Fern & Flora for Freshly Made Sketches 738

 There's a delightful sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches that I had a play with today. 

I started with the line stencil from the new Water and Dotted Lines Decorative Masks to add in an area of the dotted lines using Shaded Spruce and a blending brush. 

Then I sponged some Hydrangea Hue over the centre of the stencilled area to create a pool of colour.

I stamped the sentiment, from the Friendly Foliage set, directly onto the card front. 

I cut a small fern from Basic White and attached it to the front of card. As tempted as I was to add some embellishments, it just seemed unnecessary.

So, a simple and clean sympathy card, easily done. 

Update: Delighted to be a Perfect Princess at Freshly Made Sketches.

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.

Friendly Foliage for As You See It 367

Well, you either love it or hate it but it's SPEED CHALLENGE this week at As You See It. Every sixth challenge is one of these and if you've never played one before, they're interesting. All you have to do is create a project that uses the theme and complete it in UNDER TEN MINUTES. This time, the theme is PURPLE.

You'll be pleased to hear that set up and clean up are not included in your ten minutes. The rules are simple. There are things you can do before the clock starts:

• You can plan out what you're going to  make
• You can get out your equipment and have it set up to go. For instance you can get out your stamp set and block the stamps you intend to use. Your inkpads can be on the table as can things like embossing folders, dies or embellishments.

BUT 

once you cut anything, ink anything or emboss/die cut anything then the timer is on. 

I had my babywipes and ink bottles to hand and  quickly made a temporary ink pad using Gorgeous Grape, Petunia Pop and Fresh Freesia ink. I stamped the image from Friendly Foliage, making sure to be across all the different purples on the baby wipe. 

Then I die cut it out. 

Then I embossed the card front with the Beautiful Patterns folder and adhered it to my Gorgeous Grape card base. Then I centred the die cut foliage and adhered it to the card front. 

Next I stamped a sentiment in Gorgeous Grape, cut it using a banner from Stylish Shapes and popped it up on dimensionals over the foliage die cut.

The finishing touch was the addition of a trio of Purple Gems. 

The Basic White inner got a quick foliage stamp before I attached it to the inside.

With racing heart, I stopped the timer....

Anyone who says stamping isn't an adrenaline sport has obviously never done a speed challenge! What will 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.

Friendly Foliage for Paper Players 763

Hello and welcome to the latest challenge at The Paper Players! LeAnne's Harvest themed challenge last week brought some gorgeous entries into the gallery. I'm hostess this week with a colour challenge for you, and I hope you'll enjoy playing with it. Will you make an autumn card with these rich colours or something else entirely?

 

I'm really enjoying the Friendly Foliage bundle, one of the new Online Exclusives for November. I've done a few things with the framed leaves stamp and die and wanted to concentrate on using the extra leaves in the die set. There are a couple of skeleton leaf type dies in the set. Ever since I saw my team-mate Joanne make a card that inset the dies, I was wanting to have a go at something like it. 

For this inlay die technique you need three things.

1. You have to be slightly mad
2. You need to have some patience
3. You need to own a take-your-pick tool. 

I started by cutting out several of the leaves in all of the challenge colours, making sure to keep all the little bits that fall out of the leaf outline.Then I picked three long pointy skeletons and two of the rounded leaf ones and adhered them to the Basic White card front, evenly spaced out. 

Then came the part where steps 1-3 come in. I had a smear of liquid glue on my silicon mat, picked up random pieces with the sticky end of my take-your-pick tool and inserted it into the corresponding place in the outlines. Carry on like this until all the outlines are filled in.

Once that was done, it was plain sailing. Add the sentiment in Early Espresso. Adhere the panel to a pice of Mossy Meadow DSP. Adhere to an Early Espresso card base. Add embellishments - in this case, three of the green Sparkle Dots.

It really isn't as pernickety as it sounds to do this, especially if you can lift off the skeleton outlines of the leaves and leave the cut out bits still sitting in place on the cutting plate. Then it's easy to see where they fit back in. Anyway, if you give this a go I'd love to see how it turns out for you. 😀

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:

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

Eliz Stewart

Christy Stanford

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

Friendly Foliage for CAS Colours & Sketches 571

I'm supposed to be finishing off prepping for tomorrow's Christmas Stamp-a-Stack class. Instead, I've found myself having a quick play along with the challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I've been a little obsessed with my new Friendly Foliage bundle and wanted to try out some of the dies and single stem stamps, so the autumnal colours of this challenge seemed just the thing. This bundle is part of the November Online Exclusives drop.

I started by stamping some of the longer leaves with a mix of Crushed Curry and Calypso Coral. I stamped the shorter leaves in either Calypso Coral or Timid Tiger. The lacy die cuts are from Crushed Curry. 

I arranged them as a bouquet and attached them to a label cut from Traditional Labels. The card front is embossed with the Beautiful Pattern folder, another of the upcoming Online Exclusives.

The bow is made with the white and gold baker's twine from the Christmas twin pack. A trio of Timid Tiger Flat Pearls finishes things off. 

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

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.

Friendly Foliage for Freshly Made Sketches 709

 

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of playing around with the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

In truth, I was looking for an excuse to play with my latest new toy, the Friendly Foliage bundle which will be released in the November Online Exclusives drop. 

I stamped the foliage image in Strawberry Slush, die cut it and then backed it with Cloud Cover.

I cut two strips of 2025-2027 In Color DSP, one from Strawberry Slush and one from Cloud Cover and arranged them in staggered fashion on the card front. 

The card front was embossed with another product from the November Online Exclusives, the Beautiful Pattern Embossing Folder. Well named, isn't it?

I stamped the sentiment, from Friendly Foliage, using Secret Sea ink to pick up the colour of the card base. To finish, I added a trio of Flat Pearls in Secret Sea. Simple, yet effective I think.

Update: Delighted to be chosen as a Perfect Princess at Freshly Made Sketches. 

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.