Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #261

Good morning fellow crafters! I've missed you! It's been a long time since I have visited my blog here to post anything creative. Truth is, I haven't been able to make anything in a really long time.

I've got 2 daughters and we all decided it was a good idea for them to get their own bedrooms. They've always shared a room together but as they are getting older they need their space. So, I had to give up my craft room. It was the hardest decision I ever made. I was having anxiety attacks just packing things away, not knowing when I would be able to use them again. This past couple of weeks I was able to go through some boxes and organize some of things that I know I use often so that I could start making things again. So for now I've been taking things out to use here and there and just using them in the dining room. They are easily accessible and easy to put away. I do miss having a craft room, it was so much easier to craft and not worry about putting things away until a project was done, but at least I can say now that I am making things again!

So for this week's Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge over on Nicole Heady's blog, the challenge is to make a masculine floral card. I went through all my floral stamps (which isn't many) and couldn't find anything that I thought would look okay with masculine colors. I decided to make an Asian-inspired Thank You card using Inkadinkado's Asian Influences stamp set and Fiskars Asian Inspired stamp set. I know I had to include something from Papertrey Ink in order to make the challenge count, so I added a small Thank you sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Fillable Frames Additions stamp set.

I wanted to include the Cherry Blossoms on the card without making them stand out to much and without having to color them pink, so I decided to stamp out a background on Old Olive cardstock, adhered that to a black cardstock base, and added that to a Kraft cardstock card base. I actually like the way the card turned out, even for my first card made in months and months! You don't see many Asian-inspired cards made.

I hope I can continue to create more cards and projects soon, I might not post so much here on the blog unless it is for a challenge, otherwise I will most likely post up on Instagram. Thanks so much for stopping by, have a great day!

2 Challenge Birthday Coffee Card

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Hope you are all having a great week so far! I am going to make this post short because we are headed out, but I quickly wanted to share with you a card I made for the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

The challenge for Papertrey Ink is to Create Your Own Border and the challenge for Simon Says Stamp is Coffee or Tea? For my card, I used a Kraft cardstock base and the Papertrey Ink Latte Love stamp set. I stamped my "border" in 5 different American Crafts Stamp markers (Cranberry, Leaf, Mustard, Wave, and Brown Sugar). I die-cut the coffee mugs, clear-embossed the image, and colored it in using similar colors of my Prismacolor Ink markers.

One of my older sisters birthday is on Saturday, so I plan on using this card and adding a Starbucks gift card to it. Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your week!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #216

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Happy Monday AGAIN. It seem likes last week just zoomed on by! Since the kids are on summer vacation the days seem to be going by even quicker, especially the days that seem more fun than others! Since I work in a pharmacy, not having kids in school equals less people getting sick and hurt, which means it has been SUPER SLOW. We are getting ready for Flu Season though, which usually starts at the beginning of August, and is definitely my LEAST favorite time of year to go into work!

Anywho, wanted to show you the card I put together for today's Make it Monday Challenge over on Nichole's blog. This week Laura shows us how to dress up some cover plate die-cuts by adding color to them. The cover plates in her videos are so pretty! I didn't even know Papertrey Ink had them! I definitely need to look into them the next time I place an order!

I went to Michaels after work yesterday because I wanted to pick up a few cheap watercolor paint sets. You know, the Artist Loft ones? I swear I already had one and for the life of me couldn't find it, so I took advantage of their 3 hour 40% off coupon yesterday (took 40% off the whole purchase!). Our Michael's Stores (we have 2) don't carry very many brands of Stamps. Very rarely I will get lucky and find a Hero Arts stamp set, and yesterday I was able to pick up the Lil Hoot stamp set and it is so cute! I used the Owl image on my card today, along with a sentiment from Stampin' Up and the Papertrey Ink Happy Hexagons Cover plate. I used the Pearlescent watercolors to paint on a couple different colors onto the cover plate. I added my 'shaker' which I made out of the Papertrey Ink Heart dies, and added some hearts, glitter, and sequins. I didn't want it to be a shaker card that really 'shakes' around too much, so I just glued all the hearts on top of each other without any foam tape. Since I used acetate, the glitter still moves around and that was exactly what I was looking for!

I wasn't sure if I wanted to blend or stamp anything onto the white part of the card underneath my cover plate die cut, like Laura does in her video, but since I blended a few different water colors together I thought that was enough color and chose to leave it blank underneath.

That's all for today, remember you can always follow me on instagram as well, I tend to post more projects there since it's easier than doing a whole blog post! Thanks for stopping by, have a fantastic week!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #215

Good afternoon fellow crafters! How are you all doing? I hope you have all had a great start to the first week of summer! I hope it isn't as hot where you are as it is here! I really wish we would get some rain already! Today I wanted to share a card I made for this weeks Make it Monday Challenge over on Nicole Heady's blog.

I colored this little guy in last week for the Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge Round 2. I knew I wanted to use him for a shaker card, so that is what I made today. Danielle's challenge is to make a card bringing the inside of the card onto the outside as well.

I used Papertrey Ink's Nuts for You stamp set as well as the Ruby Rose Stamp set for the sentiment. I added some sequins and Delica seed beads for the shaker part of my card. I die-cut the window so that you can view the sentiment from the inside of the card on the outside as well.

I'm making this post nice and short as I need to make the kiddos lunch, make something for dinner, and get ready for work in 2 hours! I don't post as much on the blog anymore (although I will try my best to) because I have been using Instagram. If you have an Instagram you can follow me here and I would love to follow you back! Thanks for stopping by, have a great week!

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

Good evening fellow crafters! Having a fabulous week, I hope!? I was lucky enough to have today off, and I accomplished absolutely nothing, and it was awesome. You know when you look forward to a day off, and you tell yourself that you will do this, and do that, and then the day comes, and it is nothing like you planned it to be? That was my day. I took a 4 hour nap, and it was just...well, awesome. As adults, we don't get "me" time very often, because it is usually spent running errands and cleaning, and I just really didn't want to do that today.

Tonight I wanted to show you some cards I put together using Hero Art new Ombre ink pads. Have you purchased them yet? The colors are so pretty, I really hope Hero Arts plans on adding a few more colors, I would like to see a Purple Ombre mix! I went to Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and saw all 5 of the ink pads, I couldn't believe they were selling them and I was relieved and excited that I didn't have to order them online and wait for shipping and all that mess! They are so fun to play with, Jennifer McGuire has an amazing tutorial on how to make the best of the ink pads, so her technique helped me a lot!

For my first card, I made a rainbow shaker card using Hero Arts Circle Pattern Rubber cling stamp for the background, and one of the adorable images from Hero Arts Sweet Wonderful You stamp set. I colored in the image using Prismacolor markers, and used beads, heart confetti, and glitter for the "shaker" part.

This next card set I am using for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday CAS challenge. I made a butterfly card set using the Hero Arts Ombre ink pads, and Papertrey Ink's Beautiful Butterflies Stamp set. I used all the ink pads on these cards, and finished them off with some clear rhinestones.

If you don't have these ink pads yet, I think you should definitely get them! They are so fun to stamp with! Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #209

Good evening fellow crafters! How are you all doing? I hope you all had a great start to this week! It is after 11pm right now and I am so tired, but I wanted to make sure I get this posted in case I do not have the time later in the week! So I am going to make this quick and get right to it!

This week the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge is white on white die-cutting with a "pop" of color. What a fun challenge! When I saw the challenge this morning on Nichole's blog, I immediately knew I wanted to do white-on-white die-cutting with some clouds. I am also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for creating your own background!

I used Papertrey Ink's Heart-2-Heart #6 Stamp set for the die-cut clouds and the stamped Sun image. The sentiment is from the Framed Out #3 stamp set. I stamped the sun and sentiment in Hero Arts Butter to Orange Ombre ink pad. I used a digital stamp from Pink Cat Studio and colored it in with Prismacolor markers, and then did some fussy cutting. I popped up a few of the clouds, as well as added some White flocking to the clouds on my digital image.

This week the kiddos are doing school testing, so I am going to make one more of these so I can give them to my kids for encouragement on their tests. I know they will do great, they are smart, but I still worry if they get stressed out as much as I do thinking about it! Thanks for stopping by, have a great week!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #208

Happy Monday fellow crafters! Did you all have a Happy Easter? We had a good day. Unfortunately most of our family live in others cities, so we decided not to do anything big this year. We didn't color any Easter eggs for an egg hunt like we usually do. This was the first year we didn't do that. I still made the girls their Easter baskets and they were content with that. It was also my DH birthday, we had made plans for him to go to the movies and then dinner, but he had work stuff to do so the girls and I did it together anyway. We went to watch Home. It was a cute movie. For Dreamworks, I think the characters lacked a little imagination, but overall it was a great movie.

Anyway, on to the reason for today's post. This week the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge is Ombre stamping. This is probably a pretty easy technique for anyone that has small ink pads, or sponge dabbers for their different ink colors. I do not. Most of my ink pads are Stampin' Up, and they are not exactly small. Going through my Simon Says Stamp inkpads I could not find any Ombre colors that went well together. Then I remember I had these Inkadinkado Pigment Ink Stacks that I had never used. These worked perfect because the ink pads are small and they stamped really well.

I decided to make a Thank You card set with the Papertrey Ink Delightful Dahlias and Delightful Dahlias Additions stamp set. The sentiment is from the Ruby Rose Stamp set. I used Kraft cardstock (my favorite) and embossed the white cardstock with a Paper Studio embossing folder.

I am happy with the way the cards came out, especially since this is my first time trying Ombre Stamping. It was really neat to try since you don't really know how it is going to look until you stamp it. Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you all enjoy your week!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #207

Good Afternoon fellow crafters! How are you all doing? I hope you all are having a great week so far! I am amazed that tomorrow is April already, I cannot believe that I have not visited or posted to my blog since October 2014! To be honest I had a lot going on in my life this past year where I just did not have the motivation to do anything crafty. I did make a few things for the Holidays, but that was it. To be able to come into my craft room and put together a card "just because" again felt really good! I forgot how great a feeling it was to be able to just lock myself away in my room and keep to myself for a few hours. I did a bit of spring cleaning in my craft room a few weeks ago and this helped to get a little bit motivated.

Don't you just love your craft space when its all cleaned up and everything is in its place? Even though it doesn't last like this very long, I like seeing everything in its place!

This week, the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday video is from Laura Bassen. She made this tutorial look so easy, but my final card is actually my 5th attempt! I had never tried making a partial die-cut card before, let alone a DOUBLE partial die-cut! I also wanted to try making a shaker card, but I don't have any sequins, so I used a seed bead/bugle bead mix instead. I decided to use Papertrey Ink's Ballerina Beauty Stamp set along with the Mat Stack #5 Die. I die-cut my card differently than the way Laura shows in the video. I did the mat stack first, then the ballerina.

Unfortunately, I had to use foam adhesive squares to set the shaker card because I am out of foam tape. This took forever and made the side of the card look really sloppy, but I am happy with the overall look of the card.

I am hoping that I find some time within the next day or two to try this technique again, maybe this time with a word die (I tried this to begin with and it just wasn't working out!) Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

PTI Make it Monday #183

Hello fellow crafters! How have you all been?! It has been quite a while again since I last posted! Lately, have had so much going on at home with work and the kiddos being in school, I haven't found much time (or motivation!) to do anything crafty! Usually around this time of year I spent most of my free time in my craft room creating Holiday cards and favors, but I haven't done much of anything at all this year!

I finally got a little bit of motivation to come into my craft room today and try to get started on making Christmas Cards. I still have been following my blogs and I love all the projects everyone has come up with so far this year! I am also behind on ordering anything new, I haven't ordered any stamping supplies since June! I hope to get a Papertrey Ink order in this month when the release comes out on the 15th!

Speaking of Papertrey Ink, I wanted to try out this weeks Make it Monday challenge. Dawn McVey has challenged us to try Dry embossing over heat embossing. This is such an easy technique, and the possibilities are endless! I made a Christmas card using Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Snow stamp set, as well as TPC Studios Winter Activities Stamp set. I used 2 different Stampabilities rubber Snowflakes stamps, and heat embossed them with Inkadinkado's Linen White embossing powder. Over that, I added some dry embossing with Sizzix Texturez Plates. Here is my card:

I love the "pop" of the blue and red against the neutral colors. This would be a fun card to create a card set with, especially since the Winder Activities stamp set has so many cute images! Thanks so much for stopping by today, I really hope I can find the time and motivation to make some more cards here in the next few days! Have a great day!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #167

Good afternoon fellow bloggers! It's been a little over 2 months since my last blog post, I can't believe I've waited so long to post a project on here! With school winding down in just a few days, the last few months have been such a blur. Last minute school projects, school performances, field trips, and awards assemblies have kept my mind on everything except crafting! I can say that I definitely missed it!

I wanted to participate in this weeks Make it Monday challenge for Papertrey Ink because the challenge is a little bit different than usual. The challenge is DIY notebooks with Erin Lincoln. She makes the whole process look so simple, I couldn't wait to try this out and make some little notebook of my own! Since school is ending next week on Tuesday, I've been wanting to put together a little "Thank you" gift for my kids teachers. I though little school notebooks would be a great addition to the gift.

I cut each "sheet" for my notebook at 4¼" x 2¾" using 5 primary colors. I used Kraft cardstock for the outside of my notebook. The stamps sets I chose to use are Papertrey Ink's Clip Tips, Monthly Moments: May, and Back to School. I used Scor-tape the same way Erin does in the tutorial to put everything together. The notebook came together quickly, which is nice to know if I want to make a bunch more of these. What a great idea for a craft fair item also!

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully it won't be too long again before I am able to get crafty and post another project. Hope you all enjoy the beginning of your summer!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #157

Good afternoon fellow crafters! It has been quite a while since my last post, I have been super busy! Sadly, while I was able to place my PTI orders for February and March, I still have not been able to play with most of my new goodies! I am so anxious to get started on my Monthly Moments journaling pages! Have any of you used your Monthly Moments sets yet?!

Last month, we took a last minute, short trip down to Anaheim, California to visit the good ol' Disneyland again. We sure do love our Disney visits. It's all been a busy blur since we've been back, can't seem to get ahead on anything, I definitely wish I was back there right now! We had a blast as always and cannot wait to go back again! Of course one of the main reasons we were excited to visit this time was to meet Anna and Else from Frozen. We had to wait it line for almost 4 hours to meet them! It was insane, there were so many people!

DH and I took turns waiting in line while we took the girls on other rides. I am glad we waited in line though because apparently they aren't going to be there year round!

Anywho, back to this week's challenge. Since we have been back from Disneyland, I have not been in my craft room to craft. I've used the computer a few times, and so have the girls. I've thrown my PTI and Simon Says Stamp order boxes in here, but that is it, so I was so happy and relieved when I finally got to sit down and make a card yesterday! I wanted the PTI Sweet Life stamp set for the longest time, and I finally ordered it last month. And let me just say, the detail in this stamp set is AMAZING. I was a little confused at first how to stamp all the layers, but I think I got the hang of it. I used the matching dies to make my "cover plate" and stamped my roses inside the die cut parts. I ran out of foam tape so had to used dimensionals to put the card together instead. I would have preferred the tape so the card didn't pop up so much, but all in all, I love the way it came out.

Last month I also ordered Simon Says Stamps entire set of 19 new Dye Ink pad colors as well as their matching cardstock. I have always been a Stampin' Up Ink pad exclusive kinda gal, and I really wanted to set outside of the box and order from either Simon Says Stamp or Papertrey Ink. Of course, I would have preferred PTI, but unfortunately, every time I try to order, they are always out of stock on a couple of the ink colors that I want, so I decided to go with Simon Says stamp instead. I haven't had a chance to try them yet but Kristina Werner has a few good videos showcasing them, and I can't wait to try them!

I work late tonight so need to start getting ready. Thanks so much for stopping by, have a wonderful weekend!

PTI Make it Monday #153

Happy Monday fellow crafters! I hope you all had a fabulous start to your week! I am about to head off to bed but I wanted to show you the card that I made for this weeks' Make it Monday Challenge.

Dawn McVey has challenged us to create a project using heat embossed sentiments with a watercolor background. I will be honest, this was actually my 4th attempt at a card tonight. I wouldn't say my first 3 attempts were terrible, but I just wasn't getting the "watercolor" look that I was going for. I finally figured out that the paintbrush I was using was just too fat, so I switched it out for a thinner one and this is my finished card:

I used PTI Pretty Peonies stamp set along with TPC Studios Card Crafting Hello stamp set, stamped in black pigment ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I didn't want my water-coloring effect to come out too strong, so I am happy with the way my 4th attempt came out. Glad I didn't give up!

Anybody else having trouble receiving their PTI orders this month? I was really hoping to have my PTI order in by now, but unfortunately it still has not arrived. I don't think I've ever had to wait more than a week for an order to come in, and the UPS tracking number still only says that a shipping label was created, not that a package has been received for mailing out yet. I'm getting worried that something went wrong with my order :( I was looking forward to participating in the Blog Hop tomorrow with the new Bunny Bag die, and now I don't think I will be able to...

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week, until next time, thanks for stopping by!

PTI 7th Anniversary Building Blocks of Design

Good evening fellow crafters! Are you ready for Valentine's Day?! I almost am, still need to finish up the kids' classroom Valentine Treat bags. My oldest daughter's birthday is on Monday, but they do not have school so she also wanted to take cupcakes to celebrate her birthday tomorrow. Still need to bake those, so will be up later than I hoped. I work late tomorrow and won't get out until 10pm, but right after that we are surprising the girls with a weekend trip to Disneyland (neither of them have any idea!). We will leave tomorrow night, stay Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, then leave Tuesday, and be back to school and work on Wednesday! I can't wait to go back, we love it there! We last went in August and are definitely ready for another trip back!

So anywho, since the girls have school in the morning and I work at night, we celebrated Valentine's Day tonight. We had a nice simple dinner, we all opened our gifts and cards, then I went ahead and took a little bit of time out to make a card for today's challenge over at Papertrey Ink. When you visit each blog, each DT member has a different Building Blocks Option list for you to roll the dice to or use random generator to. Here is my list:

Ashley's Color Selection #1 Pure Poppy
Betsy's Color Selection #2 Berry Sorbet
Cristina's Color Selection #3 Aqua Mist
Danielle's Neutral Selection Classic Kraft
Dawn's Sketch Selection #3
Erin's Occasion Selection Birthday Card
Heather's Technique Selection Spray Misting
Laura's Embellishment Selection Rhinestones
Melissa's Fiber Selection Baker's Twine

And my Birthday card:

I used Embossed Resist on my background using Hero Arts Line Dots Cling Stamp. I used some Heidi Swapp Color Shine mists in Gold and Sweet Cherry for my Spray Misting. I used Papertrey Ink's Mat Stack #5 die, and embossed that with some dots, then adhered that to my embossed, spray-misted cardstock. I stamped my flowers using PTI's Ruby Reprise Stamp set, then cut them out by hand. I adhered all my flowers to the card, then added some white Baker's Twine. On top of that, I added a PTI double-ended banner die cut stamped with the "Happy Birthday" sentiment from PTI's Stylish Sentiments: Birthday stamp set. I also added some Glitter to each side of my card, did you spot that? :)

I...love...this...card! I really do. And I love Heidi Swapp's Color Shine spray mists! They are so sparkly! I really was hoping to do at least 2 or 3 cards for this challenge, but I still just have way too much to do! Thanks for stopping by, have a Happy Valentine's Day!

PTI 7th Anniversary Stripes Challenges

Good evening crafters, hope you all have had a fabulous Wednesday! I am over here with droopy eyes, struggling to stay awake. I am very tired but wanted to get this card up before it was too late. This is for the Papertrey Ink Stripes Challenge.

I used to the same purple cardstock scraps to create my "lattice" stripes on the card front, right on top of some striped embossing. I used Hero Arts Sew Me Flower Jewel Stamp set for the flowers and leaf, along with Papertrey Ink's One-liners Happy Die collection and the Year Round Happiness Stamp set.

I am not too sure how I feel about this card. You know how sometimes you make a card and you're like "WOW! MAN, I LOVE THIS!" and other times you start, want to quit, but finish anyways, then say to yourself "What the heck was I thinking?". Well, that's how I feel about this card. Maybe it's all the purple, maybe I am just too tired. Maybe I am just too frustrated because I couldn't get good enough lighting to capture a good enough photo.

I should probably go to sleep, I do not work tomorrow, but I have a ton of things to do. Need my rest! Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

PTI 7th Anniversary Stripes Challenge

Good evening fellow crafters! I can't believe I have been able to participate so much this month in all these Papertrey Ink challenges! It definitely is exciting! I cannot wait to get my hands on all these new products and start playing around with them!

Today the challenge is to incorporate stripes into our projects. I made a fairly simple Thank you card:

I used Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Thanks stamp set and coordinating die, along with a Recollections cardstock pack called Purple Passion. Each cardstock strip is 1/4" and stuck onto the card with Scor-tape.

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful night!

PTI 7th Anniversary Words Challenge #3

Last post for tonight fellow crafters. The challenge the other day on journaling cards got me inspired to do a little scrapbooking, which I haven't done in a very long time! I made this 8½ x 11" scrapbook page, with of course Kraft cardstock, and some patterned paper scraps.

I used PTI's Double-ended Banner dies to cut out a bunch of banners, then lined them up on the side of my page. Then I used the Super Star Borders Die to add all the stars. I used Wonderful Words: Memories Stamp set and coordinating die to add to the bottom of my page. I left the top left hand corner blank so I can add my journaling later.

Really can't wait for the Monthly Moments series that Papertrey Ink is going to be releasing. I've been focusing so much on card making that I've lost sight of all my journaling and memory-making, and would really like to catch up on it all. I am excited to see what the DT comes up with for this series!

Have a good night!