New Mercies

Papertrey Ink is hosting yet another amazing giveaway, with ten chances to make cards that might be randomly selected.  I work best with deadlines, and have needed to build up my card stash, but just have not been motivated. So, this is great for me!  Each day has featured stamp sets from the ten years Papertrey has been in business, with the challenge to use the set if owned, or take inspiration from the examples, which is what I have done. This card follows after the "Text Box" set featured on February 11th, using two of my papertrey sets: New Every Morning, and Happy Hexagons.  The focal image is not a text box, but I "converted" it by (after first stamping a few hexagons in a different shade), stamping it with versamark and embossing with clear embossing powder, then framing it with decoratively cut post it notes, then sponged pink all over the space. I then removed the post-its, then ironed off the embossing powder.

Roses, Roses!

This card was made for another challenge from Impression Obsession, Think Pink.  As I did with the last contest, I used Impression Obsession's CC043 Cover-a-Card Roses.   I am having so much fun with this stamp!  I love taking a single stamp and finding multiple ways to use it.  So, while I have other Cover-a-Card stamps, I might just continue posting with this one.  We'll see! This time, I embossed the image with clear embossing powder onto ivory cardstock, then sponged several shades of pink over the panel, then ironed away the embossing powder. I then stamped my one text stamp from Impression Obsession, the D4115 Thank You image.

Wonderful the matchless grace!

This week's "Make it Monday" challenge over at PaperTrey Ink is "Pattern play with die cut silhouettes."  I forgot to note the design was to be clear and simple ... mine tend to lean that way in general, both because of style preference and skill level!  But, I might  have omitted punching the two corners had I read that. :-) Anyway, the point was to use a die cut with patterned paper.  I don't have any shapes at this point from PaperTrey, but I was very happy to use my "grace" die cut with one of the coordinating stamps.  I love how this method really emphasizes the word grace ... something so wonderful that Jesus freely gives us!

Impression Obsession Challenge: Love is in the Air

My husband brought me some lovely roses last week, yellow tinged with pink.  I tried looking them up, but there are a number of roses these could have been. Anyway, they were beautiful, and I decided to recreate them with Impression Obsession's CC043 Cover-a-Card Roses. I have a fun pad of paper with different combinations of swirling color, and though I knew it was risking an over-busy card, I took the risk!  After embossing with gold, I chalked in yellow and pink for the roses, and green for the leaves to help them stand out from the pattern of the cardstock.

Impression Obsession's contests require only their products be used, and I had no appropriate stamps or dies for their challenge them of "Love is in the Air." But I have a drawer full of amazing brads from a company now out of business, and am always forgetting about them.  So, happily I thought of them and found one just the right color!  Since this card will be for my husband, after some deliberation, I decided not to add a ribbon bow in the upper left corner ... it's already a bit feminine to give!

Papertrey January Blog Hop Challenge

Papertrey Ink is holding a Blog Hop that instead of based on going to all their design team posts and commenting, the hop consists of patrons posting their cards, with encouragement for us to visit each other's blogs and comment.  I love this  idea ... and of course, I love the idea of some free stamps, for which their is a drawing for participants!

 The challenge is to use this picture as an inspiration:

This is what I came up with:

I love black, so this was a fun card for me to make.  The thanks die and the flowers, part of the New Every Morning set, come from PaperTrey Ink.

Safari Smash

I make smash books to sell at a fair at the college I attended years ago.  I keep meaning to post some, but never seem to have the time.  However, I am continuing to make similar books, and am absolutely loving Impression Obsession's line of "cover-a-card" stamps which are about 5.75" square.  I happened to realize late last night that they have a blog, and today is the final day of a contest for winning free stamps.   I knew I would not have time to make a card today, too many other things. But then I recalled this smash book, and lo and behold, I had a page that meets the contest requirement of something shiny.

The Impression Obsession "Shiny New Year Challenge" is to make a card with only IO stamps/dies, and it must include a shiny element.  So, to meet the challenge, here is the shiny:  I stamped the CC133 Cover-a-Card Leopard stamp,  with a pink craft ink, then sprinkled a sparkly pink powder just along the bottom.  I want people to be able to write on the smash book pages if they prefer journaling to attaching things, so I did not want the whole page coated.  If I were to do it again, I'd use a tiny spoon and make sure that the spots were totally coated, rather than embossed in half as I did it.

This is the cover.  As with nearly all my covers, it is made with wallpaper.

When stamping for writing, when the color is a bit dark, the writing is hard to read, and so this top one will be better for the purpose of attaching photos, memorabelia, etc. The one below, with the same ink, will be easier to read because of being blue-on-blue, and therefore, offering less contrast.

These pages were made using the CC133 Cover-a-Card Zebra.

I simply affixed a cut out square.  It must have been on the thick side, because of the non-straight edges.  However, it actually just looks like I used a scalloped square, so I kept it.

This seemed a fairly simple idea, but I made an error that made it very, very time consuming.  I cut 3/8" strips from a repositional label sheet, and laid them across the cardstock, then rolled the image over it.  I should have used a foam pad underneath the cardstock, because there were really big gaps in the image. So, I decided to draw lines on each side of the tape, and then to daub in the gaps.  It took forever.  So, if you do this, be sure to use a foam pad underneath!  Also, I have done this technique with another cover-a-card stamp, but I used the Cover-a-Card CC147 Journaling Lines stamp, then cut strips to lay between every other line, and that time I remembered my mouse pad, and it turned out beautifully.  (It was a borrowed stamp, which I did not have when I made this page, and that is the only reason I did not do it that way!)

Papertrey challenge!

Wow, has it really been nearly a year since I posted?  I've had months of making nothing crafty, followed by weeks of intense work, but just haven't posted anything.  Recently, I have become aware of some fantastic images and dies by Papertrey Ink that I am really wanting to purchase.  But ... I really cannot afford to.  So, on a whim a few days ago I looked to see if they have a blog, and if there are any opportunities to win free products.  Happy day, I found a challenge.  I needed to take a die and use it as a stencil. Well, I only own two products (so far!) from Papertrey: a honeycomb die and the coordinating stamps.  So, that made it very easy to decide what to do! I had extra die cuts from the last time I made cards with it, so I just put a little temporary glue to hold it onto the paper and daubed in the inks. I also needed to make a card for someone in our church who just lost her step-son, so this helped me to push through and get a card made for her.   I had fun with this; my only frustration was just thoughtlessly grabbing white cardstock when I would have preferred beige for fall colors.  I was really happy with the results other than that (oh, and a major difficulty getting a decent embossed image on vellum - it took five tries, and even this one was flawed).