PTI: Birthday Wishes to You

The current challenge at A Passion for Papertrey is to use negative die cuts.

If I EVER again think about doing a negative die cut with a word die - that has lots of little extra pieces that have to be glued back in - just shoot me...or maybe just take away my Cuttlebug!!


Sorry for the shadowy gray look to this picture - I can never get a nice white card but keep enough shadow on it to show off the embossing - particularly when it very subtle like the Papertrey impression plates.
I wanted the entire focus on the sentiment - so I used the nice simple sketch at Seize the Birthday.

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Wonderful Words Birthday
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Simply Chartreuse, Hibiscus Burst, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Simply Chartreuse
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Wonderful Words Birthday die, Beautiful Blooms II #3 die, Hibiscut Burst button, Martha Stewart Fine Crystal Glitter, Trendy Twine Tickled Pink

Retrosketches with some Papertrey Love

This is my second post today!

A number of challenges came together for me this week (I love it when that happens!!).  There is a new sketch at retrosketches.

I didn't really want to use a heart because I am pretty much done with Valentine's Day.  In digging through my die stash, I found the notched flower dies from Papertrey Ink.  This made me think about the fact that there is a lot going on at PTI this month with their sixth anniversary.  One of the things going on is CASing their design team and the prize is the first $300 of stuff on your wishlist.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Of course, they have hundreds and hundreds of entrants, but you can't win if you don't try!!

I have always liked this card from Maile Belles.  I've actually totally CASed it already - but I wanted to focus on what I like best - the neutral, soft gray background and the pop of vibrant color.

At the point that I was picking the sentiment - I remembered another challenge at A Passion for Papertrey: Love Is In the Air.  So after my attempt to avoid a heart - I still ended up with a love card!!

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Signature Greetings, Turning a New Leaf
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Soft Stone, Raspberry Fizz, Simply Chartreuse, Summer Sunrise dp and Vellum Cardstock
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Soft Chartreuse, Memento black
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Notched Flower die, Turning a New Leaf die, Summer Sunrise button, Impression Plate, misc twine, Spellbinder rectangle die

A Papertrey Rainbow

I'm playing with a couple of Papertrey challenges.  The first 2013 challenge at A Passion for Papertrey is "Thank You" and Make It Monday on the Papertrey blog is Repeats and Rainbows.


Make It Monday gave five rainbow color schemes and wanted cards using a repeating stamp.  I have probably gone beyond the bounds of the challenge as I used five different stamps from their Banner Builder set, but I'm trying to convince myself that it's still a "repeat"!!?

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Banner Builder, Think Big #1
• Paper: black and white
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Hibiscus Burst, Summer Sunrise, Simply Chartreuse, Blueberry Sky and Winter Wisteria
• Accessories: EK Success heart sticker, misc punched flower, Papertrey Chartreuse felt and Holly Jolly die, Papertrey Ink Blueberry button, misc twine

Christmas with Papertrey

This is my second post today.

The current challenge at A Passion for Papertrey is "Christmas is Coming".  The most recent Christmas/winter set that I purchased was Snowflake Flurries, so I definitely had to use it!

You can always tell when I am in a bit of a slump because I have to use multiple challenges.  Don't get me wrong - I love challenges but you rarely see me use more than one at a time for inspiration.  Today, I started with A Passion for Papertrey, but then needed help with the sketch and used Cardabilities and even then I needed some color help so used Just Add Ink.

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Snowflake Flurries
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Sweet Blush
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Aqua Mist, Dark Chocolate, Kraft and Sweet Blush
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Buttons in Aqua Mist and Sweet Blush, Mark Richards White Glitter Domes, Martha Stewart Crystal Fine Glitter (applied to the flag with spray adhesive)

Your Number's Up!

This week's challenge at A Passion for Papertrey is called "Your Number's Up" - using numbers somewhere on your card.  I have a couple of big birthdays coming up right after Christmas - a new 13-year old and a new 17-year old so I thought I would get a head start on these.

Plus, in the back of my mind is A Passion for Papertrey's last challenge - to show an uninked stamp some inky love - I have so many uninked stamps that I'm going to focus on those as I play along with each challenge.  This week is "Grunge Me".  I love what I have seen done with it - and I have nothing else like it - but it really is out of my comfort zone.  I solved a little bit of my problem by not truly collaging(?) the stamps together - I just ran them up the side!


I used the sketch from this week's CAS(E) this Sketch! to remind you that with Thanksgiving in the U.S. we are running the challenge for two weeks - so you have 9 more days to play along.  The sketch is truly flexible - my card for the design team was a pastel, glittery penguin - this card is masculine and grunged!

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Grunge Me, Boy Basics: Game On (sentiment)
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Classic Kraft, Enchanted Evening
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Classic Kraft, Enchanted Evening, Canyon Clay
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Alpha Blocks Numbers

Passion for Papertrey: Some Inky Love

The blog challenge, A Passion for Papertrey, challenges us to use a Papertrey Ink set that hasn't seen love yet.  That's so easy for me that it's almost hard!

I am a collector as much as I am a cardmaker - so I have no shortage of uninked sets.  For this card, I narrowed it down simply by the fact that I had the unused PTI tree die out with an idea for a different card.  This pointed me toward Christmas, which then led me to the very unique set Peace Be Still - an unused stamp and an unused die.  Then I decided to really throw caution to the wind and I pulled out some unused PTI paper!!

I cannot believe that I hadn't shown love to any of these unused products!!I did the tree as a window because I loved the cards that I was seeing over at The Catered Crop's Challenge to accentuate the negative!!A marching band update - bittersweet news.  My son's band did move up a spot to 9th in the state, but only the top 8 bands competed in finals - I think it was almost worse for them to get that close.  On the other hand, they moved up by beating their cross town rivals for the first time EVER and that took A LOT of the sting out of missing finals.  We have plans today to gather around the TV and cheer for our Denver Broncos. (I only have five minutes to type and link this!)  But Andrew is so exhausted from the last few weeks of marching band, that he stumbled downstairs, ate some breakfast cereal and is already sound asleep on the family room floor. We decided to let him sleep a little as long as we could hear the football game over his snoring!

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Peace Be Still
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Fine Linen and Ripe Avocado CS, Holiday Flourishes and Swirls dsp
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Ripe Avocado, Fresh Snow
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Peace Be Still die and tree die, May Arts gold twine, Recollections gold (on the leaf sprig), Martha Stewart Fine Crystal glitter (on the tree), sparkle white embossing powder (on bird)