PTI December Blog Hop

Welcome everyone. I hope, for all who celebrate, you had a very Merry Christmas surrounded by family and friends.

I'm sure you are all anxious to get on with the hop, so on to the reason we're here. Nichole challenged us to find an inspirational piece among our holiday decorations and design a project around it. Here's what I chose.

It's actually a Boyds Bears Tree Topper. Her outfit is cream velvet with white fur and touches of metallic gold. I used that palatte to design this card.

I used PTI Vintage Cream cardstock and white Pearlescent Cover by Worldwin layered on a white cardstock base. The stamps are by PTI - Snowflake Serenade and Star Prints. Gold ink by Colorbox, Ranger Queen's Gold embossing powder, and metallic gold paint pen by DecoArt. The star is adhered with 3D-Dots.

I hope you like it. Now I'm off to admire and be inspired by all the other participants. I wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. Thanks for hoppin' by.

PTI October Blog Hop

This is the card I am going to send to friends that we left back in NJ when we moved to PA. I hope someone will believe that I had a card very similar to this sketched out using the Sign Language image on a Cuttlebug folder from last year - Winter House. But when I saw Lauren Meader's sneak peak for her Fold and Go back in August, I had to run and order Boards and Beams and make it a true PTI card. This is how it turned out.

I hope I did her work proud. I love it and I apologize for not having something really creative this month. The colors are non-traditional and are representative of our home. I found the ribbon at Michaels - it's Chocolate with almost Spring Rain lined trees and red stars - and the color palate developed from there. I started with a base of Rustic Cream (my personal favorite PTI color-VBG) and layered Dark Chocolate and Spring Rain. The house is stamped in VersaMark and is very crisp in actuality. I topped the flag holder with the solid star in Pure Poppy and added some red Stickles glitter. Each little blue tree on the ribbon is topped with a red glitter star. Everything went fine until I tried to stamp the tree in Spring Rain. So I went with Enchanted Evening. One of these days, with the help of the Forum, I am going to understand these different inks. The flag is adhered to the panel with pop dots. For the sentiment, I typed out the wording in PrintShop using a font similar to Boards and Beams. Then I stamped the word house from that set into the phrase. (I have to work on positioning it better.)

I hope you enjoyed it. Please give me a good grade for effort and not for originality.
Now I'm off to love all the other entries. Thanks for hopping by.

September Blog Hop

This was a very interesting challenge. Nichole asked that we "focus this month on reusing & recycling portions of your newly arrived Papertrey order in an earth-friendly way." I had several ideas, but the more I worked, the less I came up with. I didn't have much to work with, mostly the empty stampboxes from previous months, some acetate that the stamps come on, the thank you cards, and the tissue paper. So here goes number one.

I started with the thank you card and pictured a frame. Then it became a window with the acetate as the glass and the tissue for curtains. The wallpaper inside is PTI Green Tea Leaves in Aqua Mist. The flowers are from Vintage Picnic and the clapboards on the Ocean Tides cardstock are made with Journaling Lines using Versamark ink.

The second uses the wrapper from Poppy Prints by Lisa Johnson. I had found these Balli's Best Tea Candies at a local candy & nut outlet. I thought they were quite different and would work nicely for Autumn. The wrappers are green, orange, and brown. I made a pillow box out of a transparency (no time to order PTI Clearly Creative but it's on my list) and covered up the logo - so sorry Lisa - with a Nestabilities label stamped with Tea for Two. I added the acorns and leaves from Autumn Abundance to keep with the theme. Tied with a ribbon from Michaels and little tags stamped with words from Tea for Two. Ink: Spring Moss, Orange Zest, Dark Chocolate. Colored with Copics.

I hope you found these interesting and I'm off lovin' all of yours.
Thanks for hoppin' in.

September Guest Star Stamper

I thought I would take this opportunity to share my GSS entries at Papertrey Ink. I am so honored and excited that Nichole Heady chose my Creepy Cap as this month's winner in the Halloween Project category.

I used a Wilton Disposable Decorating Bag filled with Halloween candy. Then made the brim from True Black cardstock and embellished with stamps from Spooky Treats II. The little spiders are from the end of the "best if eaten before..." stamp. The spider charm was stamped on acetate and embossed with black embossing powder. I finished off with Ripe Avocado Swiss Dots ribbon.

The brim is also stamped with the web design and heat embossed using Versamark Ink and clear embossing powder.

My other entry was for the Timeless Templates category to use for sharing seeds with a friend. It holds a small sunflower that when dried will provide the seeds for her garden. They're really pretty - multi-flowered, rusty red & gold.

The template is Get a Handle On It cut from Rustic Cream. The scalloped circle was cut from Summer Sunrise with Spellbinders Nestibilities. Lots of different stamp sets were used for this one. The main image is from Autumn Abundance, stamped with True Black and colored with Copics. The wavy flowers and sentiment are from Around and About Sentiments, stamped in Summer Sunrise. The sentiments on the side and label and the bee are from Flower Garden Sentiments. The little dot trail on the bee is from Wishing You. Flower and ribbon from my stash.

I hope you enjoyed my projects as much as I enjoyed making them. I hope to be back with something for the Blog Hop. See you then.

Papertrey Ink August Blog Hop

Our challenge this month was "to create a project inspired by any aspect of fall." Nicole's suggestions included texture found in fabrics and stitching. There is nothing that speaks to me of fall more than my quilts. Those first crisp Autumn evenings, with the smell of that first fire in the fireplace and being able to snuggle under a warm quilt, are heaven to me. While browsing through my fabrics ( and in a quilter's stash that could take days!), I came across a remnant from one of my projects that immediately said fall and the card evolved from there.

In a perfect world, it would be wonderful to go pumpkin or apple picking and then spread out a quilt on the ground for a picnic lunch. This is my interpretation.
I cut a rectangle of the fabric and fringed the edges. I started with a base of PTI Rustic Cream, then Dark Chocolate and 2008 Bitty Box Basics in Summer Sunrise. The upper portion presented a problem with my limited supplies, so I stamped Background Basics: Text Style on a piece of Rustic Cream. The ribbon is a piece of green twill from my stash. For the basket I stamped Vintage Picnic on PTI Kraft and shaded with Copics and adhered with pop dots. The pumpkins are stamped on PTI Cream with Smokey Shadow and also colored with Copics. (I had so much fun with the leaves.) The sentiment is from Autumn Abundance. Click on the photo to see a little more of the detail. I hope it made you feel like fall and that you liked it.

Here's another Autumn inspired card I finished before the Blog Hop deadline. I've found a new love in coloring with Copics. I studied tole and decorative painting for several years and I am using some of the principles of shading, etc. on my cards.

I tried to emulate rust colored mums from our garden and a yellow ware pitcher. This is the first time I've used a sketch from CPS and I went all the way back to #5 for this one.
The stamps are Autumn Abundance. Edging and pearls from my stash. And a huge thank you to Lauren Meader for sharing her tip of coloring embellishments with our Copics (April 2, 2009). I toned down the pearls from Michaels with the lightest color from my flowers. Big difference! True Black and Vintage Cream inks by PTI.
PP is by K&Company, Rust CS by DCWV, PTI Cream and Rustic Cream cardstock.

Enjoy the Hop and thanks for stopping by.

Why I love Papertrey Ink

Tell me, do you ever get to the point that, when you sit down to make a card, you have everything you need? Today was one of those frustrating mornings that nothing went as I wanted. I needed a quick birthday card to get in tomorrow's mail. I had the paper colors but not the ink. Then when I found some ink, the papers didn't match. Saturday is the new release for Papertrey Ink and I hope to finally fill in the colors of ink that I don't have. I'm almost glad they aren't releasing a new color this month. I'm trying so hard to catch up and not have to declare bankrupcy. Here's what I ended up with. Click on the photo for a better look. Even my photography wasn't working right.

This is based on Mish's ATC from Feb. 09. I didn't have a scalloped border punch or Nestabilities that would work (actually nothing was working). So I used a Martha Stewart doily border punch. The stamps are PTI Journaling Lines, Polka Dot Basics and Floral Frenzy. The button is from my stash (and it does match the green ink).

This is why I love PTI so much. They have fabulous stamps with wonderful sentiments and everything MATCHES! Yes, I was yelling. In fact I nearly lost it a few times. I hope my dear friend enjoys her card. After all, she'll never know what really went into making it. When she says thank you, and I know she will, and adds something about making it, I'll say - - -
Oh, it was nothing. (while trying to cover the bald spots on my head)

Off to Hershey

Much of the past few days has been spent packing for Hershey, PA and Quilt Odyssey. I have one class on Saturday, Dancing with the Stars with Linda Ballard. It's a mystery and, let me tell you, quite a challenge. On one not-too-busy morning I had the entire staff of Burkholder's Fabrics in Denver helping put the fabrics together. This isn't my first mystery quilt by far, but it's the first with so many instructions as to color, texture, scale and value.

This is the third year we have taken our granddaughter and stayed at Hershey Highmeadow Campground. I tell everyone, she comes along to entertain Opa while I'm at the show. Five days of fun in the campgound and at Hershey Park. (I don't know who is the bigger child.) She has been a tremendous help, first in packing and then in loading the motorhome. This is no small task.

This is the view from the motorhome down the steps to our home. The door is at the far end of the porch. And to a seven year old, this was fun!! Oh, to be young again.

So from Arianna, Hans and me, bye for now. Talk to you next week.