INKer's March Challenge

Your Discovery of Papertrey Ink?

With Papertrey Ink not being in any store there is a story behind everyone of our  discovery of it's existence. Granted some of us may have been PTI fans  four years ago, but still there is a story to tell. And I think each is worth telling. So what opened your eyes to Papertrey Ink?  With all the products out there something drove you to search them out. What was it?          

For me it was this card on the Two Peas and a Bucket website Forum that drove me to search out Papertrey Ink. I loved the clouds and the sentiments, and just about everything about it. So my first order included the stamps and dies for "Up Up and away" and I was hooked.... oh yeah and I had to run out and buy a Big Shot to boot.

As I've mentioned before my (trigger) to search out Papertrey Ink was "Up Up and away" Dies. So here are a few cards I made a couple of months ago (before copics).

Here is the card I made yesterday, playing with my new Copics and a few other PTI goodies ;)

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate in the challenge, go to the INKer's page Here!

Welcome Fox Merril Bigelow

Can't wait to meet our newest little nephew. Unfortunately I had a terrible cold this weekend and had to keep myself away. I got out my pile of vellum that I haven't touched in years to try Nichols technique and all I have to say is "why has it been so long since I've played with Vellum?" Thanks for the challenge!

Papertrey Ink February Blog Hop & INKer's February Challenge

In celebration of Spring right around the corner, Linda has asked us to use the colors of our favorite flower and the catch is, we can't use flowers in our project. Check it out HERE

My favorite flower is a Tulip, it screams SPRING, Happy, Clean lines and Elegance. I originally had a totally different card in mind, I started with white cardstock base and I wanted to show Clean lines and Elegance, well that didn't happen. Instead I found a photo of a Tulip field with trees in the background and it instantly made me think of "through the trees" stamp set by PTI. This is one of the many things I love about creating, for me it has so much to do with the process, I love not knowing what I'm going to get. I'm not always happy with the end result, but there is always tomorrow to try something else.

Here is the photo that inspired:

See what I mean? Those trees just jumped out at me, I took it as a sign ;)

Now for my card:

Thanks for stopping by and looking.

Product:

Cardstock and Stamps are PTI

Patterned Paper are all October Afternoon



Saturday's Challenge

The Challenge is to use something BIG and honestly that isn't really my normal. But as I'm finding with these challenges is they are fun to go outside of your norm and expand. I had saved this ribbon from a gift I received years ago. It felt good finally using it.

I can not wait for the new Mat collection that is coming out in on the 15th. I even started looking through all my stamps "knowing" that I had it. I had to remind myself that it will be here in a couple of weeks. But I thought it was funny that in my own mind I already owned it ;)

Make it Monday Challenge Entry #4

Today I had fun playing with the never inked before "Healing Touch Sentiments" by PTI.  I really liked how the two fonts flowed so nicely together. It was perfect for this challenge.

Thanks for looking!

Tis the Season

This was our Christmas card this year. I've been meaning to post it and today's challenge made me think of it. It is fairly simple but I had to make over fifty of them and that little ornament ended up being a bit more work then I had anticipated, between the coloring, cutting and adding the crystal effects, it seemed to take forever. They were worth it in the end though.

Papertrey Ink Items used:

Signature Christmas stamp set

Tiny Treats Christmas stamp set

Inside Out Holiday stamp set

Fillable Frames 8  stamp set & die

Saddle Stitch Ribbon in Aqua Mist

Aqua Mist Cardstock

As always thank you for looking!

Make it Monday Challenge Entry #3

I like the subtlety of the white and versamarked Happy Birthdays stamps on the actual card, but it really doesn't show up very well in pictures. I added the picture below because I think it shows the background stamping a bit better. 

Papertrey Ink Items Used:

Free download from Capture the Moment Blog

Simple Sentiments Stamp Set

Big Birthday Wishes Stamp Set

Inside Out Birthday Stamp Set

Up Up & away Stamp Set

Cardstock, Ripe Avocado, Simply Chartreuse, Stamper's Select White Cardstock

Ripe Avocado Ribbon

Dies Used: Edger 1, Limitless Layers 1 3/4
Ocean Tides Felt

Color Challenge - Michelle Wooderson colors

I really enjoyed playing around with my Larger than Life stamps and die set on this one. I wasn't sure what I was going for, just started playing. Sometimes I start out knowing what I'm after but not on this one.

PTI items used:

Larger than Life stamps

Larger than Life Die

Fine Linen Cardstock

Thank you for looking!

Color Challenge - Jessica Witty Colors

For this card I started out with all the intentions of throwing some raspberry fizz as my accent color. But in the end I went with ripe avocado button from the Vintage button collection. There is some raspberry coloring in the stripped paper on the flower, but with so much orange the raspberry button didn't work.

Papertrey Ink products used:

Beautiful Blooms II Die Collection

Ripe Avocado button

Bird Stamp from Through the trees

Outline stamp from Framed

Felt

Thanks for looking!

Make it Monday Challenge Entry #2

The Larger than life flowers are stamped with VersaMark, and a light blue ink I found in my drawer. I wanted something muted and not over-power the card. Most of the stamps are from Inside and out Thank you and Simple Sentiments with some random ones thrown in.

Make it Monday Challenge Entry #1

Make it Monday Challenge #1

My first entry

I hope to do one a day this week, but with Midterms, we'll see.

This is based of the video challenge HERE

All paper and felt are all PTI. For the stamps I had to dig into my stash to see what I had.
Three of the stamps are from the Papertrey Ink Inside Out Thank You.

I used the Beautiful Blooms 2 die's to make the flowers and hand cut the leaves out of PTI felt.

One of my favorites of recent is the new edgers die

Thanks so much

I toyed around with the idea of changing the "so" to "sew" due to all the sewing images but didn't want to distract from the clean look of the card. Used the edger ( love that thing, one thing I hope they come out with is a stamp that accents it. like a dotted line along the edge... one can dream) The dressform die link is on the card on the previous post. (Can you tell I'm getting tired, I'm getting sloppy on my links)

a little note

Submission #3 for today. Twins took a very short nap today, so this might be it for me today.

Thank you for stopping by.

Celebration Day 2, celebrate you

In this one you can't really tell by my poor photography that it has a window. So when you open it the windmills are on the inside of the card.

Here I am using PTI banner die, Inside out birthday & Vintage Labels stamp sets, 1 3/4 Limitless layers die, PTI buttons Aqua Mist, and PTI felt

Tips on how to take better photos of my work would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for visiting.

Day 2 Celebration

Papertrey ink is celebrating their fourth birthday. To include us in on the party they are running different contests & prizes. I found a little time this morning to go down in my craftroom and play with today's project. You can find out more here. In short we were provided a download today that had nine different images, one from nine designers.

The prize.... to be a guest stamp designer for one stamp set to be released in May. How amazing is that? (Kind of scary as well as exciting.)

We were asked to make a card using these images. So far I've made two.

In honor of Papertrey's 4th Anniversary I made this card using all PTI products except for the patterened paper. The base cardstock is Fine Linen. Flower circle and dressform are cut using dies from PTI and Kraft cardstock from PTI. The 4 is cut using PTI die by the numbers and the stamped sentiments is from PTI Big Birthday Wishes

Tips on how to take better photos of my work would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for visiting.

Baby Shower Invites

My sister in law is due to have her first son in just a couple of weeks now. I truly enjoyed designing the invites to her shower with all my new Papertrey Ink supplies. Some things didn't turn out too well in the photos. Like the versamarked images in the background. After looking at these photos. Two things come to mind. I need a new camera, and I need to come up with a proper photo location. Sorry for the terrible photos, hopefully you will get the idea.

Steps:

• designed the prototype
• printed the inside information using my computer and printer on Kraft Cardstock
• Cut 8.5 x 11 cardstock in 4.25 x 11
• Scored cards and folded at 4.25 x 5.5
• stamped blue berries, using Out on a Limb
• stamped limb image and nest image with versamark and heat embossed using dark brown embossing powder
• stamped eggs from Birds of a feather set using aqua ink pad
• The tag in front is cut and stamped using Mat Stack 1 Collection
• The bird images and the Versamarked tree image in the back ground (you can't see it, but it's there) is from Through the Trees set
• the "New Beginnings" sentiments is from Birds of a feather set
• finishing touchs on the frong label is the Aqua Mist button and bakers twine bow.
• On the inside to add a little something, I stamped the branch image a couple times using Versa Mark
  
  

The cloud dies and stamp set, I used on these cards, is the reason I searched out my latest obsession, Papertrey Ink. I get so inspired by their stamp designs. The possibilities are endless. And regardless of your personal style, their stamps allow you to be creative... your way!

The flower card on the left was inspired by a scrap paper that I had left over after die cutting some flowers for the cards in below. I was about to throw it away when I gave it a second look and thought "I can do something with that". This is one of the many things I love about the creative process. I know it is different for everyone, but for me I love just going with the flow. Sometimes I'm disappointed, but often I'm pleasantly pleased.
The card in the center was a quickie, these were for a card gift package I gave out at Christmas to my mother in law who loves owl's. I used the Mat Stack 2 die I just received.
I used Mat Stack 1 die and stamps for the card on the right, as well as used my new Larger than life stamp set on the label as a soft background. On all three of these cards I used Papertrey Inks Kraft cardstock. Now that I've experienced their cardstock I will not settle for less. It is Divine.

I had fun playing around with my new flower dies and felt. The card on the left I used the Kraft cardstock listed above and the other two I used Fine Linen cardstock. I find that I use those two cardstocks for 95% of my card making.


I found the Fine Linen and Aqua Mist cardstock was a perfect compliment to the patterned paper I had used. I also used the Fine Linen and Aqua Mist buttons as little accents. I loved how easy these all came together.

Blessed 2b loved by those eyes