Playing with Mint Motif

I found Kimberly Crawford's blog last summer after seeing card after card after card in the magazines made by her. Let's just say I have many of her cards in my inspiration file! Imagine my delight when she moved to my town this winter. I can tell you that she is just as nice and sweet in real life as she is on her blog. And I can also tell you how nice it is to have a crafty friend "in real life". Someone to "talk shop" with, someone who is just across the table instead of at the other end of my computer. LOL

I was so excited for Kimberly when she told me that she was coming out with her own stamp line, Mint Motif. And how nice of her to let me play with her first release: Very Square and Very Square Sentiments. I'm having so much fun with it! I love squares and I really like the patterns that Kimberly included with this set. You can purchase the sets starting May 14 at i {heart} papers.

Okay, so onto the cards I made using these sets.

 

Those three orange squares (Memento Tangelo ink on PTI White) were made using one of the stamps in the Very Square set. I think this pattern is my favorite! I couldn't stop inking it up in all colors. The sentiment, from Very Square Sentiments, is stamped and then cut apart to give it more prominence on the card. I went back and forth on a ribbon choice but ended up liking this brown gingham bit the best. And a buckle! I think I've had that buckle (MM?) forever just waiting for the perfect situation. A bit of PTI Fresh Snow ink around the edges and it's done!

And here's a card that could be used for a wedding or an anniversary (mine's coming up in just a week!). I used the same design as for the first card above but just flipped it around a bit.

I LOVE polka dots and these are so fun! I inked up the stamps with Colorbox Pink Pastel and stamped them on PTI's Vintage Cream cardstock. This was then layered on the bottom of a Dark Chocolate card. I like having "reverse" polka dots, where I can color the background and have the color of the cardstock peeking through. The top half of the card uses PTI Fancy Flourishes and Everyday Classics on Vintage Cream. A Dark Chocolate satin ribbon wraps around the card and is topped with a Raspberry Fizz button and a sparkly gem. I love how the Raspberry Fizz color totally plays off the lavender. It's so pretty!

Here's the last card - I used just a sentiment on this one:

A Kraft (PTI) card topped with some Pretty Pastels patterned paper (PTI). I stamped the sentiment from Very Square Sentiments on a tag that is all inky and distressed. A bit of ribbon, scallops, button, twine and stitching finishes it up. It's a bit simple but I really like all these colors together.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a peek of these new Mint Motif stamps. Thanks Kimberly!

Happy (belated) Mother's Day

I know I'm a day late for posting this but I'm going to post it anyway because I really liked how this turned out. I made identical cards for my mom and for my MIL. They live on opposite sides of the state. Literally. One lives on the Missouri River and the other lives on the Mississippi River. So, there's no chance they're going to find out that I made the same card for both of them. Unless they read this post. LOL

I had a fantastic Mother's Day. We went to the nursery after church and picked up tomatoes and peppers for the garden. Then a quick trip to Theisen's (the local farm store) to look for sturdy tomato cages. No luck. Found just the regular flimsy ones. There were some more expensive ones at the nursery but $18/cage is pretty expensive to pay for cages, especially when you have to buy a dozen! Ouch!

(All supplies from PTI unless noted otherwise)
Stamps: Butterfly Dreams, Fancy Flourishes, Mixed Messages, Text Style
Ink: Spring Moss, Van Dyke Brown (Nick Bantok), Versamark (for the butterflies on the background)
Paper: Kraft, Ocean Tides, Vintage Cream, Pretty Pastels, ledger paper (Making Memories)
Other: prima glitter, butterfly die, Top Note die (SU!), Sweet Blush twill ribbon, scalloped circle punch

Hope all you moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day full of life's blessings.

Tucker's First Communion

My husband and I are godparents to our nephew, Tucker. Tucker is as cute as can be and such a sweet boy.

Tucker's First Communion was last weekend so we headed back to Matt's hometown for the celebration. The mass was for just the First Communicants and their families and wasn't until 1:00, which totally threw off our whole family's internal clocks on what time it was. We typically go to the earliest mass possible so this was way different for us.

The week got away from me so Tucker just got cash in his card. But, he seemed excited about that because he had it all planned out what game he was going to buy with all his gift money. LOL

Okay, onto the card...

Thanks again to Kimberly for letting me borrow some of her Spellbinders dies. I don't know if I would have chosen this Labels Thirteen just by seeing it in the store but once I used it I can see how versatile this label is. It's great. Sorry, Kimberly you might not be seeing this one again. Just kidding. :)

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps
Ink: Van Dyke Brown (Nik Bantok), Spring Moss (PTI)
Paper: Rustic White and Spring Moss (PTI)
Other: Labels 13 (Spellbinders), Ripe Avocado ribbon (PTI), argyle embossing plate (SU!)

Catch you all later!

PTI April Blog Hop

It's time for the Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop. The challenge issued this month was to use tissue paper on our creation. I've never done that before so stuck with a simple tissue paper flower. I used my BB2 die to cut multiple layers of tissue paper that had been stamped with Polka Dot Basics2.

Thanks to Kimberly for letting me borrow her Labels Twelve Spellbinders die. I like how that part turned out. I simply popped up the Summer Sunrise with pop-dots.

The sentiment is inside. I intended for it to be below the cutout but goofed up (darn double images) so, I concealed my boo-boo with a bow and tied on a dragonfly charm. You can see a closer up image of the polka dots and the charm here.

Stamps: Polka Dot Basics 2, Round & Round for inside sentiment (both PTI)
Ink: Van Dyke Brown (Nick Bantok), Lemon Tart (PTI) Vintage Linen (Ranger), Vintage Tea Duo (PTI)
Paper: Rustic White and Summer Sunrise (PTI)
Other: brown polka dot ribbon (Hobby Lobby), charm and button (unknown), twine (PTI), Beautiful Blooms 2 die (PTI), Labels Twelve (Spellbinders)

Enjoy the rest of your Hop!

Vintage Smile

ETA: Thanks so much to 2S4Y for naming me as a "Fab 5" for this week's sketch. I'm honored and to be honest, it totally made my day.

I used the latest 2S4Y sketch shown below to inspire my card.

I'm positively giddy with how my card came out. I've taken some cues from Betsy Veldman and Melissa Phillips and went with more (and vintage!) details and colors and layers than I'm used to. That little "smile" word from Mixed Messages works so perfectly on the butterfly and on small tags. Love using the little words like that.

So, what do you think? Do you like it?


Stamps: Butterfly Dreams, Mixed Messages, and Text Style 2 (all PTI)

Paper: vintage ledger (Making Memories); green/pink flowers (MME), Pretty Pastels, Kraft, and Ocean Tides (PTI)
Ink: Vintage Tea Due (PTI), Van Dyke Brown (Nick Bantok)
Other: Top Note die (Sizzix for SU!), butterfly die (PTI), pink velvet scalloped ribbon (unknown), embroidery floss, button, Spica pen (it's around the edge of the butterfly)

Thanks for stopping by!

Argyle challenge

I'm a newly minted member of the Papertrey Chicks and our first challenge is to create a card inspired by argyle and/or the colors Hibiscus Burst, Spring Rain, and Smokey Shadow.

I already had a SU! embossing plate so I used that. Thank goodness I had that because, as much as I love argyle, that set didn't make the cut on release night. It will be very high on my wish list, however.

I used a Vintage Cream card base and a Vintage Cream card front, which I embossed with a SU! argyle plate. Love this look! I'm going to have to bust out my argyle plate much more often. I wish I had placed the ribbon a little further up the card but once that Scor-Tape hit the card it wasn't moving anywhere without making a mess and I decided I could live with it.

I also should mention that I had wanted to put Spring Moss ribbon on the card but I didn't have any (it was on its way though!) so I made do with Ripe Avocado. I held the Spring Moss ribbon up to this card today when I received it in my order and I gotta say that I really like the Ripe Avocado better. It's a better intensity match for the Ocean Tides. The SM just lacked "punch". lol

Stamps: Mixed Messages (these work so awesome on tags!)
Ink: Smokey Shadow
Paper: Vintage Cream, Stone (the scalloped circle), Ocean Tides, and PP Pretty Pastels
Other: Argyle impression plate (SU!), scalloped circle punch, Stars die (Sizzix), tag die cut (Quickutz), Ripe Avocado ribbon, button, twine

I still had a little impressed argyle left over so whipped up this card. After looking at this again, I'm thinking maybe I should have gone with polka dots on the background strip. Oh well, this looks alright too.

Stamps: Text Style, Vintage Labels, Mixed Messages, Star Prints
Paper: Rustic cream, Ocean Tides, Spring Moss
Ink: Nik Bantok Van Dyke Brown
Other: argyle impression plate (SU!), Labels 1 (Spellbinders), tag (Quickutz), edge distresser, button, twine

Spring card from Amber

I recently received this lovely card from Amber K on the PTI forum. I tried to post it there but there but "the board attachment quota has been reached." So, I'm posting it here for all of you to see what a wonderful card she made. It's so fun to receive beautiful cards in the post. Thanks Amber!!!