Challenge #346 - A Blast from the Past

Not all of us are hoarders, but I bet that most of us keep some retired or discontinued crafting tools that we love, that we swear that we'll NEVER get rid of! What tools are those, in your case? Care to share what they are and why you are keeping them?? When I concocted this challenge I thought maybe we'd not only find out some interesting stories, but maybe we'd find some new uses for tools that we were unaware of! I'm really looking forward to this one!!

Let's find out what retired tools our Design Team vow to keep until life as we know it comes to an end:

Deborah Wheeler

Deborah wants to keep this Stained Glass Easter Window stamp in perpetuity!

Heather Cooper

Heather C. has an unhealthy desire to hoard all her punches!

Heather Heroldt

Heather vows to never part with her Stamp-a-ma-jig!

Jan Clothier

Jan has a life-long relationship with the Distressed Tile 3D Embossing Folder!

Joanne James

Joanne will never part with her Bunny Builder Punch ... or itty bitty flower punches, or Scalloped Contours Dies!

LeAnne Pugliese

LeAnne will never let go of her polka dot embossing folder!

Here are some guidelines for the challenge:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D project or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Stampin' Up! colours are used for reference but any matching colours are welcome. You can use black/neutral for outlines and sentiments but don’t use any other colours. Make sure you use all the colours in the challenge banner. Neutrals include black, white, vanilla, Crumb Cake.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your blog post. Turn off word verification so we can send you lots of feedback. Make sure you link the post not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI #342 when uploading to a public gallery.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges.*
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.*

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winners for Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness

We're excited to announce the winners of Challenge #345 because the Featured Artist will be our Guest Designer for the next Recipe Challenge in two weeks! Those Spring Freshness colours were so pretty to play with! Your entries were unique and spring-like and very hard to choose winners from!

Here are the winners for this challenge:

Our Top Pick is: Amanda Mertz

 Amanda made great use of the challenge colours! The soft, pastel bokeh background was subdued but gave depth to the card. We loved the combination of the large florals with combined challenge colours, and the sprinkling of small florals and sequins adding interest! Congratulations on Top Pick, Amanda !

Our Featured Artist is: Christy Stanford

As Featured Artist this week, Christy will also be invited to be our next Guest Designer! Christy has made some bold choices for this colour challenge. Her intense  and busy background would be hard to use in most designs but she managed to keep her focal point from being overwhelmed by it with the use of the paper strips from the sketch in the brighter colours! It just moved the lovely florals right to the foreground.  Congratulations,Christy, you will be our next Guest Designer for our Recipe Challenge in 2 weeks time. We will be in touch!

                                                      

You might want to visit our Honorable Mentions on their web sites:

    1. Erin T.

    2. Birgit

    9. Johanna @LHC

  11. Jolanda Johnstone

Join us tomorrow morning for our next challenge, a Fill In the Blank Challenge. Our winners today can pick up their badges on this page and display them with pride on their blogs or sites.

You Still Have a Few Hours Left to Play Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness

You still have a few hours left to play our Colour Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Apr. 16th, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.    

You Still Have Time To Play Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness

You still have time left to play our Colour Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Apr. 16th, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.    

Challenge #345 - Spring Freshness

I love colour challenges for their inspiration, so I'm grateful to our team member, Jan C. for giving us such a beautiful one to work with this week. The colours are fresh and springlike, hence the name of the challenge - Spring Freshness! Here's the Challenge Banner to check out:

I can hardly wait to see your creativity blossom with these beautiful colours! (As always, if you don't have these ®Stampin' Up!© colours, try to approximate them as closely as possible.)

Every time we have our regular colour challenge, it's a chance for a new person to become our guest designer for a challenge, by winning Featured Artist on our Colour Challenge. If you do, you will be our Guest Designer on the next Recipe Challenge in four weeks. Keep that in mind as you enter!

Also, we are thrilled to welcome back a dear friend onto our Design Team. LeAnne Pugliese was off on a needed sabbatical for a while, but is back, ready to grace us with her beautiful designs again. Welcome back LeAnne!

Now let's see how our Design Team used these colours to create their projects:

Deborah Wheeler

Heather Cooper

Heather Heroldt

Jan Clothier

Joanne James

LeAnne Pugliese

Here are some guidelines for the challenge:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D project or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Stampin' Up! colours are used for reference but any matching colours are welcome. You can use black/neutral for outlines and sentiments but don’t use any other colours. Make sure you use all the colours in the challenge banner. Neutrals include black, white, vanilla, Crumb Cake.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your blog post. Turn off word verification so we can send you lots of feedback. Make sure you link the post not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI #342 when uploading to a public gallery.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges.*
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.*

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winners of Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes

What a lovely group of creations our Stacked Shapes sketch inspired! It was almost impossible to choose winners! But as your Design Team, we are trained to accomplish the impossible!

Therefore, let me introduce you to our winners! Here they are:

Our Top Pick is: Amy Koenders

Amy used 3 cocktail glasses in watercolour style for the stacked shapes in the sketch, to top effect. The citrus-coloured cocktails with their garnishes create such a cheery note against the tropical-feeling DSP and the embossed sentiment really packs a punch on the darker cardstock.  This whole card feels like a holiday and really adds up to a worthy Top Pick! Congrats, Amy!

Our Featured Artist is: Sandra Strobel

Our winning entry, Sandra Strobel, the Featured Artist, has created a card both serene and elegant! The Design Team loved the neutral colour palette, the embossed lower panel, and the sketch flipped on its side with the 3 shapes turned into peekaboo holes. The scalloped lace and floral die cuts, along with the ornate cross, turn this into a beautiful Easter or sympathy card. Congratulations on being our Featured Artist, Sandra!

And we think you may want to check out the following Honorable Mentions on their site:

  1. Erin T.

  4. Amy Tsuruta

 10. Birgit

 13. Jennie Maier

Join us tomorrow for our next challenge, a Colour Challenge with a chance for the winner to be a guest designer for a challenge! Our winners today can pick up their badges on this page and display them with pride on their blogs or sites.     

You Still Have a Few Hours Left to Play Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes

You still have a few hours left to play our Sketch Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Apr. 2nd, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.    

You Still Have Time to Play Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes

You still have time left to play our Sketch Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Apr. 2nd, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.   

Challenge #344 - Stacked Shapes

 Our Team Mate, Deborah Wheeler, has come up with a sketch challenge we're going to call Stacked Shapes. Now the shape she chose was a circle, but, according to our rules, you can replace the circle with the shape of your choice, hence the title! Take a look at the sketch in our Challenge Banner:

This is a simple sketch that leaves you all sorts of room for creativity! I can hardly wait to see what you will do with it!

Before I show you what our Design Team has done, we have a sad good-bye to acknowledge. Our long time friend and teammate, Jane Knudsen, has decided she is no longer able to remain on our Design Team, due to a variety of personal factors. We wish her well, and will definitely miss her as a friend and as an amazing contributor to As You See It Challenges!

Now let's see how the team interpreted the sketch:

Heather Cooper

Heather Heroldt

Jan Clothier

Joanne James

Deborah Wheeler

 Here are some guidelines for the challenge:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D project or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Stampin' Up! colours are used for reference but any matching colours are welcome. You can use black/neutral for outlines and sentiments but don’t use any other colours. Make sure you use all the colours in the challenge banner. Neutrals include black, white, vanilla, Crumb Cake.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your blog post. Turn off word verification so we can send you lots of feedback. Make sure you link the post not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI #342 when uploading to a public gallery.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges.*
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.*

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winners for Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches

Some of you are literally amazing at doing speed challenges! You are learning all the hacks and shortcuts and using your strengths to come up with designs that do not look at all like you only took 10 minutes or less to make! Is it still fun to do these challenges? 

Here are the lovely winners this time, chosen by the Design Team:

Our Top Pick is: LeAnne Pugliese

LeAnne's unique card, which only took her 4 minutes and 16 seconds, has a great display of different blue plaids punched with one of the Pick a Punch set! But what the Design Team had their collective eye on, was the sweet sentiment, stamped in Lost Lagoon in around the top right corner of the card! It's so effective! The little star, again made using two coordinating star punches really packed a - you guessed it - PUNCH!   Congratulation, LeAnne , on being our Top Pick this week!

Our Featured Artist is: Jolanda Johnstone

Jolanda, our winner, and Featured Artist, made her bold and beautiful speed stamping creation in an incredible 2 minutes and 8 seconds!! If that is hard to believe, then you must go to her blog and read how she tackles a speed stamping challenge! She is the ultimate authority on it! Take lessons, if you want to get faster! I know I could learn a lot from her! The Design Team loved how she based her design colours on the piece of DSP she used for her background! They looked even more fabulous in jumbo size! Congratulations on being our Featured Artist this week, Jolanda!

And we think you may want to check out the following Honorable Mentions on their sites:

4. Suzy Hinton

9. Deb Horst 

14. Erin T. 

Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who played along! Our winners today can pick up their badges on this page and display them with pride on their blogs or sites. Please check out our new Sketch Challenge on our blog tomorrow morning!   

You Still Have a Few Hours Left to Play Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches

You still have a few hours left to play our Speed Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Mar. 19th, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.   

You Still Have Time to Play Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches

You still have time left to play our Speed Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches at As You See It Challenges! Why don't you give it a try, here.

The Challenge will close on Wednesday, Mar. 19th, at 11:55 pm Pacific time.  

Challenge #343 - Peppy Punches

 Our Team member, Joanne, has stirred things up a bit by taking on the Speed Challenge and giving us a bit of an unusual theme. Instead of a season, or a plant or animal, she has given us a tool to use - a punch!! What a cool idea!

For a Speed Challenge, your goal is to make your card or project in under 10 minutes. Now you can have it all figured out in your head previously, you can get out all your materials, put your stamps on blocks, etc. but as soon as you put stamp to ink or cut your paper, you must start your timer.

This time around, our only other requirement is that you use a punch to make something in your project.j

Let's see what the Design Team came up with and how long it took them:

Heather Cooper

9m50s

Heather Haroldt

9m10s

Jan Clothier

6m59s

Jane Knudsen

9m0s

Joanne James

7m51s

Deborah Wheeler

7m42s

 Here are some guidelines for the challenge:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D project or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Stampin' Up! colours are used for reference but any matching colours are welcome. You can use black/neutral for outlines and sentiments but don’t use any other colours. Make sure you use all the colours in the challenge banner. Neutrals include black, white, vanilla, Crumb Cake.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your blog post. Turn off word verification so we can send you lots of feedback. Make sure you link the post not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI #342 when uploading to a public gallery.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges.*
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.*

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winners for Challenge #342 - For the Birds

What are the birds doing in your part of the world? Whether they are just appearing or leaving on their migrations, they are often the early sign of a new season! And the sign of a good theme challenge is lots of entries. We did have a good number of them, and some more new players, so welcome to you all. For new players, we want to alert you to our guideline that you only enter 3 concurrent challenges along with As You See It. That will allow you to read and understand our challenges before you make your project, and keep you eligible for our winners' categories!

Here are the winners of Challenge #336:

Our Top Pick is: Nance Salkeld

The Design Team loved the regal swan die cut and the stenciled floral design Nance included on the card front! The colours she used were so vibrant and appealing, and there were so many small details, either die cut or stenciled, that brought the scene to life! Then there was that swan-tastically punny sentiment! Congratulations, Nance, on being our Top Pick this week. 

Our Featured Artist is: Michele Ferguson

 

Michele's stenciled flower image was already beautiful, but she took it up a notch by using coloured pencils to hand draw some extra shading lines and, suddenly, the image was perfect! In addition, that bird image is so realistic looking, it could fly off the page, and when it is all added to a background of faded script....voila! Chef's kiss! Congratulations, Michele, on being Featured Artist this week!

                                           

And we think you may want to check out the following Honourable Mentions on their sites:

8. Bobby

9. Leanne S.

13. Teresa S.

Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who played along! Come and check out our new Speed Stamping Challenge tomorrow morning on our blog! Our winners today can pick up their badges on this page and display them with pride on their blogs or sites.