September 2012 Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

{PHOTO CREDITS: tied-up boxes, diaper pin wraps, felt & button bags, wine wrap, fabric ribbon, drawstring pouch}

I grew up with parents who were children themselves at the time of the Great Depression.  (following the the stock market crash of 1929).  In our household, recycling was normal life. At Christmas time, I got to wrap the packages and my favorite job was to cut up last year's Christmas cards to make tags for this year's gifts. (I think this was my first experience with paper crafting).  I LOVED the challenge of making something pretty from something that otherwise would be  discarded.  I was always a little sad when the packages I had painstakingly made beautiful were ripped up and thrown away.

So today's project is a Re-Gift Bag!  I don't means to pass along what's inside, but to pass along the bag itself.   

I started by cutting two 5" squares,  and three 1 1/2" X 5" strips of black felt.  I stitched all of this together using white thread, making 1/4" seams on the outside of the bags.  The really fun part was when I started to die cut the flowers, I realized that I had an assortments of felt flowers stashed away from a previous project.  While I added a few leaves, the flowers were patiently waiting to be assembled, glued, and let their happy faces shine on this project!

(the supplies for this project are an assortment of felts from Papertrey Ink.  Black, Pure Poppy, Harvest Gold, Hawaiian Shores, and Simply Chartreuse.)

So there you have it.  Thanks for taking a look at my project today AND thanks for sharing a sweet memory with me.  I really felt like a little kid again!

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzanne

CR84FN63-Week 2 and DT call/ CFC71

Hello Friends, happy Sunday afternoon!

I'm here with a quick post to share a card I made for these challenge:

The graphic was made using beautiful photos courtesy of magnoliarouge.com.

CFC71 Create a Clean And Simple project inspired by autumn

I love these colors and especially the cute little dress in the center picture.  I was immediately inspired to get out "A Little Argyle", and ink it up in Blueberry Sky and Dark Chocolate.  I couldn't resist adding a little touch of Autumn since it's only 70 degrees here today AND there is a touch of color showing in the top of the Red Maple in our back yard!  

So here it is:

I enjoyed using the rock and roll technique on the "Leaf Prints" in the background.  Since the solid stamp was inked with VersaMark, I started with the veined stamp inked with  Classic Kraft, then applied the solid stamp after I rolled the edges with the same Classic Kraft ink.  It was impossible to see the solid stamp to properly line everything up doing it the other, more traditional way.  The Nutty Acorn die, by Memory Box was used on Fine Linen card stock, colored with more Classic Kraft and Dark Chocolate inks using a sponge dauber.  The sentiment, from "Autumn Hills", was also stamped with Dark Chocolate.  the Blueberry Sky ribbon was the last touch applied to this Fine Linen card base.

There it is.  All products are from Papertrey Ink except the Memory Box die, and VersaMark Ink. I look forward to hearing your comments!

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzanne

Time for a Change

Hello Followers and Fellow Bloggers!

August was full of travel.  First, to Nashville to see old friends as well as family; then to San Francisco for a family wedding which ended with a trip to Sonoma Valley for my Sweetheart and me.  We love wine country and all the goodness that comes from that glorious region. I even got to check off a "bucket list" item-we flew over the vineyards in a hot air balloon!

The process of lifting the balloon is VERY impressive

This thing is 8 stories tall

The adventure begins!

Unbelievable beauty at this height

We could actually see the grapes on the vines flying this low

The celebratory post-flight champagne brunch 

We were allowed to pick and taste these.

What a beautiful experience.  We ate great food, tasted great wines, took MANY pictures, and will always cherish the memory of this time together.

Now that you know what has kept me from blogging for the last 30 or so days, I'll tell you something else going on in my life.  I'm heading in a new direction with paper-crafting.  As I approach my third anniversary in this delightful hobby, I recognize a narrowing of focus (for now).

My favorite projects are tags and embellishments for packaging which most frequently are for celebrations of new births as well as birthdays and the Christmas season.  I want to spend more time creating specific projects that will sell in a local shop (or two). We shall see if this leads to an Etsy shop...  All of this to say, I find that trying to keep up with challenges actually distracts me from what I believe to be my real purpose.

At the same time, I love participating with all of you in the creative process.  You inspire me to think differently and try things that otherwise would be overlooked.  While I'm not saying goodbye, I am saying I won't be making as many cards and posts will not be related to challenges as often.  I know I will still be "stalking" your blogs and hope you will still visit me.  I would be broken hearted to lose contact with all of you on-line-friends.  Please say hello whenever you can!

Thanks for stopping by,
Suzanne

MIM #77 Watercolor with Ink Pads-Card #2

Surprise!  I'm back with the second card for this week's challenge.  In case you did not see the first one, here's what's going on:

Take a little time before the August Release starts and learn a watercolor technique from Dawn McVey.  It's a great way to stretch your supplies and get a whole new look. 

Check out Dawn's great MIM video!

I love to create stamped and colored backgrounds so that was my plan for this card.  I chose a  color palette of Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart, and Melon Berry.  While I intended for the flowers to be more yellow, the Melon Berry ended up on center stage. For the leaves I used Ripe Avocado, and Spring Moss.  In the open spaces of the background, I spritzed the paper and dabbed on a little Aqua Mist and enjoyed watching it move around on the watercolor paper.  I'm also trying to incorporated more patterned paper and the Melon Berry Pattern Paper Pack offers some great choices; in this case, Bitty Dots.  I die cut a scallop border from a scrap of the watercolor paper using the Heart Border Die and added a Melon Berry satin ribbon.  For something a little different, I die cut Framed Out #6 using the gingham pattern from Summer Sunrise Pattern Pack.  I stamped the sentiment from the coordinating stamp set in Summer Sunrise ink and topped it with the frame on foam adhesive.  Final touch was to tie the framed sentiment onto the bow with Doodle Bug Baker's Twine, Tangerine. I rounded all four corners of the top layer before mounting it on foam adhesive to the Melon Berry card stock base.

I hope you have given this challenge a go.  It was good for me to try something a little different.  I have a long way to go in the watercoloring department, but Dawn is a great teacher and I think I will use this technique again.

TaTa for now!

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzanne

Make It Monday #77: Ink Pads As Watercolors

Take a little time before the August Release starts and learn a watercolor technique from Dawn McVey.  It's a great way to stretch your supplies and get a whole new look. 

Whew!  I've been trying to post this since Tuesday.  Busy week, crafty week.  Just not enough time to blog about it!  I'll keep it short because I have two cards to upload for this challenge.  I really hope the link widget will someday allow us to upload two pictures from the same blog...or am I the only one who doesn't know how to do that?

My first card for the Watercolor with Ink Pads challenge was actually a technique I learned from a You Tube video a long time ago which reappeared on Wida's blog just this week. Here's the video.  It's well worth taking a look.  The technique is not hard.  Stamp the image with versamark ink onto white card stock and heat emboss with clear powder.  Then watercolor inside the lines created by the embossing powder, with lighter or darker shades of the colors you choose. In the video, Patty used white shimmer paper and so did I for this particular card, then fussy cut them and mounted them on the card base with foam adhesive.  While I don't think this card is particularly outstanding, I am pleased with the elegant simplicity of these beautiful flowers and leaves against a white background.  I used Pure Poppy, Hibiscus Burst, Melon Berry, and Harvest Gold for the flowers, and Ripe Avocado, Simply Chartreuse, and Spring Moss for the leaves.  I applied these to an acrylic block and used water and small paint brush as Dawn instructed.  Many of my thoughts recently revolve around how much I cherish my friends, so this beautiful sentiment (stamped with Ripe Avocado ink) from In Bloom seemed like a good companion for the flowers from the same set.  The final detail was to add a Sakura Glaze Pen to the word "friend" to continue the shininess of the roses and leaves.

I'm so glad you decided to stop by and check out my card.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Hope your weekend is fun and refreshing!

Suzanne

MFW Tuesday Trigger: Type Hype Revisited

Have you ever seen a cuter typewriter?  I have an old typewriter of about the same vintage, but it is sadly lacking in the cuteness!  Those colorful, adorable keys against the black body of the typewrite inspired me to reach for my ZING embossing powders.  (Love these-don't use them enough).  My second inspiration came from Helen, this week's Moxie Fabber.  I am just getting to know this sweet and talented lady, who mentioned that HER friend Karin, has made an entire page of little pages that just fit the typewriter in the stamp set I chose to use for this project.  You can download them for free, just like I did!  Thanks so much Karin, for making my project come together so easily.

See what I mean?  Life really is better with friends!  I hope you will check out the Tuesday Trigger challenge for yourself and join the fun.

Supplies:

Cardstock:  Soft Stone, True Black, White (Papertrey Ink)

Stamp Sets:  Hero Arts CL483, Studio Calico/Hero Arts 331073

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark

Other:  Zing Embossing Powders:  Aqua, Mustard, Rouge  Stampendous: Detail White

Tiny messages by Karin

I hope you get a smile from this card-I sure did from making it!  If you have time to leave a comment, it would make my day complete!

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzanne

Make It Monday #76

Hi there, Friends

It's been a long, hot, month and there is lots more summer and travel and interruptions to come.  But tonight, I am delighted to share a card with you.

Nichole Heady has another great technique to stimulate our creativity; Double-time Bleach Stamping which means that she not only uses bleach to stamp her design, but comes back and adds color over the bleached areas.  She offers three beautiful examples.  Check it out.

As for my card, I chose to use some long neglected Ocean Tides card stock.  I was delighted and amazed at the change of color when the bleach was applied.  This determined that my color combo would include Classic Kraft.  I'll detail the other supplies used at the end of the post.

I think this is the perfect technique for the dandelion image used here.  I repeated the bleach technique with two different sizes of solid circle stamps for the card base.  After thorough drying, I stamped over the larger circles with Ocean Tides ink and the smaller ones with Pinefeather.  This is definitely an unusual color combo for me, but I am quite pleased with the final result.  

I'm looking forward to hearing from you, I have certainly missed everyone during the past three weeks!

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzanne

Supplies:  All Papertrey Ink

Cardstock:  Ocean Tides, Classic Kraft

Inks:  household bleach, Ocean Tides, Pinefeather

Stampsets:  Daydreamers, Beautiful Blooms II ( medium sized solid circle only)