Magical Hot Foil for Freshly Made Sketches 745

It's been a long time since something truly different, and truly exciting, has arrived in my craft room: something never before seen or used or played with. And that folks, is Stampin' Up!'s brand spanking new Hot Foil System.

Once I'd worked out the technicalities of how to operate it (actually, really simple) I tried out a few things like using different dies, using different coloured foils and trying out different papers to foil. Now it was time to actually make something with it all, so I turned to the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to do just that. 

As part of my experimentation, I'd used the Garden Silhouette Hot Foil Die with gold foil on vellum.

Then I coloured the flowers from the back using Melon Mambo Stampin' Blends, with some  touches of Granny Apple Green and Daffodil Delight.

I cut this down to a long strip 9cm wide then folded it over a 9cm square of Bubble Bath card stock, attaching it with Stampin' Seal from behind. 

I can see that one possible negative of this lovely Hot Foiling is going to be the trouble in getting a good photo of it!

I used a Bubble Bath card base. The Basic White card front is embossed with the retired (but never to be parted with) Subtle embossing folder. I wanted some texture for interest but nothing that would compete with the busy gold foiled square, so it was the perfect choice. 

I ran a narrow strip of Bubble Bath through the same folder as a base for the sentiment.  For the sentiment, I hot foiled the Sweetly Sentimental Hot Foil dies, then cut them out with the matching cutting dies. There were a bunch of sentiments, which are great to have on hand ready to use - but I liked this one for a wedding. It's popped up on dimensionals.

While looking for embellishments, I wanted something elegant but not too flashy. I chose the sparkling white Shimmering Dots to finish things off. 

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.

Summer Happiness for Paper Players 793

Last week, we had such wonderful entries for Joanne's sketch challenge - thank you everyone! This week, Ann is our hostess and she has a theme challenge for us.

Summer Love is asking for any kind of romantic occasion card. I'll confess that my card is very summery and less romantic because I love summer and the beach. Somehow, the beach and summer seems closely linked to a spot of romance - or at least, it did when I was young! So I broke out the new Summer Happiness bundle, new from Online Exclusives.

I started by adding a wave die from Rolling Waves to start the beach feeling. Then I had a bit of fun choosing which of the summer images from Summer Happiness to stamp and die cut. I settled on a pair of flowers and a camera, cut from Basic White and coloured with Stampin' Blends: Daffodil Delight, Flirty Flamingo and Pool Party. The sunglasses were stamped onto Pool Party and the jandals onto Flirty Flamingo. The glasses and camera are popped up on dimensionals.

I finished off with a trio of Strawberry Slush flat pearls.

The team and I would love to see what you do with Ann's theme. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at The Paper Players.

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.

Simply Beautiful for Colour INKspiration 205

 

Welcome to the 205th 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 me! I picked it so long ago, I'd actually forgotten it was my pick. I hope you enjoy playing with it. 

This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday 23 March, 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 Joanne James, AKA The Crafty Owl 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 Lemon Lime Twist for Granny Apple Green. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

Well, it was hard to go past florals with these colours and my go-to floral at the moment is Simply Beautiful. I stamped the flower and leaves in Stazon Black on Fluid100 Watercolor paper and used diluted Berry Burst and Granny Apple Green to colour them. Once dry, I die cut them. 

To complete the floral cluster, I cut one of the flower petal die cuts in Gold Foil, then took the centre pieces out of the flower to use as fronds in this little bouquet. They tucked in easily since the flower had been popped up on dimensionals.

The sentiment is stamped in Basic Gray, then cut with the largest stitched banner from Nested Essentials.

The card front is embossed with the Stone & Vine 3D embossing folder. For embellishments, I used some gold Flower Accents.

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.

Delicate Dreams for Paper Players 774

Stef's CAS theme challenge brought us a wonderful gallery and the team were delighted by your entries. This week, I'm the hostess and I've got a sketch for you. Sketches are my favourite kind of challenge and I love seeing the diverse creations that all come from the same starting point. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this one!

I've been playing with the about-to-be-released Delicate Dreams suite. This is one of the March Online Exclusive offerings. I do gravitate towards foliage sets and this one has some lovely die cuts in addition to the stamped images. The DSP is a lovely specialty paper with coppery/bronze accents. 

So here's what I came up with....

Although it hasn't photographed particularly well, the Secret Sea DSP with the bronze flower outlines is very pretty in real life.  The spray is built up with a base floral image stamped in Gray Granite with various die cuts in Secret Sea, Gray Granite, Textured Metallic Specialty paper and Delicate Dreams DSP. 

The rectangular panel and sentiment are cut with dies from Textured Notes. The embellishments are Iridescent Foil Gems and the card front is embossed with the Exposed Brick folder.

I can't wait to see what you do with this sketch! You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your entry at The Paper Players.

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.

An Eclectic Mix for Paper Players 771

Thank you to everyone who played along with Jaydee's super sketch last week - the gallery was amazing! I'm sure it will be this week too with this week's theme from Claire: Love is in the Air,

Today's card is a real mix of things from the stash and the new box, which is something that's nice to do. I like it when you can mix and match what you have with something new for a fresh look. 

The starting point of this card is the new - and gorgeous - Lovely & Beautiful specialty DSP.  The other starting point was a card by my team mate, LeAnne Pugliese who recently made a card that featured hearts layered with scalloped hearts. This reminded me that I had a pair of punches that I got when I was on the Artisan Design Team so I hunted them out. 

I layered heart in the Lovely & Beautiful DSP with scalloped hearts in Petal Pink and Peach Pie to pick out DSP colours. Then what? That was the question!

I needed a ground for the hearts, so embossed a piece of Basic White with the Exposed Brick embossing folder then flicked over some splatters of Petal Pink and Peach Pie ink. At that point, I decided on a Calypso Coral base in order to bring out the richness of the colour from the DSP.

Next question: what sentiment? Well, I got out Lifetime of Love and inked up the 'Love You' from there then cut it with a banner from Stylish Shapes. I felt it needed something else, so I added a gold bow with the sadly retired Elegant Trim... it's nearly all gone now!

The final thing was the addition of a trio of Pearlised Faceted Circles in Calypso Coral. These little beauties are part of the Lovely & Beautiful suite but of course, work well with lots of other things too. 

What will you do with Claire's theme?

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.

Gallery Blooms for Around the World on Wednesday

Welcome to Around the World on Wednesday's July hop.

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, we're doing something a little different. It's five years since Around the World on Wednesday started up, so we're doing some close-up looks at the team. Aurelie Fabre was a founding member of the team so this month we're all going to CASE one of her projects. 

But our team leader, Angie McKenzie likes to keep us on our toes, so in addition to CASEing Aurelie, we're also using a Tic-Tac-Toe board.

After browsing through Aurelie's blog, I found this card to CASE. So pretty, isn't it?

So armed with this gorgeous design and the centre column of the Tic Tac Toe board (Circle-line-repeat), this is what I came up with....

I used the very pretty floral spray image from Gallery Blooms. I repeat stamped this using Gray Granite ink then coloured each repeat using Fresh Freesia, Old Olive and Daffodil Delight Stampin' Blends. I die cut them out.

 

Aurelie's original card had a soft splatter of colour behind her repeated daffodils. I added in some soft splatter in Daffodil Delight but also some lines of text. Both the splatter and lines of text come from a set that I'm finding indispensable: Elements of Text.

After completing the background stamping on the card front, I arranged the die cut blooms over it, then trimmed off any overhang before attaching the card front to the Gray Granite card base.

I replaced Aurelie's sentiment label with a stitched circle from Stylish Shapes. The sentiment, stamped in Gray Granite, is from Beautiful Motifs - a sentiment only companion set to Gallery Blooms.

As beautiful as the Brushed Brass Butterflies from Aurelie's original are, I replaced them with some Antique Pearls for a more vintage feel. 

Keep on hopping to see how the rest of the team have CASEd Aurelie.  Next up is the wonderful Leonie Stuart from Australia. I'm sure she has a treat to share with us!

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.

Here's a blog roll of participants 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 - NL
Ximena Morales - DE
Aurélie Fabre - FR
Chris Smith - US
Theresa McEntee - US

Bree Renwick - US
Lori Willcox - CA
Teri West - US
Cheryl Hamilton - US

Darling Dinos for Paper Players 726

Many thanks to everyone who played along with my CAS Masculine challenge last week. That's two toughies in the one challenge so well done for being brave enough to take on both things in the one project!

This week, Stef has given us a great sketch to work with. 

My card this week was inspired by this photo of my granddaughter visiting a local sunflower field a few weeks ago. She just loved those sunflowers and talked about them a lot!

She also loves dinosaurs, her favourite being triceratops. So I used Stef's sketch to make her a Valentine's card. 

Darling Dinos had everything I needed! I started by stamping a row of sunflowers top and bottom of the Basic White card front. I coloured them in Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight and Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends. Hard to see in the photo, but the centres have a nice glimmer from Wink of Stella.

I embossed a smaller piece of Basic White with the Sale-a-Bration Starburst folder, since the design reminded me of flowers, and attached it to the centre of the card front

 
I stamped, coloured and cut Miss Triceratops. She's a mix of Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight and Pretty in Pink. I used  one of the Spotlight on Nature dies to cut a circle on which I sponged some Granny Apple Green with a Blending Brush, then stamped on some grass.

After popping on Miss Triceratops up on dimensionals, I added in some Pretty in Pink love hearts.

Finally, I stamped the 'Love You' in Crumb Cake and flagged the ends before adding it.

All done (and hopefully perfect) for little Miss Three. 💕

We'd all love to see what you do with Stef's sketch. 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:

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

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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.

Delightful Wishes for Stampin' Fancy Friday February

This month, the theme at Stampin' Fancy Friday is a Red or Pink Amour Challenge. We were challenged to showcase red or pink - whatever we loved the most.

The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday don't blog but we do a daily inspiration post on Instagram. The team at Stampin' Fancy Friday are all current or past members of Stampin' Up!'s Artisan Design Team, so it really is a great place to pick up ideas or recharge your creative mojo. 

Follow @stampinfancyfriday if you don't already. 😀

Well, I'm a pink girl through and through. Red comes out at Christmas but not that often for the rest of the year! 

I've enjoyed playing with the Delightful Wishes bundle a lot but what I really enjoyed about this card was moving into a colourway I'm much more at home with. 

I've used three pinks: Pretty in Pink, Flirty Flamingo and Melon Mambo and some Soft Sea Foam for the foliage.

All of the die cut flower pieces were cut from Basic White then had colour applied with blending brushes in various depths with either Pretty in Pink or Flirty Flamingo to get plenty of variation. The centres were stamped in Melon Mambo. The leaves were stamped in Soft Sea Foam.

I hope you can see in the closer shot the subtle shimmer of Wink of Stella on the flower bases. 

The background is embossed with the Forever Plaid 3D embossing folder. The Pretty in Pink gems are from the In Color Shimmer Gems pack and the white twine from the Baker's Twine Basic Essentials pack.

Don't forget to follow @stampinfancyfriday on Instagram, or Stampin' Fancy Friday on Facebook, for more daily ideas.

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 here.