May 2017: Papertrey Ink's "Create Along With Us"

It's release day!  As far as new stuff, this month's release contains a couple must haves for me:

 BUT, no shopping for me tonight! I'm waiting for a few out of stock items to round an order out.  I will have to place it soon with the Vault being retired. Must... work... on... patience.

To tide me over, I'm crafting!  Hopefully, I won't have to wait long.  

The challenge today is to take inspiration from the release and come up with a project using Papertrey Ink goodness in our own interpretation.   I was drawn to Nichole's card:

From Nichole's blog at Papertrey Ink

She focused on a few new products, including:

Mix and Mat:  Herringbone

Ivy & Bloom

Ways to Say:  Sympathy

I decided to use a more neutral palate and pulled out:

Birds of a Feather

Larger than Life

Garden Gate Kit stencil:  Lattice

I liked the crafty look of the Ivy in the Ivy & Bloom set, so I decided to just cut the botanical images out of card stock rather than stamp them as well.  I like the textures at play on this card.  I'll admit, I was going for the hummingbird, but thought he was pointed to the left, when in fact he flies to the right.  His little friend saves the day with an addition of a few more grasses.  I like it better this way!

Thank you for stopping by!  Don't forget to check out all of the entries in this month's challenge. along with all the goodness!

May Release Challenge Entries

Papertreyink.com

Additional players:

Some PTI card stock in Olive Twist, Harvest Gold, Simply Chartreuse and Lemon Tart

Ink:  PTI Olive Twist &Smokey Shadow, along with Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark Embossing Pad, Clear embossing powder & Tim Holtz Distress Inks

Life is slow, and that's awesome!

Enjoying my mini-vacation from work--due to needs of the department, I am in the middle of 4 days away from the office.  It's felt good to chill out a bit.  T cooked all weekend--he made chili and nachos Saturday night and then chicken and waffles for Mother's Day. 

Speaking of mothers, I am hoping Mother Nature finally has her season's squared away!  This is why Spring is my least favorite of all.  It is so temperamental.  My yard behind the house looks like an African savanna, between the tall grass and the trees filling out.  Mowing is a multi-day affair, and trying to get it done between work and the raindrops is a challenge!  The rhubarb is getting high, so I baked an apple pie with rhubarb, yum!  The pie filling T canned in 2015 is holding up well, but we've not got much left.  With the craziness in our weather here so far this year, I wasn't sure if the fruit trees would be shocked like 2016 and we'd not see much in the way of fruit nubs.  THAT is not a problem!  Look at all of those little apples!

I think the orchard is going to be productive if we can keep the critters from knocking all of the fruit down before we get a chance to pick it and use it. Hoping to have lots to post on that as the year goes on.  The newer apple trees the mister planted are starting to make little apples, too.  I am anxious to taste my first "Arkansas Black" and see if the hype is warranted.  It is supposed to be an excellent baking choice.  Also a first this year, the 2 Bosc Pear trees have pears coming in.  I love fresh pears.

A few of my herbs came through the winter months beautifully!

Aside from mowing and tending to the yard, I've also been taking advantage of the colder temps and hitting the stacks of stamps and paper.  It has been a year of collecting supplies--probably in part to having a job again, part to T being in school and not seeing what comes in the mail, and part the fact that so many of the older stamps and supplies from my favorite stamp company are being discontinued.  It was hard to keep up during tax season, but I'm catching up!  You can see my cards either on Instagram (jilouise1) or from time to time, on here.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's day weekend!