Four of a Kind

Edited:  Leigh is the randomly drawn winner of the PTI certificate.  I have sent you a pm requesting your email address for the gift certificate.  Thanks to everyone who looked at our projects.

Four of a Kind is a really good thing when you are playing poker.  Four of a Kind is also a really good thing in cardmaking because today, I am sharing a card and links to three other cards made by my three dear Papertrey Ink forum friends, Renee Lynch, Joyce Mehrberg and Kim Heggins.  For the story behind our Four of a Kind challenge, Joyce has the full story on her blog, but in a nutshell,  we all have challenged ourselves to create cards using the same little bag of materials.  We plan to do this for at least four months, each person hosting a challenge and providing the little bag of materials.  The only rule to this challenge is to use at least FOUR items from the kit.  Get it?  FOUR of a kind?  Clever, right?  This month, it was my turn to hostess and here is the little kit we all are using:

Hope you can see all of the little pieces to the kit using Cupcake Collection.  Also in the kit is some patterned paper by My Minds Eye, Lime Twist and lots of little embellishments, twine, diecut cupcakes, embossed cupcake pattern papers, some sentiments and even some little cupcakes and candles. 

Here is the card I made using my kit:

It is amazing how fast a card can come together when you have all of the "ingredients" right at hand.  I used a dark chocolate cardbase stamped with a gingham background and added a layer of the sweet cupcake patterned paper rounded at the top.  I cut a mat stack #3 diecut from the Berry Sorbet cupcake-embossed cardstock and layered a circle of the reverse side of the cupcake patterned paper.  Hard to see in the pic, but the paper is Houndstooth.  Must be very trendy now as Papertrey Ink just released a Houndstooth background set.  I used the little strip of popped up cupcakes for an accent and added my diecut cupcake and pearls as the focal point.  In our kit, there was a double-ended banner stamped with my sentiment and lastly, I added a candle with some gold stickles for the flame.  What do you think?  I used TEN of my ingredients to make this card.

Now it's time for the fun part.  Here is a link to the three other cards my crafty forum friends have created using this very same kit.

I am offering some blog candy in honor of this challenge and all you have to do to win a $10 PTI gift certificate is:

1)  Become a Follower of all four blogs if you aren't already.

2)  Leave a comment on all four blogs telling us how you like our Four of a Kind challenge cards.

I will draw a random winner on Sun, August 21st.  Make sure you check in to see if you were the lucky winner.  Thanks for taking a look today!

Renee Lynch

Joyce Mehrberg

Kim Heggins