Amazing Papers!

I love, love, love unique papers and cardstock!  There are amazing textures, colors, patterns, etc out there! I used to order from one company that had an astounding variety of unique papers and cardstocks, and I was crushed when they went out of business!  They reinvented themselves eventually, but just don't have the variety they once did. This week, PTI's Win it Wednesday had a challenge to, well, use a challenge from the past! I chose this one, using two or more unique papers. The background teal is sort of a grass or gauze-like material, somewhat translucent, and fun to work with.  The funky paper on the front is sort of like tissue paper, perhaps a bit thicker, with a crumpled look, and painted with various colors. The Peace die comes from the One Liners set.

Every Good and Perfect Gift

PaperTrey Ink's Win it Wednesday Challenge this week is to use one's favorite PTI ink combination. I love PTI's New Leaf green ... it's probably my favorite green of any I own.  I purchased PTI's Royal Velvet, which, although listed with other purple shades, appeared to be a dark blue on my laptop monitor, and I thought it would look fabulous with the New Leaf (I love green and blue together). But on a whim, I had tried the two together, and I loved the look!

I meant to add paisley die cuts from the What the doodle Paisley set, but as I placed the text on the card, it looked so elegant and perfect just as it was, I ended up choosing instead a single die cut, from the Inspired: Praise set. Unfortunately, I have a new laptop without a decent photo editing, so this does not demonstrate the elegant wow factor it would with a better program.

Papertrey Ink: Win it Wednesday

This week's Win it Wednesday challenge has been to use a favorite sentiment image as the focal point of the card.  Since text stamps, particularly scripture themed stamps are mostly what I am purchasing anymore, this was an easy challenge for me. PTI  created some fabulous faith themed sets, Inspired, and my favorite sets were a series of sets featuring a single word accompanied by verses containing that word.  This particular pairing I have used more than once.

Papertrey Ink Packaging challenge

For Win it Wednesday, PTI's challenge this week is to use our favorite packaging with PTI. Well, my favorite way to give gifts is with gift bags or decorative boxes.  I'm not going to use my favorite method of packaging, which would be with a quilt (PTI has several quilt dies that I love and use constantly), because I used a quilt in last week's challenge.  My second favorite go-to is to use PTI's paisleys.  My only problem is that I did not have time to create or find a nice box, so I "borrowed" one from a set of small boxes I use to display my craft creations at a local shop.  So, I couldn't actually glue anything down, but I am planning at this point to remove everything in the next few months, so I hope I can then permanently glue down my paisleys onto this box! (And then do I coat the paisleys with mod podge? Hmm....)

The picture makes the brown edge of the box look like a stripe; that's my lack of photography skills, it is not nearly that pronounced.  Underneath the center paisley is a scrap of wallpaper that looks  very elegant and compliments the box nicely.

PTI Stand-Alone Die challenge

PTI has replaced their Make-it-Monday challenge with a "Win it Wednesday" Challenge.  This week's challenge is to use a die that stands alone.  I assume they mean that it is the primary element of the card.  I love, love, love making quilts from dies, and the retired one I used for this challenge is my favorite. I used the peace die from the "One Liners" set.

PTI Make it Monday ... Negative Die Cut Backgrounds

Papertrey ink's challenge this Monday was to make inverse die cut projects. I used a recently ordered "Mix and Matt" Plaid die that I really am happy to have.

PTI Challenge: A la Carte

I haven't made a card in months, as I had been concentrating on making journals for a craft fair.  After it was over, I could not orient myself to card making, so I didn't even do Christmas cards.  It finally occurred to me that I needed a challenge, and so I headed over to Paper Trey Ink to see if that would help me.  For this month, they gave an A la Carte option, a choice of all the make-it Monday challenges they had offered this year!  Wow, a bit overwhelming!  But, as soon as I came to Stephanie Gold's challenge to use different types of paper, I got the inspiration I needed. I have some amazing papers from probably ten years ago that I have never used ... because I knew they could never be replaced!  Anyone else relate to doing that?  I used a grass paper and a parchment paper from this assortment. As I use a lot of wallpaper to cover journals with, I incorporated that as well.

I usually photograph in daylight on my craft counter, but it's night and the challenge ends in an  hour, so I decided to try setting it up a little more "artistically", lol, and place it on the pile of papers I chose from! I wasn't enthusiastic about doing this, but I think if I had taken the time to play with it a bit, I might have decided to continue this way ...  :-)