Papertrey Ink November Blog Hop

Good morning fellow crafters and Happy Monday! Are you all ready for Thanksgiving? I know I sure am, I cannot wait for Thursday! I was so excited when Nichole Heady showed us the theme for this month's blog hop over at Papertrey Ink. I thought, Paper Houses? How easy could that be?! (Can you picture me rolling my eyes here?) This was hard! I couldn't come up with any ideas for the life of me! I wanted to "make" my own windows using the Framed Out Stamp Set and Die sets, but they just weren't turning out right and some were just too big for the size of the template Nichole provided for us. And then I had my AHA moment! I remembered that I had this Hero Arts Simple Things Stamp set and it turned out to be perfect for my doors and windows! Now knowing that I have this stamp set I can't wait to make more of these little houses! My youngest daughter is particularly happy because she loves playing with all things "little" and has in fact all ready stolen my little paper house! Anywho, as I have to be to work in less than 30 minutes, I better make this quick!

I printed the template on Kraft cardstock and cut it out. The only thing I didn't cut out was the bottom line of the house, I cut about 1/4" past that line because I wanted to have something to attach to a bottom piece of cardstock. Then I embossed the house with Paper Studios A2 Stripes Embossing folder. I stamped my windows and Door and colored them in with Prismacolor markers, then cut them out. I adhered the house together, added some scalloped punching to my roof, and then added glitter to the roof and bottom of the house to make it look like snow. My final touch was adding the tiny little Snowman from Papertrey Ink's Tiny Treats: Christmas Stamp set. I really wanted to add some kind of wreath to the front of the house, but I couldn't find a stamp set small enough!

So cute! Even though I know I am about to be BLOWN AWAY by all the talent of all you wonderful crafters out there, I love my little house as it is the first one I have ever made! I cannot wait to see all the other houses you all make! Have a great day everyone, thanks so much for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #141

Good evening fellow crafters! How are you doing? I hope you all have a great start to your week. Can you believe next week is already THANKSGIVING?! I've said it so many times, and I still cannot grasp just how fast the year has gone. One of my older sister's is going to be hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, and I just cannot wait for some much needed family time with everyone!

I didn't think I would have much time to post any more projects any time soon, but I did have a chance to make a couple of cards for another Papertrey Ink Make it Monday. This week, Heather Nichols shows us how to add glitter using Heat and Stick embossing embossing powder.

I used my favorite Kraft cardstock for the card base. My ink colors are Stampin' Up's Indigo Island, Pool Party, and Crumb Cake. My scalloped borders are also Island Indigo cardstock. I used Inkadinkado's Snowflakes A-plenty stamp set and Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Christmas Stamp set. Rather than add glitter to the entire card, I only stamped back over the snowflakes with the Versamark and heat set the glitter back onto just the snowflakes. I didn't want to add too much glitter to the card, I just wanted a very subtle, glittery affect. I added some rhinestones to the snowflakes as well. Overall, I love the way the card came out.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #140

Good evening fellow crafters! I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready and refreshed for a new week! It is nearing midnight here and I do work early, so I will try to make this as short as possible!

For this weeks Make it Monday challenge, Ashley Cannon Newell shows us how to use our inkpads to create designs onto a project. I made a simple Hello card for my entry this week. I really liked the card design that Dawn McVey used in her card here and I wanted to make a card like hers.

I used Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Thanks and Wonderful Words: Hello stamp sets. I also used Hero Arts Solid Dots Pattern Cling stamp. For my ink colors, I used Inkadinkado's Pigment Ink Stack in Warm Pastels. I also used Papertrey Ink's Limitless Layers Square dies and the Hello die cut was cut in Basic Grey cardstock.

I have had a long weekend and unfortunately have a very long, straight 11 days of working ahead of me, so I might not be posting for a couple weeks. I wish everyone a very peaceful, wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday, thanks for stopping by, have a great week!

Make it Monday #139 Stamped Square Frames

Good afternoon fellow crafters! I need to make this post short and sweet as I am headed off to work soon! I have a busy weekend ahead of me and wanted to share my card with you before I ran out of time for this weeks Make it Monday Challenge! Dawn McVey has challenged us to create a Stamped Square frame this week. Her cards are always so beautiful! Here is my card for the challenge:

I love Dawn's Boutique Borders stamp sets! There are so unique and versatile, so I decided to use Boutique Borders: Sympathy stamp set to create my Stamped Frame. I stamped my border in Soft Suede ink from Stampin' Up and cut of the lined border part off of the stamped area. I used the Pretty Peonies Stamp Set to cut out some Peonies and stamped those with Stampin' Up's Gumball Green, Cherry Cobler, and Primrose Petals. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Stylish Sentiments Birthday stamp set. I embossed the Cherry Cobler cardstock on my card with the Paper Studios A2 Quatrefoil embossing folder.

That's it! I have to admit this card came together pretty quickly actually, took me about 30 minutes or so, and I really love the Cherry Cobler, Primrose Petals, and Kraft Cardstock together! Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

PTI MIM #138 and ColourQ#213

Good evening fellow crafters! Tonight I am going to make my post as short and sweet as possible as I really need to get to sleep soon. My girls and I woke up late this morning, they were late to school and I was late to work, so I decided that we both need to get to bed earlier in order to have some more time in the mornings. Plus, tomorrow is crazy hair day at school for them and I still have no idea what I am going to do for them!

This is the first time that I am joining a ColourQ Challenge! I have been following their blog for more than a year now but have never actually attempted to join in on any of the weekly challenges! I get so much inspiration from the color combinations that are posted each week, they are always fabulous! This is also my second card for Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday #138 featuring Inlaid die-cuts. I have never joined two challenges together at once, so I thought I would give it a try and make a simple little card for both challenges.

For the ColourQ challenge, the color combo includes Peach Parfait, Basic Gray, Kiwi Kiss, Lovely Lilac, and White. I combined those colors together using Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Hello and Heart-2-Heart #10 stamp sets. I used the matching dies to create my inlaid die-cutting on the front of my card. I added a couple of rhinestones to finish off the little butterflies.

I am not a huge fan of the basic gray, but I think this would of course make a nice card set with some other colors combinations. That's it for tonight, thanks so much for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #138 Inlaid Diecuts

Good evening fellow crafters! I hope you all had a fabulous start to your week! I am completely exhausted, didn't get too much sleep last night and I should have gone to bed early tonight, but instead decided to try and make a card for the Make it Monday Challenge #138 over on Nicole Heady's blog!

When I first saw the tutorial that Betsy filmed for us, I thought, this is going to be easy-peasy. Man, oh, man. This card took me forrrrevvverrrr. I think creating just this one card really made me just a little bit more exhausted than I already was. I had also never tried this technique before, so even though I was getting frustrated and was very close to just giving up, I keep going and finished my card. I started out by using the Happy Hexagons plate, die-cut that and stamped all the pieces using Stampin' Up's Real Red, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue, and Cherry Cobler. I adhered all the pieces to a piece of Kraft cardstock to have a base for lining everything up.

Once I finished all the stamping, I die-cut the Joy from the Papertrey Ink One Liners die cut set several times and pieced it all together. The stamp sets I used are Papertrey Ink's Happy Hexagons Stamp Set, Wonderful Words: Joy Stamp Set, and Shape Up Snowman Accessories stamp set. The inside of my card says "May the blessings of Christmas be with you today and always", and that is from Hero Arts Joy to All stamp set.

I did mess up a little aligning everything up on the right side of the card and had to cut it down a bit, so unfortunately, the right side of my card is a bit uneven, but overall I am happy with the way it all turned out in the end and am glad I didn't give up! Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your week and have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #137

Good morning fellow crafters! It is a beautiful Saturday morning here in Texas! My girls and I are spending a few hours here in my craft room catching up on episodes of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and making as many crafts as we can before we have to start running errands and cleaning up house!

When I saw this weeks Make it Monday Challenge over on Nichole Heady's blog, I wasn't too sure if I wanted to join in. I do not have to many Fall/Autumn themed stamp sets. I had to go through all my supplies, including all my Cricut cartridges, to try and find something with leaves that would work with this challenge. I didn't find anything I liked so I thought I might just skip the challenge altogether. I ran out of Stamp Cleaner and had to make a last minute trip to Michaels the other day and happened to find the perfect Leaf Stamp in the Dollar Stamp bin. Well, they used to be $1.00 stamps, they are $1.50 now :) Anywho, I love this little leaf stamp, it has a lot of detail for a cheap little stamp! Here is my card for this weeks challenge.

Again, I used the Papertrey Ink Nuts for You stamp set. I just can't get enough of this little Squirrel, he is just too cute. I stamped the leaf image 5 times in Stampin' Up ink colors Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Cherry Cobler, and Chocolate Chip. I don't have any Glossy Accents, so I used some Pearlescent Embossing Powder on top of the leaves to make them sparkle a bit and then cut them out. I arranged them in a wreath pattern and then placed my little Squirrel on top. I stamped the background of my card base with Soft Suede ink using an image from Inkadinkado's Fall Season Stamp set. The "Thankful" sentiment is from Fiskars "So Much Thanks" Stamp Set.

I am happy with the way the card came together. It didn't take too much time so I know I can whip up a few more of these fairly quickly. I even used this stamp set to make a quick set of Thankful tags.

So the girls and I are going to start cleaning up a bit in here and start picking up around the house. We need to go Costume shopping for my oldest daughter. I had ordered her Halloween Costume online weeks ago and it was supposed to arrive this past Monday. When it didn't arrive by Wednesday I had to call them up to find out what was going on, and it turns out her costume was on backorder and nobody bothered to call me or email me to let me know what was going on! She is pretty upset because she had her heart set on one costume and now I am not too sure if we will be able to find it locally. Wish me luck! Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!

Papertrey Ink October Blog Hog

Good morning fellow crafters! Happy Friday! I hope you have all had a fantastic week and are ready for the weekend! I know I definitely am! The last few weeks have been a busy blur, heck, the last month has just disappeared! Halloween is already next week! There is only 5 weeks until Thanksgiving and 9 weeks until Christmas, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!

Last Friday, the kids school had their Fall Carnival and they allowed a few vendors to set up a table to sell their handmade items. The fair only lasted 2 hours but I am glad that I did it, it was a lot of fun! I made a few goodies along with some handmade cards. My mom and my girls helped me out which was great, the turnout was awesome and we sold a lot. I love doing the little craft fairs like this because we end up making more profit that we do if we were to go to a craft fair at the mall or somewhere else bigger. To see photos of the fair and some of the items I made, scroll down to the bottom of the post!

Before I show you pictures of the fair from last week, I wanted to share with you the Christmas Tags I made for this months Blog Hop over for Papertrey Ink. There are already sooo many wonderful tags posted up, I love all the ideas everyone came up with. Tags are such a great project, they are easy to create and add a wonderful touch to gifts and homemade goodies. I made my tags with Kraft cardstock, and embossed the background with the Hero Arts Snowflakes and Edges Cling Stamp. I used Stampin' Up's Real Red and Old Olive Cardstock and Ink, along with Papertrey Ink's 2013 Holiday Tags Stamp Set. I love this stamp set! I made 8 tags, one for each of the images included in the set.

I can't wait to make more tags and possibly cards using this stamp set, especially using different, more non-traditional colors like Dawn McVey did in the release earlier this month!

As promised, here are some photos from the fair. This was our table, and of course my little helpers. They did a great job helping out all the "customers" look at all the goodies and helped pass out candy.

I made Teacher Cards, as well as a few Birthday and Thank You cards. I also had some Halloween, Fall, and Christmas Cards. We made bookmarks and pencil kits as well. You can also see we made some bracelets and earrings.

Here are M&M Candy Sticks made using White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M's. To make the tags, I used PTI Trick or Treat Stamp set and the candy corn image from Tremendous Treats: Halloween stamp set. There is also the Hershey's Nugget Chocolate packs which each hold 4 kinds of Hershey's Nuggets. I find these sell a lot better than the Hershey Nugget Tins. I made the tags for these from the Nuts for You stamp set and the Mr. Bones Stamp set.

Aren't these Hand Sanitizer holders adorable? I followed Just Julie B's tutorial here on how to make these and added a few of my own special touches to these. I can't wait to make these for Christmas as little gifts!

These Pumpkin Poop treats were a huge hit and we sold old fast. I wish I had made more! The Pumpkin from the Polka Dot Parade #8 stamp set was a perfect little addition to this popular poem!

These didn't sell too well, maybe since the kids were already getting free candy everywhere else at the fair, but I did sell a few. I made these using Stampin' Up's Top Note die, along with their Batty for You Stamp set. I used the PTI Trick or Treat Stamp set again for the sentiment.

Thanks for much for stopping by and checking out all of my projects. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, I am going to go and do some more blog browsing to see some more wonderful tag projects! Have a great day!

Make it Monday #134 Card Set #2

Hello fellow crafters, how are you doing today? Were you able to get in some crafting time for World Card Making Day 2013? I finished my cards today a little late, but I still was able to get some "me time" in after running errands with the family. I really wanted to enjoy having the day off today from work but there was so much to do! Unfortunately, I work for the next 11 days straight!

I wanted to try and make another card for this weeks Make it Monday challenge for Papertrey Ink. As most of you already know, Nichole has shown us how to make her "repeat + lift" card, and you can find her video as well as a place for you to link up your project here.

I had not used my Wonderful Words: Joy stamp set yet, and after seeing so many different cards being made with it, I decided it was time to open it up and see what I could do. I was inspired by this card from Jennifer Rzasa as well as this card from Dawn McVey.

I used a Kraft cardstock base along with Stampin' Up Cherry Cobler cardstock. I used Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Joy and Boutique Borders: Birthday stamp sets. I embossed the Cherry Cobler cardstock with clear embossing powder after stamping it with Hero Arts Snowflakes and Edges Cling stamp. I used Cherry Cobler, Primrose Petals, and Early Espresso Inks for my stamp colors. I embossed the Joy die-cut with some Pearlescent Embossing Powder from Inkadinkado to make it pop a little, then put everything together. The inside of each card reads "May all your Holiday wishes come true", a sentiment from the Hero Arts Joy to All stamp set.

I love the look of the Kraft and Cherry Cobler together, I am really pleased with how the cards came out. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend, I am heading off to bed now, good night!

Make it Monday #134 Repeat + Lift

Good evening fellow crafters, or perhaps Good early morning! (It has just turned midnight here!) And it is now OCTOBER! Yet another month come and gone just like that. Absolutely crazy. Spent a few minutes watching my girls reading the other day after they finished their homework. It just breaks my heart to see how fast they are growing up. They know so much about who they are now, what they want, what they don't want...Just have to remember to cherish each and every moment of every single day that passes...

Moving on, I wanted to share with you the card set I made for this week's Make it Monday Challenge over at Papertrey Ink. I think this is the first time I have ever been able to actually make a project the same day the challenge came out. This week, Nichole shows us how she created her "Repeat + Lift" cards. It is a really fun technique, and there are so many ways we can put this to use! I saw the video real quick this morning before heading out to work and have been thinking of ideas all day about what I wanted to do for my cards. The kids' school has a Fall Carnival every year, and they allow Craft vendors to sell their items there. I am going to have a table, and I need some Teacher gifts, including some cards. So this is my first Teacher Thank you Card set.

I used Neenah White Cardstock for my card bases, and some patterned paper from Recollections Back to School paper pack. I used Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Thank You Stamp Set and matching die, along with the Banner die. I stamped my "Thank You" in Stampin' Up Real Red and Basic Black, and popped up the "Thank You" die-cuts using foam dimensionals because I didn't have any foam tape. This was a challenge because I had to make sure the dimensionals were cut really thin. You can seem them a tiny bit up close, but it doesn't look bad at all. I like the way the set came out and I can't way to try a few more sets like this to include in the Craft Fair.

I have to work early in the morning, only going to get a few hours of sleep now, so I guess I should probably head off to bed! Should be resting anyway, I feel a cold coming on, my throat is killing me and I am already losing my voice! Thanks for stopping by, have a fabulous day!