Papertrey Hello Friend Address Book

This is my second  post for today.  For the Amber Ink Passing the Torch post, please scroll down.

This is a long post, so I hope you will bear with me.  Since I discovered PTI a year and a half ago, I have been lucky enough to have received quite a few cards from some of my PTI friends.  I started saving their addresses and realized I had quite a little baggy full of scraps of paper with them just begging to be organized.  I had one PTI kraft binder to use for this.  Those binders are hard to come by and I knew I only had one chance to make one the way I wanted to.  I have always loved the card Maile Belles made for the April PTI release using Chevron Stripes and the embossed Hello Friend sentiment.  I  knew I wanted to re-create this card for the cover of my PTI Friends Address Book.  Here is Maile's original card:



Since I had only one shot at the embossing on the Kraft binder, I was very nervous to attempt it.  I debated long and hard about whether I should try it on the kraft binder.  I was afraid the notebook would be too porous or the stamp would not go on evenly.  I worried for nothing,  it was so easy!  The binder took the embossing powder so nicely and turned out just exactly how I had pictured it in my head.  I made an svg of the PTI diecut Simple Circles and made it a little longer to fit the Kraft binder.  I stamped the Chevron Stripes onto white cardstock and layered some buttons, just like in Maile's card.  Here is my binder front:

Now, onto the address pages themselves.  I wanted a single page for each PTI friend and I wanted to be able to color on them with copics while still using them back to back, therefore they could not bleed through to the other side.  I ordered some Gina K Luxury White 120lb cardstock because it is the only paper I know of  that you can color on and it won't bleed through.  I printed all of the "Friend details" this nice, heavy paper and punched out the holes.  These pages have no rhyme or reason and are just a mixture of stamps that mean something only to me. They are bits and pieces of things that remind me in some way of the friend the page is dedicated to.   I would like to share a few of the individual pages with you and explain why I chose the images for each person.



1)  This page is for my sweet friend Renee Lynch.  I met Renee when I sold her some stamps and we have become very good friends.  Renee and I have shared lots of stamp sets with each other, and the YOF gladiolus is one of those sets.  There are not a lot of people who I would trust with my PTI stamps, so that should tell you how good a friend I consider Renee to be.  Renee has also shown me how to color those gigantic YOF rose images with step by step instructions.  She also loves to read and sent me a beautiful card using All Booked Up and the Mark Twain sentiment along with the first book in a series that I became hooked on, The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning.  Those 5 books occupied all of my reading time for nearly four months.  One thing I will be adding to Renee's page is a few of the new Fruit Fusion images.  She and I whipped outselves into a frenzy over those fruit stamps this month, and I am certain a strawberry and some grapes are soon to be on her page along with the gladiolus.

2)  This page is for a new friend of mine, Joyce Mehrberg.  I had seen Joyce's avatar many times and it always stood out in my mind.  It is of a great big realistic looking owl.  I didn't understand the meaning behind the owl, but now I do.  Joyce's daughter drew the owl and became a finalist in a huge art contest with it.  Joyce has lots of owl stamps and that is why I used my one and only owl as an image on her PTI address page.  Joyce and I split the Honey Bees stamp set and that is why there are lots of bees on her page, even though she "hates" bees!  She did, however love the grass image in the set and that is how we became friends.  She lives in CA, not that far from where I live and I think we may actually get to meet in person one day.  The Sending You flower on her page is because Joyce is the first person that I know of who liked one of my cards enough to case it.  I was very touched and excited that she has used one of my cards for inspiration.



3)  This page is for my friend Susan Russo.  Susan is the first PTI friend I made quite some time ago.  We met when we split the stamp set All Booked Up.  I just had to have the Mat Stack 1 image in that set and Susan was nice enough to split it with me.  You will notice the purple butterflies on her page too.  Susan sent me a really pretty card once with the friendship jar and a whole bunch of beautiful purple butterflies flying out of it.  It sits in front of me on my window ledge where I can see it every single day.  You are probably asking why I would have a stamp image of a camera on Susans page.  Susan had been wanting a new camera ever since I have known her.  She wanted the camera to capture memories of her two little girls before they got much older.  She scrimped and saved and even sold a lot of her precious PTI stamps in order to earn her camera.  Susan finally got that camera and just this week posted a picture she took with it of her daughters baking cookies.  She finally has the tool she needed to document all those everyday memories she never wants to forget.  Isn't that a great story?

4)  This page is for my very talented friend Jen Carter.  I am a huge fan of Jen's CAS style.  I have cased many of her cards and it is because of her talent that I have the stamp set Cupcake Collection.  She has made so many cute cards with this set, it was a very easy decision for me to use it on her address page in my book.  You will notice there is a little bit of twine on the button cherry on the one of the cupcakes.  That twine is also something I think of when I think of Jen.  No one uses twine as well as her, in my opinion and she was very sweet to do some color comparisons for me recently.  I would not have half the twine collection I do if not for her inspiration.

5)  This page is for my friend Diane Jaquay.  I made this page for Diane using YOF Daffodils because Diane had a beautiful daffodil on the title of her blog for as long as I have known her.  Wouldn't you know it, right after I spent a while coloring her page with copics, she changed her blog!  No more daffodils, just cute little houses resembling her title, Peaceful Lane.  One day I will probably add a few houses to her page, but for now, it is all about the daffodils.  I also want to find a way to incorporate some Impression Obsession Cover-A-Card stamp images on her page as she got me started collecting those stamps as well.  Lastly, I am looking for an image of an old trunk to add to her page.  It was after reading about Diane's postive reviews of her Vagabond that I used all my birthday money and bought one.  She was right, it really is a great machine and there will bean image of one on her page as soon as I can find a stamp that looks like it.

6)  This page is for Audrey Tokach.  Everyone on the PTI forum knows Audrey.  We all know she love, love, loves Little Bitty Bird and the Tiny Treat series of stamps.  For that reason, her page has the cute little tree and the TT kitten and plane up in the air.  You will notice I had to have some felt on her page.  Audrey organizes a felt share every month so the felt birds and flower are very fitting for her address page.  I also know Audrey is a huge fan of gingham, so of course a little gingham square with a button was just the right touch for her page.

I have made so many friends here on the PTI forum.  I am planning on making a decorated page for lots more of my friends and will be sure to share each page as I make it.  I have to say I got a little choked up typing this blog post.  I am so grateful to the friends I have made through my love of stamping and PTI.  You all are a huge part of my life and talking with you is something to look forward to every single day.

To be continued...