PTI May Blog Hop

Welcome to the PTI May blog hop. Thanks for stopping by to see my projects! The challenge this month was to use the color yellow. Here's what Nichole had to say about the challenge:

"Spring and summer tend to be the most colorful out of the four seasons. One color in particular that
evokes the warmer weather is yellow!!! Your challenge this month is to use this trendsetting color to the
best of it's potential! You can use it in small pieces as an accent or as the main color. Experiment &
play, discovering new color combos that perhaps you hadn't thought of before. No matter what, just
have fun and enjoy the feeling of happiness that this cheerful color evokes!"

Today I managed to steal a few minutes during my darling daughter's nap time to make 2 cards. I already had 2 yellow bases started so then I just had to figure out the rest.


One of the first things I did after getting my goodies from the last PTI release was to try making some plaid backgrounds using Let Freedom Ring and Faux Ribbon. I thought this red and yellow plaid reminded me of a vintage table cloth so I tried to create a card to evoke warm thoughts of home. I liked the bird houses from Bird Watching with this sentiment from Boards and Beams. I wanted to include a button and a little bird so I decided to combine the two by punching out my bird and adhering him onto one of the big chocolate buttons from PTI's vintage buttons collection.


My second card is ultra-simple and uses the beautiful set Friends Til the End set, which I stamped on Lemon Tart bitty dots paper. I love the combination of Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet and Spring Moss. So summery. Like a big bowl of Sherbert, mmmmmm! I also got to use some of my buttons and ribbon stash and some of the wonderful new Vintage twine. It was very hard to photograph this card. It kept turning out looking kind of green and in real life it's such a pretty sunny yellow. I took it outside and that improved it some.

All supplies are posted below. If you want to know any details of the projects let me know. I'm trying to keep the post short since I know you all have a lot of blogs to visit tonight. Thanks for stopping by to see me, I get such a kick out of the visits!

Card #1: Stamps: Bird Watching, Boards & Beams, Faux Ribbon, Let Freedom Ring; Ink: Pure Poppy, Palette Noir, Walnut Stain, Faded Jeans. Cardstock: Lemon Tart, Pure Poppy, Kraft. Accessories: Vintage Buttons, Nestabilities, Copics, Pebbles chalks, punches.

Card #2: Stamps: Friends Til the End; Everyday Classics. Cardstock: White; Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet and Lemon Tart Bitty Dots paper. Ink: Lemon Tart; Berry Sorbet. Accessories: Spring Moss ribbon, Vintage buttons; vintage twine.

Mojo where are you???

Anyone seen my mojo? I've had a nasty cold this week including barely being able to talk for days. I'm ready for it to be over. I have done nothing for the Papertrey Blog Hop tomorrow night and I'm hoping that my midnight mojo is going to kick in soon. In the meantime, I'll post a card that I made for Administrative Professionals Day this week.
I am having some trouble putting down my Wise Owl set lately. I think these little owls are the cutest ones on the market and the branch is from Beautiful Blooms. Also, the Guidelines 2 set is a lot of fun to play with. For this particular background I didn't even use the grid, I just stamped one of the focal images repeatedly for the background. A dash of Pure Poppy red in the center of each tied it in nicely with the rest of the card. Also, I finally got around to stitching on a card for real. I don't own a sewing machine and have never taken the time to stitch a card but I thought it added a nice touch and I was feeling too terrible to really stamp much this week. It took me days to make this card, a few minutes here and there. To give it a "woodsy" look I ran the Nestabilities background through the cuttlebug and then gave everything some distressing with my inks and distress tool. Hope you like it!

Now, I'm off to my happy stamping place to put together a template for the blog hop tomorrow. I hope you stop by.

Supplies: All stamps by PTI: Wise Owl, Guidelines 2 and Beautiful Blooms. Ink: SU! Chocolate Chip, Distress inks in Walnut Stain and Antique Linen, New Leaf, Palette Noir. Cardstock: PTI Kraft, Vintage Cream, Pure Poppy. Accessories: Pure Poppy ribbon, Vintage Cream button, embroidery floss, Nestabilities and Cuttlebug, punches, Copic markers.

One Sheet Wonder projects

So lately I've done a lot of experimenting making sheets of background papers that I can use later for projects. One of my favorite color combinations of PTI colors is Melon Berry and Dark Chocolate. For these cards I started by stamping my leaves from PTI Beautiful Blooms on Kraft cardstock in Fresh Snow. Then I inked up the stamp again with New Leaf and stamped the leaves again, only moving them slightly off from the first image. I thought it was an interesting effect and want to try it again with some other colors.
The butterflies are from the set Wishing You. I just drew in the body of the butterflies by hand and used the antennae from Little Lady. The spots are made using a white gel pen. For my base card I used one of my favorite stamps from Retro Basics Backgrounds, the dashed line grid. The sentiment is from Simple Little Things, which was last year's PTI Anniversary set. To complete the card I added a layer of Dark Chocolate cardstock with a border punch and some New Leaf ribbon. Very simple but I just love these colors together!

Here's another similar card using this one sheet wonder but this time I also used a gorgeous new set from PTI called Life. Lisa Johnson designed this set and I think everything about it is just perfect. It has beautiful sentiments and flower silhouettes. Run on over to PTI and get it!

Well that's all for now. I have some more background sheet projects to share later and I need to get to work on a project for the April Blog Hop which will go live on April 25th at 8.p.m Stop back and see me soon!

All supplies by PTI unless noted: Stamps: Beautiful Blooms, Wishing You, Life, Retro Basics Backgrounds. Cardstock: Melon Berry, Dark Chocolate, Kraft, Vintage Cream. Ink: Versamark ink, Fresh Snow, New Leaf, Melon Berry, Dark Chocolate, Distress Ink Antique Linen. Accessories: White gel pen, Nestabilities, New Leaf ribbon, Fiskars border punch

Special Delivery!

Today I (quickly) want to share a birthday card that I made for a little girl who just turned 3. I love the way it turned out, if I do say so myself!
The image is a cute little kitty from Penny Black. I colored it with Copic markers and added some glitter to the candle flame. I created the base for the image with my Nestabilities Labels One set. This is probably my favorite shape yet. The patterned paper is Basic Grey Gypsy and the cardstock colors are SU! Cool Caribbean and Pink Pirouette. The sentiment is from PTI. Other details include some white dots and "stitching" with my white gel pen and some glitter glue all around the edge of the Nestabilities for some sparkle. I know this little girl likes sparkle! Finally I topped it off with a button from my stash that matched perfectly and it was done. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it because she is 3 and probably destroyed it in under 5 minutes. LOL! I like the color combination though and need to remember to make another card with this soon.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Stop by again soon!

GSS April Submissions

I just posted my submissions for this month's Guest Stamp Stamper competition over at PaperTrey Ink. I made several backgrounds when I got my new Guidelines 2 set and tonight I finally sat down and made a couple of cards. It is nice to have a head start by having the stack of background paper ready to go. The look and feel of both of these cards is very different. One is sort of masculine and earthy while the other is completely girly and uses one of my favorite color combinations - Pink and Green, with a little purple thrown in. I hope you enjoy these. I can't wait to see the other submissions!

Here's the earthy one. I used Melon Berry, Ocean Tides, Aqua Mist and Chocolate Chip ink on the Guidelines 2 background panel. For the image panel I chose Lisa Johnson's new set "Life" and stamped one of the foliage images in Antique Linen. The sentiment was stamped in Frayed Burlap and Melon Berry. While the panel was still in the Nestabilities die I sponged some Aqua Mist ink around the edges to highlight the panel.



Now for something girly!
I just love Wise Owl! Instead of coloring my owls in a realistic color scheme, this time I decided I should have a pink spotted owl to match my Guidelines 2 background. I stamped the owl body and the belly on two different colors of PTI's bitty dots paper and stamped the beak on Plum Pudding. The tree limb is from the set Out on a Limb. For the center of the pink circles on the background I used one of the dots from Polka Dot basics. The button is the new color Hibiscus Burst. I really am getting quite obsessed with PTI's buttons. I don't think I've made a card in weeks that didn't have a button on it! LOL!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter!

Sorry I've been away - things have been so hectic! Last weekend we had a birthday party for our little girl who turned 2 on Thursday. She had a ball and that was the goal so the party was a success! Mom and Dad were wiped out after an afternoon with a room full of toddlers, family and friends. So I haven't done a ton of stamping but I did do a little. Today I want to share with you the card I made for her birthday.

I started out to do Dawn McVey's color challenge using pink, berry, red and kraft but as you can see, I did not stick to the plan. Typical of me! I used flowers from PTI's With Sympathy set to create the field of flowers and a butterfly from Wedding Day and the sentiment is from Wishing You. The fairy princess is from SU! I believe. I'm not sure because I got her as a WishRAK from the forum over on SCS. I added some puffy clouds using a cloud template that I 've had for ever and I stamped some of the flowers again randomly in Fresh Snow on the vertical strip down the side. For a little bling I used my Spica glitter pens on the crown, the wand and added some all over shimmer to her dress. Finally I added some little pink gems to the crown. I think Izzy liked her card - it was all I could do to keep her from tearing the princess off the front to carry it around with her. LOL!

I have a couple more cards to share that I will try to get posted this weekend. Now, if I can stay awake, I'm going to my craft room and try to create something for the PTI Guest Star Stamper challenge and I have to stay up and wait for the Easter Bunny to bring Izzy's basket. ;)

Happy Easter!

Supplies: Ink: VersaColor Baby Blue, PTI Fresh Snow, Plum Pudding, New Leaf, Sweet Blush, Melon Berry and Hibiscus Burst. Cardstock: PTI Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Pure Poppy, Bitty Dots paper, White. Stamps: PTI With Sympathy, Wedding Day, Wishing You and SU! Accessories: Nestabilities, Copic Markers and Spica glitter pens, button, and gems.

PTI March Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by! I had a lot of fun making backgrounds but things got super busy and I was only able to convert one of my sheets of background into cards. I have lots more to share later using Guidelines 2 but that’s for another day. For my cards tonight I started with a sheet of shimmery cardstock that I’ve had in my stash. I applied Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush and Plum Pudding direct to paper in diagonal stripes. Then I stamped over it with Polka Dot Basics in Fresh Snow. It’s a little tricky to stamp on this shimmery cardstock with such a juicy ink like Fresh Snow but it turned out pretty well.

Edited to add: I made my diagonal stripes by using a piece of scrap cardstock as a guide. I start in one corner and put the cardstock down where I want my first color break to be. Then I take a Palette ink cube and run it down the cardstock, holding it against the scrap paper to guide it. This ink transfers beautifully to shimmery paper. Depending on how wide you want the stripes to be you may have to make a couple of passes to cover the area. Then I move the scrap paper to where I want the next color break. If you wanted to be really careful you can cover the edge of your previous stripe with some eclipse tape or another piece of cardstock but I just use the "eye-ball" method. ;) I also did not pre-measure my stripes but that's just me. I think you'll like this technique if you give it a try. If you do, please send me a picture, I'd love to see your creations!


For the focal image on both I used tulips from Wishing You and a Happy Easter sentiment from Limitless Labels.

I can wait to see what everyone else cooked up!

Supplies include: Stamps: Wishing You, Limitless Labels, Polka Dot Basics. Paper: Shimmery cardstock, PTI White, Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush and Plum Pudding. Ink: Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush, Plum Pudding, New Leaf and Fresh Snow. Accessories: Nestabilities, white gel pen, Vintage buttons, Ocean Tides twill,Plum Pudding ribbon Spica glitter pen