Thinking Stamping: Impressions Abloom

Jan Clothier - You are here

Christy Stanford

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Friday, 8 August 2025

Impressions Abloom for As You See It 354

The new theme for this week's challenge at As You See It almost had me stumped. I don't have a single stamp or piece of DSP that's in any way related to picnics. Clearly some creative thinking was going to be needed for this one

Creative thinking was involved in this card but alas, most of it was not mine. Tammy Wilson from Stamp, Paper, Scissors is the inspiration for this card. I first encountered her work when we were both on the 2020 Artisan Design Team and I've followed her ever since. She posted this fabulous card where she made watermelons using the dies from Impressions Abloom.

Since no picnic is complete without some sliced watermelon, the card was born!

I chose Forever Plaid to emboss the background, since it's reminiscent of the generic checked picnic blanket.

To create the watermelon, I used the large oval label die from Impressions Abloom to cut an oval from Strawberry Slush cardstock. I cut it in half and sponged Strawberry Slush ink in the centre, using a blending brush.

To create the rind, I used the stitched edge label die to cut an oval edging in Shy Shamrock cardstock. I cut it and added it to the outer edge of the Strawberry Slush slices. (A little fudging around is required.)

Following Tammy's lead, I cut the pips using the small leaf die from the Birthday Celebration dies. These can still be found in the Last Chance section, if you don't already have them.

The sentiment is from the Sweet Jar stamp set, and I've cut is using one of the Spotlight on Nature dies. The Shy Shamrock circle underneath the sentiment was cut using my old favourite set, Stylish Shapes.

To finish off, I added in some flowers - which were also cut using the Impressions Abloom dies - to create the feel of wildflowers in the meadow. The very final thing was to add some Strawberry Slush gems for a touch of bling.

I hope your path to a picnic themed card is easier than mine was! I look forward to seeing your creation in the As You See It gallery. You can also see the rest of the team's inspirations there.

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

Sunday, 13 July 2025

Impressions Abloom for PP746

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players, where Ann is our hostess this week. She has a pretty colour combination to inspire us.

Of course this colour palette lead me to florals and from there it was a short step to reach for the Impressions Abloom bundle.

I really love the dies that come in this bundle, so I started by cutting a variety of flowers, centres and leaves in Basic White. Then I added colour with a blending brush: Pretty Peacock to the leaves, Lemon Lolly to the centres and Fresh Freesia to the flowers. The smaller flowers were sponged lightly and from the outside towards the centres so the edges were darker. Then I decided I needed some more variation, sot I took to the large flower with a very heavy hand! I certainly got the variation I was after - maybe even more than intended!

I embossed the Basic White card front with the Pressed Flowers embossing folder before arranging the coloured die cuts over it. The card base is Pretty Peacock.

The sentiment, from Impressions Abloom, is stamped in Pretty Peacock and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes. I cut a smaller banner in Pretty Peacock to create an accent for the sentiment. The embellishments are from the Pretty Peacock and Petal Pink Foiled Gems, now retired.

What will you do with Ann's pretty colours? 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:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here

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

Friday, 20 June 2025

Impressions Abloom for CAS Colours & Sketches 562

Every now and then I remind myself of my New Year crafting resolution, which was to play along with more challenges just for fun and to forget about class projects and design team commitments. To be honest, it's not going so well! Today I decided to have a look around my favourite challenges and see what I could play along with, since it's a public holiday.

CAS Colours & Sketches had a highly unusual challenge. Usually a sketch is a creative springboard but this one had serious restrictions. It had to include 9 rectangles exactly and they had to be white or plain coloured with no pattern.

Well, that cut out my first response which was to emboss the rectangles to add some texture and my second - which was to try some faux tiling. I was about to run for the hills and find somewhere else to play when I felt a bit of stubborn come on... I would make this sketch work!

Here's where it ended up....

To create the rectangles I used the smallest rounded corner rectangle die from Nested Essentials. I spaced them evenly over a piece of Basic White because at that stage I wasn't sure whether I'd used a coloured card base. Ultimately I chose to use Thick Basic White cardstock for the base to help keep the CAS look.

Then I had a bit of fun playing around with the dies from Impressions Abloom to create a floral bouquet. I used Petunia Pop, Pretty in Pink, Shy Shamrock and Daffodil Delight because I wanted a punch of colour.

By now, it was looking quite cheery so it seemed more like a birthday card that anything else. I used the sentiment from The Right Words and a banner die from Stylish Shapes.

To finish off, I added in three Basic Rhinestones to help draw the eye to the sentiment.

Update: Delighted to be a Fab Fave at CAS Colours & Sketches.

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

Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Impressions Abloom for CI189

Welcome to the 189th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday June 23, 7pm AEST.

This colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member. Monica Formosa. It might get you thinking of florals or it might send you off in a completely different direction.

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 Petra Noeth 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 Daffodil Delight for Darling Duckling. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

You might have noticed that three of the challenge colours are from the 2025-2027 In Colors. We will be celebrating the new In Colors in the next few challenges but if you don't have them yet, feel free to use close substitutes.

I'm still really enjoying playing around with the Impressions Abloom bundle. For this card, I used the dies and created a bloom using various of the 'extra' bits and pieces in the set: i.e. the ones that aren't outlines of the stamped images.

To add interest to the Basic White panel, I embossed it using the Pressed Flowers embossing folder that is part of the Floral Impressions suite.

The sentiment is from a fabulous new words-only set called The Right Words. One of the many things I like about this set is that the sentiments are two-part: something for the inside and something for the outside. I've used the smallest irregular hexagon die from Nested Essentials to cut it out.

The background DSP is from the 2025-27 In Color 6x6 stack. I was going to use the mottled stripes on the other side but decided I liked this one better! Best of all, there's one of these stacks available for every colour family.

I've added some Secret Sea Flat Pearl embellishments to finish off.

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.

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

Sunday, 8 June 2025

Impressions Abloom for Paper Players 741

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. I was delighted to see the many interesting bits and pieces that people recycled or repurposed in their projects for my 'Recycling in In' challenge. This week, Stef has a sweet colour challenge for us.

I was keen to try out the new soft blue from Stampin' Up!, Cloud Cover for this challenge. Sadly, Stampin' Up! had some difficulties with the quality of the ink pad for this colour. I have an ink pad in Cloud Cover and was happy to use it as it looked perfect. I was sorry to see that in the photos, it does look more grey than blue. In real life, it was an exact match for the card base and DSP.

Anyway, colour photography woes aside, I was happy with this card. I used the Impressions Abloom bundle to stamp one of each of the three flowers in Cloud Cover and gave them a Peach Pie centre. I added in some Soft Sea Foam die cut leaves. The tiny flowers are also cut from Peach Pie.

The DSP is from the 2025-2027 In Color 6x6 stack. Lovely pattern, isn't it? There's a stack for every colour family.

The embossed background is the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder and the sentiment is from The Right Words. The sentiment label is from Stylish Shapes - my most used die set.

It will be fun seeing the different ways that people use these colours over the next week.

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:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here

Sunday, 25 May 2025

Impressions Abloom for PP739

This week our hostess is LeAnne and she has a gorgeous sketch to inspire us with. Last week's Clean and Simple challenge brought out people's creativity and we look forward to seeing what you do with the sketch.

I think this is such a great inspiration that I'm going to keep it tucked away to use again.

I'm holding class this weekend and we're playing with the Floral Impressions suite which includes the very versatile Impressions Abloom bundle. Since it was on my desk still, it seemed to be begging for a go at this challenge. 😀

The Floral Impressions DSP is really lovely but I wanted to move away from the (pretty) colours in it and try something else. So I went with blues: Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue.

I started by stamping three flowers in Blueberry Bushel - one large and two medium. Although the stamps are two step, I like the effect of stamping the details straight on to Basic White card. I added in some Daffodil Delight centres.

I used the extra elements from the dies to cut some small Balmy Blue flowers and some detailed Granny Apple Green leaves.

The sentiment is white heat embossed onto Blueberry Bushel card, hand cut into a banner.

For the three vertical elements of the sketch I cut three pieces of Basic White card and embossed them using the Pressed Flowers embossing folder.

The embellishments, including the small flower centres, are Basic Rhinestone Jewels.

The rest of the team and I look forward to seeing what you create. 😀

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:

Create a new paper-craft project specifically for this challenge.
Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us.
Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry.
Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL, including ours
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.

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

Jan Clothier - You are here