Thankful for YOU, Nichole

This card is for you, Nichole in honor of the first PTI Nichole Heady Appreciation Blog Hop:

For 28 years, most of my identity has been as a mother. My two oldest sons are both living on their own, married and in their own homes and my daughter is in college. For the last couple of years I have really struggled with "letting go", which is the way it should be. I have done a good job as a mom and am proud of the adults my kids have grown up to be. But...what do I do now?

This is where you come in Nichole. I discovered PTI and your Capture the Moment blog. With it, I found something interesting, fun and creative that I can do with my time that fills up a little bit of space that my day to day mothering used to take up. I have things to look forward to every day that are centered on me, Cathy rather than on me, Mom.

I probably will never meet you in person, although someday I hope to. Your blog, your cards, your videos, and your wonderful company has given me so much pleasure, excitement and enjoyment of life. Because of you, Nichole, I have met so many wonderful people on the PTI forum. I absolutely love reading about and talking about everything PTI and your readers are the most thoughtful and encouraging people I have ever known.

Thank you Nichole for touching my life in such a positive, meaningful manner and for bringing such a big smile to my face on a daily basis. This is obviously not just a job for you, just as it is not just a hobby for all of your readers. I appreciate you and am so thankful for YOU.

A Star Is Born

Lots of PTI goodness on this card today. Stamps, papers, dies, glitter, embossing powder and a little bit of computer work and messy stitching all mixed together for a sweet baby card. I used my Star Prints set for the first time and I used a little image from Favor It Baby on the Just the Ticket stamp set. It fits perfectly within the ticket frame. I tried very hard to make the computer printout line up within the library card frame. Did you notice there is some Night, Night Moon stamped on the Bitty Box Basics paper and on the Library Card Pocket? I have been challenging myself to really pay attention to details on my cards lately as that is what I always love about the cards made by the design team members. I'm not quite sure how I am going to fit this into an envelope though, those tickets stick out a bit on the sides.

Details:

Stamps: Night, Night Moon, Library Card, Just the Ticket, Star Prints, Favor it Baby, It's Official

Paper: Enchanted Evening, Spring Rain, Rustic Cream, Bitty Box Basics

Ink: Spring Rain, Enchanted Evening, Versamark

Accessories: Prisma Glitter, White Embossing powder, Library Card Pocket Die, Just the Ticket Die, stitching

My Favorite Card (Still is)

****This post is for the PTI Anniversary contest.  We were to post our very favorite card made with PTI products.  When I made this card, the post title was "My Favorite Card".  It still is today.  I have used this layout many times, but always love this one the best.

So today I made a card that is my very favorite of all the cards I have made so far. I just got the Mat Stack #3 stamp and die and have been wanting to make it the focal point of a card. I love it! It lines up so nicely and was the perfect mat for a baby boy card using a little onesie stamp. I stamped the onesie three times and paper pieced it popping up each layer with dimensionals. I finally figured out how to stamp text style script getting it to line up correctly. Turns out the trick was stamping from bottom to top. I had always done it the other way around. For me, that seemed to be the key. I got to use my new PTI dark chocolate twine and also my linen impression plate. I love this card so much, I am going to duplicate it to give to my niece and keep this one for my craftroom card shelf. I love days like this when a card goes together just as you pictured it. I think I am going to start a link in the forum for everyone to share their most favorite card and tell us why it is their favorite. How fun would that be to see?

Details: Card Size 4 1/4 x 4 1/4

Paper: Spring Rain, Dark Chocolate, Rustic White, Bitty Dot Basics

Stamps: All Booked Up, Text Style I, Night, Night Moon from PTI, Onesie from Technique Tuesday Cute as a Button

Accessories: PTI Dark Chocolate twine, linen impression plate

Night Night Moon and Large Scallop Die

I love the baby set Night, Night Moon. I love the title. I love the border stamps, I love the cute little duck and diaper images and I love the sentiments. I love everything about that set. So, I was especially excited when I realized that both the diaper and the duck images fit perfectly within the large scallop of PTI's large scallop border die. I love it when you find an image that fits within one of the PTI scallop border dies. For this baby card that I am giving to my niece who is having a shower for her baby boy to be born in a few months, I started with a kraft base and stamped the duck, diaper, bottle and rattle border in dark chocolate several times. It is super easy to line up and can easily be matched for any length of card. Next I cut a scallop in spring rain with the large scallop die and adhered it to the bottom of the kraft base. I stamped and cut out the cute little duck from a variety of bitty dot papers. I stamped each image three times. I used some dimensional foam on the bodies and on the wing. I got to use my harvest gold felt with the ric rack die for the first time on this card too. It is so perfect for a baby card. I used Fillable Frame #1, a sentiment from Night Night Moon and Fresh Alphabet letters to spell out the baby's name on the frame. The finishing touch was one last duck image cut out and adhered to the label. I am so happy with the way this card turned out.

Details:

Paper: Kraft, Spring Rain, various Bitty Dot Basics

Stamps: Night Night Moon, Fillable Frame #1, Fresh Alphabet

Ink: Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy, Enchanted Evening

Accessories: Large Scallop Die, Harvest Gold Felt

Library Card Pocket

Just a quick post today to show the inside of a card I made using the Library Pocket die. Several people on the forum have asked some questions about the pocket die and I wanted to show how I have used it. I cut the pocket with orange zest cardstock and adhered it to the inside of my card. I cut a 2" scallop circle with In Bloom cardstock and a 1.75" circle stamped with one of the Round and Round Flower images. I colored the image with copics and stamped a sentiment with Birthday Bash Sentiments. I think this is really nice way to present a gift card, much nicer than just setting it inside the inside of the card.

Just an FYI about this die: Patterned paper tends to have the fold lines cut through with this die. To prevent that from happening, cut two pieces of paper at once. 1st layer should be cardstock, second layer should be patterned paper. That has worked for me every time. Thanks for taking a look today.

Papertrey Pals and Clean and Simple Challenge

Today I covered two challenges with one card, Papertrey Pals (see the details here:) http://www.papertreypals.blogspot.com/

and Clean and Simple Stamping (See their details here:)http://cleanandsimplestamping.blogspot.com/.

Papertrey Pals Challenge #13 was to create a card using a stamp you have never, ever used before and Clean and Simple Stamping is celebrating their 100th sketch. Whoo Hoo! So, first I dug through my PTI stamps and found the Fruitful set. I just got this in a trade with Lorin (PTI name). I envisioned using it with my jar set, but it is really scaled too large for that. I do love those pretty, colorful fruit images and just had not yet figured out how to work them into a card. I also used two sentiments that I had never inked up yet. The sketch from Clean and Simple Stamping was very easy to picture as a card. Not so eash for me to execute though. Turns out stamping Pure Poppy on white cardstock evenly and without any smudges is not something I am very good at. For a Clean and Simple card, I ended up using up 3 pieces of white cardstock and it is still not "perfect". I used the strawberry images as the scallop in the picture and the Thank You sentiment as the ribbon. After I messed up so many times, I was really worried about running it through my cuttlebug with the linen impression plate. Thank goodness it worked and nothing smeared. I feel good that I finally used my fruitful set, but think it will be a long time before I use it again stamped so many times on one piece of cardstock. Too much opportunity to make a mess.

Details:

Paper: PTI White

Stamps: Fruitful, Fillable Frame #6, Signature Greetings

Ink: Pure Poppy, New Leaf, True Black

Accessories: Backside of the Linen impression plate

Papertrey Paper Dolls Challenge #14

Wow, am I on a roll! This is the third challenge for me in a week, and that is a first. Today I made a card for Papertrey Paper Dolls Challenge #14. The challenge was to create a card using 1) a color you rarely use and 2) a technique you haven't used in a while. I have been wanting to use my new Library Card stamp, so I knew this card would have to have it included somewhere. I chose Berry Sorbet as the color I rarely use. I know it is a beautiful color, but for some reason I have a ton of it and as I scanned through the cards on my blog, I realized I haven't used it more than once. Not sure why. The technique I chose really isn't a technique, but I decided to try using cork on a card. I have been wanting to try cork in my cuttlebug with PTI dies. I bought a roll at Michaels and was surprised that it cut very nicely and didn't tear or wasn't as fragile as I had expected it to. I used almost entirely PTI on this card with the one exception being the little daisy die cut which is from a Martha Stewart paper pack I had. This card turned out just as I pictured it and I plan to give it to my best friend and teacher I work with for the start of the new school year in just a couple of weeks. This was a very fun challenge.

Details:

Paper: Berry Sorbet, In Bloom, Bitty Dot, Bitty Box, Rustic Cream, Martha Stewart print

Stamps: Library Card, Signature Greetings, It's Official, In Bloom

Ink: Dark Chocolate, Ocean Tides

Accessories: Cork, Ric Rac die, Beautiful Blooms Die, Button & Orange Floss