Spotlight on Nature for As You See It 373

It's Speed Stamping Week at As You See It. This regular challenge is one people either love or hate - or maybe they love to hate it? Anyway, it is a bit of a thrill and if you ever wanted to combine adrenaline rush with stamping, this is your challenge!

If you've never taken up a Speed Stamping challenge before, this is how it goes. 

• You have ten minutes to complete your card.
• Thinking time is not included, so you can have planned it in your head.
• Supplies can be assembled but not used. So block up your stamps, get the embellishments out on the desk, put the dies beside the machine and so on.
• The  timer starts the moment you cut, ink up, stamp or emboss anything.
• Thankfully, clean up is not on the timer!
• Don't forget to tell us what your time to completion was. 

Spring bulbs threw me a bit because although I have lots of flowers, most of them were not bulbs. I actually used Google Image Search to identify the flower in Spotlight on Nature (retired) and it told me this was most likely a tulip, so I ran with that!

I stamped the image in Gorgeous Grape then used a blending brush and Fresh Freesia ink to add an explosion of colour around the flower heads. Then I used a water painter and some Fresh Freesia ink to add splatter.

I added the sentiment, from Rolling Waves, in Gorgeous Grape ink.

As I still have just under 8 minutes left on the clock I decided to go a bit further and cut the image out using Everyday Arches. I embossed a Basic White card front with the Beautiful Pattern embossing folder and adhered it to a Gorgeous Grape card base. (These things were in my 'if I have time' plan.)

To give it all a bit more oomph, I popped the arched panel up on dimensionals and finished off with a trio of Purple Fine Shimmer Gems. 

The inside was pretty simple - just a quick stamp of the top part of the floral image and a quick brushover with the blending brush.

Then I stopped the timer...

 

I quite surprised myself as I'd expected to be a bit closer to 8 minutes. But I was well planned in my head and had all my supplies on hand. 

What will you do in your ten minutes? You can see what the rest of the team have done and link up your entry at the As You See It Challenge page. 

Season of Chic for Paper Players 769

 Players made an awesome start to 2026 with LeAnne's colour challenge last week - such pretty cards in the gallery! Let's see what you do with Joanne's Clean and Simple Challenge this week.

So it's a double challenge this week. Not only is the theme 'signs of winter' but the additional challenge is to do it in a Clean and Simple style. 

By Clean and Simple, we mean minimal layers and embellishments and plenty of clean, uncluttered space. 

In the Southern Hemisphere, it's the middle of a very hot summer so it was nice to focus on something cool. I had to have a hunt around my Stamp Library to find something suitable and remembered the lovely snowflake dies in Season of Chic, an old favourite set of mine. Sadly now retired, this set is a beauty, with something for every season. 

So I started with a trio of snowflakes, one in a scrap of silver Glimmer Paper and two from a piece of Balmy Blue DSP from the Beautiful Bokeh stack, which I think could be another retired item. 

Keeping with the colour palette, I stamped the sentiment in Balmy Blue using a sentiment from Season of Chic. 

By now it was clear that this card was going to be one that made use of my Stamp Library and not the current shelf, so I also got out one of my all-time favourite embossing folders, Distressed Tile. I was originally doing an embossed rectangular standard card front but decided I wanted something a bit different so went for a jaunty angle piece instead. 

The finishing touch was a trio of Basic Rhinestone Jewels. 

What will you do with this double challenge: signs of winter (but not Christmas) in a  CAS style?

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 Colour Inkspiration 193

 

Welcome to the 193rd challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday August 25, 7pm AEST.

This colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member, Vicki Boucher. Isn't this just the most gorgeous, delicate set of colours? I hope you enjoy crafting with it as much as I did!

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 Michelle Pepper 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 Pool Party for Balmy Blue. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

These colours were so delicate that I knew I wanted to use something with lacy die cuts and probably some water colouring. The dies in Gallery Blooms were just perfect so I started by ink smooshing some Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper with some Balmy Blue and Highland Heather. Once it was dry, I cut several of the lacy agapanthus heads from it and also several maidenhair fern leaves from Cloud Cover. From these beginnings a card was born!

I had a wreath in mind, so cut a hoop using circles from Stylish Shapes to use as a base. I cut a square of Basic White, embossed it with the Damask Delsigns embossing folder, added the wreath and then wondered what was next?!

I toyed with the idea of a square card but instead used a Cloud Cover base and a piece of Cloud Cover DSP from the 2025-2027 In Color Stack. I chose this design because it has an ink smooshed look to it. The card needed something else to make it pop, so I added in a piece of Highland Heather, embossed with the Exposed Brick 3D folder behind the square which also helped to visually elongate the wreath panel.

The next dilemma was the sentiment. What colour to stamp it and what colour to stamp it on? Embossed white on Highland Heather? A Balmy Blue banner? Too many choices. While pondering that, my eye fell upon the narrow piece of the DSP that I'd trimmed off for the card front. Perfect - I used that, stamped with Highland Heather and turned into a banner. The sentiment is from Beautiful Motifs, the companion set to Gallery Blooms. 

To finish, I added a trio of Purple Fine Shimmer Gems to pick out the Highland Heather.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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. 

Gallery Blooms for Freshly Made Sketches 684

 I haven't been very good at keeping up my New Year Crafting Resolution to play along with more challenges just for fun. After just completing a run of customised wedding invitations, I sat at my desk and decided to play 'just for fun'. I turned to the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration.

 I wanted to give the Beautiful Gallery suite a bit of a try out so the choice was easy about what to play with. Here's how that ended up...

I used the Gallery Blooms bundle and twice stamped one of the images, then coloured in with Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon, Petal Pink and Calypso Coral. I die cut some flowers and foliage in Lost Lagoon, Petal Pink and Crumb Cake.  These were arranged into a bouquet on a small circle from the Stylish Shapes dies. 

I used DSP from the Beautiful Gallery DSP 6x6 stack for the right edge panel, then used a torn edge showing the reverse as the scalloped vertical in the sketch. 

I used the Damask Designs embossing folder for the card front and some of the Pressed Flower Motif embellishments to finish off.

The sentiment is from the second stamp set in the suite, Beautiful Motifs, and is cut from using another of the dies from Stylish Shapes.

All of the elements of the Beautiful Gallery Suite will be available from 6 May. 

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.

Gallery Blooms for Around the World on Wednesday

 

Welcome to Around the World on Wednesday's April 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. Anne Marie Hile was instrumental in helping our founder, Angie McKenzie, get the hop up and running so this month we're all going to CASE one of her projects. 

I decided to hunt the archive and went right back to Anne Marie's first ever post for Around the World on Wednesday. This is her card from 2020.

And here's my 2025 CASE of it, using some pre-order products from the 2025-2026 Annual Catalogue.

As you see, I took Anne Marie's layout literally. I substituted some of the gorgeous Beautiful Gallery DSP for her original embossed panel. Let me tell you that went against the grain for me as I almost always go for texture over pattern! But it was just too beautiful to leave out. 

I replaced her flowers with some from Gallery Blooms and I coloured them with Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon, Peach Pie and Calypso Coral. I stamped the flowers and sentiment in the same colour as the card base, Secret Sea - one of the 2025-2027 In Colors.

CASEing Anne Marie also got me using some of the Basic Beige ribbon from the Beautiful Gallery suite - even though I'm not usually a user of ribbon either! The embellishments are Pressed Flower Motifs, also part of the suite, all of which will be available from 6 May.

Keep on hopping to see how the rest of the team have CASEd Anne Marie.  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 in case you get lost or want to re-visit someone along the way.

Jan Clothier - NZ - You are here
Leonie Stuart - AU
Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU
Cheryll Miller - AU
Danielle Kassing - NL
Marga Bultena - DE
Aurélie Fabre - FR
Kim Fee - UK
Annette Ball - CA
Kelly Taranto - US
Chris Smith - US
Theresa McEntee - US
Bree Renwick - US
Teri West - US
Cheryl Hamilton - US

Gallery Blooms for Colour Inkspiration 185

Welcome to the 185th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday April 21, 7pm AEST.

This sweet colour palette was chosen for us by Crew Member. Vicki Boucher. It might get you thinking of Easter, or maybe it will take you in a whole new 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 Gail Ellis 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 Highland Heather for Fresh Freesia. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

As predictable as it is, green plus some colours make me think florals. Of course, the beautiful floral pre-order sets on my desk might also have swayed my thinking!

The Gallery Blooms bundle is gorgeous, especially this lovely spray. The DSP that is part of the suite has a definite vintage feel to it but once you move to different colours, it can take on a whole new feel. 

I've used DSP from the Floral Impressions pack (available May 6) as a starting point for this design. 

I stamped the bloom in Basic Gray, then coloured it with Stampin' Blends in Fresh Freesia, Petal Pink and Old Olive before die-cutting it out. I also cut some extra foliage and flowers from the Gallery Blooms dies to build my bouquet. 

 

I used the Textured Notes dies to cut a rectangular panel upon which the bouquet is built.

The card base is Basic Gray. The Basic White card front is embossed with the Damask Designs embossing folder, which is part of the Gallery Blooms suite, available 6 May.

The embellishments are from the Petal Pink and Pretty Peacock foiled gems pack.

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.