Sweet Cherry Notepads

About this time of year, I like to add some gift items to my stash basket. The teachers are always wanting cute little gifts. And I've been itching to play with Papertrey's Everyday Button Bits some more. I love this set as much as you all do!

I made some of journals that you've seen quite a bit here on the blogaroonie. For more samples and explanations, you can click on the notebooks label at the end of the post. I stamped the adorably cute cherry stems onto Rustic White cardstock and then added some juicy Pure Poppy Vintage Buttons, tied with Rustic Cream Twine. The sentiment *You're so sweet* finishes off the main image which I punched out with a scalloped square punch. Sequins add a little bling to the flower centers of the patterned paper.....which is Early Bird by Cosmo Cricket.

I found this luscious looking vintage, ric rac/crochet ribbon combo at my local quilt shop. Is it not just heavenly? I don't know who makes it, but I {heart} it so much! I've got to find the perfect quilting project to use some one..perhaps a new tote!

Here's a peek at the inside of my notebook.

Well, those really jump started my Sunday morning...I'm raring to make more goodies now! I've got some other stamping projects to work on......plus I want to try a new peach salsa recipe from allrecipes.com......laundry......and family time. Looks like a possibly rainy day too.

Oh, and the girls found a baby snake on the sidewalk yesterday while buzzing around on their scooters. It looked like a rattler, was striking big time....and then I gave it the hoe treatment. ;) If you think you're dealing with the *oh, I love all creatures big and small, regardless if they want to kill me or not family*.......you've come to the wrong blog Sista! Have a snake free day everyone! I hope you take time to stamp today too!!

Peach Crisp for One

It's recipe time and today I grabbed some ingredients to make a Peach Crisp for One recipe card. Fresh Colorado peaches will arriving in the big trucks soon. I'll be sure to buy a couple boxes so I make some peachy creations. This Peach Crisp for One is a favorite recipe because it's easy to make and delicious. My girls can easily make this recipe....we usually assemble four of these so the whole family can have a yummy dessert. Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt increases the yummo factor immensely! :)

I'm using Karen Lockhart's cute peaches in a jar stamp, patterned papers from Sassafras Lass, Papertrey Vintage Buttons and twine, Martha Stewart string and Papertrey's loopy circle from Borders and Corners Circles and the word *peach* from Papertrey's First Fruits. The fonts I used for my recipe card can be found at the left side bar. Recipe card measures 4" x 6".I printed my recipe onto white cardstock and used the pretty patterned papers for the background. The printed recipe block determines how many embellishments I can add to my recipe card. I usually don't have a plan, I just fit little doodads here and there.

The jar of peaches is actually one single jar. I used Eclipse Masking Tape to mask off the top jar of peaches and then stamped the second jar so it looks like it's behind the first jar. I colored my images with Copic Sketch markers. The fun notched ribbon snippet is Papertrey Melon Berry Bitty Dot ribbon and was stitched on with my sewing machine and white thread.

For the bottom of my recipe card, I used some fun scraps of patterned paper to create a punched scalloped border (from Fiskars). Vintage Buttons tied with twine finish off the recipe card.

Here's the recipe for you to copy/print:

Peach Crisp for One

1 cup sliced peaches 2 teaspoons regular oats
2 teaspoons flour 2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons light butter

Place 1 cup sliced peaches in a 10 ounce custard cup coated with cooking spray. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar and light butter. Crumble over peaches. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. From Weight Watchers Annual Recipes for Success 2003 cookbook. 4 points.

More announcements: Be sure to visit the blogaroonie on Monday for a fun Just Rite blog hop. It's all about Christmas....it will be here before we know it!

flitter...flutter...fly

Today I used Karen Lockhart's newest butterfly stamp called Star Butterfly. Karen's butterflies are so cute and can easily be colored or paper pieced as I've done today.

A fun way to add some interest to your focal image is to place the butterflies off center....hanging off of the punched circles. I first stamped my images with black ink onto my circles. This allows the tiny antennas of the butterflies to be seen...but I don't have to spend time cutting out those tiny, detailed areas. Next, I stamped my butterfly images onto Basic Grey Lemonade patterned paper and cut them out. I used some Copic markers in tones of green, blue and pink to add a little dimension to my butterfly images. I then adhered them with pop dots, right over the black stamped images on the scalloped circles. I added these focal images to some very simple card fronts. I used strips of the coordinating patterned paper, the Lockhart *flitter..flutter...fly* sentiment and some tied Vintage buttons from Papertrey.

Very simple notecards to replenish some of my stash. I stamped birthday sentiments on the insides of these three cards.

I think these cute butterflies would also be cute paper pieced with some orange-y/fall patterned paper...maybe to resembe the big Monarch butterflies that I've seen fluttering by lately.

Hope your day is going great! My reds went back to school yesterday so it's very, very quiet around the house. I look forward to when they get off the bus and run to the house to tell me the *school news* for the day. :)

Autumn Abundance

Edit: Susan brought up a very good question. She asked why I would use three Copic colors to color in my leaves (for example) instead of just one color. I posted this photo below to give you a good visual along with my answer. When you see things like a sunflower in real life, it has lots of dimension. The flower petals and leaves have folds and curves. You also see one leaf in front of another leaf...one flower petal in front of other flower petals. All of these factors add up to dimension and depth, foreground and background. This different elements cast shadows on one another. So in real life, you rarely see a color that is just one color. Instead you see highlights and shadows, light areas and dark areas. So in my interpretations of these sunflowers, I used 3 colors on the leaves to represent the shadows and highlights that occur in real life. I want my finished image to look as real life as it can be. I hope that helps to answer your question, Susan. And if you're having trouble with the shading and light and dark areas, google a photo of what you are trying to color. Zoom in on the photo and really study each and every leaf. Pick one flower petal and really analyze where the shadows are and what one petal looks like when it's behind another flower petal. It takes a little doing, but you will get there!

Autumn Abundance is a beautiful new set coming out this month at Papertrey. Nichole did a fabulous job with illustrating the images in this set. For all of you that love to color stamped images with Copics (or watercolors, etc), this set is going to be a must have for your collection. Be sure to check out Nichole's blog to see more ideas for her beautiful new Autumn Abundance stamp set.

I got inspired to make my vase look like spatterware (or speckleware or splatterware), which is a blue enamel finish that has white splatters all over it. Check out these new splatter ware dishes to see what I'm referring to :http://www.norbysonline.com/cgsinspen.html

Here's another example of a spatterware plate:
And a big pot:
And a whole set of spatterware:

Okay, I'm going to start coloring my image and I'll get to the spatterware part in a little bit. First as I've shown before, I start by making a palette of Copic colors. I choose my colors in groups of three (just how Papertrey sells Copics) and scribble a little of each color onto scrap cardstock. Now I have a visual reference of my colors.

I started out by coloring the leaves first of the pretty vase full of sunflowers. I used three shades of greens in YG93, YG95 and YG97.

Next up was the sunflowers. I shaded them in colors of Y32, Y35 and Y38.

Using a mix of E55, E57 and E59, I then colored the centers of the sunflowers. You'll see on my finished card that I went back in with a white gel pen and added some dots to the brown centers to resemble sunflower seeds.

Now for the really exciting part of my colored image...the spatterware vase! I used Copic colors of B95, B97 and B99 to shade the vase in blue. I left a big white spot which is where light would be hitting the vase. Once I had my vase shaded the way I wanted, I took my white gel pen and scribbled little spatters all over. While the white ink was still wet, I smudged the speckles with my finger tip. My vase now resembles spatterware!

I then set aside my colored image and moved on to the card design. For my background papers, I created one custom made background using Guidelines and Ripe Avocado, Enchanted Evening and Summer Sunrise inks. Second, I chose the Ripe Avocado Green Tea Leaves patterned paper and for my third paper, I chose a sheet of In Bloom patterned paper in Enchanted Evening. To keep in line with my spatterware theme, I took white acrylic craft paint and splattered my paper. Voila, custom made spatterware patterned paper!!
Lots more fun elements to my card, including this string of buttons. I simply threaded Rustic Twine through the buttons and spaced them out to fit on my card. One button has a snippet of Summer Sunrise Swiss Dot ribbon to match up with the sunflower colors.

And here's my finished card. I layered my colored image with Spellbinder's Rectangle Nestabilities and Scalloped Rectangle Nestabilities die templates. The rest of the card background features different blocks of my patterned papers and the string of buttons. The sentiment along the bottom is featured in Autumn Abundance along with some other very unique sentiments.

And here's a close up of my colored vase of sunflowers. I used Ranger Glossy Accents on my vase to give it shine. This really makes the spatterware come to life as it gives it that realistic enamel coating that is common with spatterware pieces.

So I hope you enjoyed my post today. Autumn Abundance is a terrific match with your Copics. Stay tuned because I'll be adding more and more Copic tips as we go along!

Tags Two Ways

Edit: I previously had listed that the acorns were from Autumn Abundance....they are actually from the new Fall Elegance stamp set being released this month. So sorry for the confusion.

This month's group challenge for Papertrey Ink was to create one project using the new 2009 Halloween Tags stamp set. Then we were to create another version of the same project, using the new 2008 Autumn Tags set. Check Nichole's blog HERE for more details.

Halloween and Fall are two of my favorite occasions to make cards and gifts for, so this was a fun challenge. With the 2009 Halloween Tags set, I chose to make two treat bag tags for my girls.
Using Kraft cardstock for my tag bases, I added black background stars, rounded the tag corners at the top and inked the edges with Fresh Snow ink. I used the cute ghost tag for my main focal point. I paper pieced the ghosts, popping them up on pop dots....colored some of the image with an orange Copic marker....and cut and layered my images with Spellbinder's Circle and Pinking Circle die templates.
For the bottom of my tags, I created some custom made patterned paper by using images from the Background Basics: Retro stamp set. Tied Vintage Buttons and Black and White gingham ribbon finish off the tags. The to/from stamp is from the 2009 Halloween Tags collection.
My cute little tags are all ready to be attached to some Papertrey gift bags. I love these Frosted bags, the sheer look reminds me of ghosts!

And instead of using ribbon, I made some matching, covered clothespins with some leftover patterned paper and tied Vintage Buttons. The girls can use the clothespins to clip together papers, etc.

And in similar fashion, here is my tag using the 2009 Autumn Tags set. I used the same basic layout for my fall tag. The sentiment "Autumn Harvest" was used to create the background along with some little acorns from the new Fall Elegance set coming out this month. The pumpkin and orange images were stamped with Melon Berry, it takes on a nice fall color when stamped onto Kraft cardstock.

A pretty Ripe Avocado Satin ribbon and Vintage Buttons tied with Rustic Jute Twine finish off the tag. Patterned paper strips were made from the Hocus Pocus 8" x 8" paper pad and a homemade strip using yet another image from the new Autumn Abundance set. The bottom background design is from Background Basics: Retro.

I've got some giant pumpkins growing in the vine garden and I think this tag will be perfect to tie onto one this fall.

I'm just as excited as you are to see what the rest of the Papertrey gang created! Check out their blogs here:

Nichole Heady
Becky Oehlers
Heather Nichols
Lauren Meader
Lisa Johnson
Dawn McVey
Debbie Olson
Geny Cassady
Betsy Veldman
Melissa Phillips
Niki Estes

Sittin' in my rocking chair...

Karen Lockhart has some new images that are really homey and comfy. I love her new Rocking Chair image with the cozy quilt and the basket of juicy looking apples. It's the perfect little image for some fall cards.

I paper pieced the quilt with some October Afternoon patterned paper and then colored the rest of the image with Copic Sketch markers. The image was stamped on Kraft cardstock and was die cut with a Spellbinder's Large Deckle Rectangle die template. This die gives the look of deckle edge scissors, remember when those were all the rage a few years ago?

For the sentiment, I used a fun one from Lisa Johnson's On the Couch from Papertrey Ink. Vintage Buttons and a scallop border adorn the bottom of the card. The Copic Sketch marker colors I used are shown below.

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely in a *sit in my rocker for a spell* kind of mood. The summer is winding down, the girls are all enrolled for school and I'm getting calls from school secretaries already asking for sub dates. Yep, school will be in session for the girls and me both very soon! We better enjoy this last week of summer vacation while we can!

Mass Production...assembly line style

I love to create projects in mass production mode. But so often, I hear that stampers don't create this way because they don't know how to, or simply don't take the time to do it. It's a great way to get lots of projects done for gifts, to fill your stash basket, or to simply use up some of those supplies you have been saving to use.

When I mass produce(which means making more than one like item at a time), I like to work in an assembly line. To get a visual, think of that old I Love Lucy episode where Lucy gets behind in the chocolate factory. I also think of my mom who told me she once worked at Hallmark and her favorite assembly line jobs were gluing feathers and adding glitter to cards.

So you wanna see what I made? I always like to take gifts for my friends at CHA, so I decided to make some cute journals for the Papertrey girls. When working in mass production style, it's always smart to have a good idea of what you want to create in advance. I had a sketch drawn out and knew just what I wanted to do. I usually make one finished piece first or just lay it all out so that I know everything fits together good. When mass producing, I finish each part of the finished pieces in steps, then assemble all the pieces....I don't finish one notebook one at a time.

I started out by stamping lots and lots of picnic baskets from Vintage Picnic onto patterned paper. I used two October Afternoon designs and one design from Papertrey's Green Tea Leaves patterned paper pack(the Aqua Mist color). I knew I wanted 3 baskets on each of my notebooks, so I stamped 27 baskets to make 9 finished notebooks. I used a W3 Copic Sketch Marker to add some shadows to the picnic baskets. So: stamp baskets, add marker color, cut out with fine tip scissors. What a cute little pile.
Next up, I wanted one of each Vintage Button colors of New Leaf, Aqua Mist and Melon Berry. I hand picked each button from my stash, laid them all out and tied them with Vintage Jute Twine. Gotta love the buttons!

Then to save some time, I printed my sentiments onto Kraft cardstock using my computer. I punched out 9 scalloped circles, stamped 9 loopy circles from Borders and Corners Circles(one of my favorite stamps of all time), stamped 9 little leaf images and then inked all 9 circles with Vintage Cream ink. I did each step times 9. I also cut out 9 strips of the orange/cream ribbon (Martha Stewart) and 9 strips of the green/orange stripe ribbon.

Then it was time to do something else like make supper or break up fighting redheads. Interruptions happen often when mass producing, so be prepared. I like to gather up all my goodies and place them in separate containers (like my vintage tin molds found at antique shop). This way, I can keep all my little pieces organized and come back to them later. Or if I need to work on another project, I can easily push this project aside and come back to it later.

Now it's time to assemble my notebooks. The notebooks are junior notepads that are cut in half (Kinkos or any place that can make cuts)...final notebook measurement is 2.5" x 8". Cardstock cover goes around the front, left hand spine and back of the notebook. I use Scor-Tape to adhere back of notebook to the cardstock. Also click on the *notebooks* label at the end of this post to see more of my notebooks. I first cut, scored and folded my notebook covers using Ripe Avocado paper. Polka Dots from Polka Dot Basics were stamped using Versamark ink. Then I cut and stamped Kraft cardstock pieces using SU! Only Orange ink and Polka Dot Basics II. All edges were inked with Vintage Cream ink.

Below you can see the notebook covers with the polka dots. The actual notebooks are called junior note pads and can be found at any office supply store or office supply aisle.

I then adhered all the polka dot pieces to the notebook fronts. Next up is adhering all the fun embellishments. I sorted my pieces into 9 separate little piles. This way, I could sort my basket patterns and get the buttons all lined up correctly. I then went to work and adhered all of the pieces to the notebook fronts.

Next up, I up adhered the sentiment circles to the notebook fronts with pop dots. I also adhered the ribbon snippets and then trimmed them with scissors.

And here's my finished pile of notebooks. My favorite part of mass producing is seeing all of my finished projects grouped together. Makes me smile big time!

Here's a little close up shot of the sentiment circles and the ribbon.

And I couldn't forget to add a hand stamped circle to the back, using Trademarks and orange ink on Kraft cardstock.

I packed all these goodies up and had them ready to hand out at CHA! The Papertrey gang loved them, especially Jane and Julie! I tried to give my notepad to David but he didn't want to be teased by the guys at work. Totally understandable, David!

I hope you think about mass producing once in a while. You don't have to do it every time but it's sure a great way to tackle gifts, Christmas cards and to just fill up your stash. It's so nice to have some extra cards and gifts on hand. Good luck, Lucy!

CHA Super Show.....let the shopping begin!

It was finally time for the first day of the CHA Super Show. But first I wanted to give a shout out to some close friends I saw while at CHA. Heather and I got to break away during the booth set up and have lunch with Debbie, Cami, and Joy. We've been online friends for years so it was really great to finally meet up in person!And I have to give a giant thank you to David, Nichole's awesome husband! He has the patience of a saint......he drug us around everywhere for morning Starbucks coffee, Walmart trips and worked so hard in the booth, going back and forth to the storage area for product refills.

David pretty much let us girls do most of the talking......probably more like we just over ran the poor man.......and he had this UHaul in tote everywhere we went. He's a very good driver, yet he had 5 female back seat drivers giving him directions all the time. I finally got him to pose for his Senior Picture and he chose the UHaul as his backdrop. Doesn't David look all handsome in this photo??????? I owe David some cookies or something big time!

And here we all, all the Papertrey girls, ready for the booth to open on that first day of the Super Show. From the left, it's me, Debbie, Nichole, Heather and Dawn.

We had our aprons full of notepads and cute pens, ready to greet all of the great Papertrey customers.

Jane and Julie were ready at the cash register area.

And then the doors opened. The first thing we saw were women speed walking to our booth. I know you all wanted to break into a sprint to be the first in line, it was so fun to watch you all!! Here I am at the make and take booth.

There were tables set up for 7 seats...and then the lines formed, seven at a time. You were all so patient with us, we tried to visit with everyone and keep it moving quickly. There were lots of you who came back for all six make and takes, that was fun!

At the right, the line formed to get into the shopping area. Nichole and Dawn were there to greet each and every customer who was waiting in line.

The check out was crazy also but you were all so patient. Jane's son J.D. brought his girlfriends two teenage daughters to help out. They were amazing help and so cute....and tan!!

Here you all are, shopping in the booth.

These two little cutie pie shoppers stole my heart! I think this is Kim and Amy(sorry if I got that wrong)......they came back to the booth several times and just couldn't decide what to get. In the midst of all the people, they plopped down right in the shopping booth, just on the other side of the make and take wall. Heather and I would feel this little tap, tap from the girls every so often. We answered their questions and helped them make decisions. So when we finally spied them in the checkout line, we had to snap their photo.

And here they are with their shopping totes full of Papertrey goodies. One of my favorite things to do was ask you all what you got and then peek into your shopping bags. I could feel your excitement and I definitely had a fun time with you all!

Here we are on our last night together. We are smiling and happy.....but man were we tired and sore!!

I had a great time meeting up with my fun friends and sharing the first ever Papertrey retail shopping experience with you!! Thank you all for your kind words, asking for our autographs and photos, and telling us how much you love our work and our blogs. You make my job really fun!!