Heather in Florida

I said it was a variation on a theme. ;-) Still with the Hero Arts/Archivers background stamp. I've said before that it's near impossible for me to make two cards exactly the same. Sometimes I'll do it for thank you notes, because usually they are being written in response to an event and there are many to write. In this case, I was playing and there weren't so many to make, so they're all different.

This one isn't so different from the previous one, but I thought the flower/button addition was cute.

Thanks for visiting!

Supplies: unknown green burlap; Kraft and Vintage Cream Papertrey Ink cardstock; Birds & Branches and Butterflies & Lace Hero Arts/Archivers stamps; Wheat and Pumpkin Spice Versamagic chalk ink; White Papertrey Ink pigment ink; Prima flowers; Papertrey Ink button; generic twine; Recollections pearls; Nestabilities

Here's my second Mother's Day card to share with you. Monday's was for my mom; today's is for my husband's mom. I pulled out my Papertrey Ink Women of Life set, plus the Tags for Spring set. (Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with PTI?)

After I stamped the flowers, I thought glitter centers would be nice, so I used my glue stamp pad and added some glitter. It's my first time doing that, so I'm sure I did something wrong because the glitter didn't completely stay on. I mean, if you didn't touch it, it was fine. But if, say, your husband ran his finger across one of the centers, oddly some glitter came off. :-) But at Michaels on Sunday, I saw Glossy Accents and immediately thought it would make a great sealer for the centers, and it did!

Supplies:
Paper: random card blank; DCVW green textured cardstock; Making Memories Chloe patterned paper
Ink: Memento, Palette Stamp & Stick Glue Pad
Tools: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities rectangle and circle sets; Fiskars circle punch
Etc: Lace (Joann); Glossy Accents; Prima flower; unknown heart rhinestone

Well I'm hoping my mom doesn't read my blog, or that she can at least follow directions (per the title). I had fun making this one, and it sort of evolved. I knew the stamp set I wanted to use. Heck, I bought the stamp set specifically for Mother's Day. I just wasn't sure how I was going to use it, and ths is the result.

Supplies:
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Mother, Damask Designs
Paper: Generic card blank; The Paper Company white cardstock; Papertrey Ink Bitty Dots; Papertrey Ink Dark Chocolate; Paper Wishes brown iridescent paper (sorry, not sure of collection)
Ink: Papertrey Ink Raspberry Fizz, Dark Chocolate; Tim Holtz Distress Inks Antique Linen
Tools: EK Success corner rounder; Martha Stewart border punch; Cuttlebug; Swiss Dots embossing folder; Making Memories slot punch
Etc: Lace from clearance at Joann (sorry! it's the ones on the bolts, not on a spool); Prima flowers; pearl brad

Here's another card I did a while back but didn't post. This one was inspired by the Cuttlebug embossing folder in the grey strip (Floral Fantasy) and the stamp in the center of the flower. I received both of them by way of Scrap-aholics.com's closing sale. It's hard to see because it was stamped in red and clear-embossed. I thought I had every color of ribbon in the world, but when I went looking for this green, I couldn't find one wide enough. So I *had* to go to Michaels to get some green ribbon. (Or at least that was the excuse, lol!)

I think this will be my step-mother's birthday card in April. I hope she likes it! I received my Birthday Basics set from Papertrey a couple of weeks ago, so I think one of those nice sentiments will go inside.

Supplies: Black and white polka dot paper and grey strip, Making Memories Scrapbook Basics black & white mat set; red strip, The Paper Company; flower border stamp, Papertrey Ink Around & About Sentiments; flower center Hot of the Press Expressions; green flower, Prima; red flower, unknown; green ribbon, Michaels; border punch, Martha Stewart; Floral Fantasy Cuttlebug embossing folder; adhesive rhinestones, Michaels.

Hey everyone! Papertrey's 2nd Anniversary is being celebrated this month, and they have events scheduled for every day up until their traditional "new release" day of the 15th. Today's event is the possibility of winning a Papertrey tote with a $100 gift card inside. Details can be found here. The deal is this: you decorate a bag and post it for them to see and they randomly choose a winner. So...I rushed home to decorate my bag and here it is! Hooray!

I used my Cricut Expression to cut the bag from Plantin Schoolbook. It's the key using the Tall Ball feature. I cut it to fit the page out of generic pink cardstock from Michaels. I used the Papertrey Ink Around & About Sentiments set to stamp the heart border in Colorbox silver pigment ink, and then clear embossed it. Then I added the "happy everything" circle sentiment from the set in red dye ink. I used the solid circle center from the set and stamped the centers with Versacolor white pigment ink and then white embossed it. I stamped the larger heart from the set on top of the embossed circle in Rose Coral Color Box chalk ink. Oh, I almost forgot, I then stamped a bunch of the little hearts in black.

I also used Dan's flower SVGs to build a flower. I cut the flowers using SCAL from paper in a Making Memories Black & White Scrapbook Basics mat stack. I inked the edges and slightly curved the petals with a bone folder, and then stacked them using foam squares between each layer. The top "button" is actually five circles punched from black paper (just for bulk) and one circle punched from a GBC plastic cover, and all punched with a button hole punch. I strung white DMC floss through the holes and tied a bow. I placed a couple of half-pearls in the center of Prima flowers, and arranged the Prima flowers with my homemade, layered flower on the front. Lastly, I wrapped some black BasicBasic ribbon around the bag and tied a knot.

It would be great if I could win the prize, but it was worth it to participate because now I have something I can send to school with my son for his teacher's Valentine gift. I hope she likes it! :-)

I assembled the bag using Scor-Tape -- that stuff really holds well! Then I wrapped some BasicBasic ribbon from Michaels around the bag.