Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop Challenge.

Happy New Year!

Long time, no blog.  Time to fix that.   Might as well start with the customer blog hop.

The inspiration for this month:

I have to admit, this is not my favorite inspiration photo.  I thought it was a bit dark and almost sad.   I was on Facebook, chatting with fellow stamping friends who also love Papertrey Ink about the inspiration photo and the chatter shifted toward weddings and wedding cake.  I remembered my own wedding cake, which was the result of some serious wedding stress.  There was black on that, too--gotta love the 80's!  Those girls had me laughing so hard!  It really turned my mood around.  They inspired me to make this card.

I decided to some of my favorite stamps for this challenge.  The sentiment is from Graceful Greetings.  I love a stamped word with a matching die.  It has such a polished look and this one seems to make its way out to my MISTI on a regular basis.  For the flowers, I used stamps from Gran's Garden and  Forget-Me-Not.  I used a hexagon stencil from the Stencil Basics collection with some embossing paste on white for my canvas.  This was then accented with Bitty Big paper in True Black and some shiny gold paper strips.

Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy the hop HERE

Papertrey Ink September Blog Hop Challenge

Happy 1st week of Autumn!

It's time for the September Blog Hop to celebrate Papertrey Ink.  This month's inspiration photo is full of fall splendor.  Makes me long for cooler temperatures and some good old fashioned, warm you to the core comfort food.

I decided to blend some old and new for this challenge.  Vintage Picnic is my very first Papertrey Ink stamp set.  It continues to be a favorite.  I made the leafy print using a sentiment from Fall Elegance and the leaf imprint from Forest Floor:  Autumn. 

  

Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink July Blog Hop Challenge

It's that time again!  

I absolutely LOVE the inspiration photo this month:

Sea stamps are all the rage this summer, so this is quite the "Now" piece of artwork.

This land locked lady chose to go with florals, as they are more abundant in my area, as well as my craft arsenal, than octopi and fishes.  I was captivated by pattern and color this month and made a couple of cards.  I also made the discovery that I don't own any turquoise blues in my ink box!

I started first with the card in Hawaiian Shores, Tropical Teal and Aqua Mist, along with another aqua ink cube from my stash.  I love how the colors complement the Pure Poppy and dance across the card.  

All stamps, dies and cardstock are PTI.  I started with a Stamper's Select white and the Mix & Mat Flourishes Die center piece.  Once my rectangle was cut, I masked it off and set to stamping.   I felt strongly about keeping this as 1-layer as I could.  The inspiration piece had a poster feel about it and I thought it would be fun to stay true to that feeling.

 The stamps I chose are from the 2017 Anniversary Set Grand Finale, the Make it Market Mini Kit Garden Gild and an oldie but goodie, Beautiful Blooms.  For the sentiment, I used one from Summer Hills stamped in Versamark and embossed in white.  There is a piece of Tropical Teal cardstock under the holes to echo the sentiment shape (Fillable Frames #10) and the whole thing was mounted on an Aqua Mist card base.

I loved how the card turned out, so I decided to make a pair and set out to craft one in blues.

For this card, I changed my inks and used Blueberry Sky, Enchanted Evening and a couple other blues from my ink collection.  There is again, a rectangle of color behind the dots, this time Enchanted Evening, to pair with the shape, and the card itself is Blueberry Sky.  The sentiment this time is from Winter Hills.  Winter Hills is still in the PTI store, although I imagine it will be retired later this year as Summer Hills was in the first round of Last Call.  Glad I was able to pick up this series.  It holds so many possibilities.

Thanks for taking the time to swing by. 

Can't wait to see what everyone else creates.

PTI Make It Monday #323 -- Cascading Die Cuts

This week's inspiration is from Stephanie Gold of the Papertrey Ink Design Team.  The idea is to have die cuts rolling down the page while they are filling the holes they left behind.

In looking at my stamps to decide how to play along, I thought about tossing a cap at Graduation.  My niece and nephew won't graduate for a few years yet, but I thought I would give the DHS Ironmen color scheme a whirl using Orange Zest and Royal Velvet.

The stamp and die are from the PTI set For the Graduate.

The sentiment is from Colorful Words, which was retired by PTI last month.

My marker of choice is the Spectrum Noir; colors LV3 and OR2 coordinate nicely with the cardstock.

I accented the card from with stars left over from Stamp-a-Faire 2016.

As for the  Monk's cording?  I had fun going way back in my mind to when the Mister was making it to go on his handmade leather possibles bag for his Muzzleloader.  Fortunately, it only took one try for us to remember how to get it right.  

If you've never tried, you start with six lengths of embroidery floss.

I used four of DMC 333 and two of DMC 740.

Cut each length twice as long as you want the finished cord to be.  Gather them up, one on top of the other and tie a small piece of floss at the middle point of the length to hold them together.

Grab a willing volunteer and each of you take one end. Each of you, facing each other and pulling the floss tight, twist the floss clockwise as tight as you can.  Once you have a good tight twist, all along the floss, one of you grab the center tie.  Bring the two ends you were twisting together and knot them together.  Then, let go of the ends and watch it twist up on itself.  You will have to smooth it a little, but it's worth the effort.  I tied a loose knot along the cord to add interest on my card front.

Thank you for stopping by.  Always fun to take the time to play along.  You can see what other's have done for this challenge back on the Papertrey Ink's Blog HERE

Make it Monday 321

Playing along with Melissa Phillips over at Papertrey Ink for Make it Monday #321:  Ink Blending on Colored cardstock.

Purple seems to be one of my go-to colors lately.

Today, it is Amethyst Allure and Scarlet Jewel on Winter Wisteria

Stamps are from Year of Flowers: July, Daydreamer and Beautiful Blooms.

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop Challenge

Yes, that's right.  It does say April.  Oh, Income Tax season, you are demanding.  Decided to get this month's Blog Hop card actually ON the blog.

We were given this lovely ladylike stack of tea cups for inspiration.  I couldn't decide if I thought the photo was aqua or blue and kept going back and forth.  Made me think of that striped dress on Facebook several years back. 

image source: http://www.gailmccormack.com

And here is my take:

My design played on the stripes from Bitty Big paper in Aqua Mist Spring Rain Aqua Mist to mimic the subtle striping in the teacups.  I also accented the stripes with gold glitter washi tape to represent the gilding.  The floral set, Bigger Blooms, is new to me although it is on this spring's retirement list.  The sentiment is from Signature Greetings, stamped in black pigment ink and embossed with clear powder.  Most of the inks are Papertrey Ink with the exception of Tsukinko's Delicata ink in Golden Glitz.  My colors are Bright Buttercup, Scarlet Jewel, Hibiscus Burst, Raspberry Fizz, Pinefeather, New Leaf and Hawaiian Shores.

Thank you for stopping by.  

Check out the rest of the hop HERE

Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop Challenge

January is a big birthday month for my family, so it is no surprise I love this month's blog hop inspiration photo.  Birthday party, anyone?

Photo source:  https://freshmommyblog.com/ice-cream-social-birthday-party/

This photo has a lot going on...cake, ice cream cone balloons, hats, and even the kitchen sink!  Maybe it's odd then that the items that jumped out at me were the galvanized tub and all of that luscious white grounding the items in the photo.  It is all so clean and crisp.

I thought I would take a cue from the photo and stay on the clean and simple side this month.

For the card base, I chose to use one of the stencils from the new Papertrey Ink Birthday Balloons Stencil Collection.and Stamper's Select cardstock.   I used Versa Mark ink to sponge the shapes making a subtle pattern and then heat embossed them with white embossing powder.  I like that it didn't get completely smooth--it reminds me of the texture in that galvanized tub.

For the focal, I chose to use the PTI Layerz Mat Stack 3 and Mat Stack 3 dies.  I used foam tape to pop the bottom, larger layer up on the card base.  Then I arranged sections of curled ribbon on top of that shape and applied the smaller shape on top like a ribbon sandwich, also using some foam tape for added dimension. The sentiment is from PTI's Celebrate Big 2016 customer appreciation stamp set, stamped in True Black and cut out with the coordinating die.

Thank you for taking a moment to check out my post.  

Take in all of this months hoppers HERE.