Weekly Reminder & NEW Guest Designers

There is still time to join us for LeAnne's Color Challenge (PP275).  To see the original post and view the Design Team inspiration, please click here. 

The Paper Players are delighted to welcome three new Guest Designers to our team.  These fabulous and talented ladies play along with us often and we love their creations so much, we asked them to join us for January - June, 2016. 

Please help us welcome:

Linda Callahan
Stampin' Seasons

Hi!  I'm Linda Callahan and am delighted to be a Guest Designer with The Paper Players!  I am a retired elementary school teacher who began stamping about 15 years ago when a student brought me in a beautiful basket of hand made cards for Christmas. When I asked him where he got them he replied, "Oh they are all over my house.  I can bring you more if you want!"  Turns out his mom was a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  I hosted a party and I was hooked!  As a teacher I loved doing bulletin boards.....as a retired teacher I find that creating cards is like doing miniature bulletin boards! I live in the foothills of the Adirondack Mts. in upstate NY with my husband, a retired teacher and ski coach.  My son and daughter are grown but live nearby with their families - that include one granddaughter and four granddogs!  

Colleen Begley
Colleen's Creative Corner

Hello! I'm Colleen Begley and I live in the northern part of San Diego County in the small beach community of Leucadia, California.  I work in the healthcare field for a global Diagnostics company doing technical applications for laboratory analyzers.  Since my day job is all about science, my creative outlet is stamping and card making. I discovered stamping about 21 years ago when I happened into a stamp store while visiting a friend who lived in the Detroit area. I discovered the blogging community a few years ago and enjoy spending time viewing and reading blogs and participating in some of the various challenges that can be found around blog-land. The Paper Players challenges are a favorite of mine!  I’m so, so happy, and honored, to be invited as a Guest Designer with The Paper Players for the first half of 2016! I hope you enjoy my creations. Happy Stamping everyone!

Hannelie Bester
desert diva

Hi, my name is Hannelie Bester, I am a South-African, but lives in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi) for the last 7 years .We moved to this part of the world because of a job opportunity that was offered to my husband. I started blogging soon after we moved here... hence the title of my blog!  Living so far away from my loved ones, made me realise how much I love them. Card making helps me cope with being far away from home, and challenges my right brain, since I am a left brained, logical and analytical pharmacist at heart!  Graphic, bold and creative are words I come across when people describe my style.  I am so excited to join this fabulous team as guest designer for the next 6 months!

Special Announcement from the Paper Players!

Greetings everyone! We wanted to share some exciting news here at The Paper Players today! 

Starting with our June 7th challenge, we will be welcoming 3 new Guest Designers to our team. We are very excited to have these ladies join us and asked them to share a little bit about themselves.

Amy Koenders

Stamp with Amy K

I’m Amy Koenders, I’ve been a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator for about 3 years and I’ve been stamping for about 5 years.  I took many art classes when I was much younger and have always enjoyed painting and creating.  I’m glad that I’ve found such a fun hobby to share with so many others.  I’m married to my wonderful husband Lance, who has graciously put up with my stamping habit (and ever growing stash) without complaining a bit.  I’m also a runner and have finished many road races in every distance from 5K to Marathon.  I’m easy to spot out on the road, I’m the one with sweaty ink smudges on my forehead and glitter stuck in my hair.

Lisa Elton

My Paper Tales

Hello! I'm so very grateful to have been invited to guest design with this talented team. Thanks Anne Marie! I live in Ohio with my high school sweetheart husband. We are blessed with one amazing son, his beautiful wife and a 6 month old granddaughter who is the light of our life! I'm a former floral designer/instructor and now stay at home wife who cares for our granddaughter while our son & daughter-in-law work. I've been a polka dot loving stamper for about 15 years, a blogger since 2011. I hope I can bring you a bit of inspiration here at the Paper Players over the next 6 months!

Jodi McKinney

Life in Between

Hi, my name is Jodi McKinney.  What a thrill and honor it is to be asked to be a part of The Paper Players Design Team as a Guest Designer!  Stamping and "paper playing" is something I do at "life in between" - the fun times in life when we get to choose what we want to do instead of doing those things we have to do.

I am a wife of 33 years, mom of two grown sons, and Director of Corporate Communications for a home health and hospice company.  I live in Mars, PA - for real!  

There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do, discover all the things I want to learn, and spend enough time with the people I love.  In addition to stamping, I love to bake and cook, I am an amateur photographer, and I am trying to teach myself to watercolor.  

I love creating one-of-a-kind cards that are created specifically for the individuals they are created for... gifts of HeART.

We couldn’t be happier to welcome these amazing designers to the Paper Players team. Please stop by their blogs and say hello to them. 

One more thing….if you haven’t played along with Jaydee’s Theme Challenge this week, there is still time. The challenge is open until Friday, May 22nd at Noon (PST). You can find the challenge details by clicking HERE. 

Exciting Changes at The Paper Players!

Greetings everyone!  The Design Team thought that you might need a little excitement here at The Paper Players to keep you coming back to our challenges in 2015.  We are thrilled to announce SIX fabulous new additions to our team.

First, please join us in welcoming 3 new Guest Designers to the team.  These creative gals will work with us through June, 2015 and we are so excited they agreed to join us.  We asked them to tell us a little bit about themselves:

Debbie Mageed
Secret Stamper

Hello! I am so happy to be a Guest Designer for The Paper Players! I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator since 2011 and love classic, layered cards. I have lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan for 11 years and love this wonderful city! I am married to Aly, my wonderful husband and have 4 children, ages 35 to 17. Stamping is a wonderful way to transition to being an empty nester since my youngest daughter will be heading to college next year!

Karren Johnson
Stamping Stuff

Hi!  My name is Karren Johnson and I'm so happy to be guest designing at The Paper Players for the next six months.  I live in Christchurch, New Zealand with my other half, Pete, our two sons Matt (17) and William (12) and our dog, Dexter.  I've been stamping for about 12 years now and my style has evolved over that time to the point where I feel most comfortable creating clean cards with lots of white space.  At the time of writing this, I am still enjoying a hiatus from working life but normally I work in the accounting/finance field.

Shannon Jaramillo

Shannon Kay Paperie

Greetings! My name is Shannon Jaramillo. I have been a scrapbooker since 2001. I discovered card making in general and Stampin’ Up! in particular in 2010. I signed up as a demonstrator immediately and have never looked back!  I live in Southern California with my wonderful husband and have two fine grown sons living close by. I process payroll by day and play with paper by night. My style tends toward the clean and simple with a fair amount of white space.  I am SO excited and honored to have been invited to be a guest designer with The Paper Players for the next six months. I look forward to the challenge of designing along side this talented group of card makers! I can’t wait to get started!!

And, we can't wait for them to get started!  Now, we did say there were SIX didn't we?  And that's only three....so the next three must be...new members of The Design Team!  We know you will love seeing their work each week and enjoy the challenges they host.  Please give a warm welcome to our three newest members of The Design Team!

Claire Broadwater

Claire Creates Cards

Joanne James

The Crafty Owl's Blog

Laurie Schmidt

Stampin' Up North with Laurie

We are delighted to begin working with all these talented gals and look forward to seeing their creations each week!  Please join us for their premiere challenge, and our first of 2015, on Sunday January 4th.  Until then, from all of us at The Paper Players, warm wishes for a Happy New Year!

Paper Players #89 - Theme Challenge from Anne Marie

Well hello there and welcome to another fun week here at the Paper Players! Anne Marie Hile here, as your hostess this week and before we get to the challenge at hand, I want to share some Paper Players news with you. First up, we want to extend a HUGE thank you to the lovely and talented Sherry Eckblad for joining us as our Guest Designer for the month of March. Sherry, we couldn't have been happier to have you as a part of the team and we thank you for your amazing creative inspiration. Please visit Sherry at her blog, The Button Junkie to check out her work. 

For the month of April, we are excited to announce that the fabulous Shirley Pumpkin is joining the Players as a Guest Designer. Here is a little info about Shirley, in her own words: 

Hi, My name is Shirley. I have been stamping for more than 8 years. I went to a stamping event that my friend, Terry, was doing back in 2004 and was hooked that day and signed up with Stampin' Up. I am married and have three kids - Levi, 13, Calvin, 10,  and Sabrina, 24. I did not know how much I was going to love making cards. I do it every day! I took over my sons' TV room last year and made it my stamp room. I still have a TV in the room, so a lot of the time my husband and sons are sitting at the tables watching TV while I am stamping, so it is kind of our family room now. I have had quite a few hobbies in the past,  including: woodworking (I even made some small cabinets), cross stitch, painting, wreath making, and flower arranging. Cards and scrapbooking are my favorites (plus no wood dust and I don't have to wear a mask). I am so excited to be picked to be a Guest Designer at Paper Players. They are a bunch of really talented girls that I admire.

Welcome to the team, Shirley! Now, let's get to this week's challenge. Today is April 1st...already. Can you believe it? Well, since this challenge falls on April Fool's Day AND this month is the 36th anniversary of "Humor Month", I though it would be fun to share some smiles here at the Paper Players this week, with a Theme Challenge:  

Let's take a peek at what the Design Team has whipped up to make YOU smile this week: 

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Jenn Picard

Heidi Boos

Shirley Pumpkin (GD)

Jaydee

PLEASE FOLLOW OUR RULES FOR PLAYING:

1. Please use only THREE challenges TOTAL.
2. Please use a direct link to the post you would like us to visit.
3. Please link back to our challenge.
4. Create a NEW project.
5. All product lines are welcome!

Be sure to post your project to the linky by Friday, April 6, 2012  at NOON (PST).

We look forward to visiting your blog!

Meet our May Guest Designer-Rita Wright

If you are looking for our current challenge please click HERE, the linky closes at midnight tonight!

What a wonderful month April turned out to be!  We had a lot of new players stopping by and joining in our challenges!  Thank you!  We also enjoyed peeking into your blogs and being inspired by you!  Jen Mitchell did a fabulous job being our Guest Designer for April!!!  Thanks Jen for all your wonderful creations and hardwork! 

Rita Wright

Cards by Rita

May is almost here and we are excited to welcome Rita Wright, from Cards by Rita, to our team for the month!!  Rita has a fabulous style that is all her own!  She is able to create Vintage, CAS and other styles with ease!  She is a lovely person too and we know that you will enjoy getting to know her as the month unfolds!

I asked Rita to share a bit about herself.  This is what she wrote...

Howdy from Texas!  I am so honored to be the guest designer for May.  I started doing paper crafts about seven years ago when a friend encouraged me to scrapbook my wedding photos.  I never intended to do anything beyond that, yet here I am about to celebrate my 1 year anniversary with Stampin’ Up!    Making my first card really got me hooked and I can’t say when I last made a scrapbook page that wasn’t digital.    I try to stamp something every day because of the joy and satisfaction that comes with creating.  I’m a challenge addict and give them credit for strengthening my skills and encouraging me to stamp more.  

I’m still in the process of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.   If professional student ever becomes lucrative, I will have found my dream job as I love learning new things.   For now I’m enjoying being a demonstrator and sharing my love of stamping with others.    I am blessed to have an amazing husband who spoils me rotten, cooks me dinner every night, and tolerates my collection of cats. 

I am looking forward to designing along with these amazing ladies who inspire me so much.  

Thanks Rita!  We are looking forward to designing with you too!!!!

Join us here on Sunday for a brand new Theme Challenge from LeAnne!  We can't wait to play!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lesley and the Paper Players

Welcome to April Guest Designer ~ Jen Mitchell

With April comes a new Guest Designer to the Paper Players Team.  We are pleased to welcome Jen Mitchell of I Create to our team for the next four weeks.

Jen has a distinctive style that is both clean and bold.  Her blog attracted me a few months ago and when she started playing along with the Paper Player Challenges, I knew I had to ask her to be a Guest Designer.

I asked Jen to share a bit about herself...this is what she wrote:

Hello everyone from Bridgewater, Massachusetts!  I’m so happy to be joining the Paper Players for the month of April as their guest designer.  When I started my paper-crafting journey, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would end up here!  Many years ago a friend of mine asked me over to her house to do some stamping and make some handmade Christmas cards.  I accepted the invitation but really had no idea what I was doing.  I had a box of stamping goodies that my sister had given me, and after a trip to my local craft store, I managed to make (and send) my first batch of handmade cards.  Somehow the bug bit me because since then, I can usually be found in my craft room creating something or other.  Challenge blogs are an endless source of inspiration for me so being here is a real honor!  I can’t wait to get started!

We can't wait to get started with you too Jen!!!  We are looking forward to a great month of challenges and cannot wait to see what you and our participants create!

Thanks for stopping by!

Smiles,

Lesley and the Paper Players

Goodbyes, a Hello and a Reminder!

March is here and we have to say goodbye to our talented February Guest Designers, Stephanie Uzee and Kerin Sylvester.  Thank you ladies for all your hard work and wonderful projects!  We've loved getting to know both of you! 

With the arrival of March comes our new Guest Designer, Marian Garcia.  She was our Headliner for our Blog Hop.  I asked Marian to share a bit about her stamping passion, this is what she sent.

Greetings from the heart of Silicon Valley (home of Apple, Cupertino, CA).  I’ve lived here all my life and this is where I started my family.  I have two grown children, Mandy and Matthew.  They are the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m proud to say that I raised them all on my own as a single mother.   I work full time at the VA hospital in Palo Alto, which is a rewarding position interacting with our brave Veterans.   But, I have to say maybe not with much surprise that my passion revolves around artistic projects.  More specifically, I enjoy the art of designing greeting cards, photography and scrapbooking.   I just love the creative process of creating and it means the world to me to preserve my family’s memories throughout history.   I am a 110% craft inky rubber stamp junkie addict.   I’m honored to be surrounded by these ultra-talented women, Lesley, Ann, Jaydee, LeAnne and Nance for selecting me for The Paper Players March Guest Designer … Thank you!     

Come on over and “follow me” on my blog I would love to have you. 

Thank you to Marian!  We are looking forward to an exciting month of challenges!!!  To visit Marian's Blog, please click HERE.

There is still time to play with our current challenge, please click HERE to see the inspiration projects and play along!  The challenge ends on Friday!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Smiles,

Lesley

February Guest Designers

Hello!  Thank you for participating in our Anything Goes Challenge and Blog Hop this week!  There is still time to participate, so if you would like to follow our Hop or play along with our Anything Goes Challenge this week, please click HERE.

It is February 1st!  My Mum's 60th Birthday is today, so I wanted to send a little Shout Out to her!!!  She is in Hawaii with my Dad, turning 60 in style!!!  Happy Birthday Mum!

The start of a new month always brings the excitement of a new Guest Designer to the Paper Players!  This month is all about Love and so we have invited TWO talented ladies to join us for our next four challenges! 

Please welcome Kerin Sylvester and Stephanie Uzee!  I asked both ladies to share a little about themselves.

 Kerin Sylvester

I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator for about 6 years and have loved every minute of it! From the instant satisfaction of creating something special for someone, to meeting some of my dearest friends, and earning a fabulous cruise last year, Stampin' Up! has been an amazing addition to my life!

My wonderful husband Jeff and I have two great boys, Ben and Nick. Combined, my 2 boys play on 4 baseball teams, so we're very busy with that too!

When I'm not hidden away in my stamp room, I work full time in the Accounting office at a local company.

Stephanie Uzee

I am a stay at home mother to 3 children, Christian 13, Cameron 11 and Candice 7. I became a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator in June 2010.  I found Stampin' Up! purely by mistake on the Internet one day and I have been addicted ever since!  My Favorite tool is the Big Shot. I have been a scrapbooker for 13 years, but my passion is card making.  I love being able to send that hand made card to someone, and know that I made them smile!

Congratulations ladies!!  Our first challenge for February is on Sunday, February 6th and it will be a Theme Challenge hosted by Ann Schach.

Remember on Saturday February 5th, we will announce:

-Our Winner's for this week's Anything Goes Challenge-the Headliner will be our March Guest Designer

-The Winners of the Blog Candy on some of our Design Team Blogs

Thanks for stopping by!
Smiles,
Lesley

Welcome to Julie Gearinger-January Guest Paper Player

I would like to introduce our Guest Designer for January.  Julie is a long time stamper and plays with us here at the Paper Players all the time!  Her work is unique and beautiful, showing a special knack for using extras like ribbon and embossing.  Please join us in welcoming Julie to the Paper Player team for the month of January!  I have asked Julie to share a bit about herself, this is what she sent.

Julie Gearinger

Ever since I was a young girl, I have loved drawing, painting, sewing, quilting and all kinds of crafts.  I wanted to find an outlet to share my crafts with others and in 1999 I was introduced to Stampin’ Up!  Immediately I signed up as a demonstrator and have been mainly a hobby demo ever since.  I love creating cards and sharing what I love with others.  My favorite techniques are heat embossing and dry embossing (in fact, I can not seem to create a card without my Big Shot anymore:-).  Thankfully, my husband (and best friend) is very supportive of my stamping and I have two beautiful kitties as constant stamping companions!  What more could a girl ask for? 

To visit Julie's blog please click HERE.

Thank you for stopping by!  We are looking forward to sharing our first challenge for the month on January 9th!!!  Are you ready to play!

Smiles,

Lesley

Happy New Year!

To all our avid players and to my wonderful design team, I want to thank you all for a great start at the Paper Players Challenge blog!!  I started this blog in June and am so happy to be designing with such a wonderful and talented team!!!  Thank you to all of our participants, we are looking forward to seeing more of your great work as we continue our challenges in the new year!

Our first challenge back is a Theme Challenge, hosted by Jaydee on Sunday, January 9th. 

I am excited to announce that our Guest Designer for January is Julie Gearinger.  Click HERE to visit her blog and to see her unique style!  We are looking forward to designing with her!!!

Best wishes for a healthy and happy new year!!!  Thank you for your support and for playing along with us!

Smiles,
Lesley

Design Team News (Nance said Yes!) and November's Guest Designer

Hi Paper Players!

If you are looking for our current challenge please click HERE.

I have some news to share about our design team.  Paper Player LeAnne Pugliese of WeeInklings, has decided to take a break from designing for the next little while.  She has a new granddaughter and needs some time to settle into being a grandma!  She will still be stamping and involved with card making but just for herself.  She has decided to take a "Wee" break from her Design Team duties for a while.  That said, she will be back in the new year I am sure!  We will miss her in the meanwhile.

Fabulous news to share is that Nance Lempinen-Leedy will be staying with us as a permanent Design Team Member.  Nance said Yes!!!  I am so happy to have Nance on the team as a permanent fixture and admire her work greatly!  Hooray Nance!

 Nance Lempinen-Leedy

Here is some information about Nance!

I live in the beautiful tree canopy of North Florida with my husband, our daughter and two feline friends plus a whole menagerie of woodland animals and critters.  I am a Reference Librarian at our local state college and have been crafty since my mom taught me to sew at the age of 8. I am inspired by art, interior design and fashion. Becoming a Stampin’ Up demonstrator has opened a whole world of paper crafting to me that I love sharing with friends, family and blog readers like you!   

Thanks Nance!  We are thrilled to keep working with you!

We also need to announce our newest Guest Designer.  From this point on, the Paper Players will be selecting one guest designer each month to help with our challenges.  We will choose guest designers from the crafters who play our challenges.

Our Guest Designer for November is Anne-Marie Hile. 

Here is some information about Anne-Marie!

-I live in the great state of Texas with my husband, who is currently serving in the U.S. Air Force.

-I recently took a huge step and "retired" from a 15 year career in management to return to school and continue my education, focusing on a law degree.

-I have been "playing with paper" for as long as I can remember. I enjoy the creative and social outlet that cardmaking and scrapbooking provides. Because of that, I decided to become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator in March of 2008. I get so excited to create something special for those that mean so much to me because, let's face it, we ALL like getting something "hand-made and heart-felt" in our mailboxes.

-My other hobbies include traveling, photography and cooking. I am THAT gal that always is always snapping pictures at every event. I believe that capturing those memories is what keeps them alive. Life is too short not to celebrate every single day!

-We share our home with three, sweet fur-kids. All were adopted from shelters. We have a boisterous terrier, named Ozzy and two mischievious felines, named Benjamin and Tomas. They keep us very busy and we wouldn't have it any other way! :)

Welcome to the team Anne-Marie!  We look forward to playing with paper with you!!

To all of our participants, thank you for your support of our challenges and for your wonderful comments each week!  If you are interested in being a Guest Designer at some point, feel free to let us know in your posts when you play along with our challenges!  We will feature a new Guest Designer each month.

Smiles,

Meet our Guest Designers for August: Ann Schach and Marlene Peters

Hello!  If you are looking for this week's current Challenge please click HERE.

This month at the Paper Players we are pleased to have two fabulous Guest Designers with us!  Ann Schach and Marlene Peters.  Both have been a wonderful addition to our team for the month of August!  Here is a little information about each of these wonderful ladies, in alphabetical order!!  If you click on their names below their photo, you can go visit their beautiful blogs!!

Ann Schach

Recently retired after teaching high school science for 34 years, Ann resides with her husband and son in southeast Iowa. Originally a scrapbooker, she began stamping a year-and-a-half ago when she became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Since that time she has developed a passion for cardmaking...a passion which she shares with family and friends through her classes, clubs and workshops. When not stamping, Ann can be found reading mysteries and listening to either baroque music or classic rock. An avid dog lover, Ann will soon be welcoming the newest member to the Schach family, Muffy the Boxer. Ann is currently a member of the Splitcoast Dirty Dozen and the Pals Paper Arts design teams.

Marlene Peters

Marlene is a piano teacher of almost 20 years, starting her career as a young teenager. Marlene started crafting shortly after finishing high school, mostly working with wood, acrylic paints and fabric. She discovered rubber stamps and shortly after getting married added card making and scrapbooking to her list of hobbies. She came upon Stampin' Up! and fell in love with the products and after having 3 girls decided it was time to start demonstrating. Marlene has been demonstrating for a little over a year and loves sharing her crafting with friends and family. She will be taking on her first position as part of a design team for Stampin' Royalty in September. For Marlene, everything she loves involves her hands (hence the title of her blog "Hands on") and can always be caught doing something crafty or musical with her free time.

We are thrilled to have you on board ladies, we have enjoyed getting to know you and playing with paper with you!