BRI Sneak Peek!

Hi friends! I'm up today on the Butterfly Reflections Ink blog with a pair of cards made with this sweet little snowman family. I hope you'll stop by and check them out!

PS~ If you haven't already shopped the BRI Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, it continues through today! Get 20% off your ENTIRE in stock purchase using the code THANKFUL20. You're welcome! :)

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop!

So I finally have had a chance to participate in the monthly PTI blog hop... I've been missing them, and so I was so glad when I got to sit down and play a little last night! It's not my most favorite card, but I don't mind. I keep forgetting that I don't have to reinvent the wheel for every project... Sometimes, it's nice to sit and just play.

I love the size of the Fab Flakes set. The snowflakes are large enough to really make a statement. Bearing that in mind, I decided to make a 5x7 card instead of a normal A2 sized card. I stamped the flakes in Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, Tropical Teal, and Delicata Silver. I love how they look all clustered together. The sentiment is from Christmas Cheer, die cut from Tropical Teal and stamped in Smokey Shadow. I covered the die cut in some Shimmer Pico Embellishment, added a few sequins for sparkle, and mounted it on a clean white card base. I thought about sponging some ink around the edges, but I decided I liked the way it looked as is.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I hope your day is full of laughter, love, and family! One of the kiddos is sick with croup, so we are probably stuck at home tomorrow. Meh. Eat some pumpkin pie for me! :)

All Through the House... Shabby Chic style.

Hi friends! I'm here today with my first project using the fantastic All Through the House kit from PTI. As soon as I saw the kit, I had an idea for a shabby chic, sparkly pastel project with the adorable house. The final product isn't quite what I'd envisioned, but I was pretty pleased with it.

To start, I die cut one of the frames from white card stock. I then used washi tape to mask off the edges of the frame that are debossed into the cardstock from the die. I took some pale blue ink from Hero Arts and blended it around the edges of the frame, leaving the center fairly pale. I then stamped some of the snowflake swirls in Delicata Silver ink.

I stamped the house in Memento Angel Pink, PTI's Aqua Mist, Soft Stone, and the new Stormy Sea for the chimney. I added the little snow drifts in the windows using the Delicata Silver again, then covered them in Glossy Accents. I die cut the snow from white card stock, adhered it to the roof, then covered it in Diamond Stickles. The pink card base (I can't remember the manufacturer of the pink, sorry) was stamped with the new Fab Flakes set in Fresh Snow pigment ink. I die cut and stamped the banner from last's years Tinsel and Tags kit. I added a strip of Aqua Mist Bitty Dot paper through the tag, then adhered everything down. 

I hope you enjoyed this card! I seem to be in an aqua and pink mood lately, but I promise to move on at some point. Have a great week, friends! 

BRI Sneak Peek!

Hello all! Happy Thanksgiving week! I'm up on the BRI blog today with a minty fresh card using new Winnie and Walter stamps. I hope you'll stop by and check it out! 

Peace Be With You

Hello, friends! I hope you're all having a fantastic weekend. We had a fairly low key weekend, and I was able to get some projects finished and photographed.

This coverplate die from Papertrey Ink is seriously one of my most favorite holiday dies ever. It looks beautiful so many ways, but one of my favorite ways to treat these beautiful cover plate die cuts is to watercolor them to bring out all of the incredible details. 

I started by die cutting the cover plate from an A2 sized panel of watercolor card stock. This one is not quite as intricate as the Garden Gild cover plate, so I didn't have to use anything besides my shim in my Vagabond to get a perfect cut the first time. I love when that happens. I took several shades of green and Deep Red and Tea Rose pinks to color the different floral elements. I simply added some color to the centers of the flowers and leaves, then pulled the color out with my wet paint brush.

For the panel behind the cover plate, I used my Twinkling H2O's to add some very subtle gold shimmer to another piece of watercolor paper. It's very slight, but in real life it adds some beautiful shimmery shine. I die cut the "peace" from Wet Paint Holiday using DCWV Glitz paper, heat embossed the "be with you" in Princess Gold, and glued the cover plate down. The last little embellishment was to add some sequins from Lucy Abrams  in shades of champagne and pink. 

I hope you enjoyed this card! It's super flat, so I (well, actually, my hubby is the one who runs things to the post office for me) won't have to actually go inside the post office, which is always a plus in my book. I'll be back tomorrow with a sneak peek for my Butterfly Reflections Ink post! Have a great rest of the weekend, everyone! 

All I Want For Christmas...

Well, it's not my two front teeth.

Don't shoot me, buuuuut.....

I can't stand the song "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey. I really, truly CANNOT STAND that song. I'm not entirely sure why.... maybe it has something to do with how needy she sounds? Maybe it's just because I really don't like Mariah Carey. (Though I have always had a begrudging respect for her ridiculous high range. I digress.) Anyway, yuck.

However, I love this sentiment from The Ton's Holiday Lyrics. The balance, the fonts... I just really like it. It's the kind of innocent-but-still-could-be-suggestive sentiment that I would want to put on a gift for my husband. And what better match than to pair it with a pair of those stunningly fabulous couture heels (that I would never be able to afford, much less wear) from Shoe Wardrobe. I have no experience with such high-fashion shoes, but my extensive knowledge of Sex and the City's wardrobe tells me that these are Louboutins. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

This card is so simple; it's kind of embarrassing. I started off with a white card base on which I heat embossed some Ruby Romance Wow! embossing powder using the Polka Dot cling background stamp. I then cut another panel of plain white card stock and black heat embossed the sentiment, then added the shoes in Pure Poppy ink from PTI. I matted the white panel on a piece of black card stock, because the red, white, and black color combo just fit with the overall theme of the card. 

That's it! It's really such a simple card. I love how simple it is; sometimes I feel like giving cards to guys is a waste of time, but then I feel guilty, especially when it comes to my hubby. So here's a nice handmade card tailored just for him, but didn't take me hours to finish. Win-win! 

I hope you enjoyed this extremely simple, somewhat cheeky card! It's so nice having a bit of a crafty break in my studio... I'm just in there playing and experimenting, which is so fun. Anyway, have a wonderful Friday, everyone! 

Aurora Borealis

During my crafty "play date" with my friend last weekend, I decided to create my own version of this card by Betsy Veldman from Papertrey Ink's October release. I wanted to use some non-traditional colors that still conveyed the idea of winter, so I chose Vintage Jadeite, Winter Wisteria, and Hawaiian Shores as my color palette. 

For my main panel, I chose to heat emboss the snowflakes onto a piece of A2 sized Fabriano watercolor card stock using Hero Arts White Satin embossing powder. I then took the three ink colors of my chosen color palette and blended them over the embossed snowflakes for an emboss-resist. After it was done, it reminded me so much of the Aurora Borealis lights. I just love this color combination.

The rest of the card was fairly simple, but there are lots of different textures to add dimension. I die cut one of the scalloped quilted tags from minty foil card stock from DCWV. I then die cut the Quilted: Winter quilt block twice: once from silver glitz paper (also from DCWV), then again from regular white CS. I stamped the cut outs with the coordinating stamps for just the center section, as I wanted the lovely foil to shine through and juxtapose with the super sparkly glitz paper. 

I adhered the glitter frame on the scalloped tag die cut, then glued in my stamped die cut pieces. The stitched flag was stamped with a greeting from the Quilted: Winter stamp set, then adhered to the tag. I popped the whole tag up on the card base, then added a silk bow.

I am pretty much in love with this card, and I'm planning on recreating it with several other color combinations. I just love that emboss resist in the background. I hope you enjoyed it, as well! Have a great day!