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.

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 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:

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. 

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

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!

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 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.

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.

 

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:

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. 

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

Beautiful Butterflies for AYSI 344

Welcome to a new challenge at As You See It. As always, a sketch challenge follows a speed challenge. This one is super, with lots of room for creative interpretation.

I stamped three small butterflies from the Beautiful Butterflies bundle using Tuxedo Black. I coloured them in with Lemon Lolly, Lemon-Lime Twist, and Peach Pie Stampin' Blends before die-cutting them out. These became the three circular elements of the sketch. 

I die cut a small butterfly from Lemon Lolly cardstock and attached that to the first butterfly. I added some Peach Pie gems along the thorax.

Using Lemon-Lime Twist ink, I added in some text using one of the stamps from Elements of Text, then some dots is Peach Pie from the Beautiful Butterflies. Using a blending brush, I also lightly added in some Lemon-Lime ink around the stamped area.

The sentiment, from Hooray for Surprises, was stamped in Tuxedo Black. Then the whole panel was matted onto a piece of Lemon Lime Twist, then attached to the Basic Black card base.

The whole team would love 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 As You See It Challenge 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.

 
 

Anything but a Card for Creativity Abounds March

 

This month the international team at Creativity Abounds has a great theme for our bundle and hop: Anything but a Card. This hop - and the associated tutorial bundle - is always popular and will give you a lot of examples for all sorts of non-card things: memory keeping, packaging or home decor.

Even if you don't have the exact sets, you'll find inspiration in the different projects each of us has created. If you get the tutorial bundle, you'll have step-by-step instructions for thirteen projects, all of which you'll see as you go around the hop.

You can earn the Tutorial Bundle as a free gift from me with a purchase of $100 or more (excluding P&P) or by being a member of my team. You can shop with me, and join my team, from anywhere in New Zealand.

There are two parts to this post: a bonus project and a sneak peek at my tutorial project.

1. Bonus Project: A Scrapbook layout

The Wildflower Celebration DSP is great for making quick and easy cards but it's also great for quick and easy scrapbooking too. 

I used a piece of 12"x12" White Willow as a base. To ground the photo, I blended some Pool Party ink with a blending brush and stamped over it using images from the Elements of Text stamp set, available as an online exclusive. In my book, it's an essential item whether you're card making or scrapbooking. 

After matting the photo with Blueberry Bushel, I used some DSP from Wildflower Birthday as frames.  The flower, leaves and cupcake were popped out of the ephemera sheet that's part of the collection. Since I have the Birthday Celebration dies, I used it to die cut out a '3'.

In the lower right corner, I added a cluster of elements that I'll hand write in some journalling. 

I stamped some splats from Elements of Text, then layered up three labels from the ephemera sheet and added in a tiny flower cluster. So easy and quick to do!

2. Tutorial Bundle Project

Keeping up the memory keeping theme, my project in the tutorial bundle is a simple, easy free-standing photo frame. There are instructions for both portrait and landscape versions and detailing of the back panel. 

Here's a glimpse at the other twelve projects in the tutorial package. Take the hop around the rest of the team and you'll see exactly which non-card projects are being showcased as well as the twelve extra bonus projects. 

If you live in New Zealand, you can get this tutorial bundle free with a qualifying purchase from me. If you live somewhere else, you can get the bundle from a team member in your country. 

Here's who we all are and where we're from.

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. 

Beside Me for Paper Players 729

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. This week, it's CLEAN and SIMPLE week. Joanne has challenged us to use only one single stamped image in our projects.  You can also use a sentiment stamp. 

Don't forget that in addition to using a single stamped image (and the option of a sentiment) you must keep your project CLEAN and SiMPLE:

• Lot of uncluttered 'white' space
• Minimal layering
• Minimal embellishments

I have had the lovely Father's Day set, Beside Me, for a long time but haven't really used it much. I really like this image of a dad pointing out the way for his young one so that's what I used as my single stamped image. 

Beside Me $55

I used a Basic White Thick cardstock for the base and stamped on a Basic White card front in Tuxedo Black ink.

 I coloured the image with Stampin' Blends: Bronze, Ivory, Pool Party, Misty Moonlight, Fresh Freesia, Balmy Blue, Highland Heather and Pretty in Pink. The Bronze & Ivory combo give a great range of skin tones depending how they're blended. 

I linked the image and sentiment together with a triangle of Purple Fine Shimmer Gems.

We'd all love to see your CAS Single Image creations. 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

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. 

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