Friday, January 29, 2016

Colour Q Challenge #326

This week's color Colour Q challenge is a great mix of colors that remind me of Spring.

It's  nice to see colors like this in the Winter.  When I think of Spring I think of butterflies.  PTI just released this gorgeous butterfly cover plate and I couldn't wait to use it!   One of PTI's talented designer's created an amazing card using this cover plate and I just knew her design would be perfect for these colors.  You can see Laurie's beautiful card here.

Okay warning I loved using this coverplate so much I got kinda carried away!  So you will see many variations below.


I hadn't played with my distress ink for a long while.  I got the round blending tool and a pack of mini cubes from hubby and the kids for Christmas so I figured I'd pull them out.  I love that little round blending tool!  It's sooo much easier to blend then the rectangle one! The closest purple distress ink  I had to wisteria wonder is shaded lilac so I used that in addition to mustard seed and peeled paint.  I took a paintbrush and flicked on some white pearl shimmer mist to the background.  A sentiment from PTI's wishes come true stamped on chocolate brown paper (sorry it looks black in the photo) then embossed with white embossing powder finishes the card.

Tip...clean off your mat in between inking colors. As you can see in my card I have numerous colors in the lilac ink because I didn't clean my mat!  Oops!  I do better in the next cards!

I didn't care for the bluish hue in the first card so I tried some plain old dye ink by PTI called winter wisteria along with the same distress ink colors in the first card.  I liked this much better.  I used plain water to spritz the background this time.  I will say the distress ink was much easier to blend then the dye ink...not impossible but takes a little longer.  Plus distress ink does react with the water better.

I wanted to try an even more vibrant purple so I used dusty concord in addition to the other colors.
I also remembered I had some pearlized cardstock (woohoo using up my stash) so I cut the coverplate from that.  I wish I would have thought about this before I cut several out of plain white cardstock.  The finish is amazing!  It's hard to see in the photo...take a look at the one on the bottom.
Still more gorgeous in real life but you get the idea!  Next, I thought I'd try an orange...
So it was distress orange marmalade along with the others I previously used. Next I went with a total different rainbow to really brighten things up a bit.
This time the following distress inks were used: abandoned coral, cracked pistachio and fossilized amber.  Gold shimmer spray spritzed on the background this time.

As you can see I had way too much fun with ink and this butterfly cover plate.  I did an experiment and cut cover plate out of good PTI card stock and then out of cheap Georgia Pacific card stock and really the thickness doesn't matter for these.   The pearlized card stock is stunning but if you are looking to be frugal (who isn't?!) then the cheaper card will still give you good results!  (I used the cheaper in all of these except for the shimmer)  Plus this is a really flat card which is easy to mail.   You don't need a lot of bumpy bling to make this one look good!  Gotta love that! This is my first cover plate purchase (thanks to birthday money!) as I thought the cover plates were nice but expensive.  However, I am glad I invested on this one because you can create a beautiful card with minimal layers in no time!

Supplies are listed and linked below:


PTI Cover Plate: Butterfly Die

PTI Wishes Come True Stamp Set

PTI Winter Wisteria Dye Ink


Mustard Seed Distress Ink

Peeled Paint Distress Ink

Dusty Concord Distress Ink



Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink

Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink

Abandoned Coral Distress Ink


Fossilized Amber Distress Ink

Hero Arts Prayers Stamps

PTI Round and Round Anniversary Set
(no longer available)

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Monday, January 25, 2016

Papertrey January Blog Hop Challenge

Hello! It's time for another Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This month Nicole has picked out a wonderful piece of art by Rex Ray to inspire us to create a card.

For some reason when I looked at this photo I thought of balloons floating in the sky so thus the card below was born:

I created a soft cloud background using Jennifer McGuire's wonderful technique using  distress ink found here.  I used foam tape to pop up three of the ballons for more dimension.  I think if I were to make this card again I would mask off the greeting so the balloon strings run behind it.  I would love to try this using balloons die cut from scrap cardstock.  This would make a good scrapbuster card!  I also like that it could work for masculine bithdays...a topic I often struggle with!

Supplies listed and linked below:

PTI Birthday Style Stamp Set

PTI Birthday Style Dies

Momento Tangelo Dye Ink



Momento Rich Cocoa Dye Ink

Broken China Distress Ink
PTI=Papertrey Ink
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Friday, January 22, 2016

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #237 Matchbook Valentines

My daughter wants to make her own handmade Valentine's this year. So we were thrilled when we discovered the latest Make it Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink. Lexi has a wonderful video tut that shows exactly how she makes these cute little matchbook Valentines. Check out the details here.   I thought I would just go ahead and make one to get an idea if this was doable.  This is what I came up with:


They were super easy to do and I can't wait to see what type of decoration Adoree wants to add to hers!

I just grabbed one m and m candy bag we had in our cabinet.  I love the prepackaged Valentine design ones but didn't get a chance to purchase some and get the matchbook done before the challenge is over.   I was soo excited to use these much neglected heart brads since they matched the theme so well.  However, I don't think they hold as securely as the staples.  So I would recommend just using the staples and covering them up with some decorative tape as Lexi did.

Oh and hubby and the kids got me the rose stamp set for my birthday.  (Thanks soo much!)  Isn't it stunning!  It's my first layering stamp set and I can't believe how much depth you get by layering the stamps up!   The MISTI tool makes lining things up soo much easier!  I love my MISTI!!!!  Jennifer McGuire shows how she used a MISTI and a rose stamp set to mass produce some cards in case you are curious here.  I hope to give her design a try soon!  Be forewarned...you might be seeing lots of these roses!

Supplies are listed and linked below:

PTI The Sweet Life Stamp Set

PTI The Sweet Life Die Collection (set of 2)

Brushed Blooms Stamp Set



Most Incredible Stamp Tool Invented

MISTI for short

4” White Paper Doilies

Sizzix Framelits Die Set 6PK - Hearts

Ink for Roses:


PTI Sweet Blush Dye Ink
Layer 1

PTI Berry Sorbet Dye Ink
Layer 2

PTI Pure Poppy Dye Ink
Layer 3

Ink for leaves:





Momento Pear Tart Dye Ink
Layer 1

Momento Bamboo Leaves Dye Ink
Layer 2

My embossing powder is quite old but here is something similar:
  White Embossing Powder
White Embossing Powder

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Monday, January 18, 2016

Scrapbuster Card and Color Throwdown #375

I'm back again!  Can you believe it only 1 day between posts!   As I mentioned in yesterday's post one of my goals for 2016 is to use some of my neglected crafting items.  So I thought it might be good to do some scrapbuster cards.  Okay so you may be asking what is a scrapbuster card?!  Well in my eyes it is a card that uses up little scraps of paper.

When I first started card making my card designs centered around patterned  paper and solid paper die cuts.  Then I got into stamping and using ink on my cards and my paper got neglected.  So when I saw Michelle's wonderful card I just knew it was perfect for those little solid scraps of paper that I can't possibly throw away.    Take a good look at this graphical beauty!

Check out the deets on her blog Here.   I just love how the focal point is tilted and the dramatic contrast of the bright colored cardstock against the soft stone background!

Trying to keep my trend of doing more challenges going I decided to duplicate this card but use the colors in the latest Color Throwdown Challenge.


 Here is what I came up with:

It's hard to tell in the photo but originally the birthday word die cuts didn't stand out from the background that much so I took a thin black sharpie and roughly drew in a shadow.  I took a photo of this in progress and that little bit of black really makes a difference.

I did emboss the sentiments but they didn't get raised much when heated.  Does embossing powder get old?  I've had this stuff forever and I could have sworn it was more raised in the past.  I added teeny tiny black rhinestones to the sentiments as a finishing touch.

I always try and make more than one card since I have everything out it is just as easy to make  4 versus one.  I had plenty of scraps left too.

I wanted something a little more bold and colorful this time so thus the rainbow die cuts on the black background.  I switched out silver rhinestones for black. I rounded both bottom corners too. 

Hopefully I'll discover more scrapbusting card designs and share them with you in the future.  I will label them as such so if you ever get tired of all your scraps collecting dust you can find my posts easily.

Supplies listed and linked below:
PTI Wonderful Words Birthday Stamps
PTI Wonderful Words Birthday Die
2MM rhinestones
PTI=Papertrey Ink

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