Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a nice Thanksgiving! I have two more cards to share with you today that I made for relatives to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

I stamped the images on a cream tri-fold card, so there would be several layers to the card.

For the second layer of the card, I hung the fall charm with twine so it is floating in the window. 

You can't tell from the photo, but I colored the metal charm with an orange copic marker. It added a beautiful copper sheen to the pewter charm. If you didn't know it already, you can dye so many things with your copic markers, including metal, acrylic, pearls, gemstones, etc. It can add a nice subtle touch to do this!

For the final layer of the card, I stamped the large wheat image from PTI First Fruits. You can see hints of the wheat through the other layers. The sentiment, from Gobble, Gobble, fits perfectly inside.

And this is a second version of the same card with a few more accents and details and the final of the three fall charms.

I'm thankful for my family, but I'm also thankful for all of you who take the time to stop by here. I appreciate it so much and am grateful to have you all as readers and followers.

Have a wonderful and sunny Thanksgiving Day. May you have a special day with your family and find many blessed reasons to be grateful today!

Supplies (All PTI unless otherwise listed.)

Stamps: First Fruits; Gobble, Gobble, Frame-It (Waltzingmouse)

Ink: Potters Clay, Rich Cocoa (Memento), Tea Dye Duo, Toffee (Versafine)

Paper: K & Company Tri-fold cream cards

Other: Rustic Jute twine, Fall charms (Karen Foster), Fine Linen buttons, Dark Chocolate satin ribbon, Terracotta Tile satin ribbon

Thankful for Family...

Today's card is a Thanksgiving card that I made for my grandparents. I want them to know how thankful we are for them and how much we love and appreciate them.

I love the sentiments in the PTI First Fruits set. They are so unique and heartfelt for Thanksgiving cards. The frame image is a WMS stamp and the acorn charm is part of a set of 3 (you'll see the other two charms in tomorrow's post.)

And here's the inside sentiment, which is from Gobble, Gobble. I actually bought that set for it's little images and sentiments, not for the turkey, although he is super cute. It's got a lot of versatile Thanksgiving stamps.

That's all for today! Have a wonderful and sunny Thanksgiving day with your family and friends. :)

Supplies (All PTI unless otherwise listed.)
Stamps: First Fruits; Gobble, Gobble, Frame-It (Waltzingmouse)
Ink: Potters Clay, Rich Cocoa (Memento), Tea Dye Duo
Paper: Rustic Cream, Autumn Abundance
Other: Rustic Jute twine, acorn charm (Karen Foster)

A Sweet Surprise...

My husband surprised me with these today for our two year anniversary, which we're celebrating this weekend.

Tomorrow we're going on a lunch cruise on the same riverboat we got married on.

Hope you're having a nice weekend!

Thank You Bookmarks

Thanks so much for all the kind thoughts and prayers for my grandma. She seems to be doing better each day and we are hoping that she might even be doing well enough by next week to leave the hospital to spend Thanksgiving at the house. She's looking forward to seeing a lot of family next week and I think that is helping to lift her spirits.

Today I have some thank you bookmarks to share with you.

I made a whole bunch of these bookmarks to slip into a few books as a thank you. These also make a great thank you if you want to send something other than a card to someone.

I didn't want to stamp the thank you on there permanently, so I stamped it onto a trimmed Post-It note. That way the recipient can remove the thank you and then use the bookmark. It's a way to say thank you if you aren't able to make a card to go along with it.

I stamped the book image from PTI School Time and the Thank You from American Crafts stamp set.

I made some Fall bookmarks using Terracotta Tile and Harvest Gold.

Here's a closeup of the stamped image and the PTI Book Print Impression Plate embossing. I think that Book Print IP is one of my favorites! It really adds a lot to the bookmark.

And I made some more neutral, natural looking ones too and added twine to add to the rustic, woodsy feel. These would be great to give to a guy as a thank you.

That's all for today. I appreciate so much you stopping by. Have a great, sunny weekend! :)

Supplies (All Papertrey ink unless otherwise listed.)
Stamps: All Booked Up, School Time, Thank You (American Crafts)
Ink: Fresh Snow, Terracotta Tile, Simply Chartreuse
Paper: Terracotta Tile, Harvest Gold, Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Rustic Cream, SS white
Other: Bookmark die, Book Print Impression Plate, Rustic Jute twine, 1/8" white silk ribbon

Feel Better Soon...

This is my first attempt at a shabby card! I found it really hard to make, but it was a good challenge. I really appreciate and am in awe even more of those who make shabby cards on a regular basis.

I'm going to make this post short and sweet today, and I'll be back later with a supply list for you. The stamps are PTI Autumn Abundance and Waltzingmouse Labels 3.

Here's a detail of the coloring. I wanted the coloring to be shabby too so I colored it with colored pencils and added highlights with copic.

I made this card for my Grandma, who is in the hospital right now. I'm going to be spending the next few days with her. I stamped the sunflowers image because those are the type of flowers I usually send to her. There is something very cheerful and uplifting about sunflowers.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Edited To Add Supply List (All supplies are PTI unless otherwise listed.)
Stamps: Autumn Abundance, Very Vintage Labels No. 3 (Waltzingmouse)
Paper: Kraft, Rustic Cream, Fly A Kite patterned paper (October Afternoon)
Ink: Enchanted Evening, Pearlescent Rust (Brilliance), Tea Dye Duo
Other: Labels No. 3 (Spellbinders), Terracotta Tile button, Fine Linen button, New Leaf bitty dot satin ribbon, colored pencils (Colerase), copic markers, cream twine, cream lace (My Favorite Things)

Featured on CREATE blog

I just found out that the small fall thank you cards I made were featured on the Scrapbook Trends CREATE blog.

The link is here. So thrilled!! Thanks so much to the CREATE blog for posting these! :)

The First Handmade Calendar of the Season

Today's post features the calendars I'll be making for Christmas this year. Papertrey Ink released a great Calendar die and stamp set which makes assembling these a snap. I knew I wasn't going to be able to hand stamp dozens and dozens of calendar pages, so I opted to diecut patterned paper. If you find some cool patterns this works really well!

Here's a calendar I made for my Aunt. Her birthday is in late November, so I'm giving her this calendar a little earlier for her birthday. I used my favorite Papertrey Ink Patterned Paper: Black and White Basics. Interesting because I've never been a big fan of black, but in crafting I think it's one of my most favorite colors. It also happens to be my Aunt's favorite color so I thought this would be perfect for her. I'm making more of these for Christmas gifts in different PTI PP designs too.

I didn't make a cover because the spine already has the 2011 calendar label and I think that works and you get the idea. Besides I didn't want to hide that pretty paper! The spine was stamped on adhesive paper trimmed to fit (1/4" x 4-3/4").

I stamped the months in red and the holiday circle images in a pale light blue. Here's a closeup.

And here are a few of the other months just to give you an idea. You can click on them to see them bigger if you would like. So here you go. :)

February...

June...

September...

November...

December...

I think the idea is to find some nice coordinating PP, vary the background slightly each month to keep it interesting, stamp the months in a contrasting bold color and the holidays in a lighter color.

Thanks for taking a look. Hope those with snow keep warm, and that you all have a wonderful, sunny day today!

ETA: You can see the entire gift set I made for my Aunt HERE.

A Simple Way to Dress Up Paper Napkins

The holidays are fast approaching and it is always fun to come up with new, quick ways to dress up your holiday party supplies.

Today's project uses embossing folders to dress up plain paper napkins. I am entering this project into the Papertrey Pal's embossing challenge that I am hosting. The details are here. Anyone can play along so feel free to join in! I'm also entering this into the Cuttlebug Spot's challenge to decorate items for the dinner table. Join in with that one also if you get a chance!

I thought of this when I was trying to come up with ways to dress up some party favors for my mom's pirate party. I made a stack of these embossed napkins to coordinate with her wine charms for the party.

And then I realized these could be used for other occasions too. So I tried out many different Cuttlebug and Quickutz embossing folders. It's cool how this simple touch can add a lot, and it's fun experimenting with the different folders to see how they look on the napkins!

You can also cut the napkins to whatever size you need too so long as you don't cut on the folds. Then just place the top of the napkin, where the fold is, into the embossing folder and run it through your diecutting machine. You may need to adjust the sandwich so that the embossing is not too deep.

Here are a few examples.

Christmas script napkins...

Elegant brocade napkins (using a 5x7 Cuttlebug embossing folder. The extra length is nice for the longer napkins.)

A closeup...

You can also make 4th of July napkins...

And birthday napkins too.

Now with a stack of plain napkins, you can be set for any occasion.

Just a few tips: these work best with plain dinner napkins. I found some at Big Lots, 20 per pack for $1. They might have them at the dollar store too. I would also suggest rinsing the Cuttlebug folder with soap and water first. For a softer and more subtle impression in the napkin it works well to use the following sandwich: A plate, then embossing folder with napkin, then an extra napkin outside the folder as cushion, and then the C plate. Have fun!

Thanks for taking a look today. Hope you have a sunny day! :)

The Reason Why I Started Papercrafting...

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you're having a nice weekend. Just wanted to pop on here with a picture my sister sent me of my nephew and niece with their Halloween treats I made for them! :) The very first card I ever made was for Alexa's first birthday (she's 2-1/2 now) and I love to send them cards and treats whenever I can.

It's funny, you can kind of see their personalities in this photo. They are both outgoing kids, but Jackson is the polite and good natured one and Alexa is the sassy, not a shy bone in her body, go get 'em kind of girl! I love them so much!!

Have a great, sunny weekend! :)

Ahoy, Matey! Pirate Treats ahead...

Ahoy, mateys! Today we are going on a little pirate adventure. Keep your eye out and you just might spot some pirate gold, arrr!

So my mother decided to throw a pirate party for some of her friends. She needed some treats to hand out to the fellow pirates, so I gathered up all of my best "rope" and "wood" and scraped together some paper and ink and went to work!

My mom is going with an old world ship kind of theme for the party, so I decided to use natural, rustic-looking materials and textures--things that look like they could have been on a real pirate ship.

I inked up the Kraft paper to create a background with Fresh Snow and Tea Dye Inks. There's also a spot of yellow in the background to hint at a sunset. Next I stamped the pirate ship and sentiment with CHF's Shiver Me Timbers stamp set. And then I added the cheesecloth background and smushed it around to blend with the water and the sky. 

And here's a closeup of the "wood", which is paper impressed with PTI's woodgrain impression plate and swiped with Versamark to make it look weathered.

Inking up the impression is one of my favorite techniques to do with dry embossing. It just makes it  pop a little more. Almost the whole favor box fits across the IP, so you can do the whole box in one pass.

And here is what's waiting inside for all the pirate-y guests! 

Shiver me timbers...it's gold!! (But even better than gold...it's chocolate, yum!)

I also dug into my pirate treasure chest and pulled out some worn coins to use as wine charms. 

  

Ok, well actually I made some wine charms by melting white wax onto non-stick parchment paper and impressing an image into them. Then I melted metallic powders into the charms, creating 15 charms of different colors and tied them to the wine glasses with twine.

And here are all the 15 boxes together ready to be sent.

  

I am entering these boxes and wine charms into A Passion for Papertrey's challenge to make anything but a card. They have great PTI challenges over there so be sure to check them out! :)

Thanks so much for coming along on this adventure. Until next time...ay, ay, matey!!!

Supplies (All Papertrey Ink unless otherwise listed.)

Stamps: Shiver Me Timbers (CHF), Cheesecloth Backgrounder (CHF)

Paper: Dark Chocolate, Kraft

Ink: Sunflower Yellow / Pearlescent Rust / Pearlescent Chocoloate (Brilliance), Versamark, Tea Dye Duo,  Fresh Snow

Other: Favor It Box 1, Woodgrain Impression Plate, Rustic Jute Twine, Gold Chocolate Coins (Palmer), Metallic Powders

One Layer Wednesday Challenge: Christmas Kindness

This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is to make a Christmas card. It is a special edition of the OLWC because these cards will be sent to inmates at the North Dakota penitentiary, so they will have Christmas cards to send to their loved ones.

I tried to think of a card that would be warm and soothing for someone to receive. It is really cold in North Dakota, so I wanted to make something with warm colors. So I stamped the Thomas Kinkade winter scene onto PTI's warm Fine Linen CS using Versafine Toffee ink. Then I added the sentiment from PTI's new Big & Bold Holiday wishes (love this new set) in red. 

To finish the card, I spritzed it with PTI's gold mist spray to give it a warm glow and shimmer, almost like a lamp light over the whole scene. 

I will be sending this out to Rhonda tomorrow! If you would like to contribute cards to this Christmas Kindness card drive you can find the details on Susan's blog here. Thanks so much for stopping by today. Hope you have a warm and sunny day!

Supplies (all Papertrey Ink unless otherwise listed)
Stamps: Christmas Village (Thomas Kinkade, CHF), Big and Bold Holiday Wishes
Paper: Fine Linen
Ink: Toffee (Versafine), Rocket Red (Brilliance), Rocket Red Gold (Brilliance)
Other: Gold mist