PTI MIM #99: Repeats & Rainbows

I'm not sure what it is about this card, but I pretty much love it.  Clean.  Simple.  Bright.  Things I'm loving these days.  And maybe I love it because with a sick baby all week, my house feels practically nothing like this.

This week the Make It Monday Challenge at Papertrey is using rainbow color schemes and repeated stamped and/or die cut images.  I picked the rainbow scheme above, but I added Plum Pudding because I needed one more color to spell out "Thanks".  And I've decided PTI's script alphabet die is for sure in my top 3 favorite PTI products.  Lately it seems like it's my #1 and I want to use it on everything.  I love, love, love being able to connect the letters.

Supplies
Stamps: Background Basics: Retro (PTI)
Ink: Baja Breeze, Elegant Eggplant, More Mustard, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red (all SU)
Paper: Ocean Tides, Orange Zest, Plum Pudding, Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado, Summer Sunrise, White (all PTI)
Other: Script Alphabet Dies (PTI), corner rounding punch

PTI Make It Monday #98: Chalkboard Technique

This week Papertrey's Make It Monday Challenge is to use a chalkboard technique.  I love chalkboard art and have been meaning to try it out, but just never made time for it.  Tonight I decided I would delay sleep and give it a go, and I'm so glad I did.  I had so much fun.  It reminded me of doodling in middle school.  Good times. 

The idea for the card came quickly, but finding the right stamps to use took a while.  I pulled out a ton, but in the end I only used three sets and just did A LOT of masking to get the words, letters, and partial images that I wanted.  P.S. Sorry about the dark pictures, but I was too excited to wait until there was daylight. :)

Supplies (all PTI unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Fancy Flourishes, Movers & Shakers Sentiments, Think Big Favorites #12
Ink: Fresh Snow
Paper: Honeydew (MM), Raspberry  Fizz, True Black

Other: White embossing powder (SU), white colored pencil

Make it Monday #97 (Take 3)

I made this card for  PTI's Make It Monday #97: 2012 A la Carte.  I had the intention of using it for a 10 minute card dash as well, but my baby woke up in the middle of my first and second attempts making the card, and then I had to come back to it three or four times to get it finished up, so the 10 minute idea was definitely lost.  And actually I ended up making this card twice because there were a couple things about the first card that bugged me, but I loved the chevron background I had created.  My husband thought the first card was okay at first, but after showing him my second card I asked him if I should even bother sending the first card to someone or if I should just pull the buttons off and trash the card.  He said I could send it to my mom. (That's a really nice way of saying that it doesn't look that great, but your mom loves you and appreciates any card you send.)  

My first attempt making this card only used Make It Monday #82: Cutting Stamps. I cut the candy canes 5 cent stamp in Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers, so I could just use the words candy and cane separately to make the red part of the chevron pattern.  However, as the card evolved I started thinking about some of the other previous Make It Mondays, and I ended up using Make It Monday #90: Creating Focal Point Sentiments with Stamps & Dies and Make It Monday #94: Detail Glitter Technique again like I did on this card.  (I have to use glitter as much as I can while it is out because I know in a very short time I won't be able to handle the mess it creates anymore, and I'll pack it all away...probably for a while.)

Supplies (all PTI unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Chocolate Alphabet Small (CTMH), BB: Chevron Stripes, Friendship Jar: Holiday Fillers, Polka Dot Basics
Ink: Fresh Snow, Real Red (SU)
Paper: Soft Stone, White
Other: Block Alphabet Die Collection, Snowflake Punch (Marvy Uchida), Garnet Glitter (Martha Stewart), buttons, embroidery floss

Card 2 for 10-Minute Craft Dash #9, CSC83, & MIM #97

 

I made another Christmas thank you for the following three challenges (click on each photo to go to the challenge):

PTI's Make It Monday #97 

I made the card last night and waited to photograph it until this morning, which was silly because it's still snowy today and the sky is completely gray. There isn't a lot to this card, so it only took me 5 minutes 43 seconds to finish.  To my surprise, the most time consuming part wasn't the selective stamping (christmas) or the glitter, but rather aligning the letter stamps on the acrylic block.

This card was so quick to finish that just for kicks I decided to see how long it would take me to make three more since I had pulled out two sheets of white cardstock. I set the timer again and finished all three in 9 minutes and 33 seconds, and I spent the whole last minute just dusting off the extra glitter from the cards.  If only I could write on the insides that quick. :)
For the Make it Monday Challenge #97: A la Carte, I went back and used MIM #94: Glitter Detail Technique.  Obviously if I hadn't been doing the 10 Minute Craft Dash as well, I would have been a little more precise with applying the glue, but I still love how just a little glitter adds so much.

Supplies

Stamps: Friendship Jar: Holiday Fillers (PTI), Short Order Alphabet (SU)

Ink: True Black, New Leaf (PTI)

Paper: White (PTI)

Other: Martha Stewart Glitter (White Gold & Garnet)



Christmas Stockings

This post is mostly for my family (I promised I would show them the finished product), and it explains a lot about where my very limited crafting time has been spent over the last month.  We were one stocking short this year, and when I saw Camille Roskelley's Merry stocking pattern (love her!), I decided I had to make all of us new stockings.  Let me preface this by saying that I am not a quilter and hardly a sewer, so this task was pretty ambitious.  Thankfully, one of my sisters loves quilting (and is amazing at it), so she helped a ton with the quilting part on the chevron and the pinwheel stockings.  And this tutorial was amazing if you are thinking of sewing anything with hexagons.  I don't think I could have done done the hexagon stocking without it.  Her tutorial made the pattern directions make sense, and maybe even simplified it a bit.  I love the fabrics I used, and I'm mostly pleased with the way they turned out (although I only finished them two days before Christmas, so there was no time to actually quilt them).  The only major snag was having to make up my own way to attach the cuff and tag (and I'm sure if I knew more about sewing the cuff directions would have made sense and I wouldn't have had to make my own version up.)  Okay, enough chit chat.  Here are the stockings.

My favorite....this was the most labor intensive because the hexagons are completely sewn by hand, but I love how it turned out and so does my husband (which is good because it is his stocking.)

 

The cuff bugs me on this one, but it's my fault because I was determined to work this fabric in because I love it so much.  I'll probably redo this one.  I really love how this stocking looks (pom-poms and all...wish I'd seen it before I did mine.)

This isn't a great picture, but I love how this one turned out, too...though I wish I had paid more attention to the way the penguins were facing when I did the cuff.

One final shot of them all. :)