An Old Favourite for AYSI 336

 I found this week's challenge at As You See It  a real challenge as I just couldn't find anything on my current shelves that contained either acorns or seeds. Minor panic stations for a while there until I went to my retired shelves.

I have a curated collection of special stamps that I keep, mainly made up of stamp sets that either are one-of-a-kind images or sets so beautiful I  just don't want to part with them. The long retired Dandelion Wishes fell into the latter category. Getting it out again to play with new things was a real pleasure.

I started by stamping the trio of dandelion seed heads in Petunia Pop, then added in some stamped seeds-in-the -wind.  I sponged some Petunia Pop over the seed heads and seeds lightly, and more heavily in the seed head centres. I cut the image out with one of the dies from Spotlight on Nature.  I cut a second circle, with a different die, from Petunia Pop. I off-set layered them and mounted them to one side of the card front which had been embossed with the Dotted Circle 3D Embossing Folder. After trimming off the excess, I mounted the front onto the Petunia Pop card base.

Having decided that there was an air of celebration in this design, I splattered some Wink of Stella over the seed heads before attaching it to the card front. I like the little hints of shine it gives.

The sentiment is from the Something Fancy stamp set and is cut using one of the Something Fancy dies. I raided my dwindling stash of Silver Glimmer paper to cut a shadow shape for under the sentiment. At the last minute, I added in a twist of Silver & White Sheer ribbon under the sentiment. The final step was the addition of three Petunia Pop Shimmer Gems. 

The team and I would love to see what you do with this acorn and seed theme. 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 November 20, 11.59pm PST.

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.

Modern Heart for CASology 360 Guest Design

Just before Christmas, I was delighted to be chosen as the winner at CASology with this card, using Friend Like You. As an added bonus, I was asked to be guest designer this week!

 The cue card this week is CRYSTAL, which I'll admit did throw me a little!

So after dismissing crystal glasses, I got to thinking about the crystalline structure of this heart stamp from Modern Heart and decided to use that.

After dripping some diluted ink into the wet, embossed outline and letting it dry, I added some Wink of Stella for a bit more crystalline shine. Finally, I added a couple of rhinestone crystals to emphasise the sentiment. 

I liked the idea so tried it out with a blue variation. This one is coloured with a mix of different blue Stampin' Blends. The rhinestones have been coloured with a Dark Night of Navy Stampin' Blend. It was hard to choose between them. Do you have a favourite?

I'll be really interested to see how other people have interpreted the cue word, CRYSTAL and look forward to seeing the entries. 

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

Modern Heart Cling Stamp Set

[149328]

$48.00

Rich Razzleberry A4 Card Stock

[119981]

$18.50

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

$20.50

Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper

[149612]

$19.00

Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Pad

[147091]

$15.75

Versamark Pad

[102283]

$20.00

White Stampin' Emboss Powder

[109132]

$12.50

Aqua Painters

[103954]

$24.00

Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Ink Refill

[115664]

$7.75

Stamping Sponges

[141337]

$8.50

Rhinestone Basic Jewels

[144220]

$10.50

A Bright Petal Palette

I had to be quick in my craft room today. We're in the midst of a summer heat wave so I have to craft before the heat is unbearable and I'm driven to get in the pool instead!

Inspiration came from two sources today. The sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and the bright colour challenge at Inspire. Create.

I've been spending a lot of time with items from the new Occasions catalogue lately so today, I went for my favourite set from the Annual Catalogue instead, Petal Palette. For some reason, I usually reach for soft colours when using this set. Perhaps it's the romantic, vintage feel of it, Today, I thought I'd try it out with something brighter.

Using Stampin' Blends to colour the images was fun and it was so very easy to get the roses in a mix of Lovely Lipstick and Calypso Coral. Just to give the two sprays some differentiation, the centre rose at the top is popped up. Call Me Clover made really punchy leaves while the Pineapple Punch was a great accent for the flower centres and, mixed with some Calypso Coral, buds. Night of Navy acted as a perfect neutral for the bright floral bunches. So perhaps I won't reach for the pastel shades quite so quickly in future for this set!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking any of the products pictured below or the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar of this blog or you can message me.

Product List

Petal Palette Clear-Mount Stamp Set

[145788]

$74.00

Petals & More Thinlits Dies

[145655]

$71.00

Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock

[106577]

$17.75

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

$20.50

Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad

[147110]

$15.75

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

[132708]

$12.00

Lovely Lipstick Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack

[147281]

$19.00

Calypso Coral Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack

[144045]

$19.00

Call Me Clover Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack

[147282]

$19.00

Pineapple Punch Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack

[147280]

$19.00

The Paper Players 379 - Design Team Card

I loved Nance's sketch from last week and from the calibre of the entries we got at The Paper Players, you did too! I hope you enjoy this week's theme challenge from Claire just as much.

Valentine's Day isn't such a big thing in New Zealand, although more of a thing that when I was a teenager. I feel like I'm making New Zealand sound like some sort of joyless society, since I've previously said we'd don't do Halloween either. Rest assured, that's not true - we celebrate a lot of things with a lot of pleasure! Love is one of them so although my card could be for Valentine's Day, it would work for any romantic occasion.

Pink and gold seem very romantic to me and it's hard to go past the glorious floral design in Fresh Florals for a bit more of a romantic vibe. In fact, for this card I let the paper and the large letters do all the work and resisted adding anything else.

I cut three layers of Powder Pink card and stacked it to give the sentiment some depth. I had originally intended to leave the letters plain but I'd seen this picture at Inspired By... Challenge and the texture of the gold chain made me think about adding some texture to the gold letters.

So, I will link up to their challenge too.  

We'd love to have you join us at The Paper Players this week. Here's a reminder of the rules of the challenge.

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. Entries linked to more than 4 challenges, including ours, will be deleted without notification.
5. Have fun!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Sale-a-bration is on and there's a new Special Occasion Catalogue out. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand.

Ingredients

Card: Powder Pink, Gold Foil, Fresh Florals DSP, Whisper White.

Stamps: Sunshine Sayings

Inks: Early Espresso

Other: Large Letter framelits, Garden Trellis embossing folder, dimensionals

Retro Rubber - Design Team Card

Romance is in the air at Retro Rubber Challenge this week, or at least it was for me. It's always good to have an engagement/wedding/anniversary card in the stash. This week's challenge will let you do that AND give some love to some of your old stamps.

At Retro Rubber Challenge, the rules are simple: Use a stamp that's at least a year old, tell us the approximate age of it (or them) and don't link up to more than ten challenges in total.

Use this lovely graphic to inspire you: colours, theme, patterns, shapes.... whatever you see in it that gets you wanting to create.

This card uses two older stamps. Firstly, the Brushstrokes background stamp (2015-16 Annual Catalogue) and then the very versatile Sunshine Sayings (2016-17 Annual Catalogue). Both stamp sets, along with the gorgeous Sunshine Wishes thinlits, are still current.

I chose one of the latest in-colours, Powder Pink, along with gold for this card since the inspiration photo was so pink and gold. I chose Very Vanilla as the base.

The 'love' is stacked to give it dimension and I've sponged it at the top with Powder Pink and moved through to Flirty Flamingo at the bottom. Black was too harsh for these colours, so I've used Early Espresso for the rest of the sentiment.

You have the next fortnight to join in with us at Retro Rubber Challenge and we'd love to see what you do with this gorgeous inspiration. Pop over to the site and see what the rest of the Design Team have done with it.

I am also going to enter this card into two other challenges.

Stamp, Ink, Paper 135

You can join Stamp, Ink, Paper up until 4 February

and

SU Only Challenge 193

Hearts Aplenty

You can join this challenge up until February 10

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. If you would like a copy of the new Special Occasions Catalogue or the Sale-a-bration brochure and don't have a demonstrator, then contact me. You can message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up

Card: Powder Pink, Very Vanilla, Gold Foil

Stamps: Brushstrokes background stamp, Sunshine Sayings

Ink: Powder Pink, Early Espresso, Flirty Flamingo

Other: Sunshine Wishes framelits, dimensionals, sponges.