Help Me Grow for The Paper Players 784

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. I loved Stef's sketch challenge last week  and judging from the wonderful entries in the gallery, so did you! JayDee is our hostess this week and she has an interesting theme challenge for us - Feminine. Isn't it interesting that so many of us struggle with the idea of producing a 'masculine' card that we give so little thought to what makes a feminine card?

I often think when I finish a card that I'd either give it to a man or a woman - or that it's really only for a woman but without actually setting out to make a feminine card. So this challenge really made me think about what it is in a card that makes it specifically feminine. 

A few things came up. Subject matter - well, flowers usually feel more feminine. Colours - soft colours especially pinks. Texture - lace and curvy patterns. Sometimes technique - watercolouring often softens colours and feel in a design. So those are the things I went with for today's card.

I'm still having my little love affair with the Help Me Grow bundle, so that's where I turned today. 

I cut one pot and saucer from Barely Blush and one from Crumb Cake. I sponged them with ink and added in a tone-on-tone splatter stamp to give the pots some dimension. 

All of the leaves and flowers were cut from Basic White (although I wish I'd used Fluid 100 Watercolor paper) then watercoloured them with  Old Olive, Granny Apple Green, Barely Blush and Flirty Flamingo inks and a water painter. 

To add some lacy (therefore feminine) texture, I used the Eyelet Blooms die, which is the April Product of the Month. Products of the month can be purchased for $11 with a qualifying order of $150 or more in the given month. Past products of the month can also be purchased, if they have not yet sold out. 

The sentiment, from the retiring Sweet Jar set, is stamped in Crumb Cake and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes. The trio of embellishments are Barely Blush dots.

The team and I would love to see your version of feminine. 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.

 

Help Me Grow for Around the World on Wednesday

 

Welcome to the latest hop for Around the World on Wednesday. I hope you're all feeling ready to create!

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. 😀

This month, our team leader Angie gave us this sketch to play with. 

I do love a sketch challenge and I have just received the Help Me Grow bundle from the March Online Exclusive drop so was up for experimenting with that. 

I used a base of Early Espresso and added a woody piece of DSP from Country Woods - what a great DSP collection that is!

After working out the sizings for the Basic White blocks, I embossed them with the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder, to keep in with the garden theme. Then I spaced them out as shown in the sketch. Initially it threw me that the gaps between blocks in the sketch is not even - some gaps are wider than others. Probably that was the most difficult thing about this card for me! 😀

I enjoyed using the dies from the Help Me Grow bundle to create the focal point. I cut a rectangle using a die from Textured Notes. To ground the pot, I sponged some Daffodil Delight ink, with a blending brush, over the rectangle. I used one of the stamps to stamp in the illusion of ground with Early Espresso ink.

I cut a pot and saucer from Crumb Cake, then inked in some shading with Pecan Pie. I cut foliage and tiny flowers (thankfully, they cut in bunches) from Basic White. I cut one set of the tiny flowers with the Basic White backed with Foam Adhesive to get more depth. The foliage was brushed with Granny Apple Green and the flowers with Pretty in Pink. I like that by inking, you get pleasing variations in colour.  I had fun assembling the floral pot before adhering it to the rectangle. 

The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso on Basic White and the back of the label die cut from a scrap of DSP that matched the card front. 

To finish off, I added a trio of Pretty in Pink gems.

Next up on the hop is the wonderful Leonie Stuart, who is sure to have another gorgeous take on the sketch for you.

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.

Here's a blog roll in case you get lost, or want to revisit someone.

Jan Clothier - NZ

Leonie Stuart - AU

Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU

Cheryll Miller - AU

Marga Bultena - DE

Aurélie Fabre - FR

Kelly Taranto - US

Lori Willcox - CA

Help Me Grow for FMS 730

Well, Easter Sunday lunch for the big family is done. The dishes are done. Everyone's gone home. So I made my way to the craft room to play around with this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. Well earned recuperation!

Having recently acquired the Help Me Grow bundle (online exclusive) I'm still in play mode and had yet to do anything with the garden tools stamps and dies. This card is an attempt to remedy that. 😀

I've partially embossed the card front with the Lazy Daisy embossing folder (online exclusive) because it's not only an awesome folder but it fitted the garden theme well too. 

I used the ever-faithful Stylish Shapes dies to create the frames. The foliage - and isn't that a gorgeous piece of foliage - is cut from Soft Sea Foam. The tools have Smoky Slate business ends and Bubble Bath/ Berry Burst handles. I sponged the edges to create some depth around them. 

I used the veggie-row label die to create the 'thanks' and tucked it in among the garden tools. I finished off with some Sparkle Dots.

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.

 

Help Me Grow for Colour INKspiration 206

Welcome to the 206th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Thanks for all the gorgeous entries for last challenge. We have another pretty combination for you this time around, chosen by Crew Member Vicki Boucher. The rabbits might have you thinking Easter but of course, you can go in whatever direction the colours take you!

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 15 April, 5pm AEST.

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. We welcome Kisha Cook as our Guest Designer for this challenge.

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

To be honest, these colours stumped me to begin with. However, this morning a box of goodies from Stampin' Up! arrived, including the Help Me Grow bundle from the last drop of Online Exclusives, which hadn't made it into my cart until recently. A timely arrival, as I gave it an immediate outing for this challenge. 😀

I used Blending Brushes to  roughly ink up a couple of scraps of Basic White, one in Pumpkin Pie and one in Shaded Spruce. Then I cut some bunches of tiny flowers and a pair of stems. I added adhesive foam to the back of a couple of sets of the flowers to get some height into the mix. 

I cut the pot and saucer from Gray Granite and sponged the edges with ink to help create some shadows. The saucer die cuts a slot for the pot to fit into - very clever thinking by SU! Once the pot and saucer were adhered together, I started creating the plant by overlapping the leaves and adding in the bunches of flowers. 

To ground the pot, I added a strip of Basic White embossed with the Stone & Vine folder. All of this was attached to a Gray Granite card base. 

I was going to add a sentiment with a banner over the pot when I saw that the die set contains a die for a little plant label, like you'd use in a herb garden to name each plant. When I realised that the 'thanks' sentiment fitted into it I decided that would be my sentiment. 

The stem of the label die is very thin and delicate. I could have added it to a stouter version of the plant label that's also in the set but I really wanted to keep the delicate look of the stem. So I killed two birds at once by using adhesive foam again. Not only did it give the narrow stem strength it also added the height I wanted to the sentiment. 

The finishing touch was a trio of Basic Rhinestones, coloured with a dark Pumpkin Pie blend. 

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.