Lovely Layers mini cards

It's been awhile since I've been able to place a PTI order, and on a whim last month,  I added Lovely Layers and the square dies at the last second. And I'm so glad I did! It's been so much fun playing with them, and I've seen the coolest things made with them too. When I was experimenting with them, it seemed like they would make a nice mini card set. So I made several in many colors. The cards are 3-1/4" square.

For the first one, I used the negative diecut of the leaves to frame the flower.

I also made a softer, more feminine version.

The small sentiment is from the Mixed Messages set. So many of those mini sentiments fit perfectly in the flower's center and it's very simple to switch out the sentiment, if you need it for a different occasion. I embossed the entire  base of the card (front and back) using the Simple Stripes IP (love!), which adds a nice texture. Then I matted the inside with a piece of white cardstock, to keep from writing on the texture.

This one is similar to the first, but matted with a different square.

And the last one has a diecut similar to the first one, but I embossed the background with the woodgrain IP.

I added dimension to the leaves using the rock 'n roll technique, graduating to a darker color as I got to the end of the leaves. It helps to make the leaves pop and glow a bit more!

If you know any tips to line up the stamps with the diecut, I'd love to hear it! I had such a hard time lining these up. Here's a couple of tips I learned when using Lovely Layers: if you stamp on the diecuts, mat them from behind with the same color paper. If your stamping isn't exactly centered on the diecut, it somewhat helps to disguise it (for example: white on white). Also, I learned this tip and it makes a huge difference: stamp in versamark ink first, then ink up your stamp. The stickiness helps to hold the ink better so you don't get gaps in your coverage.

I'm entering this set of 4 cards into A Passion for Papertrey's Anything Goes challenge! It's been awhile since I played their challenge, and it's fun to be participating again!

Also, here are some updated photos of Alexander taken today. He's almost 10 months old now. He's got two teeth on the bottom and is getting four new teeth on top. He loves to jump in his jumper and has started to stand on his own too!

Then a few minutes after I took the pictures, I looked over at him and he had passed out in his jumper.

The first time he's done that, haha! Guess he jumped so much he wore himself out. :)

Thanks for taking a look and have a very sunny summer day! :)

Mini Spring/Easter cards

Hi, hope you are all doing well! Thought I'd pop on real quick to share a couple of mini cards with you.

I used the PTI Lunchbox note die, of course. ;) It's my favorite die (you may have seen it quite a few times on this blog.) The stamps, ribbon and gingham paper are by A Muse Studio.

And here's a Panda card too. ;) All supplies are by A Muse Studio too.

I have some Easter treats to post too, but we will be out of town at my mom's, so might not get them posted in time, but I will try. What are your plans for Easter?


May you have a wonderful Easter with your family and friends!

Ways to Use the Seed Packet die

There has been some interest on the PTI forum to share some ways we've used the Seed Packet die, which is a great pocket die that fits gift cards and much more! So today, I thought I'd share some ideas with you!

My favorite use of the die is to make your own homemade glassine wax bags. They are the perfect little bag to store little items. Here's what it looks like when you first cut it out.

And then here it is assembled.

I used 1/4" scor-tape to adhere it together. The adhesive is barely visible and it sticks down on the wax paper very well (other types of adhesive don't stick at all). Here's a closeup of the tape.

You can cut the bags from regular wax paper that you'd buy on a roll, however I've found it easiest to use some precut 6 inch dry wax sheets. I bought them from Miles Kimball HERE, a pack of 350 is $8.99. They are completely flat so it's much easier to cut with.

A few tips about cutting with the seed packet die: you might need to adjust your sandwich, to make it less tight. After cutting the seed packet, if you are getting some cracking, you might try hand scoring along the pre-scored lines. Sometimes they aren't scored enough so you get some cracking.

Here is what it looks like with something in it. It's a bit see through, and has a neat frosted appearance.

The mini envelope die also looks great cut from waxed paper.

The doily dies also work well cut from wax paper and are the perfect accessory to dress up baked goods. I also use the wax paper sheets sometimes to help the paper come out of the dies more easily: just use a sandwich of die, waxed paper, then cardstock. It's also fun to emboss the seed packets with a Cuttlebug folder or PTI impression plate. I don't have an example with the seed packet, but you can see what I mean in my post HERE.

The seed packets are also neat as chalkboard accents. It's a lot of fun to make these!

You could write out a To/From on the front with chalk or personalize it how you like. Michaels sells a big roll of chalkboard sticker paper in the kid's department for only a few dollars. Then I stuck the sticker paper to some PTI kraft paper and then diecut it out! It looks cute with other dies too, but the seed packet provides more room to write on.

By the way, this is how I apply the scor-tape adhesive when I assemble a seed packet.

Another tip, the spiral notebook page die fits perfectly inside the seed packet die. It makes such a cute little note to include in a package you send out! Here it is laid on top of the seed packet so you can get a sense of how it fits.

I noticed this when I was at the Central Florida get together, when Terry let me try out her die and cut a few diecuts (thanks, Terry!). I was so excited to discover this, and so I ordered this spiral die in my recent order.

And here's a completed project I made using the seed packet die. I sent it to my sweet friend Joyce!

I cut the seed packet from A Muse gingham patterned paper card stock. Love that paper! The A Muse gingham paper is 8.5 x 11 and comes in 10 different colors. Really pretty paper. The seed packets look so cute cut from patterned paper. I attached a PTI Tiny Tag to the front with orange twine.

Next I diecut a mini card from the PTI Mat Stack 3 die. It fits perfectly inside the seed packet!

The image is from PTI Flower Fusion #1 and then heat embossed with white EP. The paper is cut from A Muse Sage cardstock. A nice feature of A Muse cardstock, is that it's coated with color on one side and white on the other side, which is great for cardmaking. Love the cardstock and have been using it a lot lately!

Here's the inside.

The sentiment fits great in the top nook of the mat stack, with plenty of room to write a message. The ink is A Muse Orange pigment ink.

Hope you've discovered a fun way or two to use the seed packet. Would love to see what you make with it too.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I have lots more ideas on how to use the seed packet die and hope to share that with you soon! I'll be back soon with ways you can make your own journaling tabs using existing PTI dies. Have a wonderful and sunny day! :)

Mini Bitty Bird Cards & Giveaway winner!!

I have some super simple mini note cards for you today! I just can't stop making them, I love them so much. The other ones I've made are here, here and here. I'm also announcing the winner of the ribbon giveaway. It's at the end of the post! :)

The Tag-It's stamp sets that Heather has been making are perfect for these mini note cards! I used the Tag-It's #2 with the lunchbox note die. The sentiment is from Tag-It's #1. I love all the mini images you get in the sets!

I also made a flower version too.

And here is the back, which is how I've been "signing" the back of my cards lately. :)

I made several of them to have on hand!

Thanks for all of the really nice comments about my San Francisco trip. We really had a great time and I'm glad I got to share a bit of it with you!! And without further ado, the winner of the ribbon giveaway is:

Lucky 13! Which would be, SUE ANN! Congrats, Sue Ann! :) Email me with your details and I'll get your ribbon out to you! :)

Thanks for taking a look! Have a sunny day!

God Bless America...

I sent something off to my brother at school a few days ago, and I made him a little mini patriotic note to go with it! :) I used the PTI Americana stamp set: est. 1776. I also got to try out my new Jenni Bowlin inks. I really love them! I used Fountain Pen and Chili Powder. They are a wonderful dye ink. The ink gives such good coverage, it almost looks like a pigment ink.

I added another phrase to the inside flap. I kinda liked that the phrase is the next lyric in the song, so you almost sing it to yourself as you're opening the card, "God Bless America, Land that I Love..." Makes me kind of teary-eyed whenever I hear that song. The 4th is definitely one of my favorite holidays!

I continued the stripe pattern on the back of the card.

The light tone on tone ink color is Antique Linen by Tim Holtz. And the die is my favorite Papertrey Ink die, the Lunchbox Note die. I use it all the time, because I love making mini notes!

And a peek at the inside...

Hope you had fun celebrating last weekend. I spent some time with my relatives in south Florida at the beach. We had a great time! And by the way, HERE are some tips about taking pictures of fireworks! So sorry, I meant to share this with you on the 4th, but I was still in south Florida and wasn't able to get a post up in time. Hopefully you can bookmark it for future use.

Don't forget there's still a few days left to enter my giveaway HERE! Have a sunny day!

Just a Note: More Mini Cards! :)

I sold a few things recently and I like to include a small note when I mail the package out! So I thought I'd share with you some mini notes I made using the PTI Lunchbox Note die (my favorite PTI die at the moment!). I love to make mini cards, I think it's my favorite kind of card. :)

The PTI Postmarks set is a wonderful set, full of so many great little images that you can mix and match! It also works really well with the Button Boutique set.

And the inside of the notecard...

I also decorated the back of the notes using the woman's silhouette stamp (from Postmarks) and the handmade stamp (from Button Boutique). It's a sort of way to "sign" the back of the notecard. :)

And one more thing! Some of the stamps in the PTI Postmarks set work great on the packages themselves. It's a way to decorate the package, but also make sure it arrives safe and sound! :)

Here are all of the notecards together!

And my apologies that I have not updated over the past month. We were having some work done in our home, so it was a little hard to find room to craft. I plan to do many more posts over the coming weeks. Thanks so much for stopping by! :) Have a sunny day!!

Papertrey Ink March Blog Hop: Embroidery Floss

I've been using PTI products for awhile, but this is my first PTI Blog Hop. I'm so happy to be finally playing along! :) And I can't wait to hop through and see all of your projects!

This month's challenge was to use embroidery floss on our projects (the details are here).

I recently got my new PTI order and this project uses the new stamps I got from the new release. I love the new PTI mini envelope die. It would be great if they also released one for a gift card too (PTI are you listening?) :)

So for the Blog Hop project I thought I'd decorate one of the new mini envelopes. I stamped one of the new mini tags to look almost like a thought bubble coming from the bird. I stamped it on the CS then stamped on a tag diecut and raised it on a pop dot, then added some aqua mist colored floss.

I stamped the back of the envelope with the airmail border stamp from Postmarks.

By the way, I also recently got these new goodies in the mail. It's a Sew Easy kit which is great to use for hand stitching with floss on cards. This kit is used for impressing dotted patterns into your paper to act as a guide for your stitching. It's been a lot of fun to try them out!

I used one of the Sew Easy patterns to stitch an airmail border to the inside mini card that I made so it would coordinate.

Here's a closeup of the mini card. I left just enough room to write out a small personalized message. I attached another piece of CS to hide the back of the stitching.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you enjoy the hop. I will be hopping along to see everything that you all make. :) Have a sunny day!

All supplies are PTI unless otherwise listed.

Stamps: Tiny Tags, Label Basics, Postmarks, Tag It #1, Tag It #2
Paper: SS white
Ink: Red Magic, Sea Breeze, Mango Madness (Versamagic)
Other: Mini envelope die, Tiny Tags die, aqua floss, red floss

How to Make a Small Shaped Card

I had some questions about how to make a small card, so just thought I'd post some quick instructions if you would like to make some using Papertrey Ink's Mat Stack 4 die (found HERE).

First, cut a 3-1/2" x 6" piece of paper (you should be able to get three from one 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper). Then score and fold in half so that it measures 3" x 3-1/2". Then place the sheet of paper on the die with the fold slightly overlapping the end of the die. Make sure part of the cutting line is exposed. Like this.

It may help to attach some removable adhesive to the inside of the card so it stays in place. Then run it through your die cutting machine and you will have a small shaped card!

Just to show you an example of the finished product, here's a different version of the small Halloween card I posted yesterday.

I stamped and heat embossed the card and then added yellow acrylic paint to the windows.

Then I added yellow acrylic accents to the moon inside too!

Thanks for stopping by. I have another post up with some treats that I made for Halloween too! Have a sunny day!