After nearly two weeks away from home, it almost felt strange to sit down at my craft desk again. I was looking for some inspiration to get me back in the game and it came in the form of the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.
So I started simply with the gorgeous triple bloom image from Simply Zinnia and went from there.
After colouring the image with Stampin' Blends, I die cut it and popped it up on dimensionals. The sentiment is stamped, cut into pieces then fussy cut to give three lines of text.
The final touch was adding some of the adhesive backed sequins for a bit of bling. And I just can't not mention the beautiful Zinnia embossing folder that's equally lovely on both sides.
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.
This month the international team at Creativity Abounds has a fun inspiration theme for you: Anything but a Card.
All thirteen of us have contributed a project to our Exclusive Tutorial Bundle, which you can earn as a free gift from me with a purchase of $90 or more (excluding P&P) or by being a member of my team.
There's a sneak peek of my project and the whole bundle at the end of this post....
BUT
In addition to the exclusive bundle, we also put together a monthly hop on the same theme for added inspiration for you. So if you hop around from this post, you'll see a dozen more ideas for 'Anything But A Card' to help get your mojo going.
My project this month was inspired by a photo frame I bought on impulse in a sale, thinking that one day it might be useful. Sound familiar?
To recreate this project you'll need a photo frame 8"x 8" (20cm x20cm) with a mat opening of 5"x 5" (12cm x12cm). If you don't have one of this size, you could adapt the measurements and method to what you have.
Materials
Basic White
15cm x 15xm (6"x 6")
1/2 sheet (approximately) of card for stamping
Flowering Zinnia DSP - green stripe - 15cm x 4cm (6" x 1 1/2")
Add the strip of DSP horizontally on the Basic White square, approximately 3 cm ( 1 1/4") from the bottom edge. Emboss with the Zinnia embossing folder.
Stamp the trio of zinnias stamp in Tuxedo Black on Basic White. Colour the leaves in the green blends, the flower centres with the Daffodil Delight and the flowers in a mixture of Melon Mambo and Cherry Cobbler. Die cut them out.
Stamp one of large single zinnia images and one of the leaves in Tuxedo Black. Colour with blends and die cut.
Take the decorative mat out of the photo frame so you can use it as a guide to placement of the die cut zinnia stems. Attach two of the die cuts to the embossed square, one to the left side and one to the right. Make sure to vary the height so the final effect is not a row of soldiers. When happy with the placement within the mat opening, adhere them flat to the embossed panel.
Attach the embossed panel to the mat panel from the frame. Lay flat face up so you can add the final pieces.
Take the third of the zinnia stems and attach it centrally with dimensionals. Make sure that some of the stem breaks the frame and is visible on top of the mat panel.
Attach the single zinnia and leaf on top of the mat in the bottom right corner.
Place back in the photo frame. All done!
Note: If you want to, you can include a sentiment in the Zinnia Garden frame.
Here's a peek at the project I've included in the Creativity Abounds Tutorial bundle for this month.
And here's the sneak peek of the whole tutorial package.
Here's our whole team. If you're interested in the tutorial but don't live in New Zealand, contact one of our team members from where ever you live.
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.
Welcome to the latest challenge at As You See It. The final challenge type in our 6 challenge rotation is the Speed Stamping Challenge. You'll either love or hate it but I love it because it forces me to be creative under pressure.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create a new project in ten minutes or less on the theme of Spring Flowers.
Don't panic at the thought of a ten minute make. Here's the rules:
Thinking time doesn't count
Gathering your supplies doesn't count - eg putting out your inks and dies, blocking the stamps, putting the card on the desk.
Clean up time doesn't count either - thankfully!
BUT
The moment you cut, ink, emboss - then the time has to start.
In a challenge like this, pretty DSP can really be your friend by doing all the heavy lifting. I've used the
This card took me 7 minutes 21 seconds to complete - including an equipment malfunction. You can watch every adrenalin laden moment of that in the video below!
Make sure you visit the As You See It page to see what the rest of the Design Team have done in their ten minutes - and to link up your own entry.
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.
Purchase either the Gorgeous Garden dies or the Hooray for Surprises bundle from me and you'll receive FOUR PDF Join in with Joanne and Jan tutorials matching the purchase: two by me and two by UK Demonstrator Joanne James aka The Crafty Owl.
Option 2
Orders over $90 will receive, as a free gift, the latest Creativity Abounds Tutorial Bundle. This bundle of 13 PDF tutorials is on the theme of Fun Folds.
This month, the theme atStampin' Fancy Friday is a sketch. I love a sketch challenge! Once you start thinking about one, there are just so many ways to play with it.
You can see that I've played it with a fairly straight bat here, sticking quite closely to the layout in the sketch. I love the Notes of Nature bundle. Since it's part of a suite with DSP, there's a real temptation to stick with the colours of the DSP - in this case, Pebbled Path, Pecan Pie and Gold. But there's no reason to stick to those colours. Switch it up to anything you like for more versatility.
I've gone wild with Basic Black, Parakeet Party and Tahitian Tide. The last two are retiring In Colors, so it's good to give them a last run, quite apart from their vibrant beauty.
We don't blog hop as such but the team at Stampin' Fancy Friday 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. 😀
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.
Welcome to a new hop with the crew at Around the World on Wednesday. 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 inspiration is a colour challenge - March Blues. We were given a group of blues to work with.
Me, I love blues so was very happy to play with these colours. I was so happy, that I made two cards! I couldn't decide between them, so I'll show you them both. Let me know if you like one more than the other.
I used the wonderful Timeless Arrangements bundle. I love the way it's so easy to put together a spectacular bouquet using the various die cuts. The look changes based on which ones you choose, what colours you use and in which order you stack them.
I really like the Night of Navy card base with the white splatters. Somehow the dark background adds gravitas to the card!
Of course, I also like the lighter feel of the Basic White background with the Night of Navy splatters too!
Next up on the hop is the wonderful Leonie Stuart from Australia who will have even more inspiration 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.
Welcome to 161st challenge at Colour INKspiration. The year is rolling by very quickly and now we're officially into autumn, even though Christmas seemed so recent! To cheer us along, we have this lovely colour palette chosen by Crew Member, Leonie Stuart.
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. This challenge is open for two weeks and closes Monday 25 March, 7pm AEST.
If you don't have an exact challenge colour, feel free to replace it with whatever you have that's closest, for example Shaded Spruce for Garden Green. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, and metallics are free colours, as are flesh toned Stampin' Blends.
I wanted something floral for these colours. Try as I might, they just kept saying, "Flowers," to me. While looking through my sets, I was surprised to find Inked & Tiledon the shelf. It was like finding a new dress you'd forgotten about in the back of your wardrobe!
Anyway, it was the perfect set for this colour combination. 😀
It's perhaps a little hard to see in the picture but I have stamped the large single bloom in Melon Mambo on the Mambo Melon mat. I did the same thing on the banner backing the sentiment.
I used sponge daubers to add the colour to the stemmed flower stamps to get a mix of both pinks in the flowers. Aren't the Perennial Postage dies lovely?
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 shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking here.
I'm just so easily distracted! Once again, I was persuaded - by myself - to leave off my list of jobs and play around with new stuff instead! Again, the new stuff was the Latte Love bundle and the distraction was the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.
The Latte Love bundle and the A Little Latte DSP will be available from Online Exclusives from 4 March. What I particularly like about the DSP is that there are both subtle, small scale patterns as well as colourful, in-your-face papers as well. So there's something for everyone but no prize for guessing that my favourite is small and subtle. 😀
I coloured one of the mugs with Stampin' Blends in Pool Party and Lost Lagoon. The other was stamped in Early Espresso on the same coloured card. I really like the little stamps that give you the coffee in the cup. Very sweet!
Those that know me know that I love my coffee, so the sentiment is a real compliment!
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.
Earn a Free Gift
Purchase either the Gorgeous Garden dies or the Hooray for Surprises bundle from me and you'll receive FOUR PDF Join in with Joanne and Jan tutorials matching the purchase: two by me and two by UK Demonstrator Joanne James aka The Crafty Owl.
