season of joy {print-inspired}

My favorite inspiration for Christmas cards this year has been Minted.  Their designs are so amazing and fresh.

I loved this card the moment I laid eyes on it:

and made my own version, using Papertrey Ink stamps:

To give dimension, I heat-embossed some of the elements with white embossing powder and stamped the rest with a white ink onto the grey base.  I mounted the grey piece onto a white card-base.  I prefer writing inside a white card, instead of smudging a white gel pen on a dark paper (being left-handed has its challenges...)

My favorite thing about this card is that it is completely flat - so perfect for mailing!

Have a great weekend, all.

♥.

To flash or not to flash? and a house-shaped tag.

Hi friends!

I had bigger plans for the PTI blog hop, I really did, but things (read: basement renovations and a packed weekend) interfered.  Nonetheless, I managed to print out the template and use part of it to create a Christmas tag.

Now, here's the question.  Do you like the photo better without flash:

or with:

they are both taken within about 5 minutes of each other, in daylight and without any different lighting, save for the bounced flash.  I'm trying to decide which version I like better.

Without flash, the photo is softer and more moody - which is almost always my preference, but the with-flash photo is so bold and bright.  As the days become darker in the winter months, I may have to resort more and more to using my flash.  It happens every year.

If you are curious about my gear, here is a link to my (rolls eyes) huge splurge - the lightscoop.  A real bounce flash was not in my budget, but I have used and loved my 25$ lightscoop for years now.  If you have very large rooms, or extremely high ceilings, this is not the product for you, but it works perfectly fine for me.

The tag came together very simply: I printed Nichole's template and chopped off everything but this one shape.  You are supposed to fold in the corners to make a pointy roof, but I kept it even less fussy by refusing to add extra steps.  A few scallops for a roof, a rectangle of red cardstock for a door, a stamped sentiment (from Bells & Boughs) and a Christmas wreath (from Clear and Simple's Rag Doll House.)

I hope you like it!

♥.

dashing through the snow...

I'm throwing my hat in the ring for the embossing challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays.  Gold embossing everywhere!

I started out by rubbing versamark ink all over *this* snowfall stencil.  I am having a serious love affair with that stencil.  Once it was peeled back, I was able to throw gold embossing powder over the card and heat it up.



More of the same for the sentiment and one horse open sleigh image.  I used ZING embossing powder, but I have to admit that I'm not thrilled with the coverage on the sleigh.  I think I prefer WOW powders, but I don't have that brand in gold.

I hope you like it!  If you are joining this Friday's in-my-home-card-class, I really hope you like it - you'll be crafting one of your very own.

♥.

snowy noël {pti blog hop}

Have yourselves a rustic little Christmas.

I love that the PTI blog hop this month is to create a set of 5 tags... everything looks prettier in a set!

Having just gotten some new supplies (this stencil and this embossing paste), I knew immediately what I wanted to create.  A very soft, rustic Christmas tag in kraft and red.

I started out by stamping the "noel" sentiment in "red current" fresh ink.  It's a pigment ink (slow-drying) so I had time to throw on some clear embossing powder and heat-set it.  I love the bit of added texture it gives the tag.  Next, the stencil: I think there's a tool you're supposed to use to spread the paste around, but I just slopped it on with my hands (goodbye, manicure. ha ha)  The texture is dreamy, and it doesn't take as long to dry as I thought it would.  I left the tags for about 30 minutes and came back to perfectly dried paste.

My favorite part has to be the vellum holly leaves.  I cut the berries out of vellum as well and then used a 2-way glue pen to add adhesive before dunking them into some red glitter.  Messy, but totally worth it.

That's all for me - have a great day, and happy hopping!

thank you, baby girl...with a flouffy bow.

A set of thank you cards for an expectant mama - because she's gonna need them.



Nothing too complicated, so they could be easily reproduced.

I die-cut a onesie shaped card, stamped it full of stripes, and added some trim (the details make the outfit, in fashion and in card-making alike!)



The whimsical paper-smooches sentiment wraps on top of the heart.  The period in this sentence is a ballerina pink sequin.

Done.

Make six of them and wrap it up with a bow.

♥.

ps, did you happen to see the new CASE study muse sneak peek? compare it to *this post* and see if you can figure things out :)

chalkboard thanks {PTI blog hop}

if you're looking for my lawn fawn inspiration week post, click *here*

I've already started decorating for the fall:  My leafy garland is up, my "be thankful" frame is being put to good use, and jars full of acorns line my mantel.  Oh, and I've already baked an apple pie. that's important.

Possibly the only thing missing is a beautiful wreath for the front door.  I'm still working on that one.  

In the meanwhile, I created a stamped wreath for today's PTI blog hop:



mini blooms + bells & boughs + headline alphabet, all heat-embossed onto a piece of black card-stock.



Floral and boughs might not be a natural pairing, but I think they make a cute fall couple.

Thanks for hopping my way!

♥.

l'amour, c'est merveilleux.

There's an old french song that goes "puisque je t'aime et que tu m'aimes, c'est merveilleux."  In other words, love is a beautiful thing :)

I've been waiting for a "lull" in my blogging schedule, to be able to share this card with you!  We crafted it at the last class I taught, nearly a month ago.  I was asked to create a pretty wedding card, and with equal parts softness and bling, I would proudly present this to any newlywed couple.  

I used my silhouette to cut out the word "amour," and then stamped and heat embossed my mini blooms.  Once silver-heat-set, I swirled around some blue distress ink, adding a delicate blue haze.  And then I started layering and texturizing.  I love adding extra layers and big ribbon to wedding cards.  Makes it look more "impressive," no?  I mean, we stampers appreciate the clean and "clever" cards, but for some reason, ribbon and die-cutting and embossing - that's what usually gets the wow with the non-crafters.  In my experience, anyways *wink*

I'm linking this card up to the moxie fab challenge, "emphasize the negative."  There's still a few more days to play along!

And here's a little love to start your day:

embossed & monogrammed (PTI blog hop)

I love a pretty monogrammed card set.  This one's for the february PTI blog hop.



I went for simple but elegant with this one, mostly because I wanted an excuse to play around with my new "mini blooms" stamp set and the pink zing powder I ordered.



I embossed the florals onto a piece of rustic cream cardstock and cut the letters with the cameo silhouette.



A pop of aqua mist cardstock and a set of kraft envelopes rounded out my set.  I'm thrilled to have this gift on hand, all ready to gift to Sofia's teacher at the end of the year.  I procrastinate on everything, so this is making me really proud!

Thanks for stopping by - happy hopping!

a water-colored smile.

The PTI festivities are in full swing, and I'm only now joining in (in truth, there are a million household chores I should be doing, but meh - you know how it goes...)  This challenge caught my eye, because water-coloring can take as much or as little time as you want to give it and still look good.

For this card, I stamped each bloom with a dye ink that matched the water-color pencil crayon that I would be using.  I didn't want any harsh-colored borders around my images.  I purposefully bled the colors out of the lines, for that messy water-color look.



Once the colors went on there (and really, I was very heavy-handed with the brush, so it took no time at all), I splattered some light brown ink over the card (in case you weren't sure if I really wanted it to look messy or not *wink*)  For the sentiment, I die-cut a CSS favor flag and water-colored the bottom only, and then stamped the sentiment (from "happy trails".)  I stamped it in brown ink, and then ghosted the image in a pale blue ink.

In passing, sorry for the sloppy sewing - I think I need to replace the needle ;)

Thanks for stopping by!  If you haven't already, visit my big giveaway post - you can only enter until midnight tonight!

based in black {PTI blog hop}

I squeezed in a little time for this month's PTI blog hop.  The inspiration photos were just too.... er... inspiring.  *grins*



I started out with a black cardstock panel, and heat embossed florals from "in bloom."  I colored the leaves with a green inktense colored pencil - they're amazing, the way they pop on dark-colored paper!  I heat-embossed the blooms again on watercolor paper, and watercolored them with different inktense pencils.  They were cut out, and layered with different heights of foam squares.



The large thank you sentiment is so beautiful, and fancy enough to stand alone on the kraft panel.  I was especially inspired by the tag on the top right:

That's it for me!  Happy hopping, and thank you for popping over here!

teacher gift #2: snowman card + cookie set

Hi all!

We're in the home-stretch before Christmas, and it's so sad - the only presents wrapped and under the tree are some brown paper bags that the kids decorated for "mommy" and "daddy."  They're so excited to have put together a present for each of us, it's adorable!  Time for this mommy to get to work so they could see some presents of their own under there!

Yesterday, I shared a gingerbread cookie jar and matching gingerbread tag.  Today, Marlyn & I are at it again!  We thought it would be so fun to create a card set and coordinating set of cookies...  I give you, the "build-your-own-snowman card & cookie set":

I packaged the build-your-own-snowman card kit in the bottom tin, and secured it to the cookie jar by way of a ribbon.  The ribbon knot and tails were embellished with MFT snowflakes.  The snowman on the front is to show how the ones in the kit could come together.  I used Papertrey ink dies, and a mix of lawn fawn and PTI stamps to make the kit come to life.  I packaged each "snowman part" individually, and labelled each little baggie.  (If you know the PTI dies, you'll remember that they don't include scarves for this snowman, but it wasn't too hard to hard draw and cut out a set... and he looks so much cozier like that!)

And the cookies - hee hee.  I had so much fun playing around with them!  Marlyn did include some bigger circle cookies, but it made me laugh when I lined up 3 the same size :)  She thought of everything: eyes, carrot noses, buttons, different hats, there were even a few ties!

I hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas cookies - inspired by a handmade card

Hi peeps!

I have a special treat for you today.  I recently met up with Marlyn, the über-talented sugar cookie artist of Montreal Confections who basically lives in my backyard - how cool is that!

She created a set of cookies inspired by a card I made (you may remember it from *this post*), and all for a virtual cookie exchange on Haniela's blog.

I'm honored to be a part of this sweet celebration!  If you like what you see, I hope you'll click over to Marlyn's blog and leave her a little love....

Papertrey Ink October Blog Hop

Are you surprised to see me here?  yeah, me too... it's been so long!

But, the challenge was to create holiday cards, and I have card classes going on in which we're making holiday cards, so....

I chose to be inspired by this color scheme:

(and, when I say "inspired by," I mean that I started out with aqua mist and smokey shadow inks, and a patterned paper that has soft stone stripes in it, but I couldn't find anything in my stash that looks like ocean tides... is that okay?)

 I went the non-coloring route with the house from "boards and beams."  I stamped it in a dark grey ink onto a piece of white cardstock, and then stamped the snow flurry (from lawn fawn's "let it snow") over-top in a watermark ink.  After sprinkling it with white embossing powder, and heat setting it, I rubbed a blue distress ink over the area, making it look like a little snow-globe-in-a-polaroid.

 The sentiment, from "home for the holidays," was stamped in grey onto the polaroid frame.  I added a little fishtail of silver glimmer paper for holiday sparkle, and some yarn for winter coziness.

I hope you like it!  Happy hopping!

monkey party decorations

A little while ago, I posted the invitations to a monkey birthday party.  Alexia's mom wanted the party to be bright & fun, but cute - perfect for an adorable 1 year old!  Here are the rest of the decorations that I created for her:

Just seeing the picture of all the decorations makes me want to bake a cake and host a party!  I took pictures of everything closer up except the banner, so squint, and take a look at it in the picture above before scrolling down :)

Food labels.  Because, when you think chicken, you really do want a monkey's face RIGHT THERE.  hee.  I did some masking after I stamped the angled label, to be able to stamp the chevron pattern over-top.  The monkey was stamped off onto scrap paper a few times, and then onto the tent card.  I carried the bow theme throughout the party, to tie into the invitation.

 Water bottle labels: they are quite possibly the cutest ones ever.  I made 20 of these, and 4 of each circle design.  The banana is showing off an "A" for Alexia...

 Thank you tags: they are a mash-up of 4 different stamp companies...  The monkey image is from SU, the monkey's bow and the banana (masked in the background) are from lawn fawn, the wavy banner and all dies are PTI, and the "thank you" sentiment is from CSS.

Keep calm and go banana: because sometimes, you just have to...

 The last thing I created were these toothpick "flags."  I thought the larger bows would be so cute, sitting in some sandwiches or cupcakes.

I hope you liked what you saw!  Have a great weekend!

MIM #82: cut your stamps

Hi all!

This week's MIM is about having the guts to take scissors to your stamps to make them more versatile.  Truth is, I'm a ballsy kind of gal, so I've been doing this for awhile :)

 This isn't the most creative stamp-cutting, I know, but here's what I did:

1. cut off the colon after the "you are" - I actually did this awhile ago, since I don't scrapbook or need journaling kind of sentiments.

2. cut up the "I just love you" to isolate the just.  The downside of having done this is that the "I" is possibly the tiniest stamp I now own, and will likely get lost at some point... but, I made it work for what I needed.  I like the bulk of having more words across the banner front :)

Other card deets:  I used other dies and images from PTI's fabulous frames set.  That solid banner image alone made the purchase worthwhile...  I mounted my focal images onto a sheet of Lawn Fawn patterned paper (the "dewey decimal" pack.)  To finish off the card, I die-cut an apple (PTI die) and colored the stem and little dot with a copic marker.  (I thought coloring myself a little dot to make it look like the apples in the patterned paper was a cute touch!)

This card was inspired by the fact that my son is going apple-picking with his kindergarten class on Friday... bring on the FALL!  I see some pies in our weekend future. yum, yum!

MIM #78

The MIM challenge for this week: stamp and stitch on die-cuts.  (This definitely took longer than the 10-minute craft dash from yesterday *wink*)

 I cut my own sunburst pattern out of different patterned papers, and stitched each one on the machine.  If you didn't believe me that I'm no sewing expert, go ahead and click on the picture to take a closer look.  Oh yeah, there are the not-so-cute-but-pretend-it's-just-the-homespun-look edges. Hee.

Once the papers were in place, I die-cut a 1 and 3/4 inch circle and a coordinating medallion for the back (in kraft paper, but it looks mauve to me in the pictures... oh well.)

I stamped the circle frame from one of the "Tag its" sets, and stitched around the inside of that frame with yellow embroidery thread.

To finish off the card, I die-cut 5 butterflies (from the "love lives here" die collection) and stitched them together in the same yellow thread.

The "smile" sentiment is from Precious Remembrance.

Thanks for peeking!