Hello and Happy Thursday!  It's time for a new challenge at The Challenge over on the Always Playing With Paper Blog! This week is Challenge #93 and it is a Keyword Challenge which means you can use one or more of the words from the graphic to incorporate into your card.

For my card this week I kept things simple for the most part.  I started by stamping the Simon Says Stamp Rebecca Lace Background Stamp onto Watercolor Cardstock in Versamark and heat embossing it in Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I prepped my surface beforehand very well by brushing baby powder all over the card front.  Because this stamp is very intricate, this step is more important than usual.  In fact, I even messed mine up a little bit but it's probably not noticeable to the average person.  I use a Wagner Heat Tool. I previously used a heat tool from Darice but the Wagner Heat Tool gets much hotter, much faster and that means less warping of my paper if I'm not having to hold it on my paper as long.  It took me a bit of time to get used to it and not scorch my paper if that tells you how hot it gets. *Ü* The Wagner Heat Tool does not have the protective cap on it so be careful if you get one.

The newest release of Distress Oxide Inks came yesterday and I had spent some time yesterday morning after the dentist and before my hair appointment doing several of these heat embossed backgrounds so that I would hopefully have time to play with the new inks. I only had time to play with this one color so far as my last few weeks have been very busy.  Knowing that Seedless Preserves is my favorite color in Distress Inks, you know I had to try out the Seedless Preserves in Distress Oxide first!  The Distress Oxide Ink Pads are available in individual pads or your can buy the bundle. You can lighten or intensify the ink color by how much or how little ink and then again by how much or little water you add into the mix.  For this card, I barely added any water because I wanted to retain the true purple color.  If I wanted to have a chalk or suede look, I would have used more water. The water causes the oxidation in this ink formulation. I'm not into the random drops, splatters or mists of water to "Bleach" out or distress the color so I did not do that.  I like it once in a while but not all the time. It's got to be right for the project.  I did use a touch of Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Mist after the ink was dry which is a water based product.  But I kept the mist high above so it would not leave drops.

Next I used the WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Die to cut the background panel and the Concord & 9th Floral & Flutter Dies to cut a single butterfly for gold floiled cardstock.  I heat embossed the "Happy Birthday" sentiment from the Papertrey Botanical Blocks Stamp Set onto a banner cut from Papertrey Ink Tag Sale: Quilted dies.  I try to make sure I always have banners cut in white, black and watercolor cardstock so I don't have to stop in the middle of a project to cut one out. It's easier to cut several at a time than to have to dig it out each time I want to use it.  I assembled everything to a top folding white card base made from Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  All of Papertrey's Card Stock is 110 lb and super smooth.  It's my favorite.


You probably didn't notice it at first but the background design is done in a circle incorporating a 3rd keyword into my card.  I love using background stamps to make my card front any color I want.  I'm going to be testing this particular one out again soon for a niece's wedding coming next month.  Be sure to stop over and see all of the Design Team's Inspiration for you at the blog.

Hello Everyone!  It's time for a new challenge at The Challenge on the Always Playing With Paper Blog and we have a fun one this week. Lesley created several keywords words for us to choose from and we can use one or a combination of several.  I used a few for my card.

I recently got a couple of stamp sets with the dies from The Ton. I have to say, Effie sure knows how to do a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I love Anemones and how many colors they come in.  The particular stamp set I used for this card is Anemone Bouquet.  The flowers are all arranged for you and the vase is a separate stamp. This was perfect for what I had in mind because I wanted to stamp my vase onto Vellum and color on the backside to make it seem as if there is water in the vase. This worked out perfectly.  I stamped the bouquet and the vase in in Versamark and heat set it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder. This is my most used Embossing Powder and I keep a large amount of it in a container next to my heat tool.


I colored everything using a water brush and Distress Markers in Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves and Mowed Lawn.  For the back of the vase, I applied color directly from my Hawaiian Shores Ink Cube.  I actually liked this bouquet better before I put Wink of Stella on the flowers but that will just be a lesson for next time.  Don't get me wrong, I love the shimmer but I guess I like it better diluted a little bit.  I have one Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Pen that I added water to when there was not much left in there and I keep adding a little bit of shimmer from another pen's barrel with a lot of water.  Otherwise, it is sooooo shimmery that you can't see the detail of the watercolor because the light is bouncing off of it.  I hadn't realized before just how much shimmer they put in that glitter brush pen until today.  I normally use a shimmer spritz over the whole thing but today I didn't.

When the watercolor was dry,  I die cut the bouquet and the vase with the coordinating dies and mounted it to a panel of Aqua Mist Cardstock cut with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle which was then mounted to a top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White using Kokuyo Adhesive.  This was my favorite adhesive for many years when I was scrapbooking but I had been unable to find it for several years.  I was sparingly using my last refill of it when Jennifer McGuire found it again and Simon Says Stamp started carrying it as well as Amazon.  The cool thing is that they now have an extra long roll.  In fact, they have an extra long dispenser, a regular and a mini.  I hope I never have to go back to using my Pink ATG Gun.  It's here if I want it, but only as a last resort.  *Ü*

Thank you so much for stopping by today!  Be sure to stop over to all the stops and see the Design Team's Projects for inspiration and then be sure to add your project to the link up.  For products from The Ton, they are only available at The Ton Online Store in the US.  If you live in another country, contact them to find your nearest retailer.

Hello!  I'm back today at Always Playing With Paper and The Challenge #83, a Christmas Inspiration Challenge.

I loved the bright pops of color on the white packages in the photograph and really wanted to use the same colors for my card.  In fact, I have two cards for you today featuring the Be Merry Stamp and Die Combination from WPLUS9 Design Studio.  I love the big bold graphics of this set with its mixed typography and how the die is designed to go around the entire sentiment including all those fun little details like the lower swoosh of the "g". There are a couple more choices of greetings you can use in the same set as well.

Both of these cards were made with Stamper's Select White Cardstock for the bases. This is my very favorite cardstock of all that are out there.  It is #110, heavy weight, super smooth and stamps beautifully, no matter what kind of ink you choose.  All of Papertrey Ink's card stocks are just beautiful and the quality simply can't be beat. The greeting was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder which is my favorite embossing powder and and my favorite gold as well. *Ü*  I love that it has a warm rich tone to it.

Dawn created a card similar to this on the WPLUS9 Blog during the first week in October and I loved it.  There is set of stand-alone dies that were created to work nicely with this set called Woodland Basics and that is what Dawn used in her video tutorial.  I already had the Tim Holtz Holiday Greens Dies which are along the same lines, so I wanted to try those out first. I'm okay with how they look but I think the Woodland Basics are a better scale for the stamps so I'll be trying those in the near future.  I did some ink blending on watercolor paper in blues & greens then die cut them with the Holiday Greens Dies.

I stamped the flowers on Pure Poppy cardstock, heat set them, die cut them, then arranged them around my sentiment. The Be Merry Coordinating Dies have a few little flowers and stems in it and I used those in combination with the Holiday Greens die cuts.  I also have a sentiment stamped and heat embossed using WOW! Opaque Bright White Embossing Powder, but I haven't used it for a card yet.  I have to say, I really loved Dawn's card that she created using black cardstock and I definitely have it on my list of cards to make. I also have a few other stamps and dies that I want to try with this sentiment but I really love how large it is and the detail in the stamp as well.


Be sure to stop over at The Challenge to check out all of the Design Team's projects and inspiration!  Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Hello!  This week is my first as a designer over at the Always Playing With Paper Blog and The Challenge #82.  With Fall settling in here in the southern part of the United States, the temperatures are cooler but the inspiration image made me think of late summer naps at a little beach cottage. Can't you just imagine one of these over-sized Wood Palette chairs covered with those pillows for a great place to take a nap or even to read a book?  I keep telling my husband that when he retires in a few more years that he is going to have to take up some crafty furniture-making kinds of hobbies.  I have a crib at my daughter's house to make into a bench and we have three enormous pergolas over our back patio and it would be awesome to have one of these jumbo chairs out there!

I really love the designs on the pillows with their "seashore" theme but I don't have any stamps or dies resembling that so I used some flourishes for my decor.

Starting with a piece of Spring Rain Cardstock, I dry embossed the front of the card base with a SU! Wood Grain Embossing Folder.  Next I used a 2 inch square from the My Favorite Things Stitched Square Stax Dies to cut out the four squares representing the pillows in Papertrey Ink's Hawaiian Shores & Vintage Jadeite along with Simon Says Stamp's Surf Blue and Bazzill Whirlypop Card Shoppe Cardstock (also from Simon's). I cut 3 of the My Favorite Things Leaf Filled Flourishes from Stamper's Select White to use for the decorative trim on the pillows. This flourish is no longer available but there are some similar ones available here. I glued those pieces onto the squares using Ranger Multi Medium Matte and then snipped off the excess from the back side of the squares.

The "Dream" sentiment is from Little Yellow Bicycle and was cut from Stampers Select White cardstock and inked up with Simon Says Stamp Island Blue Ink. The banner is from the Paper Clippings: Birthday Details Dies and is one I keep out all of the time.


I was really wishing I had gotten the Papertrey Ink What The Doodle: Waves stamp set so I could use it on these pillows, but I didn't so I had to try to convey the same feeling using something I already had.  Thanks so much for stopping by today and leaving a kind or encouraging comment for me. Each one means so much.  I look forward to seeing your interpretations of the inspiration over at The Challenge #82.

For one of the cards I created today, I was inspired by a few sources. The first one is Kay Miller from the Papertrey Ink Design Team featuring new March Release items. She made this gorgeous card and the colors were so appealing that I just had to include a bright green and blue on my card.  Once I saw The Challenge #64's Color Scheme over at Always Playing With Paper, I went with it.

I started by stamping the butterfly image  onto Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper in Versamark and heat embossing it with Ranger Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder. This Pen Patterned Butterfly is from Stampendous and it came with a set of masks for each of the three butterfly images in this set.  There are also coordinating dies found here.  After I did the heat embossing, I placed the mask over the image and created the soft blue background using a Mini Ink Blending Tool with Simon Says Stamp Maliblue Ink trying to keep the most intensity near the immediate area surrounding the butterfly.  Once I had that completed, I colored in the Butterfly using my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens in May Green, Persian Blue, Cobalt Blue and Deep Blue (Navy) for the body and the spots on the wings.  Let me add here, that the Japanese seem to have a couple of their colors mixed up from what I am used to. What they call Cobalt is what I would call Persian Blue and what they call Persian Blue, I would call Cobalt.  There's a few other colors that don't seem the same as what I'm used to so I'm glad I have all my caps swatched.

Once the butterfly was dry, I used my powder tool on the upper right side to make sure there was no moisture left and stamped and heat set the greeting which is part of the Tulip Time Stamp Set from Papertrey Ink.  I just love that font!


Once that was all dry, I still felt it was missing something so putting a drop of reinker with a mist of water, I picked up some of that and created the navy spatter.  I let that dry and then added some spatter using Martha Stewart's Liquid Gilding in Gold and let that dry.  It dries quickly but has some pretty significant fumes and should only be used outdoors.  And it's best to use a throw away kind of paint brush unless you want to have to get a cleaner from your hardware store. Just do whichever one works for you.  It's a very pretty touch.  I could have used my Finetec Mica Gold Watercolors, but I wanted to try the Liquid Gilding.

When everything was dry, I cut a top folding card base from Papertrey Ink Vintage Jadeite Cardstock and a mat from Audrey Blue Cardstock from Simon Says Stamp which has turned out to be the exact same color as Hawaiian Shores from Papertrey.  I assembled it all together and got inspired to make a second card in the same design but different colors.

For this one I used the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens in Light Carmine, Deep Violet, Purple and Light Violet.  Purple is more along the lines of what I would call Magenta and is one of only 4 colors I added to my set of 36 pens.  I also added Persian Green, Light Sugared Almond Pink, and Emerald Green.  I added this watercolor panel to a top folding note card made from Papertrey Ink Berry Sorbet Cardstock which seems to be my current favorite color.  Both of the cards are bright and springy and will make someones day a bit brighter.


I'll be entering the top card into the Always Playing With Paper Challenge #64 as well as the Create Along With Us March 2016 Papertrey Ink Challenge. There are lots of challenges this week and next week has a challenge and blog hop for Papertrey Ink so I'll be back soon with my next project.  I hope everyone is getting to enjoy some gorgeous Spring weather today!

Today I wanted to combine a couple of Challenges into one card so I could play over on two different challenges.  The first is at Always Playing With Paper and is Challenge #62 - Masculine.  

The second is the challenge over at Color Q #331 which has the colors Going Grey, Brilliant Blue, Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo and White.  I thought these colors would work great for a guy and I was right. The white is represented on my card via the twinkling paper (Sheer Shimmer Spritz) and glittery stars. Instead of Going Gray, I used some gray/silver shimmer paper to cut the Tim Holtz Globe. I ran it through with the embossing mat the second time to get a good impression.  I backed the globe with the Bermuda Bay Card Stock and after adhering the two layers together, ran it through my die cut machine with the die and an embossing pad which really made the dimension pop out.  I have two different embossing mats.  One is grey and one is tan silicone.  The silicone mat is a little thicker so if I want a particularly well embossed image, I use that one.