Fruit Fusion

Hi everyone and welcome to the first of this month's Papertrey Group Post. Today Nichole and the Design Team are focusing on Melissa Bickford's adorable Fruit Fusion stamp sets and coordinating dies. It's all about the fruit and you're in for a real treat this month. All of the new products will be available May 15th at the Papertrey website.

Since this is my countdown post too, I'll be featuring several projects today. As you read in an earlier post, life is a little busy for me right now. When it comes time to crank out projects during these hustle and bustle times I often have to see out inspiration to get my creative juices flowing. Recently I've been using Pinterest to bookmark all my favorite photos. So today I've chosen 4 photos as inspiration for some fruity tutti projects. If you'd like to visit my other boards you can check out my Pinterest site here. Lots of photos to inspire.

My first inspiration photo features a delightful little kitchen vignette with shiny, red apples + cute, polka dot curtains + a pink, checker blocked tablecloth.

(photo courtesy of rosylittlethings.typepad.com)

For my inspiration project I created a shabby chic apple themed card using Fruit Fusion: Apple.

Using the new Seed Packet die, I created a pink, color blocked pocket to hold an embellished tag. The apples were die cut with the new Fruit Fusion: Apple die and then stamped with two apple images from Fruit Fusion.
Each Fruit Fusion set has mixy match sentiments with very nice font selections. Medium sized tags fit the seed packets nicely...a fun way to add extra little notes.
My next inspiration photo features an advertisement with vintage looking strawberry images + lots of graphic words.

(photo courtesy of the-feathered-nest.blogspot.com)

Wanting to re-create the graphic appeal of the inspiration photo, I used vintage book paper + a font that I curved from Think Big Favorites #4 and a new sentiment coming out this month. You'll notice a new frame on my project. I placed some Fruitti Tutti strawberry patterned paper behind it which was stamped with Papertrey text background. You'll hear more about the frame in tomorrow's post from Nichole The strawberries were die cut and stamped with images from Fruit Fusion. For the background of my card I mixed in some wildflower images from Heather's new Wildflower Garden stamp set.
My next inspiration photo features some quilted picnic blankets. If you look closely you can see several fruit images mixed in. I love the color blocking and the mixy matchy look of the squares.

(photo courtesy of flickr.com via SouleMama)

For my project, I chose to mimic the quilted squares that outline the picnic basket blankets. Using a 1" square punch and lots of mixy matchy patterned paper scraps + a few new snippets from Fruitti Tutti, I lined up the squares along the bottom and right border of my card.
For the main image I used stamps from Fruit Fusion: Pear along with the coordinating die. A Vintage Button finishes off one of the chubby little pears. The background piece was created using Dawn's new Cane Print Impression Plate. I love the quilted look it gives on creamy paper + I added some additional stamps from Fruit Fusion: Pear.
Again, more fun sentiments with this set. Below you can also see the machine stitching I added to my card to give a quilted look. I definitely will be using this card design again...perfect way to use up those tiny scraps of patterned paper.
My last inspiration photo features a vintage mason jar filled with Watermelon Limeade. Looks refreshing, doesn't it? It makes those little squirter things in the back of my cheeks go crazy. This recipe is compliments of Emeril Lagasse. Bam, it's gotta be good, right?

(photo courtesy of leitesculinaria.com) (recipe can be found there too)

My inspiration project resulted in yet another 4" x 6" recipe card for my stash. I used Friendship Jar + lots of filler images + the label and jar die to create the jar, label and *sweet* stamped word. The watermelon scallops were created by hand cutting patterned paper from the Fruitti Tutti collection. Paper pieced watermelon was created with stamps from Fruit Fusion: Melon + the coordinating dies. Love that there are two dies to create both the rind and the red fruit part of the melon. A tied Vintage Button finishes off the watermelon.
When I was done with my stamping session, I had a nice little stash of fruit themed cards.
This got me thinking about all of the colorful, vintage linens I have....many of them having fruits on them.
I think it would make for a sweet, summer time gift to package up some linens and perhaps a cute, crocheted pot holder for that person that loves vintage items. It would make a great little picnic starter kit. I packaged up my 4 projects in a Papertrey Large Glassine sack...layered all the goodies together and then tied it all up with a Pure Poppy ribbon.
So colorful and kitchen-y. Hope you enjoy!

Be sure to check out Nichole's + all the Design Team blogs for even more fruit filled projects. I'll be back tomorrow for our second Papertrey Group Post. See ya then!

• Nichole Heady
• Heather Nichols
• Dawn McVey
• Lisa Johnson
• Betsy Veldman
• Melissa Phillips
• Maile Belles
• Jessica Witty
• Erin Lincoln
• Danielle Flanders