Papertrey Make It Monday #99: Repeats & Rainbows

This week's Make It Monday comprises one of my favorite things: rainbows! Nichole has put together such a great selection of rainbow color scheme with Papertrey colors. I chose the one below for my project, though I really like all of them and will definitely keep that reference handy for future cards.

I needed a birthday card for a guy friend of mine who, like me, loves lemons. We're planning on celebrating his birthday this weekend with Lemon Drops, so I wanted to make a card that represented that somehow! Ha...I didn't have any martini glass stamps, so I went with Friendship Jar and the little umbrella from the Summer Fillers. I saw a cool technique for making ice cubes with micro beads, so I wanted to try that as well.

This card turned out to be much harder to make than I intended it to be! I really wanted to achieve a realistic jar effect, but trying to layer all the items (realistic looking lemon-y liquid, lemons, ice cubes & straw) inside the jar and still make it look right was pretty tricky! So my ice cubes ended up being "outside" of the jar, but oh well. ;)

I went with vellum for the Half & Half piece because I loved the way the background looked with the rainbow colors and the circles cover plate impressed into it, so I didn't want to cover it up too much!

Enough said...

Supply list:

Cardstock: White, Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Ripe Avocado, Ocean Tides (PTI); Glossy White {straw}, So Saffron (SU)
Stamp Set(s): Friendship Jar, Friendship Jar Fillers, Friendship Jar Summer Fillers, Half & Half (PTI)
Ink/Colorants: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Parchment (CTMH); R29 Copic marker; Summer Sun, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip markers (SU)
Tools: Half & Half die, Pint Jar die, Friendship Jar trims die (PTI); Stacked Banners die (My Favorite Things)

Flourishes Love Letters Challenge (FLLCJan13)

I've been buying up Flourishes stamp sets for quite awhile now, but have never had the time to participate in one of their challenges. I'm going to change that! One of my stamping resolutions was to make a concerted effort to USE every stamp set that I own but have never used. I counted them up...and I have 120 sets that I've never inked up! *Gulp* Yikes! So I'm going out of my way to make cards with these "dusty" sets...of course they're all so cute, which is why I bought them in the first place! LOL.

I wanted to participate in this week's release festivities, namely the Love Letters challenge, which of course is so appropriate with Valentines, etc coming up. But I also wanted to make an anniversary card for my parents, and this challenge fit that bill as well!

I pulled out a lovely but not as yet used Flourishes set, Love Sweet Love. Add to that From the Heart, and my desire to create a pop-up "kick-stand" card, and voila!

I was so thrilled with the way it turned out. :)







I'll be back soon with the Timeless Tuesday challenge next! :)

Supply list:

Cardstock: Silver Shimmer (PTI)
Patterned Paper: from Be Mine collection (Echo Park); white flourish background from Christmas Mint collection (SEI)
Stamp Sets: Love Sweet Love, From the Heart (Flourishes); Embroidered Blooms {happy}, Happy Day {anniversary} (PTI)
Ink/Colorants: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Raspberry Fizz (PTI); Copic Markers (RV23, RV25, RV29, C1, C3, C5, C7)
Embellishments: White grosgrain ribbon (SU)
Tools: Scalloped heart die (Spellbinders); Heart border punch (Martha Stewart Crafts)

CAS-ual Friday challenge #84

Next challenge for this week, CAS-ual Friday #84! I struggle with keeping my cards clean & simple, but I love the look, so I like the opportunity to stretch myself with this challenge as often as possible. We were supposed to make a thank you card, so here's what I came up with. It actually came together very quickly (most of my cards don't!) and I love the way it looks (so often I feel that my CAS cards look unfinished somehow)
But this one really felt complete when I finished it, and I didn't feel compelled to add anything else! (OK, maybe just a little bit) ;)




Supply list:

Cardstock: Stamper's Select White (PTI); Real Red (SU)
Stamp Sets: Framed (PTI); You & I (Verve)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Smokey Shadow (PTI)
Tools: U die (Verve)

PlayDate Cafe Challenge #163

Now that I'm back in the groove of working in my craft room, I thought I'd jump right back into participating in my favorite challenges, like the weekly Play Date Cafe color challenge. I needed some masculine thank you cards, so this week's color combo was perfect for that. (Edited to add: I missed getting this posted in time to actually participate in this week's challenge, but hey, at least I made the card...that's a step in the right direction! :) Next week I'll get it posted in time for sure)

Supply list:

Cardstock: Stamper's Select White (PTI); Glossy White, Natural White (SU)
Patterned Paper: from Razzleberry Lemonade (SU) [on homemade button]
Stamp Set(s): Gracious Vases, Postmarks, Happy Day, On the Farm {many thanks}(PTI); Make It Count (CTMH)
Ink/Colorants: Parchment (CTMH); Tangerine Tango, Bashful Blue (SU)
Embellishments: Homemade button, embroidery thread (DMC)
Tools: Happy Day die, Buttoned Up #1 die (PTI)

Christmas Cards...the rest (and my return from blog purgatory...)

With a giant, stressful move & getting settled into our new home, then the immediate onset of the holiday season, I just have not been able to touch my little ol' blog in a sad amount of time! Now that the New Year is here, I want to try to get back into posting regularly again (and making cards regularly again!) I've already completed some cards for a couple challenges this week, in addition to sending out some cards that needed to go out, so yay! I just thought I'd quickly add the rest of the Christmas cards I did this past season before I move on to other things (like Valentines!) I think I may have forgotten to take pictures of some of them (oh well), but here are the rest that I ended up squeezing out at the last minute! :)

A set of cards using Holiday Lights (Papertrey)...I varied the color of the lights based on some color challenges that Nichole posted on her blog around Christmas time (boy is this old news by now!) Anyway, I loved the clean, crisp way they turned out.















I grabbed up one of the new sets by Papertrey this year, Gingerbread Lane, at kind of the last minute, so I really wanted to pull off some cards with it this year (rather than having to wait a whole year - or so - to use it!), so I made these three...







I love making the same card but varying it just enough to satisfy my desire for variety, yet by doing the same layout, I get more done faster. Such fun!

I've had Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers for forever, but had never used the Christmas trees...I saw a really cute card by Nichole ( I think) where she put the trees on sticks (like the sticks used for candy apples in the Fall Fillers set)...I thought it was so cute so I wanted to try it. Changed it up quite a bit from what she did, but the idea is the same. I made a couple of them (again, for variety!)





Lastly, I had just a little bit of paper left from the sei Christmas Mint collection that I used on most of my cards this year. Oftentimes, with 12x12 paper, you get sheets that are really designed more for scrapbooking than cardmaking, as the design is large and fills the whole page. I try to challenge myself to cut the page up creatively so that I can use it on my cards and make it work! That's what I did with these last couple cards...it made for very quick and very cute cards! :)


w/Just Rite Stampers "O Christmas Tree" set.


Sentiment from Bells & Boughs (PTI)


Here's an interior detail of the above card. I love how it turned out. I used a set called "Christmas Wishes" by Stampendous.

That's about it. Happy New Year! ;)