Friday, January 25, 2013

Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop: Black Backgrounds

This month's blog hop challenge from Papertrey Ink is to work with a black background. This is definitely NOT a go-to color for me, so well out of my comfort zone... but I am pleased with the results! Yay for challenges to get you to try something new!

I used a black card base with Orange Zest and Hawaiian Shores - a favorite color combo of mine, and I thought the colors would pop nicely against the black. I used a Smokey Shadow panel, stamped in black with Background Basics: Inspiration, for a subtle tone-on-tone background effect.



Also used: Fancy Flourishes and dies (I cut one swirl off the large flourish so that I could position it differently under the tag); Celebrations and die; and the "Sending a Big Thank You" that was a limited time gift from PTI last year. I added the "sweet friend" from Heart-2-Heart #4.



The sentiment panel and one of the flourishes is popped up on foam tape (yes, it was tedious to cut little bits of that tape to go under the skinny flourish, but worth it for the effect... lol!). The last touch is the little row of gems, which are from Kaisercraft and then colored with a Copic marker to match the Orange Zest.



Thanks for the challenge, Nichole! It's good to get out of one's comfort zone now and then! And thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Happy Birthday to my epicly awesome kiddo!

This post is overdue - the birthday was a couple of weeks ago - but I wanted to share the card I made for my son's birthday this year. I knew I wanted to use PTI's Game On set, especially the "epic year" sentiment, since "epic" is one of his favorite words, it seems! lol But I also love the whole postage theme, so I incorporated MFT's First Class Friend set and dies, and also PTI's Postmarks, for a video-game-postage kinda thing! :) The colors are Blueberry Sky, Canyon Clay and Spring Moss. I love this color combo for a masculine card that still has some pizazz and contrast, color-wise!


The focal point postage label image is popped up on foam adhesive. I stamped the simple background using A Little Argyle, added a strip of Blueberry Sky stripes and the 3 little brads to finish it off.


Check out the little stamp I made from the "rated GR8KID" stamp! I stamped it on the MFT stamp die cut, and added a border with some masking and PTI's Label Basics set. (See this post for a detailed description of this.)


Part of the birthday boy's gift was a monetary gift this year, since he has been saving up for a high-ticket item. So I wanted to make a nice coordinating money holder, using the same color schedule as the card. I used a Silhouette envelope file that I modified to be sized for dollar bills, and added a simple "belly band" style closure, with a tag from PTI's 2012 Birthday Tags set.


Just slide off the band and the envelope opens right up. He enjoyed finding some green in there!


Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Papertrey Ink + Mama Elephant = Awesomesauce!

I know, it's a bit late for Christmas cards but just consider it Christmas in January here! I still have Christmas sets out on my table so I played with them a bit. I love the snow globe in Mama Elephant's Believe in Magic set! The little skylines that come with the set are beautiful, but for this card I wanted it to have more of a "cutesy" theme, so I pulled out PTI's Tremendous Treats: Christmas and found that sweet little penguin. He's a tight fit, but he works! I hand-cut a mask for him and then stamped the little stars/snow from the ME set throughout the globe, and then colored him with Copics.



I cut the Polaroid style frame from Fabulous Frames from PTI's Blueberry Sky striped patterned paper and layered a piece of patterned paper from My Minds Eye Winter Wonderland 6x6 pad underneath. The globe is popped up over the frame, and the frame is popped up over a mat of Pure Poppy that's stamped with Snowflake Medley in Fresh Snow ink.



The sentiment, also from the Believe in Magic, is stamped on a banner die-cut that is also popped up on foam adhesive.



Thanks for stopping by, and Merry Christmas! ;)


Friday, January 11, 2013

Make it Monday Happy Birthday Card

It's been too long since I played along with a Make It Monday challenge! This week's challenge was "repeats and rainbows" - use a repeated image in one of the fun rainbow-esque color schemes offered. I choose the 3rd color combo: Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Ripe Avocado and Ocean Tides. I thought that the game remotes from Game On would be fun to stamp in the rainbow pattern:


I added a strip from the Summer Sunrise patterned paper pack, and a pinking shear border in Ocean Tides. It turned out that the sentiment fit perfectly on the label basics die cut, which I trimmed off on one end to line it up with the side of the orange zest cardstock.


Thanks for stopping by, and thanks Nichole for the fun color combos!