Papertrey Ink Happy birthday card

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had an excellent weekend and are easing into the new week. I loved looking at all the wonderful cards submitted in the PTI Blog Hop and would like to thank everyone for their kind comments on my contribution. Its so good to receive warm feedback and I feel really encouraged. Anyway its time  for a new Make it Monday challenge over at Papertrey Ink and the challenge this time is to use an ink blending technique to create a background for stamping. To honour my pledge to use more of my stash, I decided to try a a little humorous birthday card with a stamp I have had for a while but not inked up yet. I have a few humorous stamps which I bought because they made me smile but I have to admit I have never found the right way of using them, so I thought I would jump in with this one and promise myself to try out the others soon.

Betsy Veldman showed a way of blending inks using Ranger products, but I used the ink dusters I have to do the same thing and created a kind of garden background. I used Copics to colour in the images and although it is hard to see in the photograph, I added some Glossy Accents to put some water in the top of the watering can, and finished off with a few little drops on some of the flowers. I lightly inked the white card to soften it and coloured some white ribbon with Copic Marker.

Products.

Stamps - Docrafts Born to Shop Garden Beauty, PTI Signature Greetings, PTI Vintage Picnic Sentiments.

Card - White and Raspberry Fizz

Other - Blue, Orange and Green ink and white ribbon coloured with a Copic marker.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x

Papertrey Ink Birthday card for March Blog Hop

Hello everyone,



Yay! Today is the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop Day and I've been able to play with my PTI stash. The challenge was to use embroidery thread on a project and when I looked through my stamps, the flying trail from Little Lady jumped out at me as begging for a little thread.



click to enlarge

I stamped it in spring rain ink then pierced holes before stitching with matching embroidery floss. I used the butterfly dies to cut two sizes of butterfly and stamped them with two shades of blue ink before stitching around the smaller butterfly, moulding them to get some dimension, and sticking them onto the end of the trail. I used one of the fillable frames dies to create the sentiment tag and then layered up the card and mats. I softly inked all the white areas of card so there wasn't such a stark contrast and stamped a trail of small butterflies to lead the eye through the card. I found some stripey ribbon that had quite a sheen to it and added a few gems for a little more bling.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the hop today. As this card is destined for a special lady, I'm going to enter it into the challenge over at Allsorts

Hugs
Carol x
Recipe

PTI

Stamps - Butterfly dreams. Little Lady, Birthday Basics, Signature series butterfly.

Dies - Butterfly, Signature series butterfly, fillable frames 4.

PTI Birthday card

Hello everyone on this gorgeous, warm, sunny spring day. I was tempted into the garden to take a few photos of the bulbs in our front garden that welcomed us home after our few days away in Yorkshire.

I have picked some of the hyacinths for the sitting room and their wonderful scent fills the room. The days are getting longer and will be longer still after the weekend when the clocks change. I am so ready for spring!

I'd like to share a  a special birthday card I made for a very good friend using the PTI Piece of Cake stamps:-

Card recipe

Papertrey Ink
Stamps - Piece of Cake, Birthday Basics, Signature Greetings

Card - Aqua mist, Hawaiian Shores and white

Ribbon - Hawaiian Shores

Ink - Hawaiian Shores and Aqua Mist

Other - Daisy punch, adhesive gem and ribbon punch.

I'd like to enter this card into the challenge at Crafty Cardmakers.

Thanks for looking in.

Hugs
Carol x

Stylish Blog Award

Hello everyone,

I'm excited to tell you that I have received a Stylish Blogger award from Jackie, at Scrappy Knitters knits and scraps. Thank you so much Jackie, you brightened a grey, rainy day.





Now I get to pass this on:


Rule #1: Link back to the person who gave you the award (see above)



Rule #2: Share seven random things about yourself.

- I'm Mum to 3 grown up children.

- My favourite film of all time is Camelot.

- I used to be a folk singer.

- My favourite book of all time is Wuthering Heights

- I was the Social Worker on a Transplant Unit before I took early retirement.

- I love to watch Costume Dramas on TV

- I cry when I hear children sing.



Rule # 3 Award seven newly discovered bloggers with this award.

Here are some blogs for you to check out:

http://sweet-swirls.blogspot.com/

http://shelley-craftersbuddy.blogspot.com/

http://hiddenloft.blogspot.com/

http://paperaddict-emma.blogspot.com/

http://lifemomentswithrita.typepad.com/life_moments_with_rita/

http://scrapperscreativecorner.blogspot.com/

http://caninesandcarddesigns.blogspot.com/

Do drop by and see these blogs if you have time, they are some talented ladies!

Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs
Carol x

St Patrick's Day card for Wlatzing Mouse Blog Waltz

Hello everyone,
                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                   

Happy St Patrick's Day and its time for another Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz. I confess that I don't have a single St Patrick's Day image in my stash so I was delighted that Claire kindly gave us a couple of images to work with for this waltz. I admit to having lots of trouble thinking of something special to do for this card so in the end I opted for a simple layout that lets the free image take centre stage. I had visions of using 40 shades of green but settled for the 5 shades I had in my stash! I decoupaged part of the panel and used glossy accents to highlight the shamrock.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   I I typed the sentiment on the computer and used a gel pen to create a faux ribbon effect. I stitched the edge of the panel on the sewing machine and added a couple of buttons to finish it off.

I'm off to Harrogate today for a few days so I won't get to see all the entries until I get back but have a great day waltzing. I shall be visiting the Great Northern Papercrafts show whilst I'm away so I'm hoping to come back with some new little goodies.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x

I had problems with this post in Blogger for some reason and don't have the time to play around to get it right, so I'm sorry that the layout is a bit messy.

Mother's Day card for Make it Monday challenge

Hello everyone,

I can't think where the past week has gone and we're already into another one. I have been busy reading our next book club offering which is The Room by Emma Donoghue. I am still only half way through and it is our discussion night on Wednesday, so I have to get my skates on. I have also been looking at the Papertrey Ink countdown to the new release and I have my eyes on two new gorgeous background stamp sets, Twinkle and Gingham and my resolve to reduce spending on new stuff is dwindling fast.

The Make it Monday challenge this week is to use an embossing plate on part of a card, so I thought I'd play along and make a Mother's Day card as it is creeping up fast, and I'd also like to enter into the Simon Says stamp challenge.

I used the canvas side of the PTI Linen /Canvas impression plate on half of my aqua mist card stock and embossed 3 lines to disguise the crease this left. I used a stamp from PTI With Sympathy and and stamped it through a circular mask onto a circle cut from the Limitless Layers die set in Hawaiian shores and melon berry ink, and layered it up on some Nestability circles. I took the sentiment from Delightful Dahlia and stamped it onto a Nestabilities Fancy Tag Die. I finished the card off with some Melon Berry ribbon and a couple of aqua mist buttons.

I was quite pleased with the impression I got from the impression plate this time because I played around with the 'sandwich' I was using on my Big Shot. Prior to this I was disappointed with the results I was getting so had only used it once.

Have a great week and thanks for looking in.

Hugs
Carol x

Papertrey Ink Thank You card.

Hi everyone,

Wow, 2 posts in a day You can tell I had a day to myself for a change, and I bet you can guess how I've been spending it. Its the Make it Monday challenge over at Papertrey Ink and the challenge is to use a distressing technique which is not my style really so I thought I'd have a go.

I used a Dee Gruenig blossom stamp for the focal image, simply stamped in Raspberry Fizz ink on PTI white card along with a sentiment from my favourite PTI Signature Greetings set. I then sponged around the card with the raspberry ink and  distressed the edges with my scissors as Lisa did in the video. I finally matted it onto raspberry fizz card and finished it off with raspberry fizz ribbon.

Well I promised my husband a roast chicken dinner on his his return so I must get me to the kitchen!

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x

Use Old Stash Challenge March

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend and feel refreshed for the week ahead. I have been raiding my stash again for items I either haven't used for a long time, or haven't used at all. I'm quite proud that I am keeping my New Year resolution to use more of my old stash and for my March challenge I found some lace and decided to try that, along with some of my mountain of design paper. I'm going to play along with the Playdate Cafe challenge for the first time and this was to use black and white with a splash of colour.

I can't tell you what the paper is as it has lost its label, but I embelished some of the flowers on it with some fine glitter. The focal panel was stamped with the floral image from Papertrey Ink With Sympathy stamp set and I used the rosebud for my flash of red colour, before mounting it onto Nestabilities Labels Four die cuts. The sentiment is also PTI and it is mounted onto Nestabilities Fancy Tags die cut.

I am also going to enter this card in the challenges at Papertake Weekly challenge and Clear It Out challenge

Cricut scottie doggy dotty birthday card

Hello everyone,

Wow its been a hectic week for me with my daughter's birthday celebrations and other commitments, so I haven't been able to sit and craft until today. As I hadn't used my Cricut in a while, I pulled out Just Because Cards because I hadn't used it yet, and whipped up a quick birthday card with the lovely Scottie Dog image.

I cut 2 panels of paper and embossed the red one with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and stamped the black one with Papertrey Ink Polka Dots Basic stamps in white ink. The sentiment was made up using PTI Birthday Bash and Signature Greetings, stamped on a Nestabilities Labels 4 panel. The collar and doggy tag was made with some flower trim and gold metallic card. I stuck on a wobbly eye and used Glossy Accents to give him a healthy wet nose, and tied the label on with dotty ribbon.