Thinking Stamping: Beach theme

Showing posts with label Beach theme. Show all posts

Sunday, 3 August 2025

Notes & Totes for Paper Players 749

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players! I had a great time last week, checking out the gallery to see what everyone made of my sketch challenge. I loved the entries and choosing a Headliner was tricky. Thank you for making the sketch shine!

Stef is our hostess this week and she has a theme challenge: By the Water. It's a great theme as you can be by the water in so many different ways.

My favourite 'by the water' is the beach, so the Notes & Totes bundle was a natural starting point. Some of my favourite parts of this bundle are the dies for the seashell and the starfish. I cut them from Crumb Cake, Lemon Lolly and Coastal Cabana before creating them a little beach to rest on.

I put down a piece of masking paper and sponged some Coastal Cabana ink about it, using a blending brush. After removing the paper, I stamped in some dots in Crumb Cake to suggest the sand, then added my shell and starfish. I gave the starfish a coating of Wink of Stella so they could twinkle a little. 😀

I cut the panel using the largest of the Textured Notes dies and added the sentiment in Crumb Cake. The finishing touch was to add three Holographic Dots. I liked them for the job as they suggested water drops to me, and who doesn't like a bit of splash?!

What's your favourite 'by the water' place or activity? 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)

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.

Sunday, 13 April 2025

Notes and Totes for Paper Players 733

Thank you to everyone who played along last week for my travel theme challenge at The Paper Players. I enjoyed visiting every entry in the gallery before deciding on a Headliner.

This week, our hostess is Stef and she has a colour challenge for us.

My first job was to decide which colours I'd use from my Stampin' Up! stable. Since I was feeling in a pastel kind of mood, I went for:

Purple = Fresh Freesia

Yellow = Lemon Lolly

Aqua = Pool Party

Green = Soft Sea Foam

My second job was to decide what set I'd use. Since I'm still enjoying exploring with pre-order items and I'm still kind of in beach mode from my Australia trip, I opted for the Notes & Totes bundle (available from 6 May).

My third job: actually make something! Here's how that turned out....

I enjoyed playing around with some of the various die pieces to make a beach bag. Although the dies can be used to make a 3D beach bag to hold things, it works well like this to create a bag that can be filled with beach goodies. I cut one of the bag pieces in Fresh Freesia and stamped it with the little flower stamps in the same colour, and then cut some straps in Fresh Freesia. I attached that to the background. This piece was embossed with the Timber 3D folder then sponged with Pool Party ink.

Then I made a newspaper, a drink bottle, some sunscreen and a pair of sunglasses using the other three colours. I really love the seashell and starfish too.

The sentiment is a portion of the 'Sending warm wishes' stamp. I used one of the dies from Textured Notes to cut out the words.

There was real pleasure in arranging all the elements. The final touch was to add three Pool Party dots from the Glossy Dots Assortment. If you don't have any of them, get some from the Last Chance Products list before they're gone. 😀

The Notes & Totes bundle will be available from 6 May.

We'd all love to see what you do with Stef's pretty colours. 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, 6 April 2025

Notes & Totes for Paper Players 732

Thanks to everyone who played along with LeAnne's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge last week. It's alway's great to see the variety of projects inspired by the same starting point.

At The Paper Players, it's theme week. I'm the hostess this week and my choice was TRAVEL. Maybe it's the destination, maybe it's the joy of the journey, maybe it's the style of transport you used to get there. Whatever take you have on travel, we'd love to see it at The Paper Players this week.

When I chose this theme, I didn't realise how timely it would be for me, since I'm just back from Stampin' Up's On Stage event in Australia. My husband and I followed that up with a week at the beach before we came home. So, some real life travel in the last month. It seemed a great chance to both do some memory keeping and to try out another of the pre-orders I picked up from being at On Stage.

Disclaimer: Before I go further, I must make it clear that my husband does not really have a sea-shell face! Because he's a little social media shy, I just covered him up a little. 😁

Taking pride of place in one photo is my Stampin' Up! On Stage conference bag. It has a great insert for transporting all your crafting goodies and the insert lifts out so you can easily get your things. Take it out ahead of time and you have the perfect beach bag!

It was the bag that got me thinking about using another pre-order item Notes & Totes. This is a great bundle that offers things for cardmakers, scrapbookers and 3D item makers. It makes up a perfect little tote bag that can be used for gifting and it can be made to look just like the conference bag. This was my original plan but it was just too big for the layout I had in mind.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other bits in the set to use. Both stamps and dies got use!

The sea splashes, the 'relax & enjoy' and the tiny sun are all from Notes & Totes, as is the hibiscus flower on the suntan lotion bottle and the tiny flowers on the Blueberry Bushel photo mat.

I used Textured Notes dies to frame the smaller photo.

The tiny tags, the starfish and seashells and suntan lotion tube are all from the Notes & Totes dies as are the heart shaped sun-glasses at the top of the larger photo.

To make the title, I also used the Notes & Totes dies - this time, the fence post dies. I cut each picket in two to make a shorter fence for the letters to sit on. The letters were cut with the Mini Alphabet dies and I sponged the bottom half of each letter with Azure Afternoon so it looked like the ocean.

Notes & Totes will be available for ordering when the 2025-2026 Annual Catalogue goes live on 6 May.

We'd all love to see what you do with my travel theme. 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.

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Seaside Wishes for Around the World on Wednesday February

Welcome to the second hop of the new year at Around the World on Wednesday!

On the second Wednesday of each month, the team put together a thematic hop to give you some inspiration for your own crafting. We love it when you try out something new or CAS(E) one of our projects. The team is truly international, with members from each time zone of the world that Stampin' Up! operates. You're with me, in New Zealand - the first place in the Stampin' Up! world to change the date. 😀

Our task this month is to interpret this sketch. I do love a sketch challenge - and I also love seeing all the different ways the same sketch turns out in the hands of different creators.

Perhaps it was the prospect of an upcoming beach holiday, but I've been playing with the Seaside Wishes bundle a bit lately. It seemed a perfect choice for this sketch.

I started with a Misty Moonlight card base. The Basic White card front was embossed with the Seaside Wishes hybrid embossing folder, but used as a straight embossing folder. I stamped a the bubble/sand stamp in Pool Party around the centre section.

For the circular element of the sketch, I embossed and cut one of the large sand dollars using the hybrid embossing folder (which lets you cut and emboss at the same time) from Crumb Cake. I sponged around the edges to highlight the texture and too make the shape appear more three-dimensional.

I built up a cluster of sea life by die-cutting the skeleton shell shape in two sizes. The largest is in Misty Moonlight, while the smaller is cut in white and has Misty Moonlight ink added to it. Then I stamped a large and small starfish on Petal Pink, in Petal Pink and die cut them.

To finish the cluster, I added a Linen Thread bow in the position suggested in the sketch.

For the horizontal elements of the sketch, I cut three narrow strips of DSP from the Country Woods collection.

The sentiment, stamped in Misty Moonlight, is from Country Birdhouse.

I added in three blue tinsel gems to finish off.

Keep on hopping to see what the rest of the team have done with this great little sketch. Next up is the wonderful Leonie Stuart from Australia. I'm sure she has a treat to share with us!

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

In case you get lost, or want to revisit a page, here is the blog roll for this hop.

Jan Clothier - NZ - You are here

Leonie Stuart - AU

Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU

Danielle Kassing - NL

Seaside Wishes for Colour INKspiration 181

Welcome to the 181st challenge at Colour INKspiration. It's the second challenge of 2025 and will run for two weeks until Monday 24 February.

Today's colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member Lou Kitzelman. Isn't it beautiful? So summery!

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.

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

Since I'm currently on a beach holiday with the family, a set like Seaside Wishes was easy to reach for. I love both the stamped images and the die cuts. The hybrid embossing folder is part of the bundle, but I've not used it in this project.

I also turned to a favourite technique, faux torn paper: any excuse to play around with ink blending!

After creating my torn paper masks and attaching them to the Basic White card front, I sponged on Pool Party, Coastal Cabana and Azure Afternoon, using a blending brush and working out from the centre to each edge from lightest to darkest. Blending brushes make it easy to get smooth transitions of colour.

Then, without removing the masks, I stamped in large starfish using Azure afternoon, small starfish using Summer Splash and bubbles with Coastal Cabana.

The white lacy die cut was sponged with Azure Afternoon. The small die cut starfish is Summer Splash on Summer Splash. I added three Summer Splash shimmer gems and stamped the sentiment in Azure Afternoon.

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.

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

Friday, 24 January 2025

Seaside Wishes for As You See It 340 and Atlantic Hearts 613

At As You See It, we had some very pretty and clever entries for our last colour challenge. As always, after a colour challenge comes a 'fill in the blank' challenge. This one asks us to consider our crafting resolution.

When I first started making cards, I was delighted to discover the world of the on-line card challenges. I had notebook where I wrote down my favourite challenges and when they came out. Each Saturday, I'd shut myself in my craft room and while away some time making entries for the ones I was most inspired by each week.

Somewhere in the journey, much of my time now goes into designing and prepping classes and designing projects for the various challenges I'm now on the Design Teams for. While the teams and classes are a new way of enjoying card making, entering a challenge 'just for fun' is somehow quite a different feeling.

So my resolution is to do more 'just for no-reason' creating by entering a few more challenges as a player.

As part of this resolution, I've not only made a 'just for no-reason' card but joined in at a challenge I've never played with before. The Atlantic Hearts Challenge is one I've seen played by a few players through other challenges, so I looked it up to see what was on offer this week. Isn't it a fun sketch?

As we're off for a family beach holiday soon, I was thinking of the beach. Here's my version of it, using the Seaside Wishes bundle - which includes a hybrid embossing folder. It makes realistic little sand dollars. While I love the sand dollars, I'm also very fond of the starfish and the lacy coral too. I made a little cluster of sea life for the main element of the sketch.

I used a strip of the Country Woods DSP for the horizontal line. The weather colours work well for a marine theme. I've used Crumb Cake, Pool Party, Petal Pink and Misty Moonlight for the sea life since those colours were in the DSP. After adding it to the card front, I embossed with the Seaside Wishes hybrid embossing folder.

The card base is Pool Party and I've added in some splashes of water in the same colour, around the focal point cluster.

The sentiment is from Country Birdhouse, cut with the Stylish Shapes dies. The embellishments are Tinsel Gems.

Update: Delighted to be in the Top 3 Picks at Atlantic Hearts Challenge.

The team and I would love to see what your crafting resolution for the year is. 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 February 5, 11.59pm PST.

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

Friday, 29 November 2024

Sea Turtle for CAS Colours & Sketches 549

One of my favourite challenges, even though I don't often get time to play, is CAS Colour & Sketches.

I like the alternating of sketch and colour challenges and the variety of challenges the designers offer up.

Here's my take on it, using a favourite set of mine, Sea Turtle.

I blended a strip of Balmy Blue ink with a blending brush, then stamped some bubbles on it with Balmy Blue and Azure Afternoon. Then a school of Melon Mambo fish swam along.

The Blueberry Bushel small turtle and sand dollar, and the Melon Mambo starfish, were stamped and popped up on dimensionals. I added the sentiment in Blueberry Bushel ink from Simply Said.

It wasn't until I came to blog this card that I realised I'd jotted down the sketch very loosely and perhaps haven't given the sentiment the prominence it should have. But this card was definitely inspired by the sketch so I've shared it anyway! 😀

Update: Delighted to be a Fabulous Favourite at CAS Colour & Sketches.

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

Sunday, 8 September 2024

Sea Turtle for The Paper Players 706

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players! Elizabeth has fun, bright colour challenge for us this week.

With those bright colours, part of me wanted to go down the whole primary school road with maybe some numbers and some alphabets. However, that's not what happened once I sat down to craft.

Instead, I found myself with Sea Turtle in my hands.

The turtle is inked in Night of Navy, with some sponging around the edges which I applied with a blending brush. I used Boho Blue to stamp the water and for the card front because I wanted some contrast.

The square of DSP is from the Mediterranean Blooms pack. The starfish are stamped in Daffodil Delight. The fish and sea urchin are stamped in Real Red.

The sentiment is from Garden Meadow and cut with one of the dies from Something Fancy.

We look forward to seeing what you do with these colours. 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