Not Just for Picnic Baskets

My card today, another from Texas, uses the PTI set Vintage Picnic, but rather than using the flower image with any of the baskets included in the set, I decided to think outside the box a little. I really love how this turned out, I just wish I had stamped the flowers a little lower, because there's too much white space and it's a little off balance. But I didn't realize it until I'd finished the card and it had taken me way too long to try and redo it!

It may not look like much, but the reason it took me so long is that I stamped and colored the image again on a scrap and cut out all of those little flowers. I popped them up with the smallest of the Zva Creative adhesive dots. Take a look at the small picture for a close up of the popped up flowers.

The ribbon is PTI white twill colored with a Copic marker. I swear, that's the best trick ever! With the PTI Copic color matches, I'll never need to buy colored twill again! To finish off the card, I stamped one of the sentiments from the With Sympathy set.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Vintage Picnic and With Sympathy
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics
Paper: PTI white
Other: PTI white twill, Zva Creative adhesive dots

The Joys of Summer

I realized I still have a few cards left to share that I made during my trip to Texas in July. Since summer is pretty much over at this point, I figured I should hurry up and show this one!

This was just a quick and easy card, but I liked how it turned out. My apologies for the less than great photo!

All supplies are from PTI except for the Stardust Stickles from Hope Stamps Eternal and SU ink I used for the cones. I stamped the ice creams from Love Songs in Berry Sorbet and Dark Chocolate and the cones in Creamy Caramel. The sentiment is from A Day at the Beach and then I added a strip from Polka Dot Basics along the left side.

Enjoy these last few days before it officially becomes fall!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Polka Dot Basics, Love Songs, A Day at the Beach
Ink: Berry Sorbet, Dark Chocolate
Paper: Berry Sorbet, Dark Chocolate, white
Other: Stardust Stickles

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #16

Good morning! It's a beautiful Saturday here in Connecticut, and before I head to the beach, I wanted to share my creation for the latest Raspberry Suite Color Challenge from Dawn McVey.

This challenge has a lot more neutral colors than I usually use together, but I thought it was a great combination that speaks to the fall weather that's been creeping in at night! All of the products I used are from PTI, with the exception of the clear crystal dots and the Stardust Stickles, both from Hope Stamps Eternal. Oh, and the adhesive foam dots used to pop up the umbrella are from HSE too.

It's a little tricky to see in the photo, but the Summer Sunrise background is stamped with one of the images from the Background Basics: Retro set. The umbrella and sentiment are of course from Dawn's Scattered Showers set. After I completed the card, I was wishing I had put the umbrella straight instead of at an angle, because I think it disrupts an otherwise very symmetrical card, but then maybe that's a good thing. Who knows!

Everything else is pretty straightforward, I just wanted to mention one other thing the camera didn't really pick up. The flowers on the umbrella are all covered with Stardust Stickles, so there's some nice sparkle to the card in real life.

All in all, a quick and easy card that challenged me to combine colors I never had before, which is the whole point of the challenge!

Thanks for looking - be sure to come back tomorrow for the latest Cupcake Inspiration Challenge!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Scattered Showers, Background Basics: Retro
Ink: Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate
Paper: Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Cream, Kraft
Other: Stardust Stickles, Crystal Dots, Adhesive Foam Dots

Fall-To Layout #57

Today's card is a clean & simple one using Fall-to Layout #57. The Clean & Simple blog has become one of my absolute favorite blogs - their sketch style just really speaks to me and is so much less overwhelming than sketches with lots of layers and embellishments.

I cut a 3 3/8" square of PTI white cardstock and then randomly stamped a flower from PTI's In Bloom in Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate and Aqua Mist. By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I am SO happy with the new Aqua Mist formula! With the old style, I hardly ever used the ink because it would fade so much and just didn't look right. But this new stuff is awesome!!

When I was satisfied with the stamping, I cut it into nine 1 1/8" squares, which I then mounted on 1 1/4" Aqua Mist squares. I stamped a sentiment from PTI's Mixed Messages on the center square in Dark Chocolate and then adhered all the squares to the card base, which is a 4 1/4" square. Quick and easy!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 28th birthday. Somehow 28 seems so much older than 27, but then I say that about every year! I'm glad to be an even-numbered age though. For some reason, I just like even numbers better - just a weird quirk I guess!

Sorry about the very strange angle on this photo. I'm not quite sure what was going on when I took this photo. Maybe I thought I was being artistic or something.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite cards that I made in Texas. I've always loved brown and pink together, and I just loved both of these sets from PTI - Fancy Flourishes and the anniversary set Everyday Classics. It's a little hard to see in this photo, but I used two different sizes of flourishes here - a larger one on the Hibiscus Burst top portion and a smaller one on the Dark Chocolate lower part.

The flower, which you can see a close up of to the left, was stamped three times - twice in brown and once in pink - and different parts of the flowers were cut out and layered with foam adhesive dots. To finish the flower embellishment off, I lined all of the edges with Stardust Stickles.

Have a wonderful day!



Supplies
Stamps: PTI Fancy Flourishes, Everyday Classics
Ink: Hibiscus Burst, Dark Chocolate
Paper: PTI white, Hibiscus Burst, Dark Chocolate
Other: PTI Hibiscus Burst Bitty Dot ribbon, foam adhesive dots, Stardust Stickles

Belated Birthday

My sweet friend Debbie brought me this stamp set in Texas and I couldn't wait to ink it up! One of the things I love most about PTI stamps is how so many of the images are assembly style, allowing you to stamp different parts of an image in different colors without needing to use markers. This turtle is actually 6 different stamps, but he came together so quickly.

The spots and stripe on his shell are covered with Stardust Stickles and a small black gemstone from the Zva Creative crystal wheel acts as his eye.
The strip on the background was done using the PTI set Background Basics: Retro and the circles were filled in with a white gel pen, which also was used to dot around the scallops of the oval. Since I am famously late with sending out birthday cards, this one has already gotten some use!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Pond Life, Pond Life Sentiments, Background Basics: Retro
Ink: PTI Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado
Paper: PTI Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, white
Other: white gel pen, Zva Creative crystal wheel, Stardust Stickles, Marvy oval and scalloped oval punches, foam adhesive dots

Birthday Balloons

Today I've got another card that I made during my trip to Texas using the PTI set Everyday Button Bits. I just love this balloon image and the pretty buttons that are acting as balloons!

The other thing I love on this card is that new SU scallop oval punch. I haven't bought anything from SU in close to a year, but I got to play with my friend Suzanne's punch in TX and I love how it layers so well with the oval punch that I already own.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Everyday Button Bits, Birthday Basics
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, PTI Ripe Avocado
Paper: PTI white, Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush, Polka Dot Parade
Other: PTI Sweet Blush and New Leaf buttons, SU oval and scallop oval punch

Cheers to you!

I just love these two cards together and am debating about making more to create a set to give to someone. I'm not sure I've ever paired Berry Sorbet with Ripe Avocado before, but I like it!

These are pretty straightforward - the only things I wanted to mention are 1. that the ribbon on the second card is more of that white twill colored with Copics and 2. that it's tough to tell in the photos, but the margaritas are rimmed with Stardust Stickles.

Supplies
Stamps: A Day at the Beach, Polka Dot Basics, Fruitful (all from PTI)
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white, Berry Sorbet, Ripe Avocado
Other: Stardust Stickles, SU scallop edge punch, 1 1/2", 1 3/4" circle punches, white twill ribbon, clear gemstones, Adhesive dots

Purple?

I very rarely reach for purple in my card making, but I was trying to use my trip to Texas to bust out of the rut I was in and I'm fairly pleased with how this turned out. It actually is not at all what I planned, but when I was stamping the pattern down the side, I didn't get a clear impression in the center, so that's why I need the horizontal strip to cover it up!
Supplies
Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Retro, PTI Birthday Basics
Ink: Plum Pudding
Paper: PTI white, Lavendar Moon, Plum Pudding
Other: SU scallop edge punch, paper piercing tool, flower gems from Kaiser crafts

Buttons!

Last weekend I went to Texas for the annual LOSTie gathering and my stamping mojo was kicked into high gear! I made 20 cards in total throughout the weekend, which was highly productive for me! I'll be sharing the cards over the next week or two when I have nothing else new to share and these two cards are the first of them. I had a hard time getting going at first, but then once I started playing with the Everyday Button Bits set from PTI, the creativity just started flowing! I think this flower stem image is my favorite in the set - so fun!

All products on both of these cards are from PTI with the exception of the embroidery floss on the card below. The ribbon is PTI white twill, which I colored with Copics to match. I don't think I will ever need to buy colored twill again because the marker trick works so well!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Everyday Button Bits
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white, Ripe Avocado, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding, Polka Dot Parade
Other: PTI buttons, embroidery floss from JoAnn's, PTI white twill

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #14

Welcome to another Cupcake Inspiration Challenge from Hope Stamps Eternal! Aren't these cupcakes fun?! I just love the little hula penguins. While the Hula Anya stamp I used a few days ago would have worked well for this challenge, I've been itching to ink up and color my new HG Sing stamp, which I think works equally well for the challenge. She was just as much fun to color as I expected, and I took my color inspiration from the bright colors of some of the bikini tops and flowers and from the grass skirts.

I created the background papers with the Imaginisce Blossom acrylic stamp, stamping both the Berry Sorbet panel and the Spring Moss strip with corresponding inks for a slightly more subtle look. The centers of the flowers on the Spring Moss panel are dotted with Stardust Stickles. The clear stone on the center of the flower in her hair and the black stone in the flower on the circle are both from the crystal wheel that I can't seem to make a card without these days! I seriously love that thing!

I think the rest is self-explanatory, but I just wanted to note that the sentiment flag and the circle are raised up slightly on adhesive foam dots just for a little pop. Those are another item that I use on nearly every card! They are SO affordable and as I've said before, I love the flexibility of having 3 different sizes in the pack.

Want to play along? Link your creation to Rachel's post on the HSE blog before next Sunday to be included in her participant collage. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Supplies
Stamps: HG Sing, Imaginisce Blossom, PTI Around and About Sentiments
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, PTI Berry Sorbet and Spring Moss, Copic markers
Paper: SU Basic Black, PTI white, Berry Sorbet, Spring Moss
Other: Stardust Stickles, Crystal wheel, foam dots, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches

Happy 4th of July!

I don't think this photo does this card justice, but I love how it turned out in person! I completely CASE'd a card while creating this, which I don't normally do, but I knew I needed a card for the hostess of the BBQ I'm going to today, and when I saw the second card on this post by Geny Cassady, I knew it would be perfect.

I stamped the flourish in gold ink, and I love how it sort of looks like a firecracker bursting with stars exploding all around! All of the polka dot stars are popped up with foam dots (love how there are three different sizes in that one pack!) and the small punched out stars are adhered with a liquid glue pen. I added Stardust Stickles to the outlines of the polka dot stars and then scribbled the small stars with a clear Spica pen for some extra sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back tomorrow with the latest cupcake inspiration challenge from Hope Stamps Eternal which, incidentally, has lots of fabulous new Basic Grey products for sale, as well as Martha Stewart holiday punches available for pre-order! Go check it out!

I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday. God Bless America!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Fancy Flourishes, Everyday Classics, Vintage Picnic (for sentiment)
Ink: Encore Gold, PTI Pure Poppy, SU Brilliant Blue
Paper: PTI white, Pure Poppy, SU Brilliant Blue
Other: mini star punch, Stardust Stickles, clear Spica pen, foam dots

Hula Birthday

Now that I've got a growing collection of Copic markers, I've really started to enjoy coloring again and this Hula Anya stamp was so much fun! I made this card last week though, and I'm afraid I didn't write down which Copics I used, so I won't be able to share that with you - sorry! In addition to having fun coloring Anya, I also had fun making her nice and sparkly! The picture doesn't show it, but I painted the flowers in Anya's hair with Opal Shimmerz, so they're really pretty in real life. And then of course there's the Stickles! I used Stardust Stickles on the centers of the flowers, on her bikini top, and on the yellow circle. And then I used Crystal Stickles on the lines of her hula skirt.

The strip of Spring Rain cardstock was stamped with the SU Canvas background stamp, which I haven't used in ages, but I knew I was saving it for a reason! The flower embellishment on the circle is a felt flower with a vintage button in the center, attached with embroidery floss.

Supplies
Stamps: Hula Anya, PTI Around and About Sentiments
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers, PTI Hibiscus Burst
Paper: PTI white, Spring Rain, Lemon Tart, Hibiscus Burst
Other: Stardust Stickles, Crystal Stickles, Felt flower, PTI Hibiscus Burst vintage button, embroidery floss, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circles punches

Clear Cardstock

I rarely use clear cardstock. No real reason, just don't think of it often. But I had the idea for this card a week or two ago and thought I'd try it out. Now, this finished card is not exactly what I had envisioned. In my mind, there were going to be white polka dots stamped on the clear base to make it stand out. In theory, this was a great idea. In reality, I made a HUGE mess!! The stamp kept slipping on the acetate so that it looked more like raindrops than polka dots. And the ink would NOT dry, even after being hit with a heat gun AND being left to sit overnight. One touch of my finger and white ink smeared everywhere. Needless to say, that was not the look I was going for, so that first base went in the trash and I was forced to keep it plain.

Other than that mishap, I like how this turned out, and it's pretty close to what I first pictured. I used PTI's new set Cupcake Collection to build the cupcake image and for the sentiment as well. I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder for the background (which would have looked nice against the white polka dots *sigh*) and adhered that to the clear base. I then stuck a plain piece of white cardstock cut to the same size to the inside of the card, so that the adhesive on the yellow didn't show through. The gemstones on the sentiment strip are from that crystal wheel I keep turning to. I used my Marvy punches to create a frame for the main image and poked holes in each scallop with a paper piercer. The star on the candle and the frosting on the cupcake are coated with yellow Stickles. To adhere the oval piece to the card, I used foam dimensionals to pop it up off the card base a bit.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Cupcake Collection
Ink: PTI Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart
Paper: PTI Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart, white, clear cardstock
Other: Swiss Dots cb folder, Crystal wheel, Yellow Stickles, paper piercing tool, Marvy mega oval and giga scalloped oval punched

PTI June Blog Hop

It's time for another Papertrey Ink blog hop! The theme this month is summer - we were to draw inspiration from something that reminded us of summer - food, clothing patterns, photographs, etc. I chose to use this picture that I took a few weeks ago when I was visiting my parents in the town where I grew up. These beautiful dunes line the parking lot and the walkway to the beach and I just love the colors of those flowers (click the photo for a closer look). The day I took this photo, my mom and I went to the beach for a breakfast picnic, so I used two images from the new PTI set Vintage Picnic - the picnic basket, and one of the sets of flowers.


I had a terrible time trying to get a photo of this card, but just know that in real life, the color of the flowers, the polka dot paper, and the felt flower all match beautifully! The flowers and basket were colored with Copics and I cut out the basket and mounted it over the flowers for a little dimension. The entire scalloped circle was then popped up on foam adhesive dots for even more pop. For the flower embellishment, I thread some embroidery floss through a vintage button and the felt flower to tie in all the main colors.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Vintage Picnic (images and sentiment)
Ink: Palette Noir, PTI Raspberry Fizz, G14, G28, RV17, RV19, E55, and E57 Copic markers
Paper: PTI white and Aqua Mist cardstock, PTI Raspberry Fizz Bitty Dot Basics
Other: Marvy mega circle punch, giga scallop circle punch, Martha Stewart Scallop Dot Edge Punch, PTI Aqua Mist Swiss Dot ribbon, clear gemstones from crystal wheel, PTI vintage button (white & cream collection), DMC embroidery floss #964, felt floral embellishment

Got Margaritas?

This is just a quick little card I made yesterday to help get me stamping again. I LOVE margaritas, so I was extremely excited when PTI came out with their Day at the Beach stamp set last month. It has the margarita outline with a separate stamp for the inside so you can customize your margaritas to be any flavor you want!

Not much to note here, just that I covered the rims with Dazzling Diamonds Stickles to give a sparkly salted look. Otherwise I kept it clean and simple because that's the style that seems to work best for me.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's A Day at the Beach, sentiment from Impression Obsession
Ink: Palette Noir, SU Certainly Celery, PTI Melon Berry and Hibiscus Burst
Paper: PTI white and Hibiscus Burst
Other: Dazzling Diamonds Stickles, Melon Berry Bitty Dot Ribbon, foam dimensionals

Flourished Birthday

I spent a bunch of time today trying to slim down my stamping collection and pull things together to sell on ebay. You might have noticed that my blogging has been nonexistent, and that's because my stamping time has been nonexistent. I've been going through quite a creative slump, and I think it might be because I have too much stuff and get overwhelmed. So, while I was taking pictures of all the items to sell, I found this card that I have not yet shared sitting on my camera's memory card.

This was a quick and easy birthday card for a friend (though the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment is tough to see here). It's pretty self-explanatory, though I wanted to mention that the flourish and the flower are traced with a clear spica glitter pen, which never shows up in photos. Also, I stamped the flower image twice and cut out the center of one of them so I could layer it with a dimensional to give a bit of a 3D look to the flower.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Fancy Flourishes, Everyday Classics, Birthday Basics
Ink: PTI's Dark Chocolate, Berry Sorbet, Aqua Mist
Paper: PTI white, Aqua Mist
Other: foam dimensionals, clear spica glitter pen, clear gemstones from Hope Stamps Eternal, Martha Stewart Scallop Dot border punch, also from Hope Stamps Eternal

Gift Bag Inspiration

One of my friends that recently had a baby has a jungle/safari theme for her son's nursery, so for her shower, I bought wooden jungle animal cut-outs for the walls. When he was born, I stuck with that theme and found the most adorable little outfit with a lion on the bib and on the back of the pants. So when I saw this gift bag in Target, I knew I had to get it. The colors are so fun and bright, plus the bag was glittered, though that doesn't show up in the photo.

Since I'm a big fan of themes and matching stuff, I wanted to make a card that fit the gift bag and what you see here is what I came up with. I used the colors from the bag as my color scheme for the card and used the only safari animal stamp I own - the elephant from Bitty Baby Blessings. Some of the animals on the bag are polka dotted, so I mimicked that with the background as well as the polka dot paper I used to paper piece the elephant. And of course I had to draw in the glitter somehow, so the edge of the turquoise circle framing the sentiment is covered with turquoise Stickles. I think the card and bag look so cute together and am really pleased with how it came out!

Here's a closeup of the card so you can see the paper piecing and sparkle a little better.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI's Bitty Baby Blessings, Polka Dot Basics
Ink: So Saffron, Tempting Turquoise, Palette Noir
Paper: PTI white, SU Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive, SU Turquoise Prints patterned paper
Other: SU circle punches, foam dimensionals, turquoise Stickles, PTI Summer Sunrise twill ribbon

Lauren Meader-inspired card organizer

I made this project a couple of weeks ago and am so happy with how it turned out, but for some reason I just kept forgetting to share it here! This card organizer was inspired by this project from Lauren Meader, creator of the My Timeless Templates I used here. Lauren is one of my stamping idols and I fell in love with her project right away. I knew I could never hope to make something quite as awesome as hers, but I had to try anyway!

This organizer uses two of Lauren's templates, available for only $5 each from PTI. The base is a portion of the Filed with Flair templates and the organizer boxes themselves are from All Boxed Up. I love making non-card creations but just don't have the creativity or patience to try and figure out something like this myself. So I'm thrilled to have the templates to play with and they really are so easy to put together and personalize however you want!

I really love this color combo - Aqua Mist, Berry Sorbet, and Spring Moss - and love how they look in the patterned paper I created with Guide Lines II. Each of the boxes are stamped along the binding with a sentiment that represents the category of cards I could store in there. I think this would also be a fun gift to give someone, filled with a bunch of cards they can send out as needed. The boxes admittedly don't fit very many embellished cards in each, but quite a few one or two layer cards without bulky ribbon or buttons could be presented or stored this way.

I took pictures from a few different angles so you could see what all of the sides look like. I was going to leave the back blank, but Lauren is always saying that you should make your project look good from all angles, so I added an extra strip of the patterned paper to the back. And she's right - much better that way!

I just love how fresh and springy this is! In retrospect, I probably should have chosen colors that go with the walls of my stamp room (a deep brick red) but oh well, I think it's so pretty anyway! Hope you like it!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Guide Lines II, Everyday Classics (for sentiments)
Ink: PTI's Spring Moss, Aqua Mist, Berry Sorbet, Pallette Noir
Paper: PTI's white, Spring Moss, Aqua Mist, Berry Sorbet
Other: Berry Sorbet saddle stitched ribbon, Filed with Flair and All Boxed Up My Timeless Templates

Happy Mother's Day!

This is the card I made for my mom for Mother's Day this year. I think it's pretty and girly, though I wish I'd cut the pink panel a little smaller so there wasn't so much empty space. I of course didn't come to that realization until everything was adhered, so too late!

I used my Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder to emboss the card base and my SU scallop edge punch along the pink strip on the right. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, though I do want to add that the flourishy sentiment was traced with a black glitter pen, so it's nice and sparkly in person even though it doesn't show up here.

My parents come down today for a quick visit and it was so nice to have them here. The honeymoon period in my new condo has not worn off and I am still so happy to be here every day and so thrilled to finally have a place where I can have family and friends over. I love to cook and bake for people and to play hostess, so this has been a dream come true!

I planned a great menu if I do say so myself! When my parents arrived, I had a homemade spinach and artichoke dip and some cheese and crackers waiting for them. Then the first course was this delicious crab and avocado salad. It was so refreshing with such bright flavors. The main meal was a slightly healthified twist on my friend Suzanne's Imperial Chicken - a fabulous butter and garlic soaked chicken breast that is then dredged in parmesan cheese and bread crumbs and baked. Mmm! I served that with an orzo salad that my dad said was a definite keeper and some green beans sprinkled with fresh parmesan cheese. And for dessert I made Ina Garten's lemon cake, though I left off the glaze and drizzled each serving with a strawberry coulis (scroll to the bottom of that page for the coulis recipe) instead. Everything was fantastic!