Papertrey Ink September Blog Hop

Its been a little while since I've been able to participate in a PTI blog hop.  I LOVED the colors and striped pattern in the inspiration photo this month.  I had it in mind to recreate the stripes and mitre the corners of the stripes and oh so much that would have been A LOT of work.  Instead I ended up going more simple, inspired by the colors and with an homage to the stripes

I did a little rock-n-roll using Summer Sunrise and Melon Berry for the leaves and a rock-n-roll shading technique using aqua mist on the acorns (rock-n-roll shading is doing the rock-n-roll technique with just 1 color and stamping off once to get the lighter version of the ink).  I got a lot of compliments on my scribbled aqua mist acorns a while back so I made aqua acorns again.  I'm nothing if not a creature of habit :)

I put in a couple of red stripes to carry the striped theme over and added the large poppy button for balance.

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You know you have too much stuff when ...

... you almost reorder a stamp set you already have because you can't find it in all the clutter.  I was SO certain I'd ordered the hounds tooth background set, but I couldn't find it.  I "forgot" to order it this month luckily because as I was clearing off my work bench, guess what I found ...

Yep, my hounds tooth background set

Sigh ... looks like its time to create a stamp inventory again

Colors are True Black and Raspberry Fizz.  Stamps are Fillable Frames #8 and Background Basics: Houndstooth

Fall is Coming

It is in the air here in Iowa, that's for sure.  I decided to make some cards for my daughter and her friends.  They are all away for their first year of college and of course mail is always welcomed :)

I also discovered I had stamps that had never seen ink .... gasp!   I inked up the Harvest Berries set right away.  I also used the Bloom Builders 3 die successfully for the first time, thanks to a tip from a commenter.  Thanks Mary Beth.  I really appreciate it!

The tip was to add a sheet of card stock on top of the stack up for my Big Shot to cut the blooms.  It was just enough to really press the die into the card stock and cut all the way through,

And look at that beauty!  I love this die now that I can use it easily!  It makes such dimensional flowers.  This one is 2 of each bloom for a total of 10 layers ... lots of depth on this one!

Color used was Orange Zest (ink, button, and paper)

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MIM: Frosted Images

I got my latest PTI order in the mail today!  Now to get in the holiday spirit.  I was going to make this card using versamark and chalks but when  saw the MIM video I thought I'd give it a shot.

I used Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Enchanted Evening and Pure Poppy.  All I needed was a nice kelly green and this would have been on any Christmas tree of my childhood.   We had the "burn down your house if you aren't careful" lights on the tree for years!  Lent a certain air of adventure to Christmas :)

I over stamped a few of the bulbs after doing the frosted image technique to give a little more presence to the light bulb.  Since the light is supposed to be bright I thought it was a good addition.

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MIM and September SFYTT

Its been a while.  First I was busy with a new job, then for the last week I've been without Internet.  Everything is back to normal and I felt inspired by the latest Make It Monday video as well as the September Sketch For You To Try

 The sketch this month was once again mah-velous.  MIM was using acrylic paint to stamp.  It just so happened that I still had some Lumiere (silver acrylic paint) and so I grabbed my A Little Argyle stamps and set to work.

The floral center is Bloom Builders 3 die.  I am having some trouble getting the blooms out and had to use a craft knife to get the pieces out from between the petals.  Some of them come out easy and some are more difficult.  If anyone has a trick to using it I'd love to hear

Colors are Concorde Crush, Whisper White and Basic Black

Thanks for stopping!