Tuesday, January 25, 2011

PTI Bloghop


Hey everyone!

PTI Blog Hop Challenge
"With the new year comes a clean slate along with many resolutions. This month's blog hop challenge involves you challenging yourself to use a Papertrey stamp set that has yet to see ink or even one that might be collecting a little dust! Go through your stash and see what little used treasure it might hold."


For this challenge, Robin and I went through our stamp sets to see which sets have never been inked. I was not surprised when we found that all of our PTI sets have been stamped, at least once. We love our PTI sets and we use them a lot! When they come in the mail we are usually so excited that we put them together almost immediately and use them very soon after to make new, and different cards.

Yet, for this challenge, I decided to use a stamp that has never seen ink from a set that we use a lot. Robin uses the Round and Round anniversary set very often. We love stamping the round images and adding rhinestones to embellish them. Yet, there was a large flourish in the stamp set that had never been inked. I never really knew what to do with this stamp; I always looked at it when perusing the set, but never tried it. Well, for this challenge I decided to ink it up! I really like how this card came together. I stamped the new image in pink onto a die cut Mat Stack 1. I then added the butterfly stamp from the same anniversary set. I also cut out white strips and stamped them with the border stamp from the coordinating Mat Stack 1 stamp set. I added a sweet sentiment from the Round and Round anniversary set and placed three small pearls underneath it. I placed all of this on a matching purple background. Overall, I am quite happy with how the card looks. I hope to use this fun flourish stamp that coordinates with all of the circles in the Round and Round anniversary set more often!

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Ladybugs


I vividly remember the moment I received the dreaded e-mail about our lovely local stamp store Scraptasia. The first thing I noticed was the subject on my phone- "Sad News from Scraptasia" I knew right then and there that this amazing store would be closing its doors. The e-mail detailed the store's closing, and the sale to empty the store before closing. On their final day, Scraptasia had a grab bag, where people could stuff a shopping bag with any goodies left in the store for $20.00. After dropping my grandmother off at the airport, Robin and I rushed over to pick up supplies and say our goodbyes. While I always loved the stamps in Scraptasia, Robin seemed to love the various patterned papers. She stocked up on a wide variety of patterned and solid papers this final Saturday morning. As sad as the store's closing was, I do feel good that we are using the products we got for a good cause!

Robin made this card. I really love the patterned paper she used, which came from the sale at Scraptasia. The colors on this paper are fabulous- so bright and cheery! I also really like the way she matched the colors in the patterned paper with the circles around the sentiment. With all of this cold weather and snow, its fun to use light colors and think about spring.

Enjoy!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Thank You


The other day Robin mentioned that we have not made many 'Thank you' cards for Operation Write Home recently. I am always interested in making new and different cards so I decided to try to make some new Thank you notes. I took the Framed set from Papertrey Ink and stamped it in black ink on white card stock. I then took an older PTI set, All About You, and stamped the large 'YOU' in various colors. To get this look, I masked the frame using post-it notes. I then added a small 'thank' stamp from the same set in black. Finally, I added a small Thank you sentiment under the frame with a coordinating small blue flower. I really like how this card turned out! I think I will make some more using different colors.

Thanks for looking. I hope you have a great day!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Warm winter wishes!


Hi everyone!

Just thought I would post a card today for all those experiencing a serious dose of "winter weather." NYC is freezing and we are supposed to get a significant amount of snow fall by the end of the day. We're stuck in the house, doing some work and making some cards of course. I never thought we would use the jar stamp set from PTI but it turns out that we actually use it quite a lot. Around Christmas, PTI came out with a winter addition to the Jar Fillers Stamp set. One of the stamps is a handle, that turns the jar into a mug. Topped with some fluffy marshmallows, the hot cocoa looks good enough to drink! I added a small jar label to the mug stamped in black on Kraft paper. A small strip of brown accent paper finishes the card. I also really love the sentiment that goes with the hot cocoa- 'warm winter wishes'. Definitely a perfect sentiment for today!

Hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying the winter weather!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Halloween in January???




I know what you are thinking... Halloween is long gone! All of the Halloween supplies should be tucked away in the cabinet, not to be removed until next fall. Well, we took a trip to San Francisco last summer and came home with a stamp set that made it possible to use monsters all year long. Robin will tell you that I have always had a thing for monsters, especially those with only one eye! Therefore, as soon as we walked into a stamp store in SF and saw the Hero Arts Monster Fun stamp set, I knew it was coming home with us. The stamp set has adorable monsters!!  Robin makes many cards with it, coloring them in and adding one of the fun matching sentiments from the set. We also add a googly eyes to finish up the card!

For this card I wanted to use a slightly different monster. Looking back over the year, perhaps one of the best punches we bought was the owl punch from Stampin' Up. Sure, we make a bunch of cards with cute owls sitting on branches. Yet, I was interested in doing something else with this punch. After searching the net, I saw some cards where people turned the owl into various monsters. Paired with a sentiment from the Hero Arts Monster Fun set, the handmade monsters were perfect! Although making these cards is fairly time consuming, it is definitely worth it! You can really be creative and make a monster out of any color or shape of punched paper. I hope you enjoy the card! 

Banners


Hi everyone!

I haven't posted in a long time! I was really busy with school and final exams and therefore did not have much time to blog.  I am on school break now and thought I would post a few cards. While I haven't posted in a while, we have been making roughly 280 cards every other week. A few months ago we got this Banner Builder Set from Papertrey Ink. Although Robin was unsure if we would get enough use out of it, I have been using it a lot and I have come to really like all the different options. This stamp set comes with three different shaped banners and each individual banner has a different pattern. The set also comes with two strings from which to hang the banners. 

For this card, I stamped the vertical string twice. I added the triangular banners in three different colors. I really like the polka dot one! I then added some clouds from the PTI Up Up and Away stamp set. Finally, a sentiment from Up Up and Away finishes the card. We don't often make one layer cards, but I had fun experimenting with it. I think its a really 'springy' and cheery card! I hope you enjoy!