Papertrey Ink Make It Monday #131

Good morning fellow crafters! Are you glad it is the weekend? I sure am! It has been forever and a day since I was last able to post on my blog, in fact, I haven't been able to spend any time crafting at all in the last couple of months to be honest. We took our family vacation to California at the end of July, then came home and jumped right back into another school year. I am amazed that we are already 2 weeks into September. I feel as though there isn't any time anymore to just sit back and relax, enjoy time with the family you know? So far our days are filled with crazy mornings, then we're all off to work and school. After that we spend a couple of hours doing homework, then it's showers, cleaning, and dinner. Dinner usually is the only time we have to really catch up with what's going on with everyone, and I am sad to say that this is how it has been every day since school started. I feel like the kids don't have any time to themselves any more to just relax either.

So here we are on a Saturday and for the first time in a few months I do not have to work and it feels great! Had a simple breakfast with my oldest daughter and now she is watching some Saturday morning cartoons. My DH is out at school this morning for a Saturday class and my youngest is still actually asleep. She knows not to wake up early on the weekend. The last few days have been cloudy and rainy. I had the day off on Thursday and despite the fact that it was pouring rain, decided to make the trip across town to Michaels because to be honest, I haven't stepped foot inside a Michaels store in over 5 months. Making this trip finally got me feeling creative again and I decided to attempt making a card for this weeks Make it Monday Challenge over on Nichole Heady's blog.

The challenge this week is Striped embossing. I was amazed at how easy Betsy made the technique seem when I was watching the video, and I just loved how bright her colors looked against the Kraft cardstock. My only problem is that my Embossing Powder collection is actually very small. I have a range of about 12 colors, and nothing bright. Aside from neutrals, I've got baby blue, hot pink, red, and green, and I just had no idea how to do striped embossing with these colors without making an ugly mess. So I finally settled on Glam Gold, Copper, and Black, and used Papertrey Ink's Nuts for You Stamp set and the Wonderful Words: Hello stamp set to make my card. I embossed the nuts in the gold and copper embossing powder as well. I colored in my cute little squirrel with Prismacolor Markers in Cocoa Bean, Walnut, and Light Umber.

I have to admit I tried this technique over and over and over. I wasted many Kraft cardstock bases trying to get this just right. My embossing powders were just not sticking! I finally realized I needed to use a different embossing pad. I was trying to use a Stampabilities Embossing ink Pad, but I realized that the ink seeped into the cardstock way too fast before I could get the embossing powders to stick. So I finally decided to switch my embossing pad and used Ranger's Perfect Medium Stamp pad instead, and this worked perfectly. I was able to line up my post-it's without worrying if the embossing ink would dry too quickly. I like the overall look and the colors of the card. I think I will make a couple more cards to make a set, this would be a cute Fall card set!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the upcoming week. I hope to spend a little bit more time here in my craft room in the next few days, I am way behind on Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas crafting!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #121

Good evening fellow crafters! How has your day been? Mine is great so far, today was supposed to be my day off but I have to go in to work for 4 hours in a little bit :( Before I do, wanted to share with you my project for this weeks' Make it Monday Challenge for Papertrey Ink.

I wanted to make another 3x3 Card set to add to my Etsy shop. I used a Kraft cardstock base and paper from Stampin Up's Subtles Collection. I also used all 10 of the matching inks and cardstock. The stamp sets I used are Papertrey Ink Pretty Peonies and Fillable Frames Additions #1. I die-cut the peony out of the vellum and stamped the image using Early Espresso ink. I then used some Clear Embossing powder to set the ink so that when I started to add color to the peonies, the ink would not rub off. I adhered everything together and Voila! Fast and easy, colorful card set!

That is it for tonight, need to finish getting ready for work and finish making a quick dinner for the family before I leave. I hate these 4 hour shifts, seriously, what the heck is the point?! LOL Goodnight everyone!

Papertrey Ink Make It Monday #120

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Happy Humpday! Hope you are all having a fabulous middle of the week! I on the other hand, slipped and fell in the shower this morning and twisted my ankle something fierce! It swelled up pretty bad this morning, but after taking some Motrin and having an Epsom Salt foot soak for about an hour, the swelling has gone down tremendously. Doing anything and everything I can right now to avoid going to the hospital, mainly because I do not have health insurance right now. I also just don't think it is too bad of an injury, although I did unfortunately have to call in to work today :/ My mother-in-law also took the girls to go swimming for the day (supposed to hit 104 degrees today, yikes), so I am trying to also stay off of my feet. Luckily for me, everything I need to get started on a project today is all within my reach here on my desk, so I decided to make a card for this weeks Make it Monday Challenge over at Nichole Heady's awesome blog.

This week Nichole is challenging us to make an Overlapping Ombre project. I am so glad she chose this technique, I love anything and everything about ombre projects! You would think it would be super easy to come up with a project, but the hardest part is finding just the right colors to create a perfect ombre effect. I have a dear friend who is going through a stressful, difficult overwhelming time right now trying to juggle family life, school, and a full work week. On top of that, her mother was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Although I cannot even begin to imagine what she must be going through, I wanted her to know that I am here for her and her family no matter what. So I made her a card just to let her know.

I used a Kraft cardstock base for this card. The Papertrey Ink Stamp sets I used are Pretty Peonies and Boutique Borders: Father. I used Stampin Up ink colors in Chocolate Chip, Gumball Green, Real Red, Rose Red, Regal Rose, Pretty In Pink, and Pink Pirouette. The card was fairly simple to put together once I did some test stamping and found the perfect combination of colors. I love the card and cannot wait to make more in different colors and with different sentiments. I think this would look lovely as a card set.

Thanks for stopping by, going to go be a lazy bum (not by choice, haha) on the sofa for a while. Have a great day everyone!

Papertrey Ink MIM #119 and School Projects

Good evening fellow crafters! I hope you have all had a fantastic week! I've been super busy working and making gifts and treats for the girls' school. Today was officially their last day of school! Insane how fast the school year went by, I became a bit emotional this morning comparing the photos I took of the kiddos on the first day of school and the last day of school. I am now super excited to start the summer vacation off tomorrow with my girls! I cannot wait to start the weekend, this is going to be the first Saturday that I have not had to work in a really, REALLY, long time. The last couple of months actually I have been working Saturday and Sunday, so haven't had much family time and I really miss it. We have lots and lots planned for this weekend, fun stuff and not so fun stuff like cleaning! (After this week in my craft room, it is a disaster!)

Tonight I wanted to share with you the card I made for this weeks Make it Monday Challenge over at Nichole Heady's blog. The challenge this week is from the lovely Dawn McVey, and she wanted us to create a project using Flagged Borders. For my project I wanted to create a welcome baby card.





For this card, I used a Grey Cardstock base and picked out some patterned paper from K&Company's Itsy Bitsy Baby Girl paper pack. To create the flags I used Papertrey Ink's Banner Die as well as Stampin' Up's Framelits Bitty Banners Die set. The Stampin' Up Ink colors I used were Pretty in Pink and Basic Grey. I also used Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Baby Stamp set and die, along with one of their Fillable Frames dies. I used the Paper Studio's A2 Stripes embossing folder. I am okay with how the card came out. The only thing I think I would change is the use of the same patterned paper on the card as well as the small flags. I think it does clash a bit. Owell, whats done is done!

These are the projects I stayed up late this week a few nights to finish making. I made these Skittles Candy sticks for the girls classroom parties. I got the image from LemonSqueezeDesigns Etsy shop. As always my clear 1x8 bags are purchased from ClearBagsRUs Etsy Shop. I have also purchased the 1x10 bag size from ScrappyBeadsCorner's Etsy shop. Either size bag works fine depending on how much candy you want to put in them. The kids always love these favors! If you saw my last post, I made a ton of Wreck it Ralph favors for my nephew's birthday party, and I included some Wreck it Ralph Skittles treats as well.






For the girls teachers, we made these Teacher Money boxes. This project took me FOREVER. It was a big mess trying to fit everything together nicely with the dollar bills. After hours and hours of time and paper wasted trying to make a box to hold everything together, I was finally happy with my results. I LOVE THIS GIFT! And the teachers absolutely loved them! I used primary cardstock colors to create 20 different cards, each measuring 6¼" x 2¾". I used Microsoft word to print out the little "boxes" on white cardstock to mat on top of the colored cardstock pieces. I used a Hero Arts stamp set for the Apple on each card. I used Stampin' Up's Inks in Gumball Green, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, Tangerine Tango, and Pacific Point. The girls and I came up with 20 Reasons why each of their teachers were great, and I wrote them down for them. (Mostly because they take too long to write, and I wanted to write in pen and not have anything mess up). After the 20 reasons were written down, I included one last card for the back of the pile for them to write a little note to their teachers. In between each card, we placed one $1.00 bill. I figured we would have spent $20 to $25 on a gift card anyway, so might as well just give them some cash!







I love how these turned out. This might be my go-to teacher gift from now on!

One last note, if you were ever a follower and participator over at the Paper Variety Challenge blog, you may have noticed that they have been away for almost a year now. BUT I am soooo excited to have seen today that they are BACK, except this time they have started a NEW challenge blog for PROJECT LIFE! It is called Week-2-Week Project Life Challenges and Inspirations and I am sooo super excited for this, I haven't seen any other Project Life challenge blogs so I think this is brilliant. When I found out last month that my local Hobby Lobby was going to be carrying the Project Life kits, I was ECSTATIC! I found out the stores would be carrying them mid-May, so I called daily for almost a week to find out when the products would arrive. I didn't get any signed editions, but I did get the Blush Edition Core Kit as well as the Big Variety Pack 1 of the photo pages. I didn't find the Blush Edition Project life album, but the store was having a 50% off sale on scrapbooks so I just picked up one big one that matched my kit. Plus how awesome is it that you can use the 40% off coupon on these kits?! SCORE!

I love love love all the project cards in this kit! My only problem is that it has been about 3 weeks since I've picked up the kits and haven't started ANY pages at all. I was even MORE excited to find out about Project Mouse and immediately bought and printed out all the Bundles available for Project Mouse. And now? It's all sitting on the table of my craft room untouched. So the thought of there being a challenge blog for Project Life is awesome, talk about a great motivator! I can't wait for the first challenge! Head on over to their new blog now and become a follower if you love Project Life, they are doing a giveaway for the Blush Edition Core kit!

Congrats if you have made it down to the bottom of this post. This is one of my longest ever! Thanks for stopping by tonight, I hope you all have a great weekend!

Wreck it Ralph Party Favors

Hey everyone! I haven't shared any projects lately that haven't included some kind of challenge or blog hop. Today I wanted to share with you some last minute party favors I put together for my sister who lives in NC. She is having a Wreck it Ralph themed birthday party for my nephew this weekend. She also has her own home business baking cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops. So she has been so busy preparing all the details for the party that she hasn't had a chance to even think about making party favors. Unfortunately, all the party supply stores in her area discontinued any Wreck it Ralph party supplies, so I thought it might be fun to help her out a little and get some party favors shipped to her ASAP.

I started making all these last night. In total spent around 8 hours putting everything together. I really wanted to get these shipped out today so they would arrive in time for Saturday. Super excited that I was able to finish and have them shipped out about an hour ago! Also super excited on how all this stuff turned out, I love it all! I purchased digital files of the Wreck it Ralph images from these Etsy shops: The Print Shoppe and Betty Newcomb.



Using Stampin Up's Candy Wrapper Die, I made 20 of these little favor boxes and then stamped them with the image from My Favorite Things Lollipop Additions Birthday Stamp set. I used Stampin Up ink colors in Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight, and Real Red. Then I simply attached my images and filled with small pieces of candy.





I used the 1x8" Clear candy bags that I usually purchase here for my Skittles Candy Sticks. I added my Wreck it Ralph Images backed onto Kraft Cardstock and then used Papertrey Ink's Banner die to add the little tags that says "Celebrate".







Last I made these awesome Lollipop holders, again using My Favorite Things Lollipop Additions Birthday set along with the matching dies. Again I stamped on each one and added the images onto the front.







I cannot wait for my sister to get these in the mail, I sure loved making them! I hope she loves using them for my nephew! One of my nieces has a birthday party coming up in July. The theme is Disney Princess and I can't wait to do some favors for her! Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #115

Good evening fellow crafters! Hope you all are having a wonderful evening! Today is my mom's birthday, we just got back from having dinner at her house. The girls got to go swimming with their cousins for a few hours, and are now getting ready for bed. They were of course upset that we had to leave early because it is a school night, but they are exhausted and so I now have a few minutes to share what I made earlier today for this week's Make it Monday challenge for Papertrey Ink.

The challenge this month is to create a project by using Embossing or Impression Plates on something other than paper. My original idea was to use foil, but I was not happy with the result at all. The foil kept tearing and I couldn't find any patterned paper that looked good together with the foil. So after going through all my supplies and stashes, I found my collection of paint chip samples, and I thought that would be perfect. I picked out 6 different samples that each had different shades of the same color. I wanted to create another card set, this time with an ombre effect. I used Stampin' Up's Mini Curly Label punch to get 4 different punches of 5 shades of color from each paint sample. I then adhered these to a White cardstock mat and ran them through my Big Shot with the Medium Polka Dots embossing folder from the Paper Studio.





I adhered all the pieces onto a Kraft Cardstock base. I used Stampin' Up ink pads in Tempting Turquoise, Certainly Celery, Orchid Opulence, Regal Rose, Pumpkin Pie, and Daffodil Delight. Using Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words Hello Stamp set and die, I created the "hello" for the front of each card in a matching color. I did the same for the butterfly using the Papertrey Ink Pretty Peonies Stamp Set and butterfly die. I added a rhinestone to each butterfly and popped it up on the card with dimensionals.


















After I was finished, for some reason the cards reminded me of some Legos! I do like the way the set came out though, I love how easy it is to create an Ombre effect with paint chip samples! My favorite card out of the set is definitely the blue one, I love how bright and vibrant the blue hues are with the Kraft cardstock!

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful night!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #114

Good afternoon fellow crafters! I do not go in to work today until later, so I have been spending the morning doing a little cleaning and crafting. I wanted to try out the technique that Dawn McVey is showing this week for the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday Tutorial. This week the tutorial is on Ink blowing with your reinkers.

There are a ton of birthdays for my family in April and May. My mom, my older sister, and my youngest sister all have birthdays in May in addition to Mother's Day! So the end of April/Early May is usually a busy crafting time for me! I really need to start on all my Mother's Day cards, but decided to get the birthday cards out of the way first.

So for this challenge, I have made a birthday card out of a Kraft Cardstock base.





As I have never tried this ink blowing technique before, I did practice several times on other pieces of white cardstock with lots of different reinkers. I just didn't like the way all the colors were mixing into each other when I tried to blow them off the card. I decided to just go with just one reinker, in a Sunny Yellow color. I may have put drops that were too big onto the cardstock, because I got big, fat ink-blown yellow all over the place. I wanted to draw the attention away from all the yellow, so I used Papertrey Ink's Beautiful Butterflies stamp set along with some Stampin' Up Regals ink pads to stamp some butterflies onto the cardstock. I also used some Crumb Cake ink to stamp the smaller butterflies. I also used Papertrey Ink's Happy Harlequin Stamp set (for the stamped dots) and the Framed Out #6 Stamp set (for the tiny flower). The sentiment is from Stylish Sentiments: Birthdays, which I stamped onto a 2½" circle die cut and adhered onto the front of the card.


I love the way the card came out, just have to decide now who to give it to! Hope you all have a fantastic last day of April, thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink April 2013 Blog Hop

Good morning fellow crafters! I hope you all are having a fabulous week so far! I have tons of errands to run this morning before I head off to work in the afternoon, so I wanted to share with you real quick my project for this month's blog hop for Papertrey Ink over at Nichole's blog!

The challenge is to create a tilted project, so I sharing my super simple, colorful Thank you tag set using the Papertrey Ink Fillable Frames dies and the Framed Out #1 stamp set. The ink colors I used are from Stampin' Up: Gable Green, Pixie Pink, Orchid Opulence, Yoyo Yellow, Only Orange, and Taken with Teal. I created 12 tags, one of each die, and 2 of each color. The polka dots are stamped from My Favorite Things Lollipop Treats stamp set.







That's all for today, I am going to check out all the other amazing projects being submitted and then head out to start my errands. Have a great day, thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink Make It Monday #111

Good afternoon fellow crafters! I hope you all are having a fantastic day considering it is almost Friday! I have to be at work in less than 2 hours, so I need to make this a very quick post. Just wanted to share with you my card for this weeks Make it Monday challenge over at Nichole Heady's blog. This week the tutorial is from Heather and the challenge is to use water-coloring on embossed images.

This challenge was a little bit frustrating for me because the color of my flower just wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to, but I stuck with it and finished my card anyways. I cased Heather's card but I love the white embossing she did on the Kraft cardstock, and I just had to give it a try.







I added some water to Stampin' Up's Garden Green and Not Quite Navy inks to color in my flower and leaf. The stamped flowers and leaf are from Hero Arts Sew Me Flower Jewel stamp set. I used Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Birthday Stamp Set and matching die for the Birthday saying. I used Inkadinkados Linen White embossing powder along with a Craft Smart White pigment ink pad.

I like the card, but I am thinking of playing around with more colors on Kraft cardstock to see if I can get the color to "pop" a little bit more. Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #110

Good evening fellow crafters! I hope everyone had a great Easter Weekend. It felt very weird celebrating Easter in March! Can you believe it is already April? All this time flying by is making me nervous, pretty soon the kids will be out for summer vacation, and then before we know it, another year will be gone. It is insane. I sure hope everyone has had a great start to their week so far! It has been a while since I last posted any projects, so today I wanted to share something I made for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday Challenge.

This week the video tutorial is from Dawn McVey, and the challenge is to make a project using Collage Elements. I love this idea, such a great way to create a card without having to use too many embellishments. I made a Birthday Card Set.











I started off by using Stampin' Up's In-Colors for 2011-2013. I used all 5 colors of cardstock for my card bases: Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Wisteria Wonder, and Pool Party. I layered all of my collage elements onto a piece of Kraft cardstock. I used Hero Arts Solid Dots Pattern cling stamp for my background and stamped that in Crumb Cake ink. I then used a script cling stamp from Recollections and stamped that in Chocolate chip ink. I used Papertrey Ink's Beautiful Butterflies Stamp set to stamp all the butterflies using the 5 ink colors to match the cardstock. I used the PTI Wonderful Words birthday stamp set and die to create the "birthday" for the front of the card, which I also stamped with the in-color inks. The "Happy" on the front of the card is from the PTI Stylish Sentiments: Birthday Stamp set and is stamped in Chocolate Chip ink. The inside of each card includes a sentiment from the same birthday stamp set and is stamped in a matching ink color.

I love creating Card sets, I think this one came out very nice, I love the butterflies. Hopefully I get to participate again this week if I am able to find more time! Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!