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!

Mothers Day Card Set

Hello and Good evening fellow crafters! Hope you all have had a great Tuesday! Are you ready for the middle of the week already? I can't believe that April is almost over. I still can't get over how quickly the months are just flying by, it's really sad because most of the time we don't get to just enjoy "time" anymore....

I am posting today to share with you a Mothers Day card set that I made and shared on my Instagram account. Do you all use Instagram? I think it is almost, if not just as equally, addicting as Pinterest! I think posting and sharing to Instagram is so much easier than posting a blog post, don't you?! There are so many wonderful, brilliant crafty people on Instagram, and its so much easier to browse fellow crafters creations!

Anywho, I used Papertrey Inks The Sweet Life stamp set to make these four cards. I die-cut a circle and used that to mask off my circle stamping. The script cling stamp is from Recollections.

I started out with my favorite Kraft cardstock for the base (as I almost always usually do!). I chose lots of pretty Stampin' Up colors to match up with my stamping on the roses.

I wanted to make a few more cards in different colors to complete the stamp set, but I couldn't really find any more combinations that looked well together on the roses. So I just kept the set simple with 4 cards.

I am glad that I took the time to make something that didn't have anything to do with a challenge! I hope I can find the motivation to continue doing this! Thanks so much for stopping by, have a great night!

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 Anniversary Timed Challenge

Today over on Nichole's blog, the challenge is to create a project in 17 minutes or less AFTER grabbing 7 supplies in 7 minutes! At least we were given 17 minutes and not 7! I've never timed myself making a project, but this was definitely a challenge! I will have to admit it was fun, a bit crazy, but fun. I definitely had to make sure I had my sketch book handy so that I didn't waste any time on a Card Sketch or measurements as I was putting together my project today. I used this online stopwatch to time myself.

In addition to timing myself, I also wanted to challenge myself even more by making a simple card set. So I got all my supplies in 7 minutes:

1.) Inks (SU Elegant Eggplant, Cherry Cobler, Night of Navy, More Mustard, Crumb Cake, and Early Espresso)
2.) Cardstock (Kraft, White, and Early Espresso)
3.) Corner Chomper
4.) EK Success Punch
5.) Twine
6.) Brads
7.) Stamp Sets (Papertrey Ink's Year of Flowers, Hero Arts Solid Dots Cling Stamp and Hero Arts CL498 Stamp Set)

Like I said before, I needed to make this as easy as possible. In my sketch book I make sure to include the measurements needed for anything that needs to be cut out, that way I didn't need to waste time guessing. I also chose to use only one flower, the Daffodil, from the PTI stamp set, so I wouldn't waste time cleaning and repositioning stamps for each card. I made this Mother's Day Card set:

I can't believe I finished! How exciting and what a rush to finish a project while being timed! Think of how many projects we would finish timing ourselves! Just kidding, this was too much work, I like to take my time.

The craftermath:

I didn't make too much of a mess, the card design itself is pretty simple, so it was easy to put together. What took me the longest was adding the brads, the twine, and the dimensional adhesive, otherwise I think I could have finished earlier.

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!

Papertrey Ink MIM #150

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Can you believe it is already the last day of January?! The month has just disappeared! I am so happy it is Friday though, I am beyond ready for the weekend!

This week over at Papertrey Ink, Melissa Phillips has challenged us to make a window screen card. I didn't think I would have time to participate in the challenge this week, but I did have some extra time this morning to whip up this 4x4 square Valentine's Day Card!

This is the first time I used the PTI Polka Dot Parade #11 Stamp Set and the little Owl is just too cute! I used the Harlequin Harlequin Cover Plate die for my "window screen" and placed that on top of some scrap Valentine Paper. I colored my tree branch and leaves using American Crafts Stamp markers, and stamped my owl with Stampin Up ink colors. I used the Limitless Layers 2¼" Circle dies, and a Recollections. Valentines cling stamp from Michaels for the red hearts.

I also wanted to share with you this card I made for the January Blog hop but didn't get to post in time :( I used the Cupid's Arrow stamp Set for this card along with a Hero Arts Valentine sentiment.

I have to be at work in 45 minutes and still need to get ready, so I will see you all next time. Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #148

Good evening fellow crafters! How are you all doing? I am doing well, I am extremely tired right now so I am going to make this as short as possible! I've been super busy working on lots of orders for my Etsy Shop. I've been staying up way too late the last couple of weeks and haven't been getting as much sleep as I know I should be, so tonight I want to get a couple extra hours sleep at least!

I wanted to share the Thank You card set I made for this weeks Make it Monday challenge for Papertrey Ink. The challenge this week is Generation Stamping with Line Images and Multiple Colors. I like to have several Thank You cards on hand to send out with my Etsy shop orders, so I wanted to make a couple more cards.

I used Hero Arts Sew Me Flower Jewel Stamp set for the flower and TPC Studio's Card Crafting Thank you Stamp set for the "thank you". I used 15 different Stampin' Up Ink colors (unfortunately, I put them all away before I remembered that I would have to list them all here, and stamped my flower several times like Dawn McVey shows us in her video. I used PTI Kraft Cardstock for my base as well as matching SU cardstock scraps for the front of each card. I added a few rhinestones to each flower, and that was it!

Thanks so much for stopping by, have a great week!

Classroom Christmas Favors

Good evening fellow crafters, how are you doing? Are you enjoying the first day of winter? It has been windy all day today, which makes our 42 degree weather seem even colder. We are not used to this type of weather, we hardly ever get snow here and if we do, it usually only lasts about a day or two!

The girls are enjoying the start of their winder vacation, and are definitely excited for Christmas. Although, I have to admit it really doesn't feel like Christmas time. I still have a ton of presents to wrap and need to get some things prepared for our families Christmas Eve get-together. Sadly, this year I was chosen to work on Christmas day. We spent Christmas last year at Disneyland, and although it truly was an amazing experience, we did not have a Christmas tree or any family gatherings, so I was really looking forward to it this year. But since I work, I just can't bring myself to get into the Christmas spirit! I sure do miss Disneyland though, isn't Cinderella's Castle beautiful during Christmas time?