Flowers Fair for Paper Players 785

 JayDee's Feminine theme challenge at The Paper Players last week was really popular and the gallery was full of wonderful cards. Thank you to everyone who entered. 

This week, Claire has a bright colour challenge for us. 

I had a bit of a struggle with this challenge as usually, the colours kind of speak to me and let me know what they want to be. As pretty as these colours are, they weren't speaking to me this week! 😁😁😁

So I went for a floral approach and got out Flowers Fair. After stamping in Tuxedo Black, I went to colour them and discovered (remembered) that there are no Stampin' Blends for Gorgeous Grape or Coastal Cabana. But no problem because both colours (and Granny Apple Green) are all available in Coloured Pencils. It's been a while since I used my coloured pencils and it was very relaxing. 

I decided it needed a bit of a pep up so I used one of the newly arrived Water and Dotted Line Decorative Masks to stencil in a watery sky with Coastal Cabana ink and a Blending Brush.

Then I trimmed the panel down using the largest of the Perennial Postage dies and matted it onto Coastal Cabana.

I'd stamped the sentiment, from Rolling Waves, in Gorgeous Grape, then cut it with a banner from Stylish Shapes. It was looking a bit lost amongst the profusion of flowers, so I added some horizontals of Linen Thread and a bow to anchor it more.

To finish off, I added a trio of Purple Shimmer Gems. 

The team and I would love to see what you do with Claire's vibrant colours. Visit The Paper Players to see what the rest of the team have done and to link up your entry. 

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 (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.

Flowering Fair for As You See It 371

 This week at As You See It, it's recipe week. All you have to do is use the 5 ingredients in the recipe below, add bits from your own pantry and see what you come up with!

So here's my check list.

• One Word Sentiment - 'Hello' from Beautiful Motifs.
• Die Cut - Frame from Gallery Blooms dies
• Frame - cut from Gallery Blooms dies
• Flowers - Flowers Fair stamp
• Shades of Pink - Melon Mambo card base, Flowers coloured in Melon Mambo and Flirty Flamingo and embellishments in Pretty in Pink and Strawberry Slush.

I am a little obsessed with the Flowers Fair background stamp, ever since team-mate Joanne James enabled me into buying it. 😀

Hence, it's come out to play again today! I stamped it in Tuxedo Black then coloured the centre portion only with Stampin' Blends: Melon Mambo, Flirty Flamingo, and Granny Apple Green.

After stamping the sentiment, I simply adhered the frame to a central position, making sure that all exposed flowers were coloured. I did consider popping it up on dimensionals and kind of wish I had now. Next time!

To finish off, I added the pink gems to the flower centres and around the sentiment. A nice easy card to do and one that could be done in any colour palette and with almost any linear sentiment. 

So what will you cook up with these five key ingredients? We'd love to see what you do.

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.

Flowers Fair for AYSI

It's time for a fill in the blank challenge at As You See It. This is the challenge where we ask you to complete a sentence then show it to us in craft. 

I did have to wonder to begin with whether or not it was Christmas cards I sent the most of. It certainly is the most I send in one hit - I feel as though I need to remortgage the house when I go post my overseas cards! Birthday would surely be the next largest in number for me. 

My design team card for the last challenge was inspired by (enabled by) Joanne James and it's true again this week. After the things she'd made with Flowers Fair made me buy it myself, I set about emulating a card that she had made for Colour INKspiration, where I also design. 

Her lovely card made me realise that it had been many years since I'd attempted colouring on dark card, so there was something of a re-learning process involved in getting here.😀

I started by white embossing the image onto Basic Gray card. Then I painted the interior of the flowers and leaves with diluted Basic White ink with a water painter.

Once the white ink was dry - and it takes a little while - I painted over the white with the colours I wanted: Melon Mambo, Flirty Flamingo, Daffodil Delight and Granny Apple Green. I used re-inkers and a water painter for this. Because I diluted the white ink, rather than using it at full strength, the final painted effect is translucent. 

I mounted the panel on a piece of Melon Mambo, then onto a Basic Gray card base. The sentiment is from Rolling Waves, stamped in Basic Gray and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes with one end trimmed. The sentiment is popped up on dimensionals. The Melon Mambo embellishments are from the retired Glossy Enamel Dots assortment.

Thank you, Joanne for the impetus to get this gorgeous background stamp. 😀

So what kind of card do you mail the most, after Christmas cards?

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.

Flowers Fair for Paper Players 779

Ann is our hostess this week. As this month has a fifth Sunday, that's our excuse at The Paper Players to have a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge. 

I hope you'll have as much fun with it as everyone seemed to have with Claire's sketch last week - it certainly brought fabulous entries into the gallery!

I like a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge as there are guidelines but also lots of leeway. I started by choosing the centre column, mainly because I wanted to play with a new stamp that arrived yesterday: Flowers Fair. I'm kind of kicking myself that I haven't had it longer as it was part of the March Online Exclusive drop. I foolishly thought I didn't need it - at least, not until I saw what my friend Joanne James had been doing with it!

Anyway, this is my second attempt with this set. It also dawned on me that the 2024-2026 In-Colors would be retiring soon and I haven't used them anywhere near often enough. I'm really going to miss Pretty In Pink, as that's been my go-to pink for nearly two years now. And Petunia Pop - what a colour! And those bright summer greens, Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash.... how will we do without them? 

Here's the run down on the card. I started by stamping Flowers Fair in Tuxedo Black on Basic White card stock. I started with a standard card front, 10cm x 14cm. Then I went to work, whiling away a half hour doing some very therapeutic colouring with my Stampin' Blends: Petunia Pop and Pretty in Pink for the petals, Shy Shamrock for the foliage, Peach Pie for the centres and some light Gray Granite for the shadowing. The addition of some simple shadowing really gives the flowers a lift off the page: little effort, big result. 😀

Once the colouring was done, I carefully ripped the bottom 2-3cm off, making sure to get a reasonably jagged line. I kept the smaller piece to use for the inside. I attached a piece of Petunia Pop DSP from the In Color DSP stack to the Petunia Pop card base. Then I took my stamped piece and tied some Linen Thread around it, before attaching that piece to the card front.

The sentiment is from Delicate Whispers and is cut with a label die from Nested Essentials. I added a shadow label in Petunia Pop too. Then I added a trio of In Color flat pearls to finish off.

What will you do with this Tic-Tac-Toe? The team and I would love to see!

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 (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.

Flowers Fair for AYSI 369

 It's colour week at As You See It this week and LeAnne has chosen this gorgeous combination of colours for us to work with. Isn't it wonderful?

Full confession - today's card is entirely the fault of my team mate, Joanne. I'd been ignoring the siren call of the Flowers Fair background stamp from the March Online Exclusive drop. But she didn't... and then she started posting wonderful cards made with it. Nek minnit, it had fallen into my cart and arrived at my house yesterday.

This is the first thing I've made with it, so it's a fairly straightforward use of the stamp. 

I stamped it in Tuxedo Black, then coloured the flowers and leaves with Stampin' Blends: Pretty in Pink for the petals, Soft Sea Foam for the leaves and Pool Party for the flowers centres and to create shadows under and around the images. I like the way the shadowing gives a subtle 3D effect, making it seem at first glance that the images are lifted off the page.  Using a blending brush, I sponged some Pool Party ink at the bottom of the page to define the edge and to let the Pool Party bleed up the image.

Once I'd had my fun colouring in the stamp, serious thinking had to happen. It looked as though it would be a good birthday card, so I had to have a rummage through my sets to find a sentiment that would fit a circle. Why a circle? It just seemed right. I lit upon a sentiment from Simply Said, which I've used a lot recently.  

The sentiment caused me quite a problem. If you look in my bits box, you'll find one stamped black on white and one white-embossed onto Pool Party. If you look in my bin, you'll find one stamped black on Pool Party with a rounded rectangle die from Nested Essentials (just proving to myself that it had to be a circle) and a white embossed one on black using a circle from Spotlight on Nature. Honestly, it took me as long as the colouring! For the record, this one is white embossed on black and cut using Stylish Shapes.

After (even more) deliberating, I went with Black Baker's Twine from the Essentials Pack to tie in with the stamp outline. I added in a Pool Party shadow circle to peep out and break the black and finally a trio of Pretty in Pink gems. 

I look forward to more experiments with Flowers Fair!

What will you do with these soft, pretty colours?

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.