PTI May Blog Hop

It's PTI Blog Hop day! For this month's challenge, Nichole presented us with an inspiration photo with a striking green/black color combination and lots of great patterns:

I took the color inspiration from the photo and made my card with Simply Chartreuse and True Black cardstock and ink, including a strip of paper from the pattern paper pack. I stamped a background with the Harvest Berries stamp set and also used the dies to add one little sprig of leaves tot he sentiment, which is stamped on a Fillable Frame die-cut.

I added a little row of black gems to the sentiment panel and popped it up on the card base.

Thanks for the lovely inspiration, Nichole! And thanks for stopping by - be sure to check out the list on Nichole's blog to hop around to all the lovely projects all over blogland today! :)

Make it Monday: Felt Flowers from Border Dies

This week's Make it Monday challenge is to create some sweet little felt flowers from border dies. I got started on this on Monday, but then the week got away from me and my flowers sat there on my stamping table all week until today! Once I found some time today, it came together pretty quickly.

I used the Leafy Vine border die to create my flowers from Orange Zest, Hawaiian Shores and Raspberry Fizz felt. I cut the leaves off of one side, leaving a thin strip with the leaves on one side. I rolled it up but made the center "open", not tight, and then sort of fanned out the "petals" and finished the flowers with a coordinating button and twine. I think they turned out pretty cute!

The focal point is a white Mat Stack 4 and a Simply Chartreuse Layerz. I stamped the sentiment from Take Three Summer and then framed it out with Label Basics, and impressed the panel with the woodgrain impression plate. I cut leaves from Turning a new leaf in Simply Chartreuse felt to layer under my flowers, and popped the whole thing up on my card base.

The base is stamped at the top with Polka Dot Basics, and then layered with Raspberry Fizz gingham from the pattern paper pack, an Orange Zest heart border used for the scallops, and an Edger #2 stamped in Polka Dot Basics.

I wrapped an orange ribbon at the top and finished the sentiment with some sweet little clear gems.

Thanks for looking!

Make It Monday: Patterned Paper backgrounds

This week's Make It Monday challenge, courtesy of Dawn McVey, is to combine several patterned paper scraps into a background. I have to confess that this one proved more of a challenge than I initially thought! I sat down earlier this week and gathered up several patterned paper bits (some stamped, some printed), and proceeded to push them around on my desk over a few different attempts throughout the week, lol. Then last night I got an idea for a design, and this morning it just came together.

The scraps I incorporated are: Lemon Tart Bitty Blocks; Lemon Tart Damask Designs; Orange Zest Bitty Dots; Faux-Ribbon stamped in Orange Zest and Hawaiian Shores on white; Harvest Berries stamped in Orange Zest and Hawaiian Shores on white; and Hawaiian Shores stamped tone-on-tone with Polka Dot Basics.

I added the Happy Birthday sentiment from Vintage Picnic and the stripes at the bottom from Faux Ribbon.

The patterned paper panel is adhered on foam adhesive and the layered butterfly is adhered and folded for extra dimension. I finished off the panel with three little pearls from Creative Charms.

Thanks for looking!

Make it Monday: Inspired Color Challenge

For this week's Make it Monday, Nichole did a great video about the use of color inspiration and applying the design principle of the "Rule of Three" to color. I was so happy to see that she also gave several different color palettes to use for the challenge. Here is the one I picked for this card:

I love the colors in this combo, and chose it especially because I wanted to use the new Winter Wisteria! :) I thought the combo would work well with a floral theme, so I pulled out Rosie Posie, along with Sweet Spring (for the frame), Celebrations, Take Three, and Faux Ribbon. I never noticed before how nicely the Celebrations and Sweet Spring frame image layer together - will have to remember that one!

Although I didn't plan to be too much of a stickler for applying the Rule of Three on every color, by the time I was finished, I think I did manage to adhere pretty well to the rule, lol!

I added texture to the top part of the white mat with an Impression Plate - it needed something, but I thought that more stamping would start to overwhelm the card. I finished it off with three little gems from Creative Charms.

Maybe I'll get to try another one of the lovely color combos over the weekend! Thanks for all the options, Nichole!

And thanks for stopping by!

a Thank You from a Choir of Tweet Little Bitty Birds!

I have to explain the story behind this card so that it will make sense! This year at our church/kids' school, the music director launched a brand new Children's Choir, and asked me to help out (because I'm involved in the music ministry and also involved at the school). The kids will sing for the last time this school year at this weekend's Mass for First Holy Communion, so I made this card for the kids to sign for the music director and give him yesterday at our last rehearsal.

The birds are a combination of different ones from Little Bitty Bird and Tweet Talk. I intentionally wanted them to all be a little bit different, because they represent the 20 kids in the choir and each one of them is unique! There is a pink one for each girl and a blue one for each boy, all die-cut and stamped, then colored with Copic markers. Some are bigger and some littler because we have 1st through 7th graders in the choir. :)

Almost everything on the card is from PTI, except for the music-background tag which is from Gina K Designs (coordinates with Spellbinders dies), and the "from all of us" which is from Verve.

I created an inside sentiment using a combination of Simply You and Wonderful Words Additions:

And since it was an oddly sized card (about 9.5"x4.25") and I had to hand-make an envelope, I figured I might as well stamp it to match while I was at it:

I'm super happy with how this project turned out, and the kids all thought it was cute (and were picking out which bird was who, lol). They were excited to give it to the music director, and he seemed to like it and appreciated that all the kids signed it, too.

Thanks for looking!