Koala Valentine Card

I have one more valentine card to post - I'll also be submitting this to Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge Blog - the Red + Pink Challenge.

I love this little koala stamp by the Sweet Stamp Shop! I colored him in with color pencils and cut out his hands to hold the heart.

Detail pic:

Here is the inside:

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: Sweet Stamp Shop Koala; Paper Smooches We Connect; PTI Limitless Layers: Hearts, Heart Prints; Reverse Confetti Arrow Confetti Cuts; Lil' Inker Designs Smooches; Doodlebug pattern papers

Day 8 (whew) of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration!

Whew I made it to Day 8 of PTI's birthday challenges! Today was all about "blue" and we were challenged to create a blue ombre card.  I am not great at ombre - love the look but my execution is off. Since my blue card stock supply is pretty sparse, I decided to do some ink blending to create my colors and then die cut from the inked card stock.

I made another masculine birthday card! I used PTI's Aqua Mist and Hawaiian Shores along with Ranger's Salty Ocean to create my blue palette. I really love these Circle Scribbles dies and must get the stamps set too - I love these for masculine or graphic cards!!!

Detail pic:

Well I'm all challenged out!!! I have a very healthy stash of cards now and it's not even March!

Thanks for visiting! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PTI!

Ingredients: PTI Circle Scribbles, Topped Tops, Birthday Bash Sentiments, grid card stock

Day 7 of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration

On Day 7 PTI introduced a line of metallic paper products that are AWESOME!!! I can't wait to get some of these! For Day 7 we were challenged to use metallics and neutrals in a card.  This was a little tough for me -- when I think of metallics I think Christmas cards but I decided to not take that route.  Instead I went to another holiday - Halloween.

I used Studio Calico's Calico Shine with a diagonal stripe stencil to create a background of shimmer.  The text block is cut from silver shimmer card stock and the ghosty is vellum but I used my Wink of Stella pen on him to create a little sparkle (can't see that in the pics).

Detail pic:

Thanks for visiting! I have one more card to post!

Ingredients: PTI Text Block: Halloween, Happy Haunting; MFT Diagonal Stripes stencil

Day 5 of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration

It's Day 5 of PTI's Birthday Celebration! The challenge today was to use a stamp set that you have not inked up. I really only have one - Tea for Two Additions. I've had this set for over a year and I finally was able to come up with a design for it!

I had these colors out for another card I was making and decided they would work well for this one too - bonus!

Detail pic:

I used to get splotchiness with some of my dye inks and I learned recently (can't remember from who online) that if you ink your stamp up in Versamark FIRST then in your dye ink that it will reduce that from happening - and it worked! Yeah!

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: PTI Tea for Two Additions, Tea Cup, Tipped Tops; MFT Blueprints Die-namics #11 (panel)

Day 4 of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration!

I finally got caught up on the PTI Birthday challenges! For Day 4 we were challenged to use 2 or more PTI flower sets to create a bunch of flowers. I ended up using 3 flower sets on my card.

Detail pic:

Thanks for visiting!


Ingredients: PTI Ruby Rose stamps/dies, Funky Florals, Turning a New Leaf stamps/dies, Beautiful Blooms II stamps/dies, Notched Flowers (dies)

Day 3 of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration!

For Day 3 of Papertrey Ink's birthday celebration, we were challenged to create a tag with a matching gift bag.

I've been on a masculine kick lately so I found a masculine gift bag I had and went to work to making the perfect tag for it.

Here is the handmade tag with the bag I had in my stash:

Here is the tag all by itself:

The tag base is soft stone to go along with the shades of grey on the bag. I did not have bright blue card stock so I used a technique I just learned from the Online Card Class I just took -- direct-to-paper inking - the ink for the background is what I used to color my white card stock to make it bright blue. It was easy and awesome!

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: PTI Tag Sale #3, Scribbled Circles, Wonderful Words: Birthday (die)

Day 2 of PTI's 8th Birthday Celebration

I'm back with another card for Papertrey Ink's birthday celebration!

For Day 2, PTI celebrates the return of Maile Belles as a designer and to celebrate the challenge is to create a card inspired by her work.  My card today is inspired by her divided panels technique (see here).  I love this look but hadn't tried it yet, so here it is in the form of a masculine birthday card.

Here's a detail pic:

Thanks for visiting! 

Ingredients: PTI Dot Spot, Birthday Style; misc enamel dots

It's Papertrey Ink's 8th Birthday!

Wow Happy 8th Birthday PTI!! 

I found PTI early on and am still in awe of their creativity, style and beautiful innovative products.

PTI is celebrating with daily challenges and for Day 1, we've been given a selection of color combos and sketches to pair up for our creations.  Here is the combo I've selected.  

I really love the Songbirds set of stamps and dies and used that for today's card.

Here is a detail pic:

And here's the inside:

Thanks for visiting.  I plan on participating in most, if not all, the challenges, so please come back! 

Ingredients: PTI Songbirds, Tipped Tops, Think Big Favorites #24; MFT Blueprints #11 (panel)

Masculine Birthday card for PTI Make it Monday #200!

Wow Papertrey Ink has 200 Make it Monday episodes! These are some of my favorite challenges - I always learn something new! This week's technique is Layering Cover Plate Die Cuts.  How did I not think of this! I only have one PTI cover plate (gasp! I know! I must get more) but I love it! Today I made a masculine birthday card layering smoky shadow and tropical teal.

I didn't want to take away from the fab background, so I used vellum for my sentiment.

Here's a detail pic:

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: PTI Chevron Cover Plate, Tipped Tops, Wet Paint, Desktop File - Left Tab

Day 7 of OCC C&S 4 -- 1 Stamp Set, 3 Ways

Finally, I made it to my Day 7 cards for Online Card Classes' Clean & Simple 4: Techniques Made Easy! The challenge was to take a stamp set and use it 3 ways.  I loved the techniques shown but I have very few solid stamps and I couldn't find any that worked for the techniques, so I pulled out a recent purchase and used it in 3 different ways.  I used a similar layout for each. Technically, I used 2 stamps sets 3 different ways but I'm really only focusing on one, Lil' Inker Designs Modern Mehndi.

Card No. 1 features the straight up stamp and color technique, using color pencils.

Detail pic:

Card No. 2 features an emboss resist technique using Gelatos (new toy!):

Detail pic:

And Card No. 3 features misting and masking with stamping over masked areas.

Detail pic:

LOVED this class! So many techniques that I can use!  Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: Lil' Inker Modern Mehndi; Winnie & Walter The Big, the Bold, the Happy, The Big, the Bold, the You

Sending Hugs card for Day 6 of C&S 4

OK I'm in the home stretch with getting cards done for Online Card Classes' Clean & Simple 4: Techniques Made Easy. Day 6 is here and featured "Fab with Five" using 5 key supplies. My card today features the Masked Stripe Background (another inking challenge for me!).

I had a tendency to ink across most of the card instead of tighter like the demo card but it worked out because my flower is pretty big. I also discovered I am liquid pearl challenged! Here's a detail pic:

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: PTI Friends Til the End stamps and dies; MFT Sentiment Strips Die-namics; Liquid Pearls

Celebrate card for Day 5 of C&S 4

Time for a Day 5 card for Online Card Classes' Clean & Simple 4: Techniques Made Simple. 

Day 5 featured Inking Tricks and it was a little bit of a challenge for me. I'm still a novice with ink blending but I just got the round mini blending tool and I like it much better than the older tool.  Now I just need more Distress Inks! I decided to try the Ink Patterns technique with washi tape. Delving into my art history background, I was inspired by Mondrian for my card. I love the clean lines I got but I think some red (must add a red distress ink to the list!) would have been perfect AND a darker ink for my sentiment.

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: MFT Celebrate Big

Card #2 for Day 4 of OCC C&S 4

I have one more card for Day 4 of Online Card Classes' Clean & Simple 4: Techniques Made Easy. This card features the Embossing Paste (Layers) technique. I would have never thought to put layers of embossing paste on top of each other! It's a cool effect!

Here's my card:

Here are some detail pics:

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients: MFT Diagonal Stripes Stencil; Heidi Swapp Lattice Stencil; PTI Songbirds

Happy Birthday Faux Embossed Card for C&S 4 Day 4

I have another card for Online Card Classes' Clean & Simple 4: Techniques Made Simple. This card is for Day 4, which demonstrated Added Texture techniques. I loved all 3 techniques shown - these will be added to my arsenal!

Today's card features the Faux Embossing technique. I LOVE this look. It was a little harder to execute than I thought with getting the spacing right, but the balloon hides some of the flaws.

Here's a closer look:

Thanks for visiting! I have so many more cards to make -- this has been a great class!

Ingredients: MFT Happy Birthday Die-namics; Avery Elle Balloons; PTI Scribbled Circles