Thinking Stamping

Wednesday, 9 April 2025

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.

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

Sunday, 6 April 2025

Notes & Totes for Paper Players 732

Thanks to everyone who played along with LeAnne's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge last week. It's alway's great to see the variety of projects inspired by the same starting point.

At The Paper Players, it's theme week. I'm the hostess this week and my choice was TRAVEL. Maybe it's the destination, maybe it's the joy of the journey, maybe it's the style of transport you used to get there. Whatever take you have on travel, we'd love to see it at The Paper Players this week.

When I chose this theme, I didn't realise how timely it would be for me, since I'm just back from Stampin' Up's On Stage event in Australia. My husband and I followed that up with a week at the beach before we came home. So, some real life travel in the last month. It seemed a great chance to both do some memory keeping and to try out another of the pre-orders I picked up from being at On Stage.

Disclaimer: Before I go further, I must make it clear that my husband does not really have a sea-shell face! Because he's a little social media shy, I just covered him up a little. 😁

Taking pride of place in one photo is my Stampin' Up! On Stage conference bag. It has a great insert for transporting all your crafting goodies and the insert lifts out so you can easily get your things. Take it out ahead of time and you have the perfect beach bag!

It was the bag that got me thinking about using another pre-order item Notes & Totes. This is a great bundle that offers things for cardmakers, scrapbookers and 3D item makers. It makes up a perfect little tote bag that can be used for gifting and it can be made to look just like the conference bag. This was my original plan but it was just too big for the layout I had in mind.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other bits in the set to use. Both stamps and dies got use!

The sea splashes, the 'relax & enjoy' and the tiny sun are all from Notes & Totes, as is the hibiscus flower on the suntan lotion bottle and the tiny flowers on the Blueberry Bushel photo mat.

I used Textured Notes dies to frame the smaller photo.

The tiny tags, the starfish and seashells and suntan lotion tube are all from the Notes & Totes dies as are the heart shaped sun-glasses at the top of the larger photo.

To make the title, I also used the Notes & Totes dies - this time, the fence post dies. I cut each picket in two to make a shorter fence for the letters to sit on. The letters were cut with the Mini Alphabet dies and I sponged the bottom half of each letter with Azure Afternoon so it looked like the ocean.

Notes & Totes will be available for ordering when the 2025-2026 Annual Catalogue goes live on 6 May.

We'd all love to see what you do with my travel theme. 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:

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)

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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

Friday, 4 April 2025

Impressions Abloom for As You See It 345

It's colour week here at As You See It Challenge. I'm especially excited for it as this colour combination was my choice! I hope you are keen to pick up the colours and make something for the new challenge.

It's been quite hard trying to keep my New Year crafting resolution in sight -which was to play more challenges just for fun. This week, I kind of kept at it by combining my Design Team card with the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

Still on my desk was the pre-order bundle from the May Online Exclusive drop, Impressions Abloom.

The dies in the bundle are fabulous, with not only dies that match the stamped images but with a lot of extra bits and pieces too. It's some of those that I've enlisted for this card.

The sentiment is from the set and I've used one of the rounded rectangle dies from Nested Essentials to cut it with.

The Pressed Flowers embossing folder is part of this new suite and I'm loving it. I think it works with many sets and not just this one.

To give subtle emphasis to the centre panel, I edged it with a Gorgeous Grape Stampin' Write marker and popped it up on dimensionals.

The embellishments are Fine Purple Shimmer Gems, which are carrying over into the new catalogue.

The 2025-26 Annual Catalogue and associated On line Exclusives Drop will be available to view and order from on 6 May.

The whole team would love to see what you do with these colours. You can see what the rest of the team have done, and link up your entry, at the As You See It Challenge page.

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

Sunday, 30 March 2025

Impressions Abloom for Paper Players 731

We had some fabulous entries last week at The Paper Players for Ann's sketch challenge. I'm looking forward to see what everyone does with this week's challenge. Our hostess, LeAnne, has a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge for us. Just choose a line: horizontal, vertical or diagonal and use it to inspire your creation.

Well, with a box of pre-order goodies under my desk fresh from my time at On Stage Brisbane, the challenge seemed a good chance to try some of them out! There are some gorgeous floral sets in the 2025-2026 Catalogue and associated On Line Exclusive release in May. Here's one of them: Impressions Abloom.

This suite is a real beauty because the stamped images are wonderful - lots of choices of shape and size - and the dies match them to cut and to texture them if you want. But... the dies also offer lots of extra bits like stylised flowers and leaves and a gorgeous oval window with an optional stitched frame. I've rarely seen a suite with so many options.

Really, I had to design my card to try out at least some of those options! That's before you even get to the delicious DSP, the super embellishments and the Pressed Flowers embossing folder - which I have used on the card front here.

Getting back to the business at hand, LeAnne's tic-tac-toe. I ummed about the top row but instead have gone for the first column. I've already raved about the flower images and the dies from Impressions Abloom so that's the first two items. Lavender - well, it's a flower and a colour so I've gone with it as a colour. The three most 'lavender' colours in the SU range are Fresh Freesia, Highland Heather and Gorgeous Grape, so I've based my design around those.

I started by stamping a collage of flowers in Fresh Freesia and Highland Heather, adding in flower centres in Lemon Lolly and Daffodil Delight and some Soft Sea Foam leaves. After cutting out the oval die, I sponged some Fresh Freesia around the bottom edge and some Daffodil Delight around the top. I wanted these flowers to be quite pale so it would appear that they were more distant.

I used Gorgeous Grape, Fresh Freesia and Old Olive card to die cut the flowers and stems, then arranged them in the forefront of the oval. Then I added in the stitched oval die over the top to frame the scene.

A quick emboss with the Pressed Flowers embossing folder that's part of the suite and then everything was adhered to a Gorgeous Grape cardbase.

The sentiment is from the Impressions Abloom stamp set, stamped in Gorgeous Grape and cut using one of the Perennial Postage dies.

As utterly gorgeous as the shimmery embellishments that are part of this suite are, they are not lavender. So I got out my Purple Fine Shimmer Gems instead to finish things off.

Watch out for this fabulous suite in May when the new Annual Catalogue and On-line Exclusives drop.

We'd all love to see what you do with LeAnne's Tic Tac Toe Challenge. 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:

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)

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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

Wednesday, 26 March 2025

Gallery Blooms for Colour INKspiration 184

Welcome to the 184th challenge at Colour INKspiration. This challenge runs for nearly two weeks and will finish on Monday April 7, 7pm AEST.

This bright and cheerful colour palette was chosen for us by crew member, Alisa Tilsner. I wish my plot plants looked this good!

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 Sandra Hebel 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 Real Red for Poppy Parade. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

To me, these colours spoke of florals. As I'd been fortunate enough to go to On Stage in Brisbane I'd had the chance to pre-order from the forthcoming 2025-2026 Annual Catalogue. Amongst my pre-order items was a bundle called Gallery Blooms. It's part of a gorgeous vintage style suite called Beautiful Gallery. It seemed a shame not give it a try out for this challenge! 😀

I started by stamping the beautiful trio of blossoms onto Basic White in Tuxedo Black ink. I coloured the leaves with a mix of Mossy Meadow Blends and Garden Green Watercolour Pencil. Then I blended over the area with Azure Afternoon ink before embossing it with the Damask Designs embossing folder, which is part of the Beautiful Gallery suite.

I stamped a second floral image and coloured the flowers with Poppy Parade and Daffodil Delight Stampin' Blends then fussy cut the flowers. I popped them up on dimensionals over the stamped image on the embossed card front.

From the die set, I cut out three agapanthus and three small leaves in Garden Green. I partially sponged the agapanthus with Mossy Meadow ink, cut down the small leave stem and tucked them around the three blooms.

The sentiment is from the second stamp set in the Beautiful Gallery suite, Beautiful Motifs. This set is mainly sentiments which will work well with any stamp set. It's stamped in Mossy Meadow, cut using a die from Something Fancy and with a Mossy Meadow shadow.

The embellishments are also part of the suite, Pressed Flower Motifs.

We'd love to see what you do with the challenge colours. You can join the group in the following link, if you aren't already a member. Don't forget to answer the questions when you ask to join.

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.

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

Monday, 24 March 2025

Textured Notes for Paper Players 730

Thanks to everyone who played along in Joanne's Single Stamped Image Clean and Simple challenge. Once again, we had great entries. I think that Ann's gorgeous sketch challenge will give us more beauties this week.

I liked the wide border in this sketch. I used a piece of the new Woven Textures DSP from Online Exclusives for this, along with a card base of Gray Granite.

I used one of the new Textured Notes dies to cut a panel from Basic White. Then I used the large foliage stamp from Textured Notes to stamp in Mossy Meadow in two generations in opposing corners. The stamps and dies can be purchased as a bundle, which gives a 10% discount. I can see that this bundle (and the DSP) will be firm favourites!

After stamping the leaves, I added in some script using the set, which also provided the splatter stamps for the Gray Granite and Crushed Curry splats.

But wait... there's more! Then I blended some Crushed Curry around the corners where the leaves were stamped using a blending brush.

For the circular element of the sketch, I stamped the round raffia mat stamp from Textured Notes in Pecan Pie, then blended some Crumb Cake around the edges. As there are not dies, some fussy cutting is required!

The sentiment, also from Textured Notes, is stamped in Gray Granite and cut with one of the dies from the bundle. The embellishmenets are some of the Glossy Dots Assortment.

We'd all love to see what you do with Ann'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:

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)

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier - You are here

Stef Perry

Eliz Stewart

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