Nature's Symphony for Paper Players 768

 Welcome to the first challenge of 2026 at The Paper Players! I hope you're all feeling refreshed, with full buckets, after the holiday season and are ready to start crafting again. 

LeAnne has an intriguing colour challenge for us to play with this week. I do like blues, so the mix of Misty Moonlight and Night of Navy with Silver was very appealing to me - as I hope it is for you. 

I was keen to play with one of my pre-order goodies, the Nature's Symphony bundle, which I'd not had time to get to over Christmas.  The coordinating Nature Walk DSP is lovely, in shades of green but I thought the images would work well with LeAnne's palette too. 

The card base is Night of Navy, which peeks through the Basic White card base because I used one of the texture dies to punch in some lines of dots. I really like this die but there are other textures I could have used too. 

I stamped the large foliage with Misty Moonlight and added diecuts in Silver foil and Night of Navy. The die cuts were layered over the stamped image and the die cut lines of dots. 

The sentiment, from the set, is stamped in Night of Navy and cut using one of the Textured Notes dies.

A trio of silvery Rhinestone Jewels completed the card. 

What will you do with LeAnne's colours?

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.

Simply Beautiful for Freshly Made Sketches 718

When a mid-summer heat wave strikes, what's to be done but to disappear into my craft room? I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration.  

The sketch offered another chance to experiment with the new Simply Beautiful bundle. This can be found in the January-April Mini Catalogue. The embossed angled piece used the new Stone & Vine folder. 

The flower and leaves were heat embossed in gold. The centre of the flower was coloured with Darling Duckling using a sponge dauber. The Petal Pink and Old Olive were added with a mini Blending Brush. 

The very beautiful embellishments are technically called Pearlised Faceted Gems - but really they should just be called 'Gorgeous Bling'!

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.

The Avid Craft Collective Stamp Camp January 2026

The Avid Craft Collective - Julia Quinn, Tracy Held and I - are getting ready for our next online Stamp Camp. This time, we'll not be showcasing a suite but a collection of products that we like from the January-April 2026 Mini Catalogue. 

We've chosen to work with the Gears & Textures bundle, Nature Walk DSP, Textured Metallic Specialty Paper, and Faux Bronze Penatgon embellishments. 

Gears & Textures is an image only set, so we'll be using the Simply Said stamp set for our sentiments this camp. If you don't have it already, you can add it on to your camp order or choose to use another sentiment set you have in your stash.  

When is the Stamp Camp?

We will be going live to present the making of the nine projects on Saturday 24 January at 11 am NZT.

Of course, the presentations will be recorded so that you can rewatch them or watch at your leisure if you can't make it at the live time. 

How many projects will we make?

There will be instructions for nine projects: three fancy folds and six standard cards. 

Each of the three ACC members have created three projects especially for the tutorials. 

How can I participate?

There are three ways to join in the stamp camp. The Ultimate Package and Kit Package are only available to New Zealand residents.

1. The Ultimate Package

• The Gears & Textures bundle (stamps and dies)
• 1/4 pack of Nature Walk DSP
• a 6" x 12" piece of each of the three colours in the Textured Metallic Specialty Paper
• a pack of Faux Bronze Pentagons
• Kits containing the cut cardstock required to make each of the nine projects
• Envelopes
• PDF tutorial with full instructions in metric and imperial
• Access to the Exclusive Facebook Group including recordings of the live presentations.

COST: $170 (plus postage if not pickup)

2. The Kit Package

• 1/4 pack of Nature Walk DSP
• a 6" x 12" piece of each of the three colours in the Textured Metallic Specialty Paper
• a pack of Faux Bronze Pentagons
• Kits containing the cut cardstock required to make each of the nine projects
• Envelopes
• PDF tutorial with full instructions in metric and imperial
• Access to the Exclusive Facebook Group including recordings of the live presentations.

COST: $85 (plus postage if not pickup)

NOTE: This does not include the stamps and dies, so unless you already have them or plan to get them, this is not a good option. 

3. The Virtual Package

• PDF tutorial with full instructions in metric and imperial
• Access to the Exclusive Facebook Group including recordings of the live presentations.

COST: $40

Here's a peek at the three projects I have contributed.

How do I join in?

1. Decide which option you'd like.
2. Decide if you'd like to add on the Simply Said stamp set. 
3. Contact me by commenting below if you'd like to join in. If you are a customer or class member of mine already, you can text me.
4. Registration for the Ultimate Package and Kit Package closes on 9 January to ensure that the ordered products will arrive in time to get to you before 24th. 
5. The Virtual Package is available until the products are retired.

Julia, Tracy and I look forward to sharing some creative crafting time with you. Please ask if you have any questions. 😀

 

Simply Beautiful for Atlantic Hearts 661

 Post-Christmas, it's always nice to steal a bit of time alone in the craft space to recharge. I was looking for a sketch to play with as the mojo is also a bit low post-Christmas! Atlantic Hearts Challenge had an open challenge although I am cutting the entry a little fine. 😀

I have new items on my desk from the pre-order for the January-April 2026 Mini but have had precious little time to play with them, so happily this sketch gave me the chance. 

I've used the ever-so-pretty Simply Beautiful bundle and some of the Lovely & Beautiful DSP to create a very feminine birthday card. I don't usually use a lot of DSP but this one is so pretty, it's hard not to. 

The cerntre panel was cut with one of the Textured Notes dies and embossed with the Exposed Brick embossing folder. The sentiment and label are from the Unbounded Love bundle.

The stamps in Simply Beautiful are exactly as described in their name but the flowers and leaves offered in the die set are next level and I love them. Together the bundle offers huge versatility. 

Aren't the embellishments superb? They are listed as Pearlised Faceted Circles but really they should be called the Simply Gorgeous Bling.

The January-April 2026 Mini Catalogue will launch on 6 January - not many sleeps to go!

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.

Traditions of Christmas for Paper Players 367

Welcome to the final Paper Players Challenge for 2025! It's hard to credit that another year has rolled by. Thanks to everyone who entered Claire's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge last week. The entries were beautiful and varied so touring the gallery was a lot of fun. 

Jaydee has set us our final challenge and it's definitely one for the season (or you could say that it was a year-round theme): Gifting.

I thought there were a number of ways to look at this challenge: cards with the theme of a gift, things you could make and give as gifts or ways to package a gift for giving. 

I've sort of gone for the latter. Each year, I like to make table gifts for the big day and I try to do something different each year: a kind of Christmas Cracker but not.

I haven't quite finished them all yet but I have made some - here they are. Custom made to fit a scratchy ticket plus other stuff.

I usually include a scratchy ticket in my faux cracker creation and every year I end up scrunching it, rolling it or folding it to fit whatever it is that I made. This year, I made it the star by measuring one and making the box to size. It's a box with a flip-top lid, as you'll see in the bottom photo.

I chose the so, so beautiful Traditional Christmas DSP. Who wouldn't be enchanted by the rich reds, white and gold with touches of Secret Sea, Old Olive and Pool Party? Some boxes have a Secret Sea base, some Cherry Cobbler (my favourite red) and some Pool Party. I can get 2 bases from one piece of A4 card. Then I added a 10cm x 5 cm piece of DSP to the top, filled each one with goodies and tied it up with some of the lovely Gold Mesh ribbon. 

I decided that they needed something else to look finished so I got out my (sadly retired) Tailor Made Tags and cut some white and some base coloured tags and ring reinforcements. I needed a small greeting and found one in a retired set, then I added some pine needles using a stamp from Branching Out. 

Here you can see how the box opens. The scratchy ticket is at the bottom, not folded or scrunched or rolled, with other things on top. I notched the opening end to make it easier open.

Of course, the nice thing about a box like this is that it could hold anything: some handmade soaps, some jewellery, vouchers, teabags.... whatever you want all with half a piece of A4, a scrap of DSP and some ribbon. And the customisation of sizing is really very easy - so easy, I've made a video to show you how to put the box together and the first few minutes is how to work out the sizing if you'd like to make this in a different size. 

What sort of gifting creation will you make?

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:

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.

 

Gears & Textures for AYSI 363

 Welcome to the last As You See It Challenge for 2025. We're ending the year with a colour challenge and, although the graphic has a Christmas vibe, those colours could take you anywhere. 

To me, they had a masculine feel so it seemed a good chance to try out one of my new preorder sets from the January-April 2026 Mini catalogue. This bundle is called Gears & Textures and I love it. Really, I just had fun playing with some of the stamps, then added in a few of the fabulous die cuts.

One of my favourite things about the set is the dinky little light bulb, so I couldn't resist hanging one in the mix!

The sentiment is from Simply Said and is on a label cut from Nested Essentials.  The Brass Hexagon embellishments are also from the January Mini Catalogue.

This set is part of the offering for the Avid Craft Collective Online Stamp Camp in January 2026. Watch out for details if you'd like to join me, along with Australians Tracy Held and Julia Quinn, to make 9 cards using the set and some super DSP. You'll get PDF tutorials and access to an exclusive FaceBook Group where there will be presentations on how to put together all the cards. If you're keen, message me.

What will you do with these colours?

Visit the As You See It page to link up your entry and to see the rest of the team's inspirations.

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.

Ornamental Christmas for Paper Players 766

Ann's sketch at The Paper Players was delightful - as were the entries we received in the gallery. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this week's Tic Tac Toe challenge. Will it be Christmas? Or something else? 

I'm afraid that for me, it was Christmas. I played the bottom row: die cuts, trees and sparkle.

I used a mixture of the Modern Christmas suite and some things from the Traditional Labels bundle.

On top of a Basic Black base and a Basic White matte, I added a piece of DSP from Modern Christmas. Being a specialty paper, it has some sparkle of it's own with the gold foil elements of the paper's design.

The white circle is cut using one of the dies from Spotlight on Nature. I used dies from the Ornamental Christmas bundle to cut out the gold-embossed tree and the Gold Glimmer Paper tree - both more elements of sparkle. 

The sentiment, from Traditional Labels, is gold embossed and cut using a die from the same bundle. The final touch of sparkle comes from three red Traditional Sparkling Sequins.

What will you do with this tic-tac-toe 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:

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.