Got Your Shades On?

You'll need them for this card :)

I have this lovely pack of Papertrey Raspberry Fizz paper - I love it and it sure is bright! As it's so cheerful I made this for my dear friend Lana to add a little boost to her day.

I got to try out my new Labels 2 dies from Spellbinders for the first time here - I think they are my favourite to date - that is until the CHA releases appear over here!

Dawn's Favourite Colour Challenge

The last challenge before the big release tonight over at Papertrey Ink is to create using one of Dawn's colour schemes that she has been showcasing. I saw this combination of Vintage Cream ink on purple and had to have a go. I remembered I had this ruffled bloom stamp from Stampendous so although the challenge wasn't to case a card I wanted to try these flowers out;)

The paper is Polka Dot Parade and the ribbon is Lavender Moon - both from Papertrey, as is the sentiment on the Spellbinders ribbon tag. I filled the flower centres with stickles but it doesn't show up too well in this photo.
I don't think I will be able to get up at 3am for the party but I bet it will be fun!

Papertrey Bitty Dot Challenge

I can't think of anything I'd like more than to win $300 worth of Papertrey ribbon - it's not like I don't have loads already but a girl can never have too much epecially of the new tiny Swiss dot ribbon!

So for this challenge you have to download a-connect-the-dot drawing and make up a card from the resulting sketch and although it's getting late here I had to have a go.











The stamps are Floral Bouquet and the cardstock is Papertrey Raspberry Fizz, Craft and White along with some Raspberry Fizz paper (I can't wait to see Dawn McVey's new stamps as I am sure I will love them epecially if they go with the great papers!).
The raspberry fizz put me in mind of a nice glass of Rose - so I opened a bottle and poured Paul and I a glass - cheers!

Valentine Roses

A work colleague asked me to make her a valentine card with red roses for her husband so here we have a pair from GinaK designs "A Year of Flowers" - my favourite flower set! I managed to cut the top of one rose off when I ran the die through the cuttlebug so the lovely Jenni suggested that I cut down another rose and add it - so I did it with both roses and liked the dimension it gives to them.

The roses are coloured with Copic Ciao markers in R35 Coral, R46 Strong Red and R59 Cardinal, and the leaves with YG63 Pale Olive and YG63 Pea Green. I like the Ciao markers and can't see/feel any difference between them and the Sketch markers apart from Ciao's are half the price - but it does wind me up that the colour numbers aren't on the caps! The paper is from the SU Bella Rosa paper pack.

Rubber Stamp Tapestry

I know from my Feedjit that many people land on my blog after searching for Tapestry Rubber Stamps so I thought you may want to visit Susan Walton's new RST tutorial blog. Susan has some great step by step photos of her sets and there is lots of inspiration to be had and some very pretty cards too!

When Susan said she had linked me on her blog I was inspired to get out one of my favourite sets - Heart Deco - since I am still in Valentine mode. For this card I punched out a large heart and traced around it to get my outline and then got stamping - but I'm not sure I have kept to the shape too well!




















I used my new Vintage Cream and Raspberry Fizz cardstock from Papertrey and used the matching raspberry ink for the stamping in pink along with some versacolor. As the Heart Prints set was still on the table I stamped off the small solid heart in raspberry fizz ink and after punching them out I ran them through my little Zyron sticker maker and sprinkled Art Institute rose glitter over the adhesive.
I enjoyed making a tall card for a change - what do you think?

Heart Prints

Heart Prints was a new set by Papertrey Ink back in December but with Christmas and birthday cards to be made I have only just inked them up. The medium and large heart punches from EK Success match the hearts perfectly and I was able to get them here in the UK on-line rather than pay the heavy postage from the US - and with the awful £/$ exchange there wasn't a lot of difference in price!

I used Nicole's cards on her blog here as a starting point and used PTI's Pure Poppy ink for the all red one and a mix of PTI and Verscolor for the second. I used the sentiments from the set and my wonderful husband pencilled in the lines for me - well he did used to be a Draughtsman so that was right up his street!


































Whilst on the subject of Papertrey - have you headed over to Nicole's blog to catch the 2nd Anniversary countdown - there are some fantastic goodies to be won!

A Year of Flowers

I have been totally inspired by Melanie Muenchinger designs for her "Year of Flowers" stamps and as soon as I saw these two 'off the page' cards on Melanie's blog here and here I had to get ink onto rubber and go for it.

I coloured both cards with copic markers onto Papertrey Ink white cardstock - there is some bleed through to the other side but I used some patterned paper to cover it up.

This first one was made for a friend who has a birthday today. I scored along the top and then used my craft knife to cut out the roses - not easy as I am challenged when using a craft knife! The lower rose is popped on foam pads to give a bit of dimension.

This one is for my Mum - I think she will like this as it's a bit different. I wasn't sure which of the leaves would go best with it but went with the same leaves in the end - I need to go google some options! The coloured cardstock is by Stampin Up and the sentiments for both cards are in the stamp set.

Funky Fold

I love trying out new foldy things and had to have a go at this funky fold card which is based on a squash book. I made it as part of a challenge for Jenni who I know loves anything foldy too!

If you want the tutorial you can find it here on Splitcoast Stampers. It was fun to make and I got to use some new stash that I had from Santa - plain square nestabilities and some new tapestry rubber stamps by Laura Ashley. The lovely double sided paper is by Making memories and I coloured the flower and ribbon with a Copic marker to match the blue of the paper

Here it is all closed up

and here opened up -

I can see me making more of these :)

Monogram Gift Set

This set is a little Christmas gift for my brother's partner. I recently got some monogram stampers from Justrite Stampers but haven't had time to play with them up to now with all the Christmas cards that needed making.

The box is one from Sharon Johnson for Justrite blog here - just love how Sharon makes such beautiful gifts - the only alteration needed is to score the edges at 1" not 1 1/4" or it won't fit English envelopes!

The paper is from the Boxes and Tags pack from Papertrey Ink as is the cardstock and ribbon. All the circles, scallops and squares were made using Nestabilities.

Home for the Holidays Take Two (and Three)

Here are another couple of cards made with PTI's Boards and Beams set with the Home for the Holidays addition.

































I think I must have coloured and cut out about a 100 windows for my Christmas cards but I like how the single layer card turned out. I added liquid applique for the snow and a bit of stickles glitter glue to bring a bit of sparkle.
























I also made another acetate card using the townhouse from the Boards and Beams set - it's a really poor photo taken on my office window at work and acetate is so hard to take a good picture of! I just noticed one of the windows is wonky - hope it straightened itself in the post :)

Timeless Template and Cards Gift

If you haven't yet checked out Lauren Meader's Timeless Templates for Papertrey Ink you should whizz over and take a peak. For only about £3 you can download great templates and then go check out Lauren's blog for shed loads of ideas on how to use them. The one I used here is called Music Makeover - for holding cd's but I used it to hold some cards as a birthday gift for the friend I made the fairy card for. I printed the template off onto Papertrey's cardstock and used some matching Papertrey papers and ribbon to it, also some SU hodgepodge hardware.

Here are two of the four cards I filled it with. On her blog Michelle Wooderson shows how to make a batch of cards using Papertrey stamps and accessories and I made a few of these for this and some for stock. Really pretty and quick to put together.

Flower Fairies

I made this card for a good friend at work who loves Fairies. The stamp is called Faerie Poppets by Christine Haworth and sent to my by the lovely Penny. I coloured it with SU water colour crayons and a blender pen. It's quite a busy stamp so I tried to keep the card simple with some cuttlebug card and a Spellbinders tag which I sponged and stamped while it was still in the die.