PTI Celebrating 2013

Today's celebration challenge is for the year 2013.  This was a great year for PTI, and there are many sets released in that year that I own, but none that were highlighted today are in my stash. 

So, I chose this card by Cristina Kowalczyk as inspiration for my post today.  I love the colors she chose, and never would have put them together myself.  The unique way she used the leaf in her design caught me by surprise, and I loved it!

Click here to see more from Cristina.

 

I remember how much I loved Ruby Rose, the set that Cristina used for this card, but never purchased it.  There's a good chance I will order it soon after seeing some of the cards from the designers. I love the different patterns on the flowers and leaves in this set. 

Instead of Ruby Rose, I used a favorite set of mine released in March 2011, Sending You. It has a leaf with a unique style like the one in Ruby Rose.

Here's the card I made:

PTI's Sending You, Double Ended Banner die, Wonderful Words Thank You die

and the inside:

 Thank you for visiting My Happy Place!

Hi-Ho Silver

Click here for challenge details!

This week's challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is to use silver on our projects, and is sponsored by:

Click here!

Unfortunately, I have the need for a sympathy card, so I pulled out one of my favorite butterfly stamps to create this:

Butterfly Dreams, Sending You (PTI)

I stamped the butterflies and the sentiment in Versamark and then heat embossed them with silver embossing.  I wanted to add a little more detail to the card, so I pulled out one of my favorite edger punches from my much-neglected drawer and used it on the Enchanted Evening panel and Soft Stone base.  I like the swirl pattern in the largest butterflies and how the embossing powder highlighted that detail. 

I have another idea for this week's challenge and I hope to get it completed before the deadline!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

 

Bold and Beautiful

CAS-ual Fridays has a great challenge up this week - using pastels with black/white - which is, I agree, a challenge.  I don't usually combine the beautiful Spring pastels with the bold color of black, and there are several samples at Casual Fridays' blog if you want to play along here. 

Unfortunately, I am in need of a sympathy card, so I took advantage of the Bold and Beautiful challenge to make one for a dear, dear friend who lost her mother this weekend.

Rolled Rose and Fancy Flourishes dies (MFT), Sending You (PTI)

I have a few other ideas spinning around in my head for this challenge, so I hope to get to them soon. 

I guess this will also qualify for PTI's blog hop going on today today - which is full of yellow.  You can see all of the inspiration if you click here . 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Happy Birthday, Kim!

We are celebrating our blog friend, Kim's, birthday today.  You can see her blog, Cupcakes, Cards and Kim  and awesome creations if you click here.  I've just recently met Kim as she joined the blog group I belong to - The Paper Dolls - and she already has inspired me with her wonderful creations.  I hope she has a happy, happy birthday!  Here's the card I created for her:

My Type (Hero Arts), Sending You, Heart border die (PTI)

Thanks to Joyce for organizing the blog hop to honor Kim.  You can hop along with this list here.  You may need to scroll down if you are hopping a few days from now!

Joyce
Cathy
Jeanne
Jessica
Kara
Katie
Laurie W.
Lee Anne<--you are here!
Marybeth
Michelle
Renee
Sharron 

So, HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Kim!  I hope you celebrate with style!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

Day 4-Three Ways

Day 4

This was an exciting day in the Clean and Simple class.  I have a lot of stamps and finding different ways to use them - or even just thinking of different ways to use them makes me feel justified in purchasing them!  I wanted to use a background stamp like our teachers used, but didn't want to completely copy them by using the text style background.  So, I pulled out a set that I love, but hardly use - Gingham.

One example used the stamp as a background, and it was heat embossed.  I tried that technique here:

I stamped the background on white cardstock and heat embossed it with clear embossing.  Then, I used a blending tool to go over the embossing and give the background its color. 

The second card uses the same gingham stamp, but I used it to give pattern to the die-cut flower. 

The grass die and sun die are two dies from My Favorite Things.  I've had them for awhile, but this is the first I have used them.  I ran the center of the sun through the Xyron and pressed it in prisma glitter to give it some sparkle. 

My third card uses the same gingham stamp, but I used it as a background stamp on a smaller die-cut, similar to the way Julie used the stamp on the back of embossed flowers.

I stamped the gingham on Kraft in Fresh Snow ink and let it dry.  I heat embossed the frame with white embossing powder and added the stems, flower and sentiment.  I used the same white ink to color in the flower. I doubled up some green and rustic twine to tie and bow, and  I was lucky to find that heart shaped button in my stash that it would be the perfect finish for this card!

Jennifer has a challenging lesson for Day 5.  I'm thinking about skipping class, but I may end up giving it a shot!  We'll see.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Paper Dolls #36

Jen Carter has recently brought us a wonderful challenge at the Paper Dolls Blog.  It's really no surprise to me because I have always admired Jen's creative color combos that she comes up with for her projects.  Here is the inspiration photo that she used for the challenge - and she also bought the fabulous quilt!

I love quilts.  I sleep with an old, old handmade quilt every night, so I loved this photo and want to go and find this quilt for myself.

Here's what I came up with:

I used the stamp set Sending You from Papertrey Ink and stamped the flowers in Hawaiian Shores and Pure Poppy.  The leaves were stamped in Simply Chartreuse.  After stamping the sentiment and matting the panel on Hawaiin Shores, and then mounting it on Harvest Gold, I filled in the centers with some yellow stickles, which had to be left to dry for quite some time.

It looks a little "folksy" to me, which is something I haven't really ever tried.

You should come and play along with this challenge by clicking here.  All of the Dolls' challenges are open for quite awhile and anyone can play along.  We are just trying to have fun and enable each other!  Join us!  The more the merrier!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Make It Monday - #11

This week's Make It Monday was brought to us by Heather, who showed us a great technique using our dies to emboss.  I waited until the last minute to make a card for the challenge.  Life was busy last week - or was it just me?  My family was in town for Easter, and I didn't think they came to visit me while I worked in my craft room.

So I waited until they left to make this:

Pink and green.  sigh...I love it together.  It may be my favorite color combo ever.  Any pink with any green - you just can't go wrong.

 I embossed the frame from the Sending You collection on a piece of white cardstock, and then masked it to stamp the Gingham background.  I used the die for the leaves and punched out the flower with my 1-3/4 inch punch.  I had a yellow button in the middle, but it just didn't look right, so I took it off and added the rhinestone.  It gave it just enough bling.  

Both of these sets were sent to me by my blog group - The Paper Dolls.  I haven't had a chance to play with the sets much, and I'm so glad I reached for them for this card today.  The Dolls have a challenge going on right now with a great inspiration photo.  You should check it out and play along.  I just now got an idea for it.  You'll be seeing Sending You again very shortly!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!