New Favourite

Well, there's no question what my new favourite is from Stampin' Up - the utterly delicious Needlepoint Nook suite - so it was great to see Paper Craft Crew's invitation, in challenge #316, to showcase it. I recently went to a card class run by the marvelous Jan Clothier (check her out here!) where we made screen cards, so the first thing I did when I got home (who needs dinner, anyway?) was make one using this new favourite.

Ingredients:
Stampin' Up card (Petal Pink, Old Olive, Whisper White), ink (Berry Burst, Granny Apple Green, Basic Black), Needlepoint Nook,DSP, stamps and framelits, Happy Birthday Gorgeous stamp (for sentiment), banner punch (for base).

Butterfly exploration

The other day, I got to experiment with the upcoming Beauty Abounds bundle - which is full of lovely surprises. As a base, I used the latest Freshly Made Sketches challenge: #365. The stamps and dies called out for soft colours, so I obeyed their demands! The two panels have a sponged base and then are lightly over-stamped with one of the stamps from the set. The butterflies are (carefully!) detached from the stunning larger framelit in the 'Butterfly Beauty' framelits.
A lovely set  - I look forward to more exploring.

Ingredients
Stampin' Up: Card (Shimmery White, Whisper White, Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Balmy Blue), ink (Gorgeous Grape, Balmy Blue, Soft Sky, Lemon Lime Twist, Pineapple Punch), stamps (Beauty Abounds, Needlepoint Nook - for sentiment), thinlits (Butterfly Beauty)
Other Products - francheville rhinestones

Christmas Pressies

Paper Player's challenge #420 was an interesting study in verticals. I'm just getting my head around Stampin' Up!'s 'Nothing Sweeter' stamps and dies, so decided to interpret the sketch using them. Thank goodness for the Stamparatus, which was a boon for this card.

Ingredients:
Stampin' Up! card (Blueberry Bushel, Whisper White), DSP (In-colour 2018-2020), ink (BAsic Blac, Lovely Lipstick, Pool Party), stamps (Nothing Sweeter), framelits (Sweetly Stitched).
Other products: Zing! (American Craft) embossing powder in green glitter finish; francheville rhinestone.

Celebrating with Retro Rubber!

Congratulations, Retro Rubber, on reaching your 100th challenge! And what a great idea, to make a blog-hop challenge. 

In the middle of the excitement of new stuff, it's so nice to be reminded of older stamps and dies. For this card, I returned to the 'Shake and Celebrate' stamps and accompanying dies from the 2016 Holiday Catalogue, which I under-utilised when I got them. I think I limited my thinking to just shaker cards, so for this I thought about using them as 'normal' stamps and dies. I also used Affectionately Yours DSP from the 2016 - 2017 Annual Catalogue.

So, Retro Rubber, here's a celebratory cake, with the added elements (from the bottom of your grid) of heat embossing (the sentiment and heart - they were hard to catch in a photo) and glitter paper. 

Ingredients:

Stampin' Up! card: (Whisper White, Night of Navy), glitter paper (copper), iDSP( Affectionately yours), ink (Cucumber Crush, Watermelon Wonder, Basic Black) stamps (Shake and Celebrate) and dies (Shaker Shapes)

Sneak Peak #2 of Needlepoint Nook

I'm just loving this new set, which I was lucky enough to order early through attending OnStage. I've used it here for Sunday Stamps' Challenge SSC192. I love the colours in the DSP so have chosen to use the same colourways here, with just a little of one of the reverse-sides as a base. I also used another recent acquisition, Stampin' Up's 'Corrugated' Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. It makes a great base when used with coloured card, I think.

 

Ingredients:
Stampin' Up! card (Berry Burst, Whisper White, Night of Navy)  ink (Berry Burst, Balmy Blude, Old Olive, Night of Navy), Corrugated Embossing Folder, Needlepoint Nook Suite (stamps, dies, DSP)
Other: Rosie's lace trim.

Sneak Preview: Stampin' Up!'s Needlepoint Nook

I'm so glad I went to OnStage in Auckland - and the chance to acquire the completely gorgeous Needlepoint Nook suite early is high among the reasons why!
I used a little of the DSP and some stamps and dies from the suite to make this card for Paper Craft Crew's gorgeous sketch challenge PCC315.
I can see lots and lots of fun ahead experimenting with the suite's different permutations. The closeup shows the lovely stitched-effect die and the delicacy of both the stamps and the DSP.

Vases four ways

I loved the combination of colours in Hand Stamped Sentiments' Challenge #302, but it wasn't until I saw As You See It's challenge #189 - a 'quadtriptych' card - that I worked out how to use them together. I liked the idea of removing an element of colour in each of the parts, but repeating the central image:

Ingredients: STampin' Up card (Whisper White, Crushed Curry, Merry Merlot, Pumpkin Pie), ink (Merry Merlot, Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie), stamps (Varied Vases) and die (Bunch of Banners)

Christmas with beach colours

I'm just squeaking in under the wire to get this card entered, so I'll be brief: the colour palette for Sunday Stamper's challenge SSC91 was beautiful - we were challenged to use at least three of these colours:

Since I'm currently on my yearly mission to make southern hemisphere Christmas cards, I seized the day:

Pretty tricky colours to match from what I had, so this is as close as I could get!

Ingredients:

Stampin' Up card (Marina Mist, Whisper White, Crumb Cake), ink (Crumb Cake, Dapper Denim), Stamp and Dies (Beautiful Baubles), watercolour pencil (Balmy Blue)

Other: Water colour pencils (Faber Castel's Raw Umber and Cream, Derwent Inktense Deep Indigo)

Speedy Red!

I was pretty impressed with how efficiently I made this card for As You See It's 'Vitesse Rouge' Challenge #188 - which required a card using red and taking less than 10 minutes. I ended up taking 6:38 minutes - though as you can see, I followed their advice to keep 'it simple'!
(By the way, the background is white - it just came out funny in the photo because I was hurrying to get it in on time!)

Card ingredients:

Stampin' Up! dies (Detailed Baubles), stamps (Beautiful Baubles), card (whisper white, real red) and left over glitter paper from when my daughter crafted (that is, at least 10 years ago!)

New stuff!

I went to my first On-Stage on Saturday, and it was great! One stamp set I came away with was a lovely set of sentiments - "Strong and Beautiful' - which I've used on this very CAS card.
I combined the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches #297 - Balmy Blue, Rich Razzleberry and So Saffron - the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch's #297 and the theme of 'Compliment' from CASology 320.

Ingredients: Stampin' Up! ink: (Balmy Blue, So Saffron, Rich Razzleberry), card (Thick White), Stamps (Strong & Beautiful, Love What You Do), dies (Stitched Framelits), Rhinestones.