Hello, Valentine...

Hey there!!  I have a little card for some challenges.  PaperTrey Ink is turning five this month and having a big celebration with all kinds of fun contests.   I must admit that I didn't think I would be able to participate in any of them, either.  But today Nichole offered up some freebies created by all the talented PTI stamp designers and with that kind of deal I just couldn't resist having a go.  So, I downloaded the images and printed them out on some PTI Stamper's Select cardstock, of course!  I decided to go with the sweet image that Maile Belles designed.

Now I as indicated this card is for more than just the PTI challenge.  It is also for this week's Our Creative Corner challenge to use the colors of kraft, grey & pink, as well as hearts.  My super sweet blogging friend, Sue, is now a design team member for OCC and so I just had to give their challenges a try.  I am stretching the challenge requirements a little bit as the hearts on my card are two little heart shaped rhinestones and the stylized hearts in Maile's design.  Anywhoo... I hope this is okay.  I used my Quatrafoil die (love that die!!!) to emboss the grey cardstock and then added a strip of scalloped pink cardstock.  The card base is 4 x 5.5 and so the pink/grey cardstock piece hangs off the edge by a quarter of an inch to bring the overall card side to 4.25 x 5.5.  The little image was colored with Copic markers.

Supplies:  Cardstock: PTI kraft & white; SU! pink & grey; Stamps:  PTI Tiny Treats: Valentine; Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black; Image: PTI

Some of My Favorite Stamps...

Hey there... the weekend is over and so is the Super Bowl.  And the winning team??? The New York Giants!  Hubby was very happy about that because he participated in a football pool at work and picked the Giants to win... not sure if he won anything, though.   But I digress...I should be talking about some of my favorite stamps which happen to be from My Favorite Things!!   I have talked in weeks past about how much I love the Pure Innocence line from MFT, but there is another line of MFT stamps that I love just as much.  The super cute a la Modes!!   So... I a card using the sweet PI set Blowing Bubbles and another using the cute ALM set Birthday Girl to share with you.   First up:  Birthday Girl:

I made this card for the weekly sketch challenge that MFT hosts over at Splitcoaststampers.  Every Wednesday a new sketch is revealed.  So far this year I have been able to participate in every sketch challenge.  For this card I used some 6x6 Teresa Collins papers "Carolina Breeze".  I just love the color combo of yellow, white, grey and black and so when I saw these papers I had to get them.  I did a bit of paper piecing, as well as some coloring with Copics.   The sketch was a bit tricky for me, but in the end I got it figured out to my satisfaction.  The sentiment was stamped on a little banner die from MFT.  A second banner was die cut from yellow cardstock and used to mat the white one as you see.

Every month MFT announces a guest designer contest and the winner of that contest get $200.00 worth of MFT stamps and dies, as well as the opportunity to showcase the brand new MFT stamps and dies during the following month's release festivities!  Now who among us wouldn't want to have a chance to win that fabby prize??? I certainly would!!!  This month the challenge is to use hearts on your project.  The papers for this card are from the Authentique Uncommon 6x6 pad.  I stamped the sweet little PI from Blowing Bubbles on cream cardstock, colored portions of her with Copic markers and then paper pieced her little outfit.  I die cut a heart from cream cardstock and stamped it with the little bubbles image and then sponged on some Old Paper distress ink.  The heart was then matted with a scalloped heart cut from patterned paper.  I trimmed out the PI and adhered her to the heart.  Some Diamond Stickles were applied to the bubbles.  

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI white, cream and yellow; PP:  Authentique & Teresa Collins; Stamps:  MFT; Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black; Dies:  MFT, Spellbinders & Memory Box; Copic Markers; Rhinestones; Stickles

You Must Allow Me....

Hey there!!   I'm back with my card for this week's Less is More challenge, as well as this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge.   This week Less is More is officially one year old!!!  Congrats Chrissie and Mandi for bring us amazing challenges week after week, as well as providing us with fabulous inspiration!!  Ladies you ROCK!!   The Less is More challenge take us back to where it all started, a color challenge, and the color this time is aqua.   Now, the challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays is to make a card inspired by your favorite movie.  Well... my all time favorite movie is the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice.  Absolutely love, love, love that movie!!    And thanks to PaperTrey Ink I now have the perfect stamp set to make my Pride & Prejudice inspired card.

In January, PTI release a set called Simply Jane, as well as matching dies. This set was inspired by Jane Austen.  For my card I used the Quatrefoil die (as it was intended to be used) and die cut a piece of Aqua Mist cardstock.  This was adhered to the front of a white cardstock base.  I then die cut the oval using the Simply Jane oval die and stamped the beautiful filigree-like frame on it using SU!'s Pool Party (an almost dead ringer for Aqua Mist).  I then stamped the sentiment on a piece of white cardstock using black ink, trimmed the ends as you see and then folded it.  The little bouquet image was die cut and then stamped with the corresponding stamps.  I love how ease it is to stamp  the PTI images on the die cut piece.  Every thing was layered up as you see it.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure I like the little bouquet where I placed it, but that's okay.    Once, again, I have created a card that doesn't have a lot of white space, but hopefully Chrissie and Mandi will give me a pass!!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI white & aqua mist; Stamps:  PTI Simply Jane; Ink:  SU! Pool Party, Memento Tuxedo Black; PTI Simply Jane dies & Quatrefoil die; Diamond Stickles

ODBDSLC95 - I Thank

Hey there!!! Its Saturday and time for another Shining the Light challenge over at the ODBD blog!!  February is here and this month we here in the US take time to acknowledge national heroes (Presidents Day) or people who are special to us (Valentine's Day).   So... the team is challenging you to acknowledge and CASE a crafter  that you admire or a creation you admire changing just two elements to make it your own.

To make the challenge even more fun, we will be giving out a prize, a $15 gift certificate to be used toward stamps at the Our Daily Bread Designs store!! Entries for the prize must be submitted by Friday, January 13th at 8 a.m. EST. One random winner will be chosen and announced next Saturday. If you are not using ODBD stamps, please do not enter more than once. Additional entries that are made without using ODBD stamps will not be commented on nor will they qualify for prizes. While it is not required to use Our Daily Bread Designs images and sentiments on your creations, we would love to see them if you have them. As a way of recognizing those who do use Our Daily Bread Designs stamps, we will again be choosing 1 to 2 creations to spotlight for our Shining the Light Award. In order to qualify for this award, however, you must use Our Daily Bread stamps and have your submission added to Mr. Linky by Friday, February 10th at 8 a.m. EST. If you upload your creations to Splitcoast Stampers or any other online gallery, please use the keyword is ODBDSLC95. When creating your posts on blogs please include a link to the challenge.  

For my card I chose to CASE a super sweet fellow crafter and "friend I haven't met, yet" named Brenda Urbanik.  I "met" Brenda through the Hero Arts Flickr group and over the last year or so we have exchanged many cards and emails.  I can always count on Brenda to leave me a lovely comment on whatever I post on my blog.   As I was cruising through Brenda's blog one day a few weeks ago I came across a beautiful Valentine's card that Brenda had created for a challenge.  The card is a perfect example of  CAS (clean & simple) one of my favorite ways to make a card.   I immediately knew that was the card I wanted to CASE.  Brenda's card uses a simple frame, a heart die cut and a sentiment.  I changed the heart to a butterfly and added a couple of layers to my card, but still kept things pretty simple.  I used the ODBD sets God's Love, Flourished Christian Symbols and Grunge Butterfly.  The frame was created using Spellbinders Square Plain & Scalloped dies.  The color combo comes from CR84FN and so I will be popping my card into that challenge.   I hope you will take the time to click over to Brenda's blog and leave her some love! 

Please make sure you check out all the beautiful projects my fellow "sticks" Lori, Jan Marie, Jan, Debi, Chris, and Kathy,  To join in the fun, please click here.


Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI white & spring rain; SU! Riding Hood Red; Ink:  SU! Pink Pirouette & Real Red; Memento Summer Sky; Spellbinders dies; Stickles Diamond Glitter Glue; ODBD stamps; ODBD Grunge Butterfly die

I Love You....

Hey there!!!   Gotta card today for a couple of challenges:  CASE Study and the Shabby Tea Room.  The Shabby Tea Room challenge this week is to make a card based off of another beautiful inspiration photo and to incorporate mail or postage elements.   I think I got that aspect of the challenge covered, hee hee!!   With the beginning of a new month, there is a new muse over at CASE Study and this month the muse is an amazingly talented crafter named Karola Witczack.  I stumbled across Karola when I saw on a blog somewhere the most beautiful papers from a company called The Scrap Cake.  Karola was the designer of these gorgeous papers and once I saw them I had to have them!  Thank goodness I found a US based website called the Flying Unicorn that carries them.  I used some of those papers on my card.  Karola's inspiration card is absolutely GORGEOUS!!

For my card I used a Hero Arts/BasicGrey set called Carte Postal and a sentiment from the Year Round Sentiments set.  I stamped the stamp images on a piece of paper from The Scrap Cake 6x6 Cozy Xmas pad and then trimmed them out.  They were then distressed a bit.   Some additional paper from the Cozy Xmas pad was used as a mat for the cream cardstock piece that was stamped with additional postage elements in kraft and red inks.  The edges of this piece were light inked with Old Paper distress ink.  I finished the card off with some crocheted lace, red ribbon and three small pink roses.

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI kraft & cream; PP:  The Scrap Cake Cozy Xmas; Ink:  Stampin Up! Crumb Cake & Riding Hood Red; Stamps:  Hero Arts; Lace Ribbon:  May Arts; Grosgrain Ribbon:  Stampin Up!; Roses:  Flying Unicorn

The Mighty Sea

Hey there!!  Hope your week is going well... so far so good for me.  Really looking forward to Friday when I take a short road trip with my friend, Cindy, to the first Hobby Lobby to open up here in Western Washington!    Today I have a card for the current Paper Players challenge... the challenge this week is a really neat sketch.  I haven't done a Paper Players challenge in ages and thought it was about time I dive back into their fabby challenges!

For my card I used the brand spankin' new Our Daily Bread Designs set "The Mighty Sea".   The artwork is absolutely gorgeous... unfortunately, you can't see alot of it because I covered it up with the sentiment.  But, not to fear I will be making other things with this wonderful set in the future.  If you want to see some truly amazing works of art using this new set and the other new releases from ODBD check out the design team blog hop... if you leave some love there are prizes to be won!!  But you must hurry... the hop ends on 2/2/12!  The papers I used are from the My Mind's Eye Breezy collection.  I roughed it up a bit to give it a more masculine feel.  I flipped the sketch on its side because that orientation suited the main image better.

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI kraft & Fine Linen; Stamps:  ODBD; Ink:  Stampin Up! Early Espresso; Punch:  Stampin Up!; Twine:  May Arts; Robin's Nest Dew Drops; PP:  My Mind's Eye