Thinking Stamping

Sunday, 5 April 2026

Hippest Hippos for The Paper Players 780

Welcome to a new week at The Paper Players. LeAnne is our hostess this week, with a seasonal theme for us. Many thanks to all of you who played along in Ann's Tic Tac Toe challenge last week - the gallery was awash with wonderful cards!

Of course, in New Zealand we're heading into autumn but that was not the reason that LeAnne's theme caused me a couple of headaches. The set that I'd been expecting to use - well, turns out that I sold it! And also the next set I went looking for had met the same fate! The cupboard was looking pretty bare now but I did remember that Hippest Hippos (retired) had a rather sweet umbrella in it, so that was what I went for. 😀

I decided that it was a good time to have a bit of a farewell to the retiring 2024-2026 In Colors too. I stamped the ballerina Hippo in Tuxedo Black and coloured her with Smoky Slate and Pretty in Pink blends. I die cut the umbrella from Basic Gray, and also from a piece of Pretty in Pink DSP, then paper pieced them together. The ballet skirt is also paper-pieced.

I thought the umbrella gave the idea of showers but it needed something else to suggest spring. So I sponged in a grassy knoll with Shy Shamrock, then die cut some flowers from Petunia Pop and the DSP. Then I die cut some flower centres from Peach Pie and placed them to give her a garden to dance in.

Then I needed a sentiment. The new Delicate Whispers set provided me with a lovely 'Hello Friend' which I stamped in Tuxedo Black. The card base is Petunia Pop, as are the Flat Pearl embellishments.

If you want to stock up on any of the retiring In Colors: Petunia Pop, Pretty in Pink, Peach Pie, Summer Splash and Shy Shamrock, you'll need to do it fast. Once they're gone, they're gone and the In Color products are usually very popular.

What's your version of Spring Showers? The team and I would love to see!

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

Christy Stanford

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

Help Me Grow for FMS 730

Well, Easter Sunday lunch for the big family is done. The dishes are done. Everyone's gone home. So I made my way to the craft room to play around with this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. Well earned recuperation!

Having recently acquired the Help Me Grow bundle (online exclusive) I'm still in play mode and had yet to do anything with the garden tools stamps and dies. This card is an attempt to remedy that. 😀

I've partially embossed the card front with the Lazy Daisy embossing folder (online exclusive) because it's not only an awesome folder but it fitted the garden theme well too.

I used the ever-faithful Stylish Shapes dies to create the frames. The foliage - and isn't that a gorgeous piece of foliage - is cut from Soft Sea Foam. The tools have Smoky Slate business ends and Bubble Bath/ Berry Burst handles. I sponged the edges to create some depth around them.

I used the veggie-row label die to create the 'thanks' and tucked it in among the garden tools. I finished off with some Sparkle Dots.

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.

Sunday, 29 March 2026

Flowers Fair for Paper Players 779

Ann is our hostess this week. As this month has a fifth Sunday, that's our excuse at The Paper Players to have a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge.

I hope you'll have as much fun with it as everyone seemed to have with Claire's sketch last week - it certainly brought fabulous entries into the gallery!

I like a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge as there are guidelines but also lots of leeway. I started by choosing the centre column, mainly because I wanted to play with a new stamp that arrived yesterday: Flowers Fair. I'm kind of kicking myself that I haven't had it longer as it was part of the March Online Exclusive drop. I foolishly thought I didn't need it - at least, not until I saw what my friend Joanne James had been doing with it!

Anyway, this is my second attempt with this set. It also dawned on me that the 2024-2026 In-Colors would be retiring soon and I haven't used them anywhere near often enough. I'm really going to miss Pretty In Pink, as that's been my go-to pink for nearly two years now. And Petunia Pop - what a colour! And those bright summer greens, Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash.... how will we do without them?

Here's the run down on the card. I started by stamping Flowers Fair in Tuxedo Black on Basic White card stock. I started with a standard card front, 10cm x 14cm. Then I went to work, whiling away a half hour doing some very therapeutic colouring with my Stampin' Blends: Petunia Pop and Pretty in Pink for the petals, Shy Shamrock for the foliage, Peach Pie for the centres and some light Gray Granite for the shadowing. The addition of some simple shadowing really gives the flowers a lift off the page: little effort, big result. 😀

Once the colouring was done, I carefully ripped the bottom 2-3cm off, making sure to get a reasonably jagged line. I kept the smaller piece to use for the inside. I attached a piece of Petunia Pop DSP from the In Color DSP stack to the Petunia Pop card base. Then I took my stamped piece and tied some Linen Thread around it, before attaching that piece to the card front.

The sentiment is from Delicate Whispers and is cut with a label die from Nested Essentials. I added a shadow label in Petunia Pop too. Then I added a trio of In Color flat pearls to finish off.

What will you do with this Tic-Tac-Toe? The team and I would love to see!

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

Christy Stanford

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

Rolling Waves for Atlantic Hearts 674

I was taken by this sketch at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge and had to play along.

I stamped a panel of Basic White with the watery stamp from Rolling Waves, sponged and stamped in some sand, then added some wave die cuts. Then I cut them into strips of various widths.

I embossed a Basic White card front with the retired Seabed embossing folder before adhering it to a Coastal Cabana card base.

When adhering the strips that made up the beach scene I alternated adding them flat and popped up on dimensionals for interest.

I added a sentiment, stamped in Basic Gray and cut with a label from Textured Notes. The 'Happy Birthday' is on the inside.

On a scrap of Basic White, I sponged some Peach Pie and Pumpkin Pie in an uneven manner, then splattered it lightly with some Pumpkin Pie ink. From this, I die-cut some seashells and starfish and added them to the waterline.

I finished with adding a few mother-of-pearl gems from the Pearlised Circles pack.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.

Friday, 27 March 2026

Flowers Fair for AYSI 369

It's colour week at As You See It this week and LeAnne has chosen this gorgeous combination of colours for us to work with. Isn't it wonderful?

Full confession - today's card is entirely the fault of my team mate, Joanne. I'd been ignoring the siren call of the Flowers Fair background stamp from the March Online Exclusive drop. But she didn't... and then she started posting wonderful cards made with it. Nek minnit, it had fallen into my cart and arrived at my house yesterday.

This is the first thing I've made with it, so it's a fairly straightforward use of the stamp.

I stamped it in Tuxedo Black, then coloured the flowers and leaves with Stampin' Blends: Pretty in Pink for the petals, Soft Sea Foam for the leaves and Pool Party for the flowers centres and to create shadows under and around the images. I like the way the shadowing gives a subtle 3D effect, making it seem at first glance that the images are lifted off the page. Using a blending brush, I sponged some Pool Party ink at the bottom of the page to define the edge and to let the Pool Party bleed up the image.

Once I'd had my fun colouring in the stamp, serious thinking had to happen. It looked as though it would be a good birthday card, so I had to have a rummage through my sets to find a sentiment that would fit a circle. Why a circle? It just seemed right. I lit upon a sentiment from Simply Said, which I've used a lot recently.

The sentiment caused me quite a problem. If you look in my bits box, you'll find one stamped black on white and one white-embossed onto Pool Party. If you look in my bin, you'll find one stamped black on Pool Party with a rounded rectangle die from Nested Essentials (just proving to myself that it had to be a circle) and a white embossed one on black using a circle from Spotlight on Nature. Honestly, it took me as long as the colouring! For the record, this one is white embossed on black and cut using Stylish Shapes.

After (even more) deliberating, I went with Black Baker's Twine from the Essentials Pack to tie in with the stamp outline. I added in a Pool Party shadow circle to peep out and break the black and finally a trio of Pretty in Pink gems.

I look forward to more experiments with Flowers Fair!

What will you do with these soft, pretty colours?

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

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

Wednesday, 25 March 2026

Help Me Grow for Colour INKspiration 206

Welcome to the 206th challenge at Colour INKspiration! Thanks for all the gorgeous entries for last challenge. We have another pretty combination for you this time around, chosen by Crew Member Vicki Boucher. The rabbits might have you thinking Easter but of course, you can go in whatever direction the colours take you!

This challenge runs for nearly three weeks and will finish on Monday 15 April, 5pm AEST.

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 Kisha Cook 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 Granny Apple Green for Shaded Spruce. Black, White, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige and metallics are free colours, as are flesh-toned Stampin' Blends.

To be honest, these colours stumped me to begin with. However, this morning a box of goodies from Stampin' Up! arrived, including the Help Me Grow bundle from the last drop of Online Exclusives, which hadn't made it into my cart until recently. A timely arrival, as I gave it an immediate outing for this challenge. 😀

I used Blending Brushes to roughly ink up a couple of scraps of Basic White, one in Pumpkin Pie and one in Shaded Spruce. Then I cut some bunches of tiny flowers and a pair of stems. I added adhesive foam to the back of a couple of sets of the flowers to get some height into the mix.

I cut the pot and saucer from Gray Granite and sponged the edges with ink to help create some shadows. The saucer die cuts a slot for the pot to fit into - very clever thinking by SU! Once the pot and saucer were adhered together, I started creating the plant by overlapping the leaves and adding in the bunches of flowers.

To ground the pot, I added a strip of Basic White embossed with the Stone & Vine folder. All of this was attached to a Gray Granite card base.

I was going to add a sentiment with a banner over the pot when I saw that the die set contains a die for a little plant label, like you'd use in a herb garden to name each plant. When I realised that the 'thanks' sentiment fitted into it I decided that would be my sentiment.

The stem of the label die is very thin and delicate. I could have added it to a stouter version of the plant label that's also in the set but I really wanted to keep the delicate look of the stem. So I killed two birds at once by using adhesive foam again. Not only did it give the narrow stem strength it also added the height I wanted to the sentiment.

The finishing touch was a trio of Basic Rhinestones, coloured with a dark Pumpkin Pie blend.

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, 22 March 2026

Gears & Textures for Paper Players 774

Thank you to everyone who entered into JayDee's CAS Floral Challenge last week. Great entries!

This week, Claire is our hostess and she has a lovely sketch challenge for us to play with. I love a sketch and I especially enjoy seeing the different cards that come from the same starting point.

I was going for a masculine card so reached for the Gears & Textures bundle. The various gears and steam-punky bits are a lot of fun and look different with a switch up of colour and arrangements.

I took my colour choices from a scrap of Nature Walk DSP. The pointy shape was cut down from the last remaining triangle of that pattern and fortunately, worked in well with the sketch! I eked out enough of the reverse from another scrap to use the reverse side for the horizontal - ask me why the strip is that width!

The sketch had some curly elements in the horizontal, so I added in some die cuts in Early Espresso. In the interest of adding in some other colours to lift it, I added in a third die-cut in Pecan Pie for the centre.

The large cog was cut from a scrap of the bronze sheet in Metallic Textured Specialty paper. The circle is cut from Early Espresso and, although it's hard to see in the photo, stamped with Early Espresso ink splatter to add some texture.

I wanted something subtle to emboss the background with, so went to the retired (but very useful) Subtle embossing folder. I'll bet many of you still have this one in your stash!

The sentiment is from Sweet Jar, stamped in Early Espresso and cut with a banner from Stylish Shapes.

The embellishment is a trio of Pecan Pie dots from the Natural Matte Dots pack.

I'd love to see what you do with this sketch!

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

Christy Stanford

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