I'm sorriest to see going is Beautiful Bouquet. I'm glad that this challenge has been a chance to say a fond farewell to it, and its coordinating dies, Bouquet Bunch. These first appeared in the 2017-18 Annual Catalogue and are still available until 3 June - or while stocks last - so if they've been on your wish list, make sure you order them today.

The reason I love this set so much is that the number of leaves and blooms on offer means that there are literally hundreds of options. In fact, I've rarely used these tulips before. I inked them in Flirty Flamingo and gave them a slight daub with Melon Mambo.

The little gypsophila-like flowers are die cut in Blushing Bride and sponged with Melon Mambo. The stems are Pear Pizzazz and the extra foliage is cut in Soft Sea Foam and daubed with Pear Pizzazz.

I added in some gold metallic pearls to pick up the gold embossing in the sentiment. The lovely Stitched Lace cover plate is carrying over. I used the new Ornate Borders dies to enhance the sentiment strip. These are available as part of a pre-release from the June Catalogue.

We'd love to see your take on Spring Flowers. The rules, as always, are simple: use at least one stamp a year or more old AND give us an approximate age of your retro stamp. Visit the Retro Rubber Challenge page to see what the rest of the team have done and to add in your entry.

I took some inspiration for this card from the sketch at Inspire. Create. Challenge. You can still play along with their fabulous sketch until 10 May 2020.