A PTI Christmas

Good Morning everyone.  Hope your weekend is starting on a pleasant note.  I've been up since 5 this morning and just could not go back to sleep so I decided to get up, do dishes, fold laundry, and enjoy a relaxing cup of tea before my kids get up.  

Since I had the time, I thought I would share some christmas cards that I made last year but just didn't have time to share on my blog.  It's nothing new but thought it might help anybody whose having some creative block such as I am this week as I am still exhausted.  These were all made using the PTI set "A Wreath for all Seasons"  Very versatile set and worth the money!  Love it and use it a lot.

Non-Traditional

Traditional

One Layer Card:  Fast and Easy!

 Anyhow, hope you all have a wonderful weekend and fabulously frightful Halloween on Monday.  We'll be busy decorating the house today since we didn't have time to do it last weekend...But nothing gets done until I visit Maureen's new home for the first time.  I'm looking forward to our small visit...it's been a while.

Just the Ticket

Hello everyone...it's been a while hasn't it?  I did have plans to be on here more often but life just happens.  I have been busy these last few weeks but still managed to make 35 christmas cards.  And they're all in the mail!  Phew!  

Anyhow...on with the show!  I'm so excited to show this creation I made last night.  As I was looking through my stash of craft goodies, I was thinking about how much I'd love to find a unique way of making a fireplace and I happened upon the PTI set "Just the Ticket" and that's exactly what it was. When positioned just right those tickets made perfect bricks for a fireplace.  What do you think?  I did a ribbon treatment for the 'mantle' and 'hung' those lovely PTI die cut stockings.  It's odd that the first time I use that stamp set it would be for a Christmas card.  I'm going to try something with the ticket strip die.  Hopefully I'll be able to share that with you in a more timely fashion.

Tomorrow I'm heading out of town with my daughter as she has a scheduled ultrasound for her tummy.  She's had multiple issues these past couple of months and now we're having to run a multitude of tests.  Sick kids cause so much worry!  My son has been home with a high fever these last couple of days and I felt guilty for not being at home with him.  It's such a strange and sad feeling knowing that last year at this time I was at home full time with kids being able take care of them while they were sick and able to answer all the doctor's questions because I knew my kids so well.  Now...not so much. We are fortunate that we have family daycare so I don't necessarily have to miss work.  Hubby did stay at home today though and that made me feel much more comfortable not being at home.

That's my life for now and I'm looking forward to the Christmas holidays.  If I'm not around before then have a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2011

CAS-tastic Buttons!

Who doesn't love them?  And who doesn't have them?  I seem to have collected them over the months and I'd have to say my favourite colour is the shiny Pure Poppy ones from PTI.  It's been a while since I've worked with red and oh how I've missed it!

The current CAS-tastic challenge is to use buttons and what better way to make a Clean and Simple card than a one-layer.  I don't know about you but I find one-layer cards to be very challenging.  They aren't hard it's just that whenever you mess up you have to start all over again...and I've determined that I'm really not a great stamper.  I know I'm being fussy but I definitely need to get gridded acrylic blocs.

Not much to say about my cards, except maybe that I really like them.  I realize the yellow buttoned card isn't a true one-layer card but I got tired of putting the paper in the scrap pile =)  Oh and my good news note for today is having my card featured on the WPlus9 Colour challenge.  Between my recent nods on CAS-tastic and WPlus9 I'm on top of the world!  Thanks so much ladies for your encouragement.

Hope you have a very fantastic weekend and that the weather is beautiful!

Birthday Wishes Elements

Paper: White cs (PTI)

Ink: Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive

Accessories: Pure Poppy buttons (PTI)

Stamps: Round & Round (PTI)

Live Laugh Love Elements

Paper: White cs (PTI), Kraft

Ink: Always Artichoke, Soft Suede

Accessories: Lemon Tart buttons (PTI), yellow brads (MM), large corner rounder

Stamps:  Round & Round (PTI)

Over The Rainbow

Good morning, good day, and good evening!  Hope you are all having a wonderful week and finding much inspiration on this month's PTI Blog Hop featuring buttons.  I new exactly what I wanted to do and I so enjoyed making this card since I LOVE BUTTONS!!!  Anyhow I'm not going to bore you with details as you have lots of other posts to catch up on.

I'll just give you the recipe, some pictures and hope you'll visit again.  Have fun hopping and hope you've been inspired.

Paper:  White cs (PTI), whisper white, Real Red
Ink:  Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, basic black
Accessories:  Buttons Lemon Tart, New Leaf, Plum pudding (PTI), Basic grey buttons, black cotton thread
Stamps:  Polkadot backgrounds (PTI), Everyday button Bits (PTI)

Ode to Maile ~ PTI Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my humble yet passionate blog :)  This is my first ever PTI blog hop post so I am a little nervous and excited! I like meeting new friends with the same love for paper and hope you will leave a constructive comment for me. This months challenge was to recreate a project made by one of the several wonderful and talented PTI design team members.  I chose Maile Belles.  I've been following her blog since I started my blog this past summer. At the time she only had 28 followers and she wasn't apart of any design team. She's come a long way in such a short time.  Congrats Maile!!!  I have always admired her graceful style, her french knots and I have been awed by what she can do with a stamp! Just call her the Grace Kelly of stamping.

During the  PTI anniversary celebrations and February's stamp unveiling she showed off a really cute crafty kit with a matching card to give to a friend. I really loved the concept, mainly because I would love to be given such a gift and love things to be 'matchy'. I decided to recreate it as a gift for my six year old daughter.  She loves to do crafty things so I thought wouldn't it be great for her to have her own little kit to make Valentines cards next year?  It's got everything I think I little girl would want; beads, buttons, felt, flowers, stamps, ribbon, and paper! (Pictured at the top)

The challenging part of this project, I found, was not to mimic Maile's style too closely and to put in my own touches. I think I did that using one of my favourite bright colours (Red) and adding some pattern paper to my card.  Maile doesn't use a lot of designer paper, mainly because she's so good at stamping her own designs.  But me, I like to collect all kinds of paper.  If I'm inspired by it, I buy it!  I have boxes of it and would feel guilty if I didn't use it.

Some hand stitching was added to the top of the border punched edge for another personal touch. I also took the time to decorate the inside, incorporating the polkadots and taking the opportunity to tell my lovely little girl how much I love her.  For a closer look just click on the pictures. I hope that I've done justice to Maile's inspiration and made her proud :)

Thanks so much for popping by and helping me to share my passion 4 paper!  Be sure to check out the rest of the PTI design team.  They all have their own unique style and I'm so thankful to have been introduced to them this past September!  I also have a list of inspiring blogs on my sidebar.  Happy crafting!

Paper:  Real Red, Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Sending Love dsp
Ink: Choclate Chip, Real Red
Accessories:  Making memories paper flowers, Pure Poppy buttons (PTI), Pink cord buttons, linen thread, pink cotton floss, red rhinestones, scallop trim border punch, ticket corner punch, large corner rounder punch.
Stamps (All PTI):  Mixed messages (LOVE), Everyday button bits (All things grow), Signature Greetings, Polka dot basics.

Embellished Gifts

Here's my entry for the latest PTI challenge: to make our own floral embellishments and use some on our card.  I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to use up my SU! felt fusion I an II as well as some brads.  The thing about these embellishments is that I never really go straight to them because they aren't already pre-assembled (like the BG felties).  I decided I should really keep a few pre-assembled on hand just for myself (never mind my crafty friends that Nichole was talking about :)

The card is pretty basic layout but the felt flowers, swiss dot, and scallop trim border punch really add some wow.  Easy card! And a gift for a friend all in 20 minutes!

Take Out???

It is very late so this is just going to be a quick post for my entry in the latest PTI challenges.  The challenge was to add origami to our project and I took the safe route and used the "Cup" Tutorial because it was really easy and it also reminded me of those Chinese food take out boxes.  Anyhow, I'll add more deets later when I'll be able to better explain myself.

Hope you like it!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Paper:  Night & Day dsp, Scenic Route dp (Ashville??)
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  Orange Beads, scallop border punch, wire
Stamps:  On My Couch (PTI)

Edit: I thought this would make a great card to give to a girlfriend for some girl time.  Our idea of a break is having a nice relaxing time on a couch, without kids and no meals to make, chatting and watching chick flicks.  I'm not great at wire work and I tried another new technique with the beading.

Fun Paint by Number Challenge

I have to say this is one of the best challenges I've done in a long time.  It's a part of the PTI Anniversary celebrations over at  Nichole Heady's blog and it was so quick and fun!  You have until tomorrow 7 am EST to complete and link up your project.  I loved having the sketch (with the measurements included) and the colours are chosen for you based on the beginning letter of your name.  Now how easy is that!  It takes all the guess work out of it.  The challenge really is making yours stand out from all of the others.  I can't say that mine really stands out but I'll tell you what I like about it.

I used swiss dot ef on the white panel, white embossing powder on the sentiment and for my resourceful part I used the pillow cushions from my much loved "On My Couch" set as a background stamp on the Raspberry fizz panel.  I also really like how my bow turned out.  I was going to use white as my card base and the Dusty Durango (I had not Terra cotta Tile) with the swiss dot but the card was just too dark.  To brighten things up I just switched those two colours around.  I can't believe this card took me a total of 15 minutes to make.  This post has taken me longer to create.

Have a fantastic Tuesday everybody and thanks for stopping by for a visit.