Thinking Stamping: The Paper Players Challenge

Jan Clothier - You are here

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

Sunday, 22 March 2026

Gears & Textures for Paper Players 774

Thank you to everyone who entered into JayDee's CAS Floral Challenge last week. Great entries!

This week, Claire is our hostess and she has a lovely sketch challenge for us to play with. I love a sketch and I especially enjoy seeing the different cards that come from the same starting point.

I was going for a masculine card so reached for the Gears & Textures bundle. The various gears and steam-punky bits are a lot of fun and look different with a switch up of colour and arrangements.

I took my colour choices from a scrap of Nature Walk DSP. The pointy shape was cut down from the last remaining triangle of that pattern and fortunately, worked in well with the sketch! I eked out enough of the reverse from another scrap to use the reverse side for the horizontal - ask me why the strip is that width!

The sketch had some curly elements in the horizontal, so I added in some die cuts in Early Espresso. In the interest of adding in some other colours to lift it, I added in a third die-cut in Pecan Pie for the centre.

The large cog was cut from a scrap of the bronze sheet in Metallic Textured Specialty paper. The circle is cut from Early Espresso and, although it's hard to see in the photo, stamped with Early Espresso ink splatter to add some texture.

I wanted something subtle to emboss the background with, so went to the retired (but very useful) Subtle embossing folder. I'll bet many of you still have this one in your stash!

The sentiment is from Sweet Jar, stamped in Early Espresso and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes.

The embellishment is a trio of Pecan Pie dots from the Natural Matte Dots pack.

I'd love to see what you do with this sketch!

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.

Sunday, 15 March 2026

Simply Zinnia for The Paper Players 777

This week at the Paper Players, JayDee is our hostess. She's got a fabulous double challenge for us: it's not only a floral theme but it's also to be done in a CAS (Clean and Simple style). We had wonderful entries last week in Joanne's Rainbow Colours challenge and I look forward to seeing what everyone does with this one!

By Clean and Simple, we mean that your creation should have lots of open white space, minimal layers and minimal embellishments. It's a time for paring back, and not adding lots of extras.

I've been having a craft room clean up and sort out - confession, it's been going on for some months now - but it's reminded me of the wonderful library of stamps and dies that I've built up over the years. Many of them haven't seen love because there's always something new coming in the door. But it's been both liberating and enjoyable to use retired things - especially when they can be married up with new things.

One of my favourite florals is the retired Simply Zinnia and I enjoyed getting it out to play with for this challenge. I stamped the image in Tuxedo Black and coloured in with Stampin' Blends: Strawberry Slush, Pretty in Pink, Granny Apple Green, Daffodil Delight and Crumb Cake. Doing the colouring in was both relaxing and therapeutic. Then I die cut the image out so it could be popped up on dimensionals.

I stamped the sentiment in Tuxedo Black on the Basic White card front, then did a partial emboss with the Damask Designs embossing folder.

The finishing touch was a trio of pink gems.

What will you make for JayDee's challenge? Don't forget that it must both be floral AND CAS. 😀

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.

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Sunday, 1 March 2026

Friendly Gnomes for The Paper Players 775

The lovely Christy is our hostess this week and she has a great theme for us - Mythical Creatures. More on why that caused me problems later because first I want to thank everyone who entered my sketch challenge last week. What creativity came from that one sketch! It was a pleasure to tour the gallery and a headache to choose the Cut Above!

Now Christy's challenge caused me a wee problem because, although I am a big fantasy fan possessed of a large fantasy fiction library, it seems this does not translate into the acquisition of stamps! Not a single dragon, unicorn, orc, troll, giant or harpy was to be found. I did find my Dalek stamp set but that wasn't quite in the ball park....

In stepped one of my downlines who lent me her Friendly Gnome bundle (retired). It was fun to play with, so maybe I'll have to do something to remedy my lack of fantasy inspired stamp sets soon!

It turned out that the dies that come with this set are awesome. I had fun playing around with some stamped gnomes (there's one on the inside of the card) but it was that die cut bearded beastie that I kept coming back to. So he has a Cherry Cobbler had, shaded with some White coloured pencil, Secret Sea boots and a Petal Pink nose.

I also cut some toadstool caps, where I coloured the impressions with more White colouring pencil, some Crumb Cake stems and some Old Olive grass.

I stamped the sentiment in Secret Sea at the base of the card front then embossed the rest using the Beautiful Pattern embossing folder. After masking off the sentiment section, I stamped in some grass along the base and sponged on some Old Olive with a blending brush.

After that, it was just a matter of arranging the gnome, the toadstool and die cut grasses into the background scene. Once that was done, I added in some Sparkle Dot Essentials in Secret Sea to lead the eye down to the words. Mission complete!

What mythological creaturs will you bring out to play? 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:

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.

Sunday, 22 February 2026

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:

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.

Sunday, 1 February 2026

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:

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.

Sunday, 21 September 2025

Beautiful Gallery for The Paper Players 756

Welcome to a new challenge at The Paper Players. Thank you to everyone who played along with LeAnne's subtle colour challenge. As always, the entries were gorgeous.

This week, it's my pleasure to be the hostess for our Clean and Simple challenge and I've chosen the theme of Watercolour. So maybe you'd like to stamp or emboss an image then use your inks to watercolour, maybe you'd like to get down and dirty with some ink smooshing, or maybe you'd like to try something wild like blowing the ink or using salts. However you'd like to play with water colouring, this is your challenge.

Just remember that it's also a CLEAN AND SIMPLE CHALLENGE, so your finished item should:

have lots of open white space
have a single focal point
have minimal layers and embellishments

I started this challenge by die cutting some of the foliage and flowers from the Gallery Blooms dies from Fluid 100 Watercolor paper. After wetting the die cuts with a Water Painter, I coloured them using Summer Splash, Pretty in Pink and Petunia Pop inks. I like using inks on wet paper as the colours more readily move and flow. Once they were dry, I arranged them on a tag cut from the sadly retired Tailor Made Tags die set.

I cut a second tag from Basic White and did a second watercolour technique with it. I used the floral stamp from Beautiful Motifs and Pretty in Pink ink for this.

I wet the cut tag with a Water Painter, then stamped the floral image onto the damp card. This meant that the edges of the stamped image bled a little and gave a softer finish. If you're doing this on Basic White card stock, then be light handed on the water. If you're using Fluid 100 Watercolor paper, then go for it.

The embossing folder on the card front is Damask Designs, also part of the Beautiful Gallery suite. The sentiment, stamped in Gray Granite, is from Beautiful Motifs and is cut using a banner die from Stylish Shapes. The Gray Granite twine is from the Baker's Twine Essentials pack. The embellishments are In Color Flat Pearls in Pretty in Pink.

What magic will you work with water colour? And remember it's also a Clean and Simple Challenge. 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

Sunday, 14 September 2025

Impressions Abloom for The Paper Players 755

Hello everyone! Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. Thank you for the lovely entries in Ann's Food and Drink themed challenge. Our hostess this week is LeAnne and she has a colour challenge for us.

I decided to break out the Impressions Abloom bundle for this one as I had in mind a softly coloured floral card and the die cuts in this bundle are gorgeous. I cut a white flower in each of the three sizes, some Lemon Lolly centres, some Soft Sea Foam leaves and some tiny Lemon Lolly flowers.

On the Basic White card front, I sponged some Soft Sea Foam with a blending brush. Then I did some fine splatters of diluted Lost Lagoon ink before embossing the front with the Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder. I curled one corner and added in some Lemon Lolly behind it.

The sentiment is stamped in Lost Lagoon and cut with a banner die from Stylish Shapes. I added some Iridescent Pearls to the centres of the tiny Lemon Lolly flowers, plus a couple more.

It mightn't have turned out quite as I'd imagined but pretty close. 😀

What will you do with LeAnne's 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

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.

Sunday, 17 August 2025

Hippest Hippos for The Paper Players 751

Thank you for all the beautiful entries in Claire's colour challenge last week. I enjoyed seeing the rich autumnal colours used in such pretty ways. Our hostess at The Paper Players this week is Elizabeth and she has given us the Clean and Simple theme of 'Critters'.

Sometimes, I overthink things. I came to work on this challenge and realised that while I was very clear on what Clean-and-Simple meant (lots of white space, minimal layers and embellishments) I was much less clear on what a critter was.

I can remember Ellie-May Clampett talking about her critters on The Beverly Hillbillies way back when I was child. So maybe a critter could be any animal? A dictionary search told me that it was a word derived from 'creature' originating as a dialectal pronunciation and often used in informal way. It also told me that in American usage it is often used to refer to domesticated animals.

None of this was really helping me decide whether I could use my Beautiful Butterflies stamp set in the challenge as it was my only current set that contained a creature of any kind. Part of me felt like this was going in the wrong direction.

By chance, while looking through a box of old children's books in the garage, I came across some of Mercer Mayer's Little Critter series. This led me to conclude that critters are cutesy, anthropomorphised animals. This I could work with!

It was off to the retired shelves to find Hippest Hippos, an old Sale-a-bration bundle. I started by stamping the dancing hippo in Tuxedo Black then colouring it with Smoky Slate, Strawberry Slush and Pretty in Pink Stampin' Blends. I die cut it out. I paper pieced the skirt using a pattern from the 2025-2027 6x6 In Color DSP stack. I also used that to paper piece the umbrella from the dies and to create the love hearts.

The sentiment is also from Hippest Hippo. To texture the background, I used one of the folders from the Glass & Gardens pair of embossing folders.

Although the trio of hearts were acting like embellishments, I couldn't resist adding in a trio of Strawberry Slush gems too.

So, how do you see critters? We'd love you to show us this week at The Paper Players - and remember to keep it CAS. You can see what 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