Cake Celebrations for Colour INKspiration 180

Happy New Year! Welcome to the 180th challenge at Colour INKspiration. It's the first challenge of 2025 and will run for FIVE weeks until Monday 10 February.

Today's colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member Brenton Golley. 

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 Crumb Cake for Basic Beige. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.

As Basic Beige is a colour I've not yet made friends with, this palette was a bit of a struggle to get into. However, once I decided that Beige was basically cake, it got a lot easier!

Out came the Cake Celebrations from the Online Exclusive section and play commenced. 

I cut the two tiers of cake from Basic Beige and stamped in some texture, then added some Chocolate (aka Pecan Pie) icing. A Petunia Pop cake stand stamped and die cut, as were some flowers and a cake topper and all was nearly done. 😀

I cut hexagon die from Nested Essentials and stamped over it with 'celebrate' in Basic Beige ink as a base for the cake. 

To help ground the cake cluster, I added in a strip of Petunia Pop DSP from the 2024-2026 In Color DSP stack.

The embossing folder is Starstruck, one of the Sale-a-bration items that can be earned with a qualifying purchase during January and February. Sale-a-bration details are here.

Since it didn't quite feel right not to have a 'Happy Birthday' somewhere, I added it to the inside.

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.

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.

 

Creativity Abounds December

 

This month the international team at Creativity Abounds has a great theme for our bundle and hop: Birthday Celebrations. This hop - and the associated tutorial bundle - will give you a lot of examples for birthdays. 

Even if you don't have the exact sets, you'll find inspiration in layouts, folds, colours or techniques.  If you get the tutorial bundle, you'll have step-by-step instructions for thirteen projects, all of which you'll see as you go around the hop.

You can earn the Tutorial Bundle as a free gift from me with a purchase of $100 or more (excluding P&P) or by being a member of my team. You can shop with me, and join my team, from anywhere in New Zealand.

There are two parts to this post: a bonus project and a sneak peek at my tutorial project.

Bonus Project

For my bonus birthday project, I'm sharing a play around with one of the new bundles from the January 2025 Mini Catalogue called Darling Dinos. The three dinosaurs in the set are so cute and come with all sorts of accessories such as balloons, party hats and glasses through to scene building items like rocks and footprints. A real delight to play around with! And of course, among the many sentiments there are some dinosaur puns as well. Darling Dinos will be available in the New Year.

I coloured the images with Stampin' Blends in Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Peach Pie and Pool Party. I used the Perennial Postage dies to cut a panel. The top is sponged in Pool Party to create a sense of sky and then Old Olive at the bottom, over-stamped with the grass stamp.

The background is embossed with the cross-hatch folder from the Basics Embossing Folder set - an online exclusive. A nice easy card that's fun to do!

Tutorial Bundle Project

For my contribution to the tutorial bundle, I used the Online Exclusive bundle, Cake Celebrations.

Here's a peek at the card.

Here's a sneak peek of the whole bundle.

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 here. 

If you don't live in New Zealand, you can get it from any of my team mates in your country. Here they all are.

Our next Virtual Stamp Camp is 22-23 February and features the gorgeous Floral Delight Suite.

You can find out all the details here.

Keep hopping to see the Birthday themed bonus projects and a sneak peek of the Tutorial Bundle Projects.

Cake Celebrations for Paper Players 717

Jaydee's Clean and Simple Christmas Challenge was an absolute winner last week. There were so many wonderful CAS creations in the gallery, I was glad not to have to be choosing the Cut Above! I'm sure that Stef's lovely sketch will be just as popular.

It's funny how a creation can evolve. I'm usually quite well planned and know pretty much how something is going to turn out before I sit down to start making. But every now and again, the project just develops a mind of it's own. Certainly, it was the case with this card. It ended up a long way from where I expected it to - but I like it anyway!

Perhaps my mistake was in starting with a piece of DSP. The Unbounded Beauty DSP collection was looking at me, begging to be used, so I used that for my diagonal element. I also die cut a 'cake' from it.

  

The DSP then made all the colour decisions for me: a Berry Burst card base and icing, a Pretty in Pink mat, a Pretty Peacock cake stand and some touches of Shy Shamrock and Peach Pie.

I enjoyed using the Cake Celebration bundle to make the cake and to stamp the sentiment. This bundle can be found in the Online Exclusives but not in any paper catalogue.

I used the Deckled Rectangles to cut the centre panels and the Cute Crochet embossing folder over the card front. I like the subtle textures of this folder. The finishing touch was the addition of a trio of Peach Pie shimmer gems.

We'd all love to see your take on Stef's sketch. 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:

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

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

Jolanda Johnstone

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 here.

Cake Celebrations for Paper Players 713

Time for a new challenge at The Paper Players! This time our hostess is Ann and she has a sketch challenge for us. 

Sketch challenges are my favourites. This time, I used it unashamedly to try out a new set that arrived during the week. The Cake Celebrations bundle is one of the new online exclusive products that will be generally available on November 5.

The set is one of those that has lots of bits that can be arranged in any combination that you like. This is enhanced further by the extras in the die set. I really like that the candle and the flames are separate stamps so that you can have any coloured candles. 

The most impressive thing was the beautiful way the cake stand stamped, so that it looks three dimensional.

The card base is Pretty in Pink, chosen to match the very pretty DSP from the Unbounded Beauty collection. I chose the Eyelet 3D embossing folder for the feminine vibe. 

The cake is stamped in Lemon Lolly and Daffodil Delight, the cake stand and flower centres in Early Espresso, the flowers in Pretty in Pink, the leaves in Granny Apple Green and the candles in Flirty Flamingo. It's all assembled on a circle from Stylish Shapes.

The sentiment is also from Cake Celebrations. The words are also mix and match, so I went for a 'Happy' and a 'Birthday' in Early Espresso. The label is from Unbounded Love dies set.

As you see, I went for a very simple fancy fold. I cut 3 cm (about 1 1/4") from the front and added the DSP to the inside panel of the card.

We'd all love to see what you do with Ann's sketch. 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:

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

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

Jolanda Johnstone

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 here.