Papertrey Ink March Blog Hop - Embroidery Stitching on Paper

The Papertrey Ink Blog Hop challenge this month is to incorporate embroidery stitching on your paper project. The first stamp set that came to mind for this was Doodlie-do - it has simple images and lines that almost suggest the type of stitches to use. Here is what I came up with- (no sun today so not the greatest picture)

I stamped the image that I wanted to embroider in Soft Stone ink and the rest with Versafine Onyx Black. The sentiment was heat embossed - I did this before I started stitching in case it didn't turn out. Using a straight pin I pierced the holes for the section of the image I wanted to embroider first being careful not to put the holes too close together. I used three strands of floss and worked my way through the image, piercing and stitching each section as I went. I used mainly an outline stitch, french knots and a modified satin stitch. Stitching on paper has it's own unique challenges, you are handling your paper a lot more than usual so you have to be careful, your thread starts to shred a bit after being pulled repeatedly through the paper, so keep your thread fairly short and if you work the paper too much and put too many holes in it you essentially perforate it and your work can fall apart.

I have embroidered on scrapbook pages in the past, and when I first saw this challenge I wondered why I hadn't carried that over onto my cards. After spending I don't know how many hours embroidering on this card I remembered why - it is a huge time investment. This card is going to a very special someone, so it was worth it. I enjoyed the challenge of embroidering on paper, but after doing all of the stitching I was really worried that I would mess up the card in some way I was almost afraid to put it together.

Supplies:
Stamps - Doodlie-Do, Birthday Cheer (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White, Soft Stone, Enchanted Evening CS (PTI)
Ink - Soft Stone (PTI), Versafine - Onyx Black, Versamark, Blue EP
Other - embroidery floss (DMC), bitty rhinestones

Make It Monday #241 - Ombre Stenciled Backgrounds

Monday's 'Make It Monday' challenge at Papertrey Ink is all about Ombre Stenciled Backgrounds. Betsy Veldman does a great video tutorial here. We are still under construction and my house is still upside down, but I did manage to quickly stencil a couple of pieces of cardstock and really liked the way this one turned out. Took a few minutes today to make a card out of it and get it posted before tomorrow's deadline.

Edited to add a second picture to show the sentiment as silver, people were seeing it as gold. Had trouble photographing this card because I didn't have a lot of light or time. Hope that helps.

 
  I thought the background was so pretty I didn't want to embellish it too much (which I can't really do anyway since most of my embellishments are still stuck in the back of a room stacked with furniture that is hopefully going back into the basement soon.  Received an order late this week so had to use my new stencil and the new to me Birthday Cheer Die. I cut it out 3x in black CS and once in Silver Foil CS. I layered and staggered the final bottom black die cut  and added a few foil chevrons since it did need something.
Thanks for looking.

Supplies:
Dies - Birthday Cheer, Chevrons, Modern Background Stencil (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Silver foil CS
Ink - Sweet Leaf, Sky, Moonstruck (CTMH)

Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary - Colour Pop Fortune Teller Challenge

Good Morning! and Happy Valentine's Day. I have another card for one of Papertrey Ink's 9th Anniversary challenges - to use a Fortune Teller to decide your colour scheme. This was a fun challenge, haven't used one of those little paper games since I was a child. I chose to use two sets of colours - with the numbers 3 and 3, I got Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest and Pure Poppy, when I used 2 and 3, I got Simply Chartreuse and Orange Zest and Pure Poppy again. This colour combo said flowers to me, so this is what I came up with. I did not have Simply Chartreuse ink so used an ink from my stash that was the closest I could get to it.

I ended up having to add a little bit of blue to my background since when I was doing my ink smooshing with green I wasn't careful enough and you could see the lines created by my ink pad. The blue ink didn't cover it but at least it is not as noticable. I stamped the images with Mini Blooms and added a bit of colour with Prismacolour pencils.

Supplies:
Stamps - Mini Blooms, Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI)
Dies - Double Ended Banners, Mini Blooms (PTI), Stitched Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Tulip, Orange, Sunflower, Sky (CTMH), Prismacolour pencils

Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary - Day 5 - Sampler Square Challenge

And the fun continues at Papertrey Ink. Yesterday was Day 5 and the challenge was to cut out nine 1 1/2" squares and use a different technique on each. You are then to mount them on a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" card base - apparently I can't read since I mounted mine on a 5" x 5" card base - not changing it now. I had a lot of fun with this one. Here is my card:

Sorry for the bad picture. Have no place to take them right now that the house is totally turned upside down with renovations. Also had no access to my embossing supplies so that narrowed things down a bit. Here are the techniques I used:
1. Stencilling
2. Ink Smooshing
3. Soften Stamped Images with Vellum
4. Emboss
5. Camouflaging Inlaid Die Cuts
6. Layered Coverplate Diecuts
7. Colouring with Copics
8. Ombre
9. Adding Colour to Stamped Images w. Colour pencils

Supplies:
Stamps - Doodlie-Do, Boutique Borders: Love, Fashion Sense, Birthday Style, Mini Blooms, Live Love Life (PTI)
Dies - Chevron Coverplate, Hexagon Coverplate, Heart Border, Chevron, Wet Paint (PTI), Std. Squares Lg and Sm (Spellbinders)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Vellum, Sweet Leaf, Crystal Blue CS (CTMH)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Baby Pink, Blush, Hollyhock, Sweet Leaf, Crystal Blue, Copics, Prismacolor Pencils

Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary - Day 3 - Grab & Craft Challenge

Day 3 of Papertrey Ink's Anniversary celebration was actually a couple of days ago, I have had no telephone and internet service for the past day so am only now getting caught up. This challenge was to take 5 minutes to collect supplies then create a card using all of the supplies you had chosen. - see the details here.

I grabbed white cardstock, one stamp set, one coverplate, my copics, 3D foam tape and black ink. Here is what I came up with. I used everything that I grabbed and am quite happy with how it turned out.

I coloured the hexagons with copics then popped them up with 3D foam. The hexagons on the very bottom are actually purple, but with no sun today it did not photograph well. I did have one little cheat - once I had laid out my hexagons with the pop of colour in the bottom corner the sentiment needed to echo some of that colour, so I did add orange ink to the mix.

Supplies:
Stamps - Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI)
Coverplate - Hexagon (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Neena Solar White CS
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Orange (CTMH), Copics - B32, 34, 37, YR00, 12, 16, BV02, 04,08, G00, 05, 17, YG01, 03, 17, BG10, 13, 15
Other - 3D foam

Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary - Day 2 - Dress Up Inspiration

Day two of Papertrey Ink's Anniversary celebrations introduced a new line of products of dress up dolls, what fun! The challenge is to create a card using an item of clothing from your closet or an item found on line as your inspiration. I went through my closet, which is filled mostly with solid coloured items, and came up with this t-shirt that screamed ink smooshing to me. This was a fun challenge and fit well with my current lack of supplies.

Here is the inspiration piece:

I smooshed my inks one colour at a time in the general area that I wanted to stamp my images and then stamped the flowers and leaves over top. Added a sentiment and done!

Supplies:
Stamps - Doodlie-do, Keep It Simple: Thinking of You (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)
Die - Stitched Rectangle (Lil Inkers)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Pear, Sky, Gypsy, Cotton Candy (CTMH)
Other - mister, acetate sheet

Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary - Day 1 Team Favourites Colour Challenge

Well, it is that time of year when Papertrey Ink celebrates it's birthday. A time of new product release, fun challenges and lots of great prizes. The challenge for Day 1 was a colour challenge - you can check it out here.

These challenges are doubly so for me since we are currently doing basement renovations and my entire craft room is packed up, with many things inaccessible, yikes!!!! I have no embellishments and no access to my embossing tools, as well, where I usually take my photos is packed with furniture - so here goes.

I chose Lizzie's colour palette and came up with this card:

I was inspired by this gorgeous card created by Laura Bassen. I die cut balloons from cardstock in the colours of the pallette, sponged some ink on the left side and bottom of each to give them some shadow and added a highlight to each with a white gel pen. After adhering them to the die cut white cardstock and stamping the sentiment, I drew lines for the strings using a glitter gel pen. Popped it onto a card base with fun foam and done.

Supplies:
Stamps - Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI)
Dies - Birthday Style (PTI), Stitched Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Hawaiian Shores, Aqua Mist, Limeade Ice, Summer Sunrise, Berry Sorbet, Stampers Select White cardstock (PTI)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, White, Glitter Jelly Roll pens (Sakura), various inks for shading

Papertrey Ink MIM#236 - A La Carte - Watercolour Smooshing

Happy New Year everyone! It has been a while - other obligations have taken precedence but it sure feels good to be back. I needed a new baby card and since this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink offered a plethora of techniques I thought I would play along. The challenge this week is to select one of the many wonderful techniques highlighted throughout 2015's Make It Monday challenges. I chose Betsy Veldman's Watercolour Smooshing, MIM #204.

This was a fun and easy card to complete. I varied Betsy's technique slightly based on the way Laura Bassen creates paper smooshing - you can check that out here. Using a piece of acetate I placed my ink on watercolour paper one colour at a time and allowed each colour to dry before adding the next, it is a little more deliberate than the way Betsy explains it in her video but it is basicly the same idea. I love how this simple one layer card turned out.

Supplies:
Stamps - Mini Blooms, Tiny Tags (PTI)
Dies - Tiny Tags (PTI), Bow (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Watercolour Paper 140lb (Strathmore), Pear CS (CTMH)
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Clear EP, Sky, Pear (CTMH)
Other - bitty rhinestones, Coats metallic thread

Papertrey Ink November Blog Hop - Merry Christmas Sparkle

Good Morning! Today is the day of Papertrey Ink's monthly blog hop. For this month's challenge we had this gorgeous inspiration photo to play with.

 I could have gone in so many different directions and actually started out with a different card in mind but ended up with this design. The photo does not do it justice, I do love how this card turned out.

I first stamped the wreath shape from Rustic Wreath in a dark green - I tried with lighter inks first, but it looks better if you can see the shape of the wreath through the dots. I then evenly spaced the largest dot from Polka Dot basics in a dark teal around the wreath. Next I stamped the light green and light blue with the next smallest dot and using Versa Mark I randomly stamped a smaller dot and heat embossed in silver. Since my light blue ink was stamped last some of the embossing powder stuck to the blue dots but not the green, it is a nice effect. After embossing the sentiment in silver I stamped over the large teal dots with versa mark ink and then rubbed Perfect Pearls over them. Topped it off with a silver foil bow and mat and a scattering of tiny rhinestones.

Supplies:
Stamps - Rustic Wreath, Polka Dot Basics (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Silver Foil CS
Ink - Lagoon, Topiary, Pear, Sky (CMTH), Versa Mark, silver EP, Perfect Pearls
Dies - Lil Inkers Bow Die
Other - bitty rhinestones

MIM #228 - Pearlized Blending

Hello all. It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to play along with Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday challenge. This week Lizzie has a great tutorial on using Perfect Pearls over blended ink.

I have two cards to share today. For both I created a mask from vellum as Lizzie suggested and die cut a hole using a Spellbinders circle die. I forgot to heat emboss a design on the red bauble before I started blending my inks, so I just added a sparkly flourish afterwards. The little silver caps on the baubles were cut from a Tiny Tag die cut. The Perfect Pearls really make these ornaments shimmer. I think I well make more of them as they are single layer cards and are fun and quick to do.

Supplies:
Stamps - Meadow Greens, Rustic Wreath, Tremendous Treats Christmas, Keep It Simple: Season's Greetings (PTI)
Dies - Tiny Tags (PTI), Plain Circles Small (Spellbinders)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Silver Foil CS
Ink - Versa Mark, Clear EP, VersaFine Onyx Black, Copic Multiliner, Perfect Pearls - Perfect Pearl, Hollyhock, Tulip, Vineyard Berry, Sky, Dutch Blue, Moonstruck, Topiary, Ponderosa Pine (CTMH)
Other - rhinestones, silver flourish