SEPTEMBER BLOG CHALLENGE @ PTI

Papertrey Ink has a Blog challenge to use felt and or fabric as a wrap for a gift!  This should get you started thinking about Christmas.

One of my September purchases from PTI is the Beautiful Beads die...I love it and Nichole Heady of PTI has a very informative tutorial on how to achieve the best results using this die.  I never ever thought I'd be making jewelry, but I tell you I love how this first bracelet turned out.

For my hand made beads I used very thin old paper from a no longer used Thesaurus (actually I believe I purchased it from a resale shop for $1.00 while on a weekend trip to Northern Michigan). I used Swarovski crystal beads and a silver closure.  (We happen to have a fabulous Dollar store in our area and they carry a large selection of Swarovski beads for..ta da...$1.00 a pack.  I love the way they add sparkle!

Anyhow here is my package, first is the adorable bracelet that I made, oops it's late at night and the background color is suppose to be white.

Here's a close up of one of the hand made beads, I think they're adorable!

Here it is attached to a little card to be placed inside the decorated bag.  I punched two holes and tied the bracelet with red/white baker's twine to the card, also stamped the Christmas tree to carry through the theme also the back of the card could be stamped with a "To and From".

Finally to the white paper bag, I added a die cut Christmas tree from green felt material sprinkled with some silver sprinkles and stamped with a sentiment from one of PTI's newer stamp releases. I also used the new tissue paper die with red paper to match the sentiment ink.

I can't tell you how excited I am about these "Beautiful Bead " dies, so much fun to make, I already know several people I'll be making them for.

Thanks for looking, would love to hear your comments.
Nancy

AUTUMN BIRTHDAY CARD & CFC#71

Another wonderful challenge at CAS-ual Fridays here it is:

I'm in love with the triple layer technique and wanted to create a card using Fall colors and stamps and it happened to fit the bill at CAS-ual Fridays too.

This is actually my THIRD, yes third card the first two each had something I didn't like so I scrapped both of 'em. So much for Clean and Simple, it really is had I not made mistakes!

If you're not familiar with this technique, click here, my inspiration came from Dawn Olchefske a S.U Demonstrator.

Here's my card, what do you think?  I'm showing two pictures as the gold embossing was very hard to capture in the photo.

This picture shows the gold embossing a little better, it's very pretty in real life!

I ended up using 3 different leaf stamps as well as one little acorn in 3 different stamp colors, well I guess it is actually 4 since I heat embossed the darker leaves and the sentiment using a gold embossing powder to give it some fall shimmer.
I had to add the little oval with sentiment because the first time I stamped it onto the card...it was crooked and I was determined not to redo this card again!

Here's a look-see at the inside too.

And that's a wrap.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this Fall leaf card, thanks for stopping by.
Nancy


Supplies used:
S.U. Natural white and chocolate chip card stock
Inks: S.U. Soft Suede, Crumb cake and PTI's Canyon Clay
Stamp sets Gently Falling & Watercolor Trio from S.U.
Misc: Oval punch, gold embossing powder

MOXIE FAB WORLD-Movement challenge

There are a series of challenges going on over at Moxie World, and always a ton of inspiration.  The challenge I'm entering  is entitled "Movement"!  The deadline for several of the challenges is September 24, so hurry on over there.


This is a card I created a while back and forgot to post (thank goodness) I believe I did capture the "movement" in my card without even realizing it that is until I read the definition from Cathy!  Unfortunately I chose the same stamp set as one of the example cards, but couldn't help it as it is one of my all time favorite stamp sets and as I said I made it a while ago.  Speaking of movement I love the definition in each leaf which is a movement of its own and adds so much to the overall set.

Anyhow here is my card, I hope you like it.

I chose to use only two colors and keep the card simple so that it would be suitable for either male or female.  However a change of colors and/or sentiment would certainly make this card appropriate for almost any occasion.

I love to hear your comments on my cards and hope to hear from you.
Nancy


Supplies:
Stamps, sentiment and card stock all from PTI
Ink from SU

CAS-ual FRIDAYS CHALLENGE #70

There's a challenge over at Cas-ual Fridays using two of my favorite colors-black and white, with an added color of your choice, mine was RED!

I'm trying to get myself in the holiday spirit and get a head-start on projects, so I chose to make a Christmas card.  I've had this set for quite some time (probably even last year) and haven't used it.

I inked the image first in white ink then versamark and heat embossed onto black card stock.  The image is so pretty I thought it deserved to stand alone and the white ink just made it pop.  However, I couldn't resist the urge to add some bling to those tiny little berries so I added tiny drops of Dazzling Details (kinda like Stickles), which then gave me the idea to add the red glitter ribbon behind the main image (don't you love it when one thing you do makes you think of something else)?  I  then adhered everything to a white card base  which had been dry embossed and I was done!

I'm really liking the way this card turned out, hope you do to.  I'd love to hear your thoughts too.  I appreciate hearing from you, come on-leave a comment.
Nancy

Supplies:
SU Beautiful Season stamp set
White/black card stock
white ink/white embossing powder
Ribbon Die from PTI
SU Red glitter paper/Dazzling Details
SU Embossing folder

LESLEY'S PAPER PLAYERS CHALLENGE #119

Here's an elegant color combination from Paper Players.

The design team has some beautiful samples to get you inspired check them out here, this is mine;

I wanted to use some of my papers that haven't seen the light of day in quite a while.  I found this very pretty basic gray, baha breeze paper in the designer pack Urban Garden.  The paper was so pretty I wanted to highlight it with just minor additions.  The two layer label was first stamped in baja breeze then versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder, here's a close-up of the embossing, isn't it pretty? (It's hard to catch the shimmer and get a good photo at the same time, but you can definitely see the embossing.

I thought black velvet ribbon would look nice on this card, but when I checked (was sure I had some) didn't find any, but I did find some nice black felt which I cut into strips with my trusty paper cutter and adhered the strip to the back of the label added a couple of embellies and that was it.

Hope you take the time to leave a comment letting me know your thoughts on my card.
thanks,
Nancy


Supplies:
Card stock, inks & DSP paper-Stampin' Up
Die cut & sentiment -PTI

DYNAMIC DUOS CHALLENGE #19

Since it's the 2nd week of the month Dynamic Duos has a "subtle color' challenge of these lovely colors:

I chose to create a Christmas card using the Cajun Craze instead of the traditional red color.  I think at first glance its hard to even tell it's not red but cajun, I think of it as a southwestern Christmas card!

I started by stamping a foundation for my door, using a brick stamp in a concrete color (basic gray) to look like a porch, then added the cajun craze topiary pots and the door.  I used Always Artichoke for the adorable little door wreath which was die cut, stamped and colored as well as the topiary trees.  Did you notice a bit of bling on the trees?  The little bow on the wreath  got a touch of color again in cajun craze as is the main sentiment at the top of the card.

I trimmed my panel down a bit so I could add just a little more cajun craze polka dot paper on both sides to give it some balance.

What do you think?  I'd love to hear from you with your comments.
Thanks,
Nancy

Supplies:
Image stamps & die from PTI
Sentiment , paper & inks from Stampin' Up
Anonymous bling product

CAS-ual FRIDAYS CHALLENGE #69

This is my second post for today, please scroll down for other posting.
 
I discovered this challenge at CAS-ual FRIDAYS this week for embossing.  I love to emboss somehow it seems  magical when your image appears all crisp and glossy.  I decided one of my newer stamp sets would be perfect fot this, plus I needed an anniversary card next month so I thought I'd be ahead of the game at least once!

Here is my card, since the stamp set is a vintage camera I had to use a paper background that I thought was vintage (can you believe I bought a whole pack of this paper at the dollar store), love those dollar stores!

I also added little corners to the base card as they remind me of the "old time" photo corners that we used way back....to hold photos into the albums.

I love the design of this stamp set and die, the die has a little slot at the bottom where you can add your sentiment or a photo.  Since I needed an anniversary card this is the sentiment I chose, don't ya think it's perfect?

Oh, and look at the rhinestone in the center to mimic the lens!  Too cute (if I do say so myself)!

Now the challenge is for embossing, however the embossing doesn't show well in these photos, so here's another look, can you see it now, it's really pretty in real life.

Well, what do you think?  I'd love to hear your comments on this card,
Thanks for looking.

Nancy

Supplies:
Camera stamp & die-PTI
Inks, punch & embossing power-SU
Paper Anonymous

PLAY DATE CAFE

There's a lovely color challenge over at Play Date Cafe and here are the inspiration colors:

I needed a birthday card for a dear friend and since she doesn't regularly look at my blog I think I'm safe to post it today, her birthday is Monday.

The colors I used are navy blue, peach (which looks more orange in this photo) and a smidge of stone.  The stone color is actually the printed sentiment on the bottom of the designer paper, as you can see my neutral color was very vanilla (but it looks white in the photo).

I'm pretty please with the way this card turned out as it is pretty C&S, wonder why it took me so long to make?  I guess I agonize way too long over minor details, but that's me!

Hope you like my card and this challenge did encourage me to use colors I normally do not use, so thank you!

Please feel free to leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks,
Nancy

HEY THERE

Here's a little Thank You card I made over the weekend.

A clean & simple card, should have been easy to make but like my granddaughter, it took me two days to finish!
Placed a layer of DSP over the 5 1/2 X 4 1/4" card stock, stamped the pennants, line and bows onto the designer paper then die cut the pennants and adhered over the stamped images.  Die cut a rectangle and stamped the sentiment.  Speaking of sentiments I love the one at the top of the card, isn't the font gorgeous?
That's it for now.

I'd appreciate hearing your comments on my card, even if it's just a word or two.
Thanks,
Nancy


Supplies:
S.U. Paper Summer Smooches DSP
PTI "Hey There" sentiment, & Pennant stamps & die; S.U's "thanks" sentiment.
Ink: S.U. Razzelberry, Island Indigo and Lucky Limeade

MOXIE FAB MINTY GREEN CHALLENGE!

Well didn't this challenge at Moxie Fab show me that I hardly have any "minty" green paper, tons of green, but not mint! Because the inspiration photos are so lovely I scrounged around in my stash and found a few sheets of minty paper.

My inspiration was this beautiful cottage kitchen, isn't it lovely, so warm and inviting.

I die cut a small kitchen cabinet (or window if you prefer) to mimic the one above, I then stamped a few vases onto the green paper using green ink.  I thought about removing the panes and stamping on the background card stock, but finally decided against it.  I decorated each vase with some decor elements, stamped a little label with a background of one of the vases and the sentiment over that.

 

I like the card, but I LOVE the bow.  I could never, I mean never tie a beautiful bow and I'd always admire all the gorgeous ones I'd see on other cards.  WELL, no more I found a tutorial on easy-peasy bow tying (at Papercraftplanet.net) and this is the result, isn't it scrumptious?  Of course the yummy chocolate satin ribbon does the real trick.  H'mm chocolate, maybe I'll go look through my other stash to see what I can come up with.

Thanks for looking and I'd love to hear from you, I appreciate all your comments.
Cheers,
Nancy