May PTI blog hop

Yesterday, I showed you the set of cards I made for Thomas' teachers on his last day of preschool.

But his main teacher deserved a little special attention.  I was inspired by the PTI blog hop photo:

When I saw that fancy place setting, I immediately thought of the fancy treat that might be served on one of those plates.  Actually, I thought the cupcake card would make a cute place-card, with the person's name written on the hanging tag instead of "merci"... but that's for another day :)  I needed a french thank you card right now.

In addition to the card, I made a gift-card holder using the Clear and Simple Stamps "mini tri-fold 1" die.  (It's larger than the PTI lunchbox note and the giftcard holder, in case you're wondering.)  I thought it would be fun to decorate it to match the main card.  The cupcake wrapper, the same swirl of frosting - we're seeing a cupcake here, right?

(When we delivered the present yesterday, there was a gift-card in there, I promise...just showing my level of procrastination again here... hee!)

Here's the set.  For both, I stamped the cupcake wrappers with PTI's gingham background in black, and stamped flowers from "in bloom" onto some scraps of lime green paper (I know it's SU papers, and I think the color is kiwi kiss.)  The "frosting" was embossed with an SU folder and sprayed with a studio calico shine mist.

I wanted the flowers at the top to look like whimsical, edible flowers, so I cut in between the petals and curled the blooms a bit.  That made all the difference in giving the card some movement.

Hope you like my set - and I hope Thomas' teacher was a bit wowed too :)

Thanks for hopping over here - have a great weekend!

PDCC116

I haven't played along with a play date cafe challenge in awhile... but when the suggested colors of the week are listed as "plum, pear, and moldy cheese..." hmmm... I'm on it.

I used 3 colors for my card: pale plum, kiwi kiss, and not quite navy (all SU inks.)

I know it's "rosie posie" again, and you'd think after making 16 cards, I wouldn't pick up it up again for awhile... but I love it, and it. was. right. there.  hee hee!  Ever just use a set because it's on the desk-top?  Such a lazy crafter :) 

I stamped all the images in full-strength and then again without re-inking.  Made it really fast to fill up the space!  I then stamped the hero arts envelope pattern in the plum color over the whole thing.  The gingham border on the side wraps around to the back of the card, like a book spine.  Love that look.  On the front, I added a scalloped edge, peeking out from under... The gingham border was stitched down on either side.

I then cut out the large flower and some leaves.  The leaves were stuck down to the card, but I played with their edges to give them some dimension.  The flower was mounted on foam squares to give it some more height.  The card-base looks a bit purple in that second photo, but it's really a nice navy blue :)

Hope you like it!  Have a great weekend.

CAS-ual Fridays - the one with the matching envie.

It's the final countdown!  Less than a week before Christmas, and I have no idea how that happened :)  Luckily, the prezzies are all wrapped and under the tree, the Christmas cards were mailed out, and (for the most part), this week is for relaxing and enjoying.

I did need a few last minute cards for Sofia's teachers, and how fun to create one with a matching envelope for the latest CAS-ual fridays challenge.

I was inspired by *this card* and its outline-copic-coloring.  I started out by stamping the gingham strip (from PTI's "background basics: gingham") onto the card base, the white mat, and the envelope liner.  Next, the snowman and all his accessories (from lawn fawn's "making frosty friends").  Quick tip:  I actually placed my snowman stamp on my paper to judge for placement, then removed him and first stamped the top hat.  A mask I had created for the top hat went down next, and I stamped the snowman body over-top.  Remove the mask, and voila!  perfect placement, and no embarrassing lines cutting into the hat.  The sentiment is from PTI's think big favorites.  At the very end, I sprayed mister huey's calico white mist over the entire card-front... made the little snowman and his gingham border look like they hit a tiny blizzard :)  It's subtle, even in real life, but very cute.

True story: this was actually my first time creating an envelope liner.  A real envelope was sacrificed in order to trace a pattern for it...

The white mat was mounted onto the card base with foam squares, matching up the gingham borders... a little snowman was stamped onto the envelope-front.


What last-minute holiday projects are you doing this week?  I still have to assemble teacher gifts, and create some last minute tag-sets :)

PTI blog hop: christmas cozy.

Out with the turkey, in with the Christmas!  (We had our Canadian thanksgiving in October, and have been itching to have our American friends catch up - hee hee!)

Here's the PTI blog hop inspiration photo:

I'm a traditional kind of gal when it comes to holiday decorating, so this fits in perfectly with my color scheme!  I pulled the garden greenery and the bright red and white gingham from this photo and came up with a set of holiday tags:

I used this week's MIM technique to layer sentiment stamps onto my kraft tag-base.  I then stamped a whole sheet of paper with the larger gingham strip in SU's real red ink.  Once the entire sheet was gingham-ed, I was able to make fast work of running my "in the meadow" dies through and ending up with this trio of gingham cuties.

I die-cut just as many white tags as I did kraft tags, so that I could tear the bottom half to look like snow drifts.  I gave each tag the finishing touch of holly leaves - the green leaves were embossed with an SU embossing folder, and the berries were given a hit of glossy accents.  Love how they shine!

I've created 10 of them so far, but I'll definitely be needing more of these before long!  I'm also entering these into the current simon says stamp challenge: tags!

If you're interested, here's a little peek into our holiday decorating - it's still a work in progress, but I hope you like it!

our tree, complete with ribbon accents from SU's clearance rack :)

I picked up these plain white letters on the cheap, and covered them with scrap papers

embroidery hoops, leftover fabric, felt, and PTI dies.  Love!

our sweater stockings

my favorite ornament: the scary woodland owl (my hubs hates it)

If you've scrolled all the way to the bottom, thanks for looking!

of bats and zorro...

My little man, my 4 year old Thomas, will be dressing up for preschool today.  He has been wearing his costume pretty much everyday this week, and it makes me smile. every. single. time.

If you read the blog post title, you've probably already surmised that he will be dressing up as Zorro :)  If I can catch him at a standstill sometime before Halloween, I promise to share a picture.  I love the pants with the built-in-boots!  hee hee!

In honor of Halloween at the preschool, a batty-love-card in the most Halloween of color-schemes:

I used the bat and sentiment from paper smooches' "falling for you" set, the PTI gingham background set, and the hero arts ledger background stamp.

The wonky little bat was heat embossed, and suspended, precariously from a black thread...

See?  I used PTI's 2.5 inch circle die collection to cut a circle into both my gingham and orange card base layers.  A length of thick black thread is sandwiched between the layers.  There are actually two bat images...

You can even see the foam squares holding them together in this picture, on either side of the thread.  I stamped the inside of the card with the ledger stamp for extra interest.

Are you envisioning something else hanging there?  Maybe a Christmas ornament?  A bicycle, with the thread crossing lengthwise?  The possibilities are endless...

stamped wall art.

I pulled out some stamps and made myself some framed art for our living room:

I actually slipped them off the wall and into the kitchen to snap the photos - I take all of my photos in this gorgeously-lit room...

For both prints, I used the same stamp sets:  "love lives here," "framed," "mat stack II," "background basics: gingham" (all PTI), and "schoolhouse backdrops" (lawn fawn).

A bit of masking to keep it as close to 1-layer as possible, and a whole lot of edge-distressing gives it depth without bulk so it could still fit into our existing frames.

Come back tomorrow to see my card for the 1st-ever lawnscaping blog hop!

MIM #21 - 2 step masking

I absolutely LOVED this card that Nichole Heady created during the June countdown posts - and now so thrilled that she created a how-to video!

For my take, I created my mask in the same way that she taught, so that I could sponge fresh snow ink around, leaving a striking black rectangle in the middle of my mat.  Perfect space for stamping my tulips (also in fresh snow ink) and then using a q-tip to apply some blue and green pastel inks.  Do blue tulips even exist?

The q-tip isn't a tool for precise application, obviously, but I thought it added to the softness of the image, along with all that billowy white sponging around the rectangle...

The black panel was matted onto another layer, covered in BB: gingham.  I finally think I've got the hang of lining up those ginghams!  I love a full panel of that pattern - I'm going to be using it a lot more now!

Thanks for looking!

woodland party hats

Party-season is almost at its end over at casa Muni... and it's bittersweet, I won't lie.  I'll be happy to have my living room look grown-up again - without pirates, ballerinas and woodland creatures...  but at the same time, there's something magical about being a kid - and I've really enjoyed creating and celebrating these once-in-a-lifetime events.

Also adding to the nostalgia is that fact that my baby will be 1 tomorrow.  O.N.E.  I can't believe it.  The year has, at the same time, flown by and lasted forever.  The sleepless nights, the ng tube, the gagging and vomiting - those things won't be missed.  But first smiles, toothless grins, and tiny little toes?  I'm on the verge of tears over it...

Her first birthday party will be something special for us.  The celebration of our last baby turning 1, and a survival party of sorts.  I have the rest of this upcoming week to craft and plan to my heart's content, so here's a first sneak-peak at what I've made.

Homemade party hats!  I had fun with these, but they were more trouble than I initially thought when I dreamed them up.  I found a party-hat template online (there are tons of them to be googled), and just cut them out.  I stamped them with PTI's woodgrain stamps and distressed the whole thing.  The mat-stack 4 shape got a gingham imprint.  The sweet little deer (same one as from this card) was stamped and cut out (the long way - I wish there was a matching die for this little darling!)  A strip of green card-stock was fringed and fashioned into grass under the deer's feet.  hooves.  whatev.

The final, fun touch?

Soft, red-yarn pom-poms.  I love them!  If anyone is interested in how I made them, leave me a comment and I'll post a tutorial tomorrow... it's seriously easy and addictive.  I'm thinking a little garland of poms would be so cute.

Thanks for looking!

baby blossoms

I love making my own scrapbook designer paper - so fun!  And also, economical!  I really didn't use many supplies on this project: just card-stock and ink...

If you want to create your own patterned paper, remember this tip:  stamp your larger elements first, then go back in and "fill in the blanks."  I stamped the roses first, and then filled in the spaces between with even smaller blossoms and sprigs.  Another tip is: layer!  I added a layer of - what is it, exactly?  a Moroccan motif? - overtop to unify all of the elements.

The rest of the card was purposely kept super-simple, so that I could show off my baby blossoms designer paper.  100% homemade, baby!




Supply list (all PTI, unless otherwise noted)
stamps: baby blossoms (SU), mat stack 3, background basics: retro, background basics: gingham
ink: (all SU) daffodil delight, bashful blue, pink pirouette, blushing bride, pear pizazz, peach parfait, mellow moss, memento tuxedo black
paper: bashful blue, mellow moss, whisper white (all SU)