Building Wreaths with Small Images

This week's Make-it-Monday let me get out a  couple of newer stamp sets that I have really enjoyed using, PTI's Ivy & Bloom as well as the stamp set from the PTI Bloom & Grow Make-it-Market Kit.  I also pulled out an older stamp set for my background, PTI Background Basics: Text Style.  I had  die cut some sentiments in white card stock and wanted to use them on a card, so my card has bit of a twist.  Instead of drawing a pencil line for my wreath to follow, I cut out a circle from a piece of white card stock so I could let the dark card base show through.  I thought this would give my die cut sentiment a nice contrast and add a spot of color to the card.  I stamped by background text first then added the flower wreath around the circle.  Last I attached my die cut sentiment to the card so it could overlap just a bit with the wreath. 

Read more...

Watercolor Wash Backgrounds

This week's PTI Make-it-Monday challenge got me motivated to get some cards done.  I have admired many beautiful cards with watercolor backgrounds and just haven't got myself into the swing of things. So, thank you Laurie for an excellent video and tons of inspiration.  Here are my cards.  This first card I used the PTI Peonies on Parade stamp set (goodness I had purchased this stamp set and not made a single card until today).  It was the perfect flower design for this technique.

This second card was inspired by a sample Betsy Veldman created a while back.  I saved an image of her card thinking to myself that I need to try something like that.  So here is my PTI What the Doodle: Paisley card.

 

Read more...

Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge

Bright colors and lots of flowers, what is there not to love about this month's Papertrey Blog Hop inspiration.  Here is the photo that inspired me.  Pretty blues and both bright and soft pinks, these are the colors I gravitate to naturally.

I wanted to create a "happy" card because looking at these colors makes me feel joyful. I used the Gathered Garden PTI stamp set which I am finding so versatile it is amazing.  My sentiment uses one stamped word from PTI Phrase Play #8 set and a die cut from the Wet Paint Holiday Die set.   I added a nice botanical embossing to my background blue paper.  Here is my card of encouragement.

Read more...

Papertrey February Blog Hop Challenge

This month's Papertrey Ink blog hop inspiration is full of rich colors and touches of gold.  It is an elegant look that is quite lovely.  It took me a while to decide on a design even though I loved the colors and the whole idea of making a somewhat elegant card.

 My card was really quite simple as I took out my Make-it-Market: Garden Gild template and went for a layered look.  I die cut my leaves from gold metallic paper then used the Inspired: love die and stamp set to add my sentiment.

Read more...