I am in really good company with a February birthday. I celebrate the same month as Abe Lincoln, George Washington, my Grandma Shepard... and Papertrey Ink! I have the say, Papertrey has the best celebration. They celebrate with fun contests and challenges. I've been having fun creating cards this weekend for those challenges.
The first one I created was a color recipe challenge inspired by the design team's favorite projects. I chose Erin's color recipe and created this card. I used the Happy Harlequin stamp set and cover plate, Lemon Tart paper, Kraft and Stamper's Select White card stock, and berry sorbet, aqua mist and Versafine black ink. And that wonderful Layered Banner Banter stamp set and die. I could use that banner on every card I make.
For the next card, I could spend 5 minutes choosing the supplies I would use for a card. The catch was that I had to use everything I chose. That catch made me much more selective. I chose the Beautiful Butterflies stamps and dies, the Coverplate waves die, and Aqua Mist and Stamper's Select White cardstock, Versafine Black ink, and my Wink of Stella brush pen. My simple, but oh-so-peaceful, result is above!
For the sampler card, I really didn't think I'd like the results, but I really do! The challenge was to create nine 1.5" x 1.5" squares and do a different technique on each. Line them on a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" card base to create a card. My techniques (from left to right, starting at the top) are ink smooshing, ink blending with water droplets, emboss resist, stencil, embossing, watercolor, stamp "kissing," ink blending, texture paste. I decided not to trim the card to 5 1/2" vertically because I really liked the border I had at the bottom.
I was crafting with friends from church yesterday (We have so much fun!), so I adapted one challenge to my situation. One challenge was to take an article of clothing to use as inspiration for a card. Our group of crafters was made up of both paper crafters and quilters. One friend was making a baby quilt for a new nephew. I decided to make a card she could give along with her quilt gift. I even incorporated a piece of her scrap fabric onto the card. Here you see my card at the top and the fabric she was stitching together to make the quilt squares on the bottom. I can't wait to see the photo of her finished quilt!
Today's challenge was an alphabet challenge. I took the letters of my first name and incorporated the elements listed beside each letter. A = Add a border, M = Mix 2 stamp sets, Y = Incorporate a shade of yellow. Whew -- this one wasn't bad! My border is a strip of paper from the Mod Mix pack from Stamp-a-faire. I mixed the Hugs set and Doodlie-Do. The yellow is in the patterned paper and in the coloring. This one came together pretty quickly.
There is at least one more card-making challenge. We'll see it that one happens before I go to bed tonight!
