A Perfect Shopping Day......Priceless!

Hi everyone, I'm back from CHA and am back in the swing of things at the home front. I'm dragging though...these trips really take it out of me. I saw lots of new and old friends....got tons of great ideas.....saw all the latest and greatest products....ate some fabulous food and more! I'll be sure to share some of my favorites from CHA when I get those photos sorted.

For today, I created some fun cards for my girls. I just felt like putzing around in my stamp room yesterday but didn't really know what I wanted to create. Then the girls got up and we started talking about school starting soon and what new things we needed. So I decided to make them each a card that they could write their shopping list items on the inside.

I'm still loving my new October Afternoon patterned papers so I dug those out of my stash, along with Papertrey's Wise Owl. I thought that the owl would work well for school shopping, being they are are so *wise* and it would work into my school theme. The kits of October Afternoon paper contained lots of cut outs, photo corners and scalloped borders so it was easy to put together collage type cards. I paper pieced the owls onto some polka dot patterned paper, the beak and bellies onto solid pink card stock and then stamped the eyes onto PTI white card stock. I added some Ranger Glossy Accents to the eyes to make them pop even more. The front owl pieces were tied with Papertrey Dark Chocolate Ribbon.
Then for the inside of the card, I used some lined ledger paper from the OA kit....added some more of the fun owl stamps on punched circles........and then stamped *my shopping list* using the PTI Simple Alphabet stamp set. I'm going to have the girls fill our their lists and then carry the cards with them on our school shopping day. School shopping is one of my favorite things to do....I loved getting new pencils, paper, markers, book bags, etc as a child so I want to make it just as fun for my girls. We'll take the entire day to shop, try on clothes, eat lunch and make some fun memories.
Along with the cards, I'm going to give the girls a bag full of snacks, some juice boxes and spending money for the day. They'll be so surprised!! Then afterwards, we come home and lay out all the goodies for Dad to see. This is exactly what I would do too, so fun!!
Tip of the day: Above I have a photo of some Ranger Distress Ink and the foam applicator that attaches to a wooden stamper type block. While at CHA, I stopped to watch Tim Holtz for a little bit and he used the inker in a cool way to add distress shading to projects. Instead of holding the paper in one hand the inking tool in the other and *flicking* the paper edges.........he placed the paper onto a craft mat and then inked it by sliding the inked tool onto the paper edges. He inked the tool then started on the craft mat then overlapped the paper edges, rubbin in a circular motion. This gives THE softest application of ink. If you want just a little shading, you just go in with the tool a little bit. If you want more shading you move the inking tool in further. VERY cool tip I learned so I had to share it!

Papertrey Soldered Quilt Blocks

Hi everyone, by now I'm in Chicago for CHA! I wanted to show you some soldered pieces that made using the Papertrey Quilter's Sampler and Sentiment sets. I startd out by stamping quilt blocks onto PTI patterned papers. I punched them out with a 3/4" square punch, available at PTI also (a must have with this set). I added a little shading to the stamped quilt blocks with Copic Sketch markers.
Then I adhered various quilt blocks to a square of solid cardstock.
On the other side, I pieced together a sentiment that I just LOVE. It was too long to fit into my square so I stamped it, then cut it into strips. I like the homemade look it gives. I then inked both sides of my piece with Ranger Distress Ink for a vintage look then soldered my pieces to make pendants.

I'll be giving these pendants as gifts to some fellow Papertrey Designers. I included a snippet of ribbon so they can be tied onto a bag or name badge, etc. Later on, the pendant could hang from a chain or ribbon and be used as a necklace. I could see these soldered pieces also being used to tie around a baby quilt as a gift.....maybe hang off a big basket that holds winter blankets....or maybe on a sewing basket. Ohhhh, the possibilities!
I'll take lots of photos at CHA to share when I get back! Hope you're having a great summer!!

Lockhart Sweetie Pie

I loved making this card, there are so many fun elements!! I was inspired by some new October Afternoon patterned that I purchased recently. I just had to do something with that apple paper! I paper pieced Karen Lockhart's new Apron stamp with some coordinating October Afternoon patterned paper. The towel also has been paper pieced. I then colored a Lockhart Itty Bitty Apple and adhered it to the apron pocket. This totally ties the apron into the background paper. For an accent piece, I cut a portion from the Lockhart Berry Pie Shoe image and colored it to resemble a slice of apple pie. I mounted this on circle and scallop circle Spellbinder's Die Templates and added some airbrushing to the white circle so that the pie slice would stand out. I finished off my card with Papertrey birthday sentiments....love that Sweetie Pie, it's perfect with this card! There's lots of layers and dimension to this card, here's a closeup view.
And another closeup of the slice of pie. Yummo!

All Lockhart stamps can be purchased at Ellen's online store. I found the October Afternoon paper at the Two Peas website.

October Afternoon Quilt Card

I'll be heading off to Chicago for CHA very soon! I'm working half days at the Copic booth, a few hours at the JustRite booth on Friday and the rest of the time, I'll be walking the floor to scope out all the cool new products coming out soon. And I get to meet up with lots of friends. It will be a good time! I'll take photos and let you know my favorite finds when I return on Sunday! Some girls asked how you go to CHA....you can go as a vendor who has products or you can go as a retailer who wants to purchase products. For girls like me, you can either go by working in vendor booth as part of the design team or you can tag along with a retailer friend who is kind enough to acquire a badge for you. It's a great time!!

Remember that old quilt that I rescued from the garage sale. This is it. It's worn and tattered but I love it anyway! How could you not admire the hard work that someone did? I love to think that these scraps were probably leftovers from someone's dress or curtains many years ago. I was inspired to make a crazy quilt card of sorts. Here's my sketch and I've got lots more that will work with the small squares of the Papertrey Quilter's Sampler sets too so stay tuned.

I chose lots of patterns from my new October Afternoon papers. I could just swim in these papers!!
Then I took my 3/4" square punch and punched out a square from each sheet of patterned paper.....then arranged them on the bottom of my card in rows.
For the top of my card, I colored one Ohio Star block from the PTI Quilter's Sampler set....and then layered it up with the new Label die from Spellbinder's. Isn't that little label so cute?
I also used some fun colored buttons...dressed buttons......which means they have to be tied up with string, etc. Piney would be proud that my buttons are not *naked*. :) I finished off the card with a PTI sentiment from the Quilter's Sampler Sentiments set, inked the edges with Ranger Distress Ink and tied on a pretty polka dot ribbon from PTI.
I love the quirkiness this card has....kinda crazy, eclectic colors. Just like an quilt might have! Woohoo, still having fun with these amazing sets from Papertrey Ink!!

Floral Frenzy...ode to yellow

Just a note to start off the day to say I was again inspired by all the nice comments left on yesterday's quilting post. You all touched my heart and I vow that someday I will be a quilter!! Stay tuned for lots more quilting samples!!

On to today's project.......while working with the new Papertrey set called Floral Frenzy, I was inspired to do some daisies. I knew my yard was full of yellow flowers so I snapped a few photos for inspiration.

This bouquet was a centerpiece at my July 4th celebration, all flowers from around the house.
Here's some wild daisies out in the field next to our house.
And some yellow yarrow in the flower bed.
More wildflowers in the field.

And some new daisies that I planted in the flower bed this year. So cheery!
And then when I was all done snapping photos, I went back inside and saw this little cutie...all dressed in yellow. Who needs more inspiration than this??
So as I began to think about my project, I knew I wanted to make some white and yellow daisies. So I got out my acrylic paints and went to work. My friend Pine does the best stuff with paints, she inspires me quite often! I made simple daisies by painting my stamps with white and yellow acrylic craft paint.....found at Walmart, Michael's or any craft store.
I stamped quite a few different focal images, added my sentiments in black and then brushed yellow paint along all the edges of my cardstock. Here's what I had to work with when creating my projects. I added white polka dots too from the Polka Dot Basics PTI set. And by stamping the sentiments in black, they really popped off the cardstock. For the curvy sentiment on the left, I placed the straight sentiment all curvy like on my clear stamping block. Such a fun thing that you can do with clear stamps!

And here are my finished cards. I used PTI Kraft, White and Lemon Tart cardstock along with Lemon Tart ribbons and some buttons from my stash. Here's a card paired up with a notebook I created. LOVE the big polka dots from the PTI Polka Dot Basics stamp set. This would make such a nice gift and inexpensive to make too!
Here's a closeup of the ribbon detail ont the notebook. I just looped my ribbon around my focal image then added the buttons with sticky dots. I cut the ribbon into little notches, something I've been doing a lot of lately.
And here's the inside of my journal. I created a pocket to store a notecard or two. This is a junior size lined notepa.
Hope you enjoy! You can see the rest of my projects for this month's PTI release and all of the other wonderful creations from the PTI team at the Papertrey Ink Gallery.

I'm off to feed my girls and their two friends......*feed* my girls...like they're cattle or something. Perhaps I should say, I'm off to make breakfast for the girls. Nothing fancy.......*here's the bowls, here's the cereal, here's the milk!* Ha ha!! I'm bizzzzzzzzzeeee getting ready for CHA, no time for pancakes this morning!! I'll be heading out bright and early tomorrow to catch my flight from Kansas City. I'll schedule some posts so hopefully they'll all show up while I'm gone! Have a fun day everyone!!

Inspiration from Nichole

I can honestly say that I've never been quite so touched by the creation of a stamp set before until now. Nichole's new stamp set called Quilter's Sampler has really tugged at my heart strings. Nichole did not just say *here's my newest stamp set*, but instead she introduced us to a love of quilting and some inspiration to go along with it. I do not quilt (yet) but I have always admired my grandmother's wonderful quilts...I always look at them at the county fair....and have thought about how much I would some day like to create wedding quilts for my girls and a quilt for my own bed.....and one for the family room to snuggle in front of the fire place, etc. Quilts to me are a labor of love. There is so much hard work put into a quilt and it has to be one of the most precious gifts you could give or receive. My grandmother made me a pastel colored quilt and used crochet to sew all the pieces together. I'll have to find it at my mom's house and take a photo someday.

Along with Nichole's new stamp set, this Quilter's Apprentice post introduces us to some wonderful books that played a part in inspiring her new quilt stamp set and matching sentiment set(which is a must have!). You can click on the Elm Creek Quilts website HERE to see the entire listing of Elm Creek books, what they're about and possibly what order you might like to read them in. I've read the first three of the series and I'm hooked! The stories are about every day women, their personal stories and their love of quilting. Even if you're not a quilter, you will like these books....just good wholesome stories, kinda like a warm glass of milk before bed. They will totally inspire you to create your own quilts....or perhaps if you're not ready to take up quilting, you can follow my lead and make some wonderful paper quilted creations using Nichole's new stamp set. Thank you Nichole for creating these wonderful stamp sets and for rekindling my love of handmade quilts.

When I was searching for inspiration on quilt designs, I headed straight for my local quilt shop. The nice lady behind the counter kind of looked at me funny when I said I was looking for card inspirations but soon she understood. I showed her a few of my samples and the stamp set and immediately she had her own ideas. She had the great idea of using the *stamped by* and other images to actually stamp a fabric label for real quilts. I must go back and chat with those ladies more.....and I might even sign up for a beginner's quilting class this fall if time allows.

I didn't buy any fabric while at the quilt shop but I did find this pattern book with this beautiful quilt on the front cover. I want to make this quilt for my bed!! And I have those chairs around my dining room table. It's so ME!

After browsing through the pattern book, I discovered that there are 2" strips of fabric rolls all bundled together called *jelly rolls*. You purchase the bundle of pre-selected fabrics to create such pattern blocks in the photo below. That was my first source of inpspiration for some quilt cards!
I went to work over the weekend and cut my own tiny strips of patterned paper to resemble *jelly roll* strips. I used paper from Cosmo Cricket and also created a polka dot sample with PTI's Polka Dot Basics stamp set.
From there I went to work creating my own little quilted creations. The one thing I discovered while working with the Quilter's Sampler set is that I get this desire to make everything *homey*.....check out all the details on this close up shot of my cards.
I'm in love with these vintage-like, soft colored cards. I might have to keep them ALL!

If you look back up to the page with all the patterned blocks, you can pick out my inspiration for each card. Here, I was inspired by the long folk heart from the quilt. (Polka Dot Basics for the background, Kraft PTI cardstock, Cosmo patterned paper, Spellbinder's scallop rectangles, hand made felt heart with buttons)
I LOOOOVE the sentiments with this set too. They're almost as good as the little quilt blocks! This is the inside of my card....two more *jelly roll* strips to tie into the front of the card.
And this card was inspired by the pine tree pattern block from the pattern book. You can scroll back up to see it. Fun, fun, fun!
And my last card was inspired by the flower box from the pattern book. Again, scroll back up to see the photo. I created the flowers with felt and a big button. The quilt block stamps are intermingled in with blocks of patterned paper squares. Tip: The quilt squares punch out perfectly with a 3/4" square punch. You definitely need to add that to your next order!
Well, I've gushed on and on now about this little quilting craze of mine. I hope you are inspired as much as I have been by Nichole and her wonderful stamp set and her suggested Elm Creek Quilts books. I would love to hear about the quilter's in your life and/or wonderful quilts you have........and if you're going to purchase these new sets. Be sure to head to the Papertrey gallery for more Quilter's Sampler and Sentiments samples.

My latest quilt was acquired at a garage sale for $5 bucks. It's tattered and worn but I can never understand how someone could get rid of a hand made quilt. So I adopted this quilt and used it for my July 4th table settings. I love it as much as if my own grandma had made it!

Cupcake Birthday

EDIT: I thought you might like to see what JustRite Stampers is up to. There's LOTS of new products coming out. Be sure to scroll down a few posts to see the new goodies. I'll be doing a guest make and take session during CHA too, so be sure to stop by and see me! You can see my recipe card/apron project at the JustRite blog too. So cute!!

Today's card takes on a vintage look by using some distress ink on all the cardstock edges. For my main image, I used Karen Lockhart's Best Cupcake stamp layerd with scallop dies from Spellbinders. Patterned paper is by Fancy Pants and the polka dot layer was created with Papertrey's Polka Dot Basics stamp set. You'll notice that a lot of my cards have a horizontal element that grounds the main image. A horizontal piece of cardstock or ribbon under the main image gives the focal point something to rest on, like a horizon line. On my card today, I used three horizontal elements: a think strip of pink cardstock, a wider strip of green cardstock that has the *happy birthday* sentiment and the pearls, and then a piece of Sweet Blush ribbon from Papertrey Ink as the final horizontal element. I think all these little layers add a lot of creativity and interest to a project. So next time you have your card ready to assemble, cut a strip of cardstock and place it under the main image. You'll be surprised how much it adds to your project.

Today will be a lazy day, how about you? I drank a large McDonald's Vanilla Iced Coffee yesterday......was bouncing off the walls and doing great...til it was time to go to sleep. It was 4:30am the last time I checked before I fell asleep. Not good. But I can't help it, I love those iced coffees!!!!!!! Today it's water for me though! I hope you have a *sparky* kind of day today!

Crafty Secrets Soldered Pieces and Spellbinder's Winner!

Drumroll please. We have a winner of the Pinking Circle Dies from my Blog Party post. Congratulations to Katie Renz!! And thanks to all of you for visiting my blog!

Katie said this after being notified she was the winner:

I’m super excited to receive this set of new dies. I have been collecting all the nestabilities and am close to having ALL of them J This set will fit in perfectly with what I have. I honestly use my dies for cutting and embossing nearly every day. They are not only super easy to use but really add that something special to my cards.

I thought I would share some photos today of some of my first soldered pieces. I used some cut outs from Crafty Secrets booklets. The booklets make for some GREAT soldering artwork. You can check them out HERE.

This first piece shows the front and back of a bird themed soldered piece. I used this with all of my bird and nature decorations this spring.
And I thought this piece about family would be fun to hang off of a wreath, Christmas tree or perhaps a scrapbook album.
I am no where near the great soldering expert I would like to be. I still have LOTS to learn. I'm definitely going to be stopping by the Simply Swank booth at CHA this year to learn some more tips. They have a great line of soldering tools and have THE CUTEST samples at their booth. Be sure to add them to your list of booths to visit at CHA....and Crafty Secrets too. Sandy has lots of fun new stuff up her sleeve!