December Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by during Papertrey's Blog Hop. I hope you all had a great holiday! I'm going to make this post short and sweet and hopefully head back out for some more after Christmas shopping!

It's that time again for our annual holiday leftovers challenge! Use scraps of wrapping paper, parts of holiday cards, recycle gift tags or bits of ribbon on a paper crafting project. We all have plenty of it laying around after all the holiday excitement and this is your chance to incorporate some of those pretty little things into an amazing piece of art!

While making Christmas cards this year I was kind of on a vintage kick so I had a lot of scraps of vintage sheet music and little bits of faux pearls that I needed to use up. Rather than make another holiday card I decided to utilize them for an early Valentine's Day card.

I used a card base of PTI's Rustic White and layered on a bit of Bazzill paper leftover from all those Christmas cards (accent paper was stamped with Polka Dot Basics II image in Ripe Avocado ink). To make the embellishment, I simply glued the little strands of pearls onto a small circle of cardstock and covered with a fabric flower and PTI button. The sentiments are from Damask Designs and were stamped in Ripe Avocado ink ask well.

Well, that's about it for me! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend and hopefully I'll squeeze in another post before the new year! :)

Thanks again for stopping by!

Winter Wishes

Hi all! Just wanted to pop in and share a quick card with you!

This card was super quick and easy! First, I used Raspberry Fizz ink to stamp the snowflake image from PTI's 2010 Holiday Tag set on a card base of Rustic White. Then I added some patterned paper, a few embellishments and voila! I absolutely love non-traditional color combos and this is one of my faves for this holiday season.

Well, I'm off to whip up some more crafty goodness before meeting up with Brian for lunch! Have a great day friends!

First Christmas Card Set of the Season!

Happy Saturday Everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and hopefully have recovered from any traumatic experiences that may have occurred on Black Friday. :)

I wanted to take a minute and share a little gift that I gave to my mom and sisters on Thanksgiving. I was able to get off work a little early and decided to take advantage of the extra time by making a set of cards to give each of them so they could start crossing names off their Christmas card mailing list. Dawn McVey had been posting the most drool-worthy card sets on her blog and I was inspired to make some of my own.

Since I was still short on time (not starting until 3 in the afternoon was maybe not the greatest idea ever) I first chose a color palette to keep from getting completely overwhelmed and selected a couple stamp sets. I decided on PTI's True Black, Rustic White, and Hawaiian Shores for the colors and Damask Designs, A Little Argyle, and the 2010 Holiday Tags stamp set from PTI. (I did end up incorporating a couple other stamps, but unfortunately I'm unsure of their exact origins.)


For the first card I stamped the snowflake image on True Black cardstock and dabbed the white ink on the edges to give it a frosty look. I then layered a paper doily, a bit of patterned paper, some ribbon, and faux pearls before topping it off with another image from the 2010 Holiday Tags set. I have to admit this was my favorite of the set! I definitely plan on recreating it in different color schemes.

For the second card I stamped the background using A Little Argyle and Damask Designs. I added an accent strip also stamped with an image from Damask Designs and layered on a sentiment from one of those unknown sets.


The background on the next card is also from an unknown stamp. The design on the black cardstock as well as the present image and sentiment are from a Close to My Heart stamp set, but I am unsure of the name.

On my fourth card, I used one of the larger images from Damask Designs and a sentiment from the 2010 Holiday Tags set. It's hard to see in the photo, but there are also faux pearls hot glued above the Hawaiian Shores strip.

And, for the final card I ran the cardstock through my Big Shot with a polka dot embossing folder, layered on some more patterned paper, added a cute little bow and finished it off with the adorable post-marked image from the 2010 Holiday Tags set.

Designing and reproducing a set of cards in one night was no easy task and I must say I was actually pretty proud of myself for finishing all five sets (granted I was up until after 1am, but that's beside the point). My mom and sisters were so happy (and surprised) to get them and have already started putting in the rest of their Christmas card orders. Of course, I'm always happy to oblige!

Well, Brian and I are off to Glendale Glitters in a little bit to see the Christmas lights and watch one of the little girls in my class perform in her dance recital there. It's going to be adorable, I can't wait! Thanks for stopping by!

Kerry

Take some time

I promise that one of these days I will actually remember to keep up with my blog. I can't promise that it will be soon, but I can promise that it will happen!

For someone who doesn't lead a very exciting life it's amazing how busy things get! So, over the next month or so, I am really going to make a conscious effort to not get caught up in the hustle and bustle and really take time to enjoy this holiday season. I look forward to spending time with family and friends and just appreciating the beauty of the season.

Trick or Treat

I wanted to share a quick card that I whipped up a couple of days ago during my crafting frenzy. I was rummaging through my stamps and found a couple of Halloween stamps that I picked up from the Michaels dollar bins. (By the way, I can't believe Halloween is only a month away... especially considering the current temp here in Phoenix is 104 degrees! Last week we had a couple of days with a high of around 95 degrees and we spent every possible moment outside. What can I say... there's no doubt I'm an Arizona girl!)

Anyways, my mom was cleaning out her "craft stash" the other day and brought me a whole box of goodies. There was fabric, ribbon, and lace galore! As far back as I can remember my closet (as well as my brother's...oh, and most of the dining room) housed my mom's crafting supplies. Once all five of us kids were out of the house, she and my dad decided to downsize and now I am reaping the benefits of her realizing how little storage she has! Love you Mom! So, as I started digging through the box for something to use on the Halloween card I was planning to make, I found this little scrap of lace that fit perfectly across a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card. The rest just fell into place and I ended up with my little version of a "Modern Vintagey" Halloween card.

This card was so simple to make! After making the card base out of Papertery Ink's Rustic Cream cardstock I layered on some True Black cardstock and a couple patterned papers from K & Company. I then hot glued the lace across the seam. Using black ink I stamped the image on Rustic Cream cardstock and then took my white ink pad and lightly pressed over it to give a bit of a foggy look. I layered it on True Black cardstock and popped it up to add some depth. Easy peasy! If you wanted to add some more detail you could also thread ribbon through the lace, but I kind of liked the color peeking out from underneath.

That's all for now! I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Blog Hop!

Happy Saturday! I am so excited to be participating in the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This is my first time doing it so I'm a little nervous, but I've been wanting to try it out for so long!

This month's challenge was to create a project using our favorite skill we've picked up along our stamping journey. There are so many things I've learned from all of you amazing crafty ladies that it was hard to decide which to use, but ultimately I decided on a simple bow. I remember months ago Dawn McVey posted a video tutorial on her blog demonstrating how to tie the perfect little bow for cards. While mine are still far from perfect it has been a technique that I have used countless times since. Thanks Dawn!!!

So in honor of my first blog hop I decided to bust out my favorite color combo (Raspberry Fizz, True Black, Rustic White, and Green) as well as my new favorite stamp set, Damask Designs.

Using Raspberry Fizz ink, I stamped the background image on Raspberry Fizz cardstock. Next, I used a Fiskars scalloped border punch with the True Black cardstock and layered it with a bit of Rustic White and some patterned paper from K & Company. I then hot glued a strand of faux pearls and stamped the "Just Because" sentiment.

And last but not least...the bow! As usual it took a few attempts before I was satisfied, but I'm really quite proud of the result.

Well, that's about it for me! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Glad it's Monday!.....Really?????

Wow, I sure jinxed myself when I said it would be a crazy weekend! There was so much going on that I was kinda glad it was Monday just so I could go back to work and get a bit of a break! Well, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but I sure am glad the past couple of days are over.



However, in the midst of everything I was able to get together with the fam-bam for family dinner on Sunday. We all get together one Sunday a month and make too much noise and eat a lot of food! (I am so lucky to have all of my family live close by and be able to do this. We don't have to wait for holidays or special occasions to see each other - we just do it whenever we want to.)


This month we went to my parents' house and I was so excited because it meant I would be able to take pictures of Shadow with the new camera. You guys had better get used to hearing about Shadow because he's pretty much my parents' favorite child and all us kids' favorite sibling. Shadow joined our family in July of 2005 when my mom saw him on tv on the Arizona Humane Society's show, "Pets on Parade". He is a fluffy little black and white mutt of undetermined breed. Some say Pomeranian, some say American Eskimo, we just say DIVA! Haha. Regardless, we all love him dearly and have enjoyed the many hours of entertainment he has provided. So, since I now have a nice camera I figured I should take some cute pics of him.


Sounds like an easy enough plan right? WRONG! My first mistake was not remembering that I am not a photographer by any means and have virtually no idea how to use said camera. I did by some stroke of pure good luck manage to get a couple decent shots which I am only posting because a) he's soooo darn cute and b) It'll make my future pictures (the ones I'll take after I learn what I'm doing) look so much better. So without further ado, here's Shadow!

See how intense he looks? The ONLY time we can set him to sit still is to hold food in front of him and then he acts like he's going to have a heart attack if he doesn't get it asap!

See what I mean? Too funny!

Well, it's about time I head up to the craft room. I am in definite need of some Pandora and little crafting therapy! Thanks for stopping by and have a FAB evening!

Remember me?

Wow! You can tell I'm new to this whole blog thing considering I went MIA for about two weeks after only one post. Who knew I'd need so much time to recover? (haha) It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but I feel like I'm starting to settle into things now.

While I may have been off the radar for a bit, the creative juices were still very much flowing. Trust me...I've got a horribly messy craft room to prove it! Being relatively new to this papercrafting thing (just under a year) I definitely have a lot to learn, so... when I get the chance to really spend some quality time with my stamping supplies (wink, wink) I love to experiment and see what materializes. One of the best things about papercrafting is there are no rules and virtually endless possibilities!

*Begin somewhat sappy side note* I remember when I first started making cards I was so anxious about using my beautiful new supplies that I would never make ANYTHING!! There was something so wrong about cutting into a pristine sheet of fabulous patterned paper... what if I messed up?... or worse, what if it turned out just plain ugly! Slowly, however, I began to take risks. I began searching blogs and found some amazing women whose creativity and artistic ability would leave me breathless. I also started following in the footsteps of my best crafting buddy, Angela, who would repeatedly remind me that if I messed up I could "just make another one". I started to realize that the only thing holding me back was...me.. *pause for effect*

So... when I got home from work last week to see that my newest order from Papertrey Ink had arrived and was sitting on the kitchen table I couldn't wait to rush it up to the craft room! The following week consisted of cranking up Pandora (thank you Glee channel) and crafting to my little heart's content. Now it's just time to clean up enough to take some pictures so I can share some of my newest creations with you!

Also, I am excited to announce that within the next week or so I'll have a card set featured as a giveaway on Lacey Michelle's blog so I'll be sure to keep you updated with the details!

That's it for tonight! It's time to curl up with my latest poorly neglected book and do some serious relaxing! I have a feeling it's going to be a crazy weekend so I'd better rest up while I can!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kerry

For starters....

Hey everyone! Thanks for stopping by to check out the new blog! I'm super excited to share some projects I've been working on with you!

Let's jump right in....

I found this fabulous vintage sheet music while passing through Payson on a weekend getaway about a month ago and have been dying to use it. I couldn't resist using Papertrey's awesome Polka Dot Basics II stamp set to give it a bit of a modern vibe. I paired a sentiment from Papertrey's Say It With Style set with one of the chandelier images from the Inkadinkado: Chandeliers set. This was such a quick card to make and I can't wait to make a whole set of these in different colors!

The next card combines my love of vintage with my love of color...

All paper is from Papertrey Ink except for the patterned paper which has been in my stash for ages. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Papertrey's Enjoy the Ride set. The dress is part of a clear stamp set, but there is an identical rubber stamp available from Inkadinkado. I love giving vintage a bit of an unexpected twist and this 80's rock/vintage theme did the trick!

That's all for tonight! Thanks again for stopping by! Have a fabulous and safe Labor Day!