PTI Stripes Challenge

The most recent challenge was to make a card that focused on stripes. I had several ideas running through my head but all of them had to do with various shades of one color and glitter. I tried the ultra glossy first but something went wrong and it was a disaster. I decided to get out my glue pad and just layer on the glitter. I don't often grab green as my main color scheme but I had three shades of Martha Stewart glitter that made the Papertrey Ink Watercolor stamp set just pop. I accented the phrase with some lavendar rhinestones. I like the simplicity of the card and I think they'd be great to make as a set. My only problem is that my entire craft space floor, the stairs leading back upstairs, my hands, and various other parts of our house are littered with glitter. Go figure! Here's the card and another picture that hopefully shows off the glittery loveliness.

I didn't actually make this card but my son, who is three, made for his daddy for Valentine's Day. I let him pick out all of the parts that went on the card and he even did the stamping. I'm so proud of my little man. He was so very proud of his project when he was finished and was excited to tell daddy that he had a "surprise" for him.

Word Challenge

The Papertrey Ink challenge for today is to take a word and make it the focal point of the card. Our neighbor across the road used his snowblower on our driveway and sidewalk so my husband wanted me to make him a card. I went with a very simple layout and was very happy with the final product. I die cut the large shape from the top layer, embossed the flowers on the aqua mist layer, and then double embossed the "thank you" in the center. Even though the picture turned out darker than normal, the sharp white and aqua mist is still one of my favorite color combinations. Here's my card!

Happy Birthday, Papertrey Ink!

Happy birthday, PTI!

Monthly Moments Trading Card Challenge

I tried to be a scrapbooker some years back but the perfectionist in me did not jive with scrapbooking. I would spend two hours on one page and I easily moved into card making when I found Papertrey Ink. I was able to put together a set of five cards in an hour and felt so much more productive. However, PTI is going to have something called Monthly Moments so that scrapbooking is put into pockets. I love the idea and have two Project Life kits in my craft space. I might mention that they aren't opened but I have read Nichole's blog post about their Monthly Moments kit and I'm excited. The challenge for today was to make a good old ATC card. I have to say that it was quite a challenge to work with only a 4 X 3 space but I think my card came together nicely. I did leave some open space so that a picture or some journaling can be added later. I added in some felt and punched the corners for a softer feel to the card. I am a big fan of stamping words with either ink or Versamark and playing with all of the background stamps.

Timer Challenge

Time is something that I often have trouble with in my craft space. I over-analyze colors, placement, and choice of stamps. I make four different layouts before I adhere anything. I could go on and on. The challenge today was to find seven items in seven minutes to make into a card and then spend 17 minutes making the card. I must admit, I'm not sure I was under 17 minutes but it was a lot better than my regular time frame. I chose the following seven items: 1. cardstock (I wasn't sure if I had to count it separate or not so I made it as one.) 2. die 3. rhinestones 4. Live Love Laugh stamp set 5. Versamark 6. PTI black ink 7. ribbons Here's what happened when I put all of those elements together on one card.

Thanks to the Designers

The PTI designers created some free images that can be used on cards. I used a thank you sentiment since that's a card that I need pretty often. I tried to pull all of the corresponding colors and incorporate them somehow onto the card. Even though I have a collection of cover plates, this is the first time that I've used them and I am in LOVE! What class they give a card. Plus, it jazzes up the entire card with a simple pass through the die cutting machine. Here's my card!

Kick Off to PTI Anniversary

Nothing like anniversary month at Papertrey Ink to draw me back to my blog. Let's just say that life has a way of passing you by and I was so caught up in all of the events in my life that my blog got pushed completely and totally aside. We moved back to my hometown, had another baby, bought a new house, my husband and myself both got new jobs, my husband had major surgery, and my baby had surgery at just a month old to correct a lip tie. That's the shortened version; don't worry, there will be no longer version later. Papertrey Ink is, by far, my favorite stamping company. I have been one of their loyal customers since the beginning, seven years ago. I went to CHA in Orlando and Chicago, and I traveled to the Stamp-a-Faire event in Cincinnati. If it has to do with PTI, I'm all ears. I decided that I was going to get some "me" time and that I would participate in as many anniversary contests, especially that have to do with making cards, as I could. I must say, it has been great, and it's only the beginning of the festivities! My first card is based on a sketch and a color code that Nichole provided on her blog. By the way, I'm so excited that these sketch and color recipes will be available for download. I wanted to do something with the star borders and so I just decided to line them up, use Versamark to stamp designs on top of them, and then I die cut the word "congrats" from the Wonderful Words collection. I added a vellum star behind the word because it just seemed to need one more thing. I love the little tiny confetti stars that are made from the middle star border.

MIM: Using Borders to Make Flowers

I am using the Make-It-Monday projects as a way to jump back into card making. I was so busy with work and trying to keep up with things at home that I wasn't making time to papercraft. The MIM projects are inspiring and do-able so I'm a happy camper. I ended up going a bit vintage with this card with the background paper from My Mind's Eye, the tinsel glitter, and the tea-dyed edges. I loved making the tiny tag. I used elements from Garden Variety Two to put together the stamped images on the tag. I think I could just make hundreds of little tags, I love the detail-oriented parts of projects. For MIM, I had to use a border die to create a floral accent. I used the Eyelet Lace Die for my flowers. The cool thing about this die is that there are the circles that cut from the centers. I die cut three strips of felt and then adhered the opposite color inside of each of the rolled flowers. I was pretty happy with this card; it might have to stay in my craft room :) I'll at least have to make more flowers with all of the border dies.

A close up of the tag and the border die flower.

The edges of the flowers look extra pretty too because of how it overlaps.

I {heart} Tiny Tags!

MIM: Using Those Scraps

Happy Mother's Day! I was just thinking about how my scrap bin is becoming an overwhelming mountain of lovely PTI paper. I can barely close the lid to the bin. Making one card isn't going to make that much of a difference in my pile but it's inspired me to pull out my scraps first before grabbing a fresh sheet of paper. I have ten tags to make for my seniors that are getting ready to graduate so I know that I will empty those bins out a little more. Okay, let's get to the card for this week's MIM over on Nichole's blog. Dawn had the most amazing and helpful video full of tips. I grabbed five different patterned papers from my stash and layered them like the rainbow. I find that I do this with almost everything, even when I eat M & Ms. There is a very special young lady who is graduating this year and I'm going to miss her a lot so this card is for her. She's had a lot of hardships but is a very strong individual. Also, I teach Spanish and have had her in Spanish three of her four years of high school. Plus, she studied Spanish over the summer at NYU and is going there in the fall to study linguistics. Okay, back to the card. After laying the papers, I die cut a star at an angle at the top of the paper. I was going to use the PTI star but it was too big so I pulled out my Spellbinders. I stamped "Girlie, You Rock" in the center of the star and added a few purple rhinestones. I added three clear butterflies and put rhinestones in the center. I also used my glue pen to trace around the edge of the star and added some super sparkly Palette glitter.

I couldn't bring myself to throw away the star so I put it on the envelope, cut out Skylar's name and used Stardust Stickles the letters. The button in the center of the star is layered and then tied together with twine. I hope she likes the card, now just to write a note inside.

Inspired Color Challenge

This is going to be a quick post since it's so late. The evening got away from me, as usual, and it's back to work tomorrow. Anyway, my Weight Watcher's leader is relocating to Alabama so I thought I'd make her a card to express how helpful she has been in my journey so far. I never paid attention to how many of one color I had on a card before so this gave me a chance to really pay attention to the color and elements of my card. I found that it was really hard to get three items of each color on the card but I'm pretty happy with the finished product. Everything, except the rhinestones, are from PTI (of course) :) The stamp sets I used were: Beautiful Butterflies and Background: Houndstooth. I can't believe I've not used either set until this card. What was I thinking??? Here's the card. I may come back later to edit the post to add details, if anyone has any questions. My eyes are getting heavy and I have 100 teenagers to work with tomorrow that are ready for summer break. (Me too....eight days left!)

April Blog Hop

It's been a LONG time since I've added anything to my blog. I have been busy raising a toddler, teaching Spanish to a lovely group of teens, and letting life take me where it leads. I couldn't resist joining the April Blog Hop after I saw the inspirational picture on Nichole's blog. Plus, I keep accumulating all of these great PTI supplies; I need to prove that I'm using them...not just collecting them, although that's fun too :) I have worked at the same high school for four years and it's quite a bittersweet year. I am watching an amazing group of students getting ready to graduate that I first knew as freshman. They have spent most of their high school careers molding themselves into fine individuals. Today was our last Spanish Club meeting of the year so I made a card for the club president, a young lady who I've known since her freshman year. I used the inspirational picture to decide the color scheme and also allowed that to influence me to use the Pretty Peonies butterfly.

I used the Cane Print plate as the background and then layered the mat stack dies in the center of the card. A few buttons around the die, rhinestones and sewing down the center of the butterfly, and a strip of Hawaiian Shores finished up the card. I hope it is well-received. I really enjoyed participating this month and really hope to become more active on my blog again. I miss it!

September Blog Hop

This month's challenge is to find a new way to use the things that we normally throw away when we get our brilliant PTI packages. I decided to utilize a few different things: the tissue paper, the box everything comes in, and the bags from the Vintage Buttons. I always keep the tissue paper but I used them differently for my project. I actually did two different projects and am now hoarding boxes, paper, and things that used to be considered "trash".

For my first project, I made some napkin holders by using my Nestabilities to cut the ring and then twisted up my tissue paper to tie it together like ribbon. I had picked up the Christmas bulbs at Michael's in the $1 section for this year's Christmas stuff. I wanted to make the napkin rings so that it could be at anyone's seat so I didn't stamp names but rather phrases from Signature Christmas (LOVE Dawn's handwritting!!!). Also, used the great stocking and flocked the top of each one. These were hard to photograph, that's for sure!

A little closer:

Even closer:


My second project is my favorite and will be such an easy gift to put together for those last-minute gifts that we all know we have to put together two days before Christmas. I used the Nestabilities Labels 1 and the great stamps to make a cover for the button bag. I also made a little card for each set and then an ornament to go inside the bag. I used my Nestabilities to cut the background square and hand-cut around the tree that I stamped from the new PTI set. I decided to get out my embroidery floss and stitch the lines on the tree and added some sweet buttons.

Here are the ones I was able to make. From this order, I now have three little Christmas gifts and I'll know what to do with those bags. I think you could fill them with candy for Halloween or Easter. You could even do a little felted heart for Valentine's Day.


One complete set:

Close up of the embroidery (So fun!):


If I left out any details or you have any questions let me know!

Have a great time at the Blog Hop...I can't wait to go check out what everyone did with their "trash". Check out Papertrey Ink and their message board for the other blogs!

New Blog Look

I decided to change the look of my blog and with a little help with Photoshop, I'm pretty happy with the results. I got the header and page layout free from Shabby Blogs and then changed the header in Photoshop to make it look a bit more shabby.

I'm wondering what I can do to get more feedback and/or comments on the blog. Does anyone have any ideas?

I'd like to start including posts for my other hobbies, as I'm spending a lot more time knitting and finding other crafts that I enjoy. I went to a teddy bear workshop this past weekend and as soon as I make one more addition to my bear, I'll post her. I need help on naming her too so maybe we'll do a little blog candy. Just look for a post in the next few days.

At the teddy bear workshop, I was able to meet some of the most amazing women and had such an inspiring day out in the middle of nowhere. We laughed, stitched, and stuffed bears all day Saturday. It was a brilliant day. I was even able to sell some of my cards and it made me feel good about my cards because all of the ladies were really impressed with them. Sometimes in the blog world, I get caught up with the fact that there aren't any comments but yet I see that people visit. I've decided a long time ago that I know in my heart that I enjoy my hobbies and I appreciate comments but I don't have to have them to make me feel like my work is good.

Well, off to enjoy the last couple of hours of a three day weekend and it's back to teaching Spanish to 125 high schoolers. I can't believe we've already been in school for a full month and that it's my sixth year of teaching.