Paper, Scissors and Superheroes

Snow covered strawberries...

Mornin' crafty ladies.  It's dark here and we're all feeling a bit sleepy and slow to get going.  Hoping to get a few things knocked off the list today though, so we'd better get movin'. 

Just thought I'd pop in and share a few cards.  The first one was done for a challenge they have going on over on the Paper Crafts message board....have you every visited there?  Such a warm group of ladies...you should check it out.  They have challenges every week.  This week's challenge was to create a holiday card using either an image that was not intentionally created to be "holiday" or to use a non-traditional color scheme. 

I used the Strawberries from Papertrey's Fruitful set and sprinkled them with a little glittery frost.  The sweet sentiment is from Holiday Button Bits.

 

 

Stamps: Fruitful, Holiday Button Bits, Big and Bold Wishes
Ink:  Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado, Aqua Mist
Cardstock: Kraft
Patterned paper:  Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey
Other:  Aqua Mist buttons, Sweet Blush grosgrain, Fiskars Apron Lace punch, Cuttlebug die (red border)

And next is my CPS card for the week using sketch #142.  Our sponsor was My Favorite Things....

 

Alrighty....my daughter is sitting on my lap as I type and she just said "Mom, that's a lot of words"...so I guess that means it's time to quit.  :-)  Have a great day. 

 

Peace, joy and sparkles...

Happy Wednesday!  Middle of the week...half way to the weekend.  Before I share a few things, can I just take a moment to express how much I despise potty training?  Just had to let that out.  I won't go into details....I don't need to.  All you mommies out there KNOW what I mean.  Ok.  Moving on......

How about a fun little card set today using Heather's adorable trees from last month's Papertrey release.  I love these little trees.  They can take on so many different looks.  I made mine pink and green and sparkly and paired them with some vintage book print and scalloped card bases cut with my Cricut.

 
Stamps:  Holiday Tree, Vintage Labels
Ink: Raspberry Fizz, Spring Moss
Cardstock: Vintage Cream
Patterned paper:  Bitty Box Basics, Holiday Cheer
Buttons:  Raspberry Fizz
Other:  WRMK felt, Glimmer Mist, glitter, Cricut Storybook (scallop squares), vintage text paper

And just a little heads up....if you're thinking about Thanksgiving (it's only a week away!! yikes!) I've got a post on the Paper Crafts Connection blog with some place card ideas for your Thanksgiving table.  Check it out! 

Have a great day!  Wish me a "dry" one. 
 
 
  

November Papertrey and things I've learned along the way....

It's time to share my Papertrey release projects once again!  Love this time of month.  Every month as I work on my release projects I feel like I dicover some new things to love along the way and I thought it would be fun to share them as I post my projects....some Papertrey related, others not as much, but still fun.  :-)  So here we go....

• I love that the Christmas Friends set has the two little birds opposite facing birds.  I love that they give this card a sort of folk art feel.

 

• I learned that I love this color scheme of white, Pure Poppy, Ocean Tides and Spring Moss, especially with a touch of Heather'sRustic Snowflake paper. This card is sort of Christmas-y but yet could easily be used for everyday.

 

• I've learned that I LOVE the new Turning a New Leaf set and can see myself using it tons and tons.

• I've learned that I don't usually like using an exacto knife becuase I'm not very good at it, but for these cards I used this handy little knife which is much easier to control than the regular old style (and it's rectrabtable and I don't have to worry about it slicing my finger off when I stick it in my pen holder). :-)

• I learned that the new Terracotta Tile plays very nice with lots of other PTI colors.  For this card set I used Terracotta, Scarlett Jewel, New Leaf and Raspberry Fizz.

• I discovered that I love the look of stamping Smokey Shadow ink on Kraft.  Can you see the leaves stamped on the Kraft envelopes?  Definitely vintage hip.

• I love the small, witty sentiments in the Big and Bold Wishes set.....they'll be coming out a LOT.

• The scallop circle punch makes a great flower, just snip the scallops to form the petals....I especially love them punched from vintage text paper (just watch yard sales, thift stores, etc for old books).

• I've learned that I can't quite seem to put down the new Nook and Pantry collection from Basic Grey.  I love the colors...so  many of which go perfectly with PTI colors.  I especially love this Doily from the line...it's my very favoritest color and little bits of it make the perfect borders and accents.  The heart in my Christmas Friends card (above) was punched from it as well.  :-)

• I love that big and bold flourish from Big and Bold Wishes. 

• I love added glitter to things including these printed chipboard pieces..it just gives a bit of extra dimension. 
   

Well, that was fun.  Complete supply lists for all of my projects can be found in the Papertrey Gallery.

Have a great night!

A little Q&A....

Hey ladies!  It's Papertrey release night and as I'm hanging out here I thought I'd right up a post answering some questions you've been asking lately.  So...here we go....

1. First some general project/product questions.... 

• Music paper:  I had several of you ask about the green music paper on this card.  It is from the Making Memories Mistletoe collection.  It's glitter and pretty and one of my favorites.  Note to self:  Get MORE. :-)

• Fabric snowflakes:  I had lots of you ask how I did the fabric snowflakes on this card.  They are from the new Winter Woodland Cricut cartridge and I cut them using my Cricut like this...

• Cutting fabric with your Cricut:  I iron my fabric to Ultra Heat n' Bond (make sure it's the ultra...it's the only one that makes your fabric stable enough!).  After you iron it onto the backside of your fabric, just peel away the paper backing and stick your fabric right onto your Cricut cutting mat....Heat n' Bond side down of course.  The Heat n' Bond gives it a kind of plasic-like coating and it will stick right to your mat.  Then just cut away...use settings similar to what you would use for cardstock and make sure you're using a fairly sticky mat and a fairly new blade.  It's fun...you'll be hooked once you try it!!   

• Favorite Cricut Cartridges:  A few of you have asked about this as well.  Hmmm...there are so many it's hard to choose.  It depends on the day, and the project and can change from minute to minute, but in general, some of my very favorite and most used cartridges are Storybook, Home Accents, Home Decor, Joys of the Season, Graphically Speaking, Wild Card,Lyrical Letters, Winter Woodland and A Child's Year

• The embossing on my Cummumique cards:  No real secret here, the embossing continues onto the backside of my card.  I finished off the front edge with one of the border embossers.  To emboss the borders without getting that annoying line from the edge of the folder, I put a strip of fun foam just slighty smaller than the embossing folder like this (permanently attached with a strip of ScorTape so they're ready to go whenever I want to use them)...
  
  
   

and run it thorugh my Cuttlebug with this stack (from the bottom up): A plate, a cardstock shim(3 sheets), my folder with the cardstock inside, C plate.

 
Run it through and you won't have any of those annoying little lines from your folder.

• The masking on my Home Made card:  Stamp the window onto your project and onto a post-it note or scrap paper.

Cut out the inside of the window stamped on the scrap paper, just inside the frame.

Place this over the image on your projects and stamp the flowers. 

Pull off the mask and your flowers are neatly inside the window frame.  Easy peasy.  :-)

 
2.  Photos.  I've had a few of you ask what kind of camera I have, program I use, etc. 

• Camera:  I have a Nikon D50.  I've had it for about 3 1/2 years and I still love it.  My favorite lens is my 50mm 1.8.  It's pretty inexpensive as fas as lenses go and it gets really great, sharp photos even in fairly low light without using the flash.   It stays on my camera 95% of the time and it's what I use to photograph all of my projects.

• Photo editing program:  I use PSE 7.0  I would highly recommend it...it's pretty easy (but powerful) to learn... there are tons of on-line tutorials to get you going if you struggle at first. 

• Photo actions:  I love to use Coffee Shop Photoshop Actions on my photos.  She's got some great ones for color pop, black and white, vingnettes, etc. etc. 

Ok, so that was a lot of info and ended up being way longer than I expected.  Yay for you if you actually read that all.  :-)

So, I'll leave you with a few photos...I posted some photos of my baby girl the other day, and since fair is fair, I'll post a couple of my older two.  :-) Let's just say that their school photos were a bit scarey and I decided to take them out last Saturday and shoot some of my own....love these so much more...their personalities come shining through.  Unlike the school shots.  yikes.  I have a funny story about that...might have to share that on another day. 

These are a few of my favorites.  And btw, I used Coffee Shop's Color Pop and Burn actions on these...

 

 

And just one of the dude...he was a sport, but didn't enjoy it nearly as much as his sister.  :-)

Goodnight!  Be back later with my Papertrey projects for the month!  yipppeee!