Fall-To Layout #57

Today's card is a clean & simple one using Fall-to Layout #57. The Clean & Simple blog has become one of my absolute favorite blogs - their sketch style just really speaks to me and is so much less overwhelming than sketches with lots of layers and embellishments.

I cut a 3 3/8" square of PTI white cardstock and then randomly stamped a flower from PTI's In Bloom in Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate and Aqua Mist. By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I am SO happy with the new Aqua Mist formula! With the old style, I hardly ever used the ink because it would fade so much and just didn't look right. But this new stuff is awesome!!

When I was satisfied with the stamping, I cut it into nine 1 1/8" squares, which I then mounted on 1 1/4" Aqua Mist squares. I stamped a sentiment from PTI's Mixed Messages on the center square in Dark Chocolate and then adhered all the squares to the card base, which is a 4 1/4" square. Quick and easy!

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #22

Happy Sunday and welcome to another Cupcake Inspiration Challenge from Hope Stamps Eternal!

The cupcakes this week had a mysterious and elegant feel to them, and the color scheme made me think of the Twilight book covers. So, I popped in my Twilight DVD and decided to be inspired by it!

For the main image, I of course had to use The Greeting Farm's Edward, everyone's favorite vampire! I used Copics to color him in, then painted his face and arms with Opal Shimmerz. The photo didn't pick it up, but he is perfectly sparkly, as if he were standing in the sun! I finished off the main image panel with a frame of black stones from the Zva Creative Mixed Rhinestones Wheel.

Now for the background - I know spiderwebs have nothing to do with vampires, but because of the embossing on the cupcake, I knew I wanted to do some embossing on the card and I thought the Cuttlebug Spiderweb folder added to the spooky and mysterious theme! I flipped the embossed piece over, so the debossed side is actually facing out, and then traced all of the lines with a clear Sakura Stardust pen. I thought the card still needed a little something, so I just added some white SU grosgrain and a SU buckle to finish it off.

If you'd like to play along, add a direct link to your project to the Mr. Linky widget on Rachel's post. The top 5 entries will be featured in next Sunday's collage.

Now before I send you off to check out the other HSE Sweeties' creations, I want to extend a warm welcome to the latest Guest Sweetie, Anna Fiebelkorn. Be sure to visit her fabulous blog to see her interpretation of this week's challenge.

Ok, now it's time to go and visit the other Sweeties!

Bonnie
Carolina
Colleen
Kelli
Michelle
Natalie
Tammy

Supplies
Stamps: The Greeting Farm's Edward
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
Paper: SU Basic Black, PTI white and Pure Poppy
Other: Zva Creative Mixed Rhinestones Wheel, Cuttlebug Spiderweb folder, clear Sakura Stardust pen, Opal Shimmerz

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #21

For this week's Hope Stamps Eternal's cupcake inspiration challenge, I sort of took a little creative liberty with interpreting the inspiration photo! I didn't really have any stamps that went with the theme (I was wishing I had the Fly Away set from The Greeting Farm - that would have been perfect!) so I decided to choose a few of the colors to work with instead - namely white, the aqua-ish color, and silver.

Today is my parents' 34th wedding anniversary, so I wanted to combine this challenge with a card for them. I started by using a Martha Stewart punch along the bottom of a sheet of aqua-ish paper from the Basic Grey Lemonade pack. I stuck this down on a PTI white cardstock base. The silver dragees on the "cloud" cupcakes made me think of a bunch of rhinestones, so I then adhered a Zva Creative large clear gemstone flourish on top of that. It's adhered a little higher on the card than I had planned, but I accidentally dropped it onto the card front and didn't want to run the risk of ruining that pretty paper by pulling it up to reposition it. In the top left corner, I added two white flowers from the SU pretties kit and adhered a clear gemstone from the Zva Creative Crystal Dots pack in the center. The flower embellishment was then stuck to the card front with a foam adhesive dot. To finish it off, I stamped a sentiment from PTI's Mega Mixed Messages using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

If you would like to play along, add a direct link to your creation to the Mr. Linky widget on Rachel's post. The top 5 entries submitted by Saturday night will be featured on next Sunday's collage.

And don't forget to check out what the rest of the HSE Sweeties have done with this week's challenge!

Bonnie
Carolina
Colleen
Kelli
Michelle
Natalie
Tammy

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Mega Mixed Messages
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: PTI white, Basic Grey Lemonade
Other: Martha Stewart edge punch, foam adhesive dot, Zva Creative Crystal Dots, Zva Creative large clear gemstone flourish

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 28th birthday. Somehow 28 seems so much older than 27, but then I say that about every year! I'm glad to be an even-numbered age though. For some reason, I just like even numbers better - just a weird quirk I guess!

Sorry about the very strange angle on this photo. I'm not quite sure what was going on when I took this photo. Maybe I thought I was being artistic or something.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite cards that I made in Texas. I've always loved brown and pink together, and I just loved both of these sets from PTI - Fancy Flourishes and the anniversary set Everyday Classics. It's a little hard to see in this photo, but I used two different sizes of flourishes here - a larger one on the Hibiscus Burst top portion and a smaller one on the Dark Chocolate lower part.

The flower, which you can see a close up of to the left, was stamped three times - twice in brown and once in pink - and different parts of the flowers were cut out and layered with foam adhesive dots. To finish the flower embellishment off, I lined all of the edges with Stardust Stickles.

Have a wonderful day!



Supplies
Stamps: PTI Fancy Flourishes, Everyday Classics
Ink: Hibiscus Burst, Dark Chocolate
Paper: PTI white, Hibiscus Burst, Dark Chocolate
Other: PTI Hibiscus Burst Bitty Dot ribbon, foam adhesive dots, Stardust Stickles

Life's A Beach

This is another card from Texas that is a CASE of another card I made months ago. I just love these three ladies from the Beach Fun set by Impression Obsession. They're so cute in their big hats! I love the font in the sentiment too, also from the Beach Fun set.

The buttons are all from PTI - I just love how many different shapes, sizes, and shades come in each color pack!

Supplies
Stamps: Beach Fun by Impression Obsession
Ink: PTI Hibiscus Burst, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white
Other: PTI vintage buttons in Lemon Tart, Spring Rain, and Hibiscus Burst

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #20

Happy Sunday everyone!

Before I talk about this week's Cupcake Inspiration Challenge, I wanted to let you know about lots of fun new stuff now available in the Hope Stamps Eternal store! There are a whole bunch of new stamps from The Greeting Farm - lots of fun coloring opportunities! And you MUST check out the new stuff from Cosmo Cricket! I am in love with that Jolly by Golly paper, and that's just one of 3 new collections in the HSE store. Go check it out now!

Ok, now onto this week's Cupcake Inspiration Challenge. How beautiful is this cupcake?? It's a work of art! I LOVE cupcakes and I think even I would have a hard time eating this one!

I took inspiration from a few elements here - the purple, which is not a color I use often, and the butterflies. And the fondant almost looks like it's embossed, so that inspired me to use a Cuttlebug folder on the base of my card.

The butterflies were made with the Martha Stewart 3-in-1 butterfly punch and then I put two small clear gemstones from the Zva Creative Crystal Wheel along the "body" of each butterfly. Only the center of each butterfly was adhered to the card, allowing the wings to sort of float freely.

The medallion was created using paper from the English Garden collection by Marks Paper Co. I used a 1 1/4" punch to punch out a circle from one of the sheets of paper. Then I cut out the flower shape from the center of another one of the circles and mounted it slightly offset using foam adhesive dots. I curled up the edge of the flower to give it some more dimension and finished it off with a clear crystal dot from the Zva Ceative Crystal Dot multi-pack. I love the variety of sizes you get with that pack!

The last thing to note is that the main panel was stamped with the PTI set Background Basics: Text Style using silver Encore ink. I debated with myself for quite a while whether or not I should leave the panel blank or add the text, and I think I like my final decision!

If you would like to play along with this week's challenge, add a direct link to your creation to the Mr. Linky widget on Rachel's post. The top 5 entries linked up by next Saturday night will be featured in next Sunday's collage!

Now before I send you off to check out the beautiful creations from the other HSE Sweeties, I want to extend a warm welcome to Maureen Wong. She is the very first Guest Sweetie playing along with us, and I encourage you to go check out her amazing work!

Ok, now you can go and see what the rest of the team has done with this week's challenge. Enjoy!

Bonnie
Carolina
Colleen
Kelli
Michelle
Natalie
Tammy

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Text Style
Ink: Silver Encore
Paper: PTI white, SU Elegant Eggplant, English Garden collection by Marks Paper Co.
Other: Zva Creative Crystal Wheel, foam adhesive dots, Martha Stewart 3-in-1 butterfly punch, Stylized Flowers Cuttlebug folder, Zva Ceative Crystal Dot, 1 1/4" circle punch

Belated Birthday

My sweet friend Debbie brought me this stamp set in Texas and I couldn't wait to ink it up! One of the things I love most about PTI stamps is how so many of the images are assembly style, allowing you to stamp different parts of an image in different colors without needing to use markers. This turtle is actually 6 different stamps, but he came together so quickly.

The spots and stripe on his shell are covered with Stardust Stickles and a small black gemstone from the Zva Creative crystal wheel acts as his eye.
The strip on the background was done using the PTI set Background Basics: Retro and the circles were filled in with a white gel pen, which also was used to dot around the scallops of the oval. Since I am famously late with sending out birthday cards, this one has already gotten some use!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Pond Life, Pond Life Sentiments, Background Basics: Retro
Ink: PTI Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado
Paper: PTI Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, white
Other: white gel pen, Zva Creative crystal wheel, Stardust Stickles, Marvy oval and scalloped oval punches, foam adhesive dots

Birthday Balloons

Today I've got another card that I made during my trip to Texas using the PTI set Everyday Button Bits. I just love this balloon image and the pretty buttons that are acting as balloons!

The other thing I love on this card is that new SU scallop oval punch. I haven't bought anything from SU in close to a year, but I got to play with my friend Suzanne's punch in TX and I love how it layers so well with the oval punch that I already own.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Everyday Button Bits, Birthday Basics
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, PTI Ripe Avocado
Paper: PTI white, Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush, Polka Dot Parade
Other: PTI Sweet Blush and New Leaf buttons, SU oval and scallop oval punch

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #19

Welcome to another Cupcake Inspiration Challenge from Hope Stamps Eternal!

Sorry for the bad photo of my card this week - it took me soooo long to add all of those gemstones on and I lost most of my daylight! I'm not all that thrilled with how the card turned out, which is unfortunate, because I think I have a permanent crick in my neck from making it!

As soon as I saw this week's cupcakes, the idea of doing a gemstone rainbow came to me right away. The idea just didn't quite translate on paper the way I wanted it to! Most of the gemstones in the rainbow are from the Zva Creative crystal wheel. The variety of colors in the wheel made it so easy to create the rainbow. And even though I used a lot of each color, you get so many in the wheel, plus it's so affordable, so I didn't even hesitate to use up so many of them. The light blue and light pink were the easy part of this - they're Memory Box jewel stickers and come in an adhesive strip, so those were just pulled off the backing and stuck right on the card. SO much easier than sticking on the small ones one by one with my Quickie glue pen!

The cloud is the Marvy super jumbo scalloped oval punch and I stamped a sentiment from The Greeting Farm set called Sentiments. That was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then traced with a black Spica glitter pen. The Swiss Dots Cuttlebug background finishes it off.

If you would like to play along, add a direct link to your creation to the Mr. Linky widget on Rachel's post. The top 5 entries will be featured in next week's spotlight collage. Be sure to check out the rest of the HSE Sweeties for more inspiration using this challenge:

Bonnie
Carolina
Colleen
Kelli
Michelle
Natalie
Tammy

Supplies
Stamps: Sentiments from The Greeting Farm
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: PTI white, Spring Rain, SU Basic Black
Other: Memory Box jewel stickers, Zva Creative crystal wheel, Marvy super jumbo scalloped oval punch, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder

Cheers to you!

I just love these two cards together and am debating about making more to create a set to give to someone. I'm not sure I've ever paired Berry Sorbet with Ripe Avocado before, but I like it!

These are pretty straightforward - the only things I wanted to mention are 1. that the ribbon on the second card is more of that white twill colored with Copics and 2. that it's tough to tell in the photos, but the margaritas are rimmed with Stardust Stickles.

Supplies
Stamps: A Day at the Beach, Polka Dot Basics, Fruitful (all from PTI)
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white, Berry Sorbet, Ripe Avocado
Other: Stardust Stickles, SU scallop edge punch, 1 1/2", 1 3/4" circle punches, white twill ribbon, clear gemstones, Adhesive dots

Purple?

I very rarely reach for purple in my card making, but I was trying to use my trip to Texas to bust out of the rut I was in and I'm fairly pleased with how this turned out. It actually is not at all what I planned, but when I was stamping the pattern down the side, I didn't get a clear impression in the center, so that's why I need the horizontal strip to cover it up!
Supplies
Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Retro, PTI Birthday Basics
Ink: Plum Pudding
Paper: PTI white, Lavendar Moon, Plum Pudding
Other: SU scallop edge punch, paper piercing tool, flower gems from Kaiser crafts

Buttons!

Last weekend I went to Texas for the annual LOSTie gathering and my stamping mojo was kicked into high gear! I made 20 cards in total throughout the weekend, which was highly productive for me! I'll be sharing the cards over the next week or two when I have nothing else new to share and these two cards are the first of them. I had a hard time getting going at first, but then once I started playing with the Everyday Button Bits set from PTI, the creativity just started flowing! I think this flower stem image is my favorite in the set - so fun!

All products on both of these cards are from PTI with the exception of the embroidery floss on the card below. The ribbon is PTI white twill, which I colored with Copics to match. I don't think I will ever need to buy colored twill again because the marker trick works so well!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Everyday Button Bits
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white, Ripe Avocado, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding, Polka Dot Parade
Other: PTI buttons, embroidery floss from JoAnn's, PTI white twill

Cupcake Inspiration Challenge #18

Happy Sunday! Before I get into the details of this week's cupcake inspiration challenge, I just wanted to remind you that today is the last day of the Hope Stamps Eternal sale. EVERY item in the store is 20% off until the end of the day, so if you haven't yet, make sure you take advantage of this fabulous bargain!

Now, onto the challenge! Isn't the cake/cupcake platter this week so cute?? I used the colors as the inspiration for my card, pulling in the light blue, green, brown, and melon. My main image is the very sweet Hello Ian from The Greeting Farm, which I colored with Copics. I also colored and cut out a second flower from the image and popped it up with an adhesive dot in the middle of my sentiment circle.

The patterned papers are both from the Daisy D's Snowflakes and Holly paper pack. Despite the name, the pack is not just for Christmas-y cards, as you can see here. So scoop up that pretty paper right now while it's on sale!

The buttons along the right are actually button brads from Imaginisce. Since I was putting them directly on the card base and didn't want the prongs to show through on the inside of the card, I just cut the prongs off with scissors and stuck them on with mini glue dots.

I think that's about it from me! If you want to play along, add a direct link to your project to Rachel's post by Saturday night using the Mr. Linky widget. She'll choose the top 5 entries to feature in next Sunday's collage. Now, before you try your hand at the challenge, make sure you check out the rest of the HSE Sweeties for more amazing inspiration!

Bonnie
Carolina
Colleen
Kelli
Michelle
Natalie
Tammy

Supplies
Stamps: Hello Ian from The Greeting Farm, Around and About Sentiments from PTI
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
Paper: Daisy D's Snowflakes and Holly paper pack, PTI white and Spring Rain, SU Certainly Celery
Other: adhesive dot, button brads from Imaginisce, mini glue dots, 1 14/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches