Christmas in August

Since I finally took out all my lovely PB stamps, I can't help but making another card for the Simon says Challenge: Christmas in August:)

I think the timing is perfect. As a matter of fact, I just checked the PB website and they released some really cute Christmas sets. I think they will be available for purchase next month and I might hold my other orders for them. But I missed the Touch of Whimsy collection, and I want them now badly too.

Well enough of the shopping enthusiasm, here is my final card:

The image and sentiment are both from the same set, Christmas critters, I believe. I can't find the package of the stamp set on my extremely messy desk at the moment, hehe.

Here is the close look:

I first colored the mouses grey. I'm afraid it's too light since I only have C1, so I put yellow on it again. I just love these cute little creatures, so sweet.

Penny Black/ Ground challenge

This week's Penny black Saturday challenge is about using Penny Black stamps to create the background.

I WOWed at all the fabulous creations made by the DT and had no clue how to start mine. Then I remembered the sponge dauber background card showed on Stamptv.com before and decided to give it a try. Here is my finished card using the images from PB in the garden set:

Here is the close up of the focal image and you can see the subtle butterflies in the circles as well.

PB hedgehog had always been my favorite, and now I would say that furry cat is just adorable too!

PTI Make it Monday #26

This week's technique is about decreasing Apertures. I think it's super cool and it's a brand new technique for me to try the first time.

I used PTI stack mat 2 die and then the scalloped circle die from love lives here. In the middle I used the circle image from love lives here. It all paired up pretty well. The raspberry fizz works well with aqua mist. Then I was stuck. I don't know what to do with the bottom part of the card. I finally struggle an idea to ink some polka dots and a ribbon with a button on it.

I don't know if I can shake off the excess glitter without ruining the whole card. So I thought it may be a good idea to substitute the glitter window with a piece of clear cardstock. I stamped the sentiment on the window and it all went well until...... I put them together!

I did heat the ink on the clear cardstock, but apparently it was not dried. I wish there were an ink eraser. Oh, please let me know if there IS such a thing.

I was just about giving it all up, then I made the final attempt. I stamped the heart again and cut it out by hand. The heart covered the accident pretty well, and there you go: if I have TWO hearts, they will always be with you as well.

Here is the finished card. I have truly understood my limitation in making cards by now. I think I should probably just give up the making card part, and only focus on hoarding all the PTI goodies:)

Mojo Monday 202

Ok, another sketch from Mojo Monday:

And here is my take:

I didn't use the ribbon tails since I thought it might be too much. But after substituting them with three rhinestones, I KNEW the tails would be better! Sign,,,,,,, Well, overall it's still a cute little card, don't you agree?

Paper: K&Company, PTI

Stamp: PTI pear

Mojo Monday 201

It was a frustrating week and there were claim after claim at the work when it's clearly not our fault! Anyway, business is business, just got to deal with it. I didn't feel creative at all, but I finally made a card this morning. Well I got to agree with others, it's kind of expensive to keep this papercrafting hobby, but it definitely better than a therapy.

Here is my card using Mojo Monday sketch 201,

paper: K&company

Stamp: PTI day dreams, Tiny Tags,

Ribbon: PTI spring moss

A blind date card

Today is Papertrey Ink's Stamp-a-faire day. I can't express my excitement more when I saw a new card and a challenge everytime I refreshed Nicole's blog page.

I'm going to put it short before I miss the submission time:) I took the challenge 7, which is making a card layering 2 or 3 images from different sets together.

My first thought was paring beautiful bloom with the signature series: flower. It didn't worked out. I tried quite a few sets and they all didn't match very well.

Finally it worked out with pairing Dot Spots and Giga Guide lines:

The interesting thing is the dots peeked through the top image as you can see below:

I used the sentiment from Giga Guide lines as well, on the fillable frame 10. I always like to use the sentiments coming with the set. Nothing really fancy. The colors I first decided were two shades of blue. I planned to use Ocean Tides as the matting, then I wanted to make it a happy bright card, so I changed to Pure Poppy. But when I had another look, I really should have used the sentiment " Happy July Forth"! Well, I guess I will just save it for someone whose birthday is close to that then.

A not so succeed dry brushing card

This week's PTI Make it Monday is about dry brushing technique. To be honest, I think PTI's techniques are too advantaged for a new stamper like me. Although I enjoyed watching them, I have been skipping majority of them because I don't want to use a sewing machine, I don't have re-inkers, I don't have an impression plate and etc.

I already gave up playing along this time since I don't have any paint either, sign...... But I just remembered that the only re-inker I have is the thick textured fresh snow ink. So with my very limited creativity, I paired it with the craft cardstock.

Here is the final card,

As you can see, the dry brushing was more like rubbing ink pad all around the edge of the cardstock. Maybe it's the paint/re-inker, maybe it's the brush, maybe it's me:P

I embossed the wish big using black embossing powder and I run it through cuttlebug using the the cavan impression plate.

I always thought PTI's impression plates are too expensive comparing to the cuttlebug ones. I finally carefully picked up one recently and just receive the plate. I was very very impressed and I still don't know if it really worth it, but I had to say that I love it.

Stamps used: PTI Day Dreams, Big and Bold wishes.

A distressed card

I received my order of Range distressed ink from Joann fabric last weekend, and oh my God, they are sooooo impressive. I never like the shabby or distressed look before, but these inks can literally turn any piece of white stock into a cool colored pattern paper. I love the option of endless possibilities.

So I first made this little tote usingPTI favor it box #4, Damask designs stamp set, Distress ink in bundled sage and a little bit of crushed olive, AND just a piece of white cardstock

There were some harsh lines, and I was doing more practice to get more.

Then use the sketch from Mojo Moday 198, plus the card from PTI happy trails and sentiment from Day dreams, I made this matching card:

I enve used the color combo inspired from the sketch too. They look very nice together, only when you don't turn the tote to see the imperfect stamping on the back:P

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

A little sweet card

All right, today I have another card to share and I should say it's my favorite card so far.

For the first time, I noticed there's a freebie section on Stamp TV's website and you can download and print out a lot of fun pattern paper. I printed the very first one called "lemon drop", which is very dreamy and summery to me.

Then I saw the Tuesday trigger at Moxie Fab World here:

The card give me a feeling of a peaceful summer afternoon. I can just imaging sitting by a table like that and looking out of the window, there are dragonflies swirl about, and their wings glitter under the sun, oh, what a nice scene it will be!

So using Mojo Monday sketch 197,

I made this little square card:

It's quite lovely, isn't it?

I used the new Papertrey Ink Happy Trails stamp and the coordinating dies for the imagines and sentiment. Although it wasn't picked up well on the camera, I also used glitter pen on the wings of dragonflies.

So....There is it, my little sweet card. I hope it can bring you some fresh summery air too~~~

Play along: Polaroid 2-step masking

Oh, today's PTI Make it Monday #21 was so very inspiring. Nicole's card is so fabulous that I just had to scraplift. Gosh, her genius work just made me buy everything they sold.

But I didn't measure the card strip right at my first attempt, so my final card ended like this:

Personally I never used black cardstock on my card. So I enjoy it's chic look in real life, although the "wrong" dimension made the focal image looked a little weird.

Anyway..........After the warm up, I made this little card for the hostess of the party we are going to attend on July 4th.

I really wish I had the "let the freedom ring" set from PTI, but the butterfly was not a bad choice either. However I really need to work on placing my images, I can never get it right at the first attempt. And mostly I'm too lazy to ink again.

For the hostess gift, I'm thinking to bring her two bottle of hand soap from Bath and Body works like this:

I also have quite a few ideas to present my gifts and I'll post if it got executed very well :)

In bloom

Well, apparently Papertrey Ink's In bloom stamp set was already loved by lots and lots of talented stampers. I guess I'm late at the party since I just discovered it lately. Love love the elegant blooms and the endless stamping and coloring possibilities. But I tried something simple on my first take.

Basically I used the idea from Nicole's countdown for "friends 'til the end" set. In fact, I'm thinking of buying that set too. I found their new releases are fascinating, but their old sets are just too classic and thoughtful to pass by. I feel I'm too addicting to PTI lately, oh, I hate it for not able to be in control of myself from wanting everything they carried.:P

Anyway, here is my first card using snow fresh ink on Hibiscus Bust cardstock.

I didn't position the brads very well and I'm not sure about the button. So I made the second one is on Harvest Gold cardstock, with some rhinestones.

I'm quite happy with this one and it will be in the mail to a dear friend's birthday in just a moment.:)

reverse masking

I didn't create a lot lately since I started planting my square foot garden. I planted quite a few vegetables and I'm fascinated by their growth everyday. Although the gardening is quite time consuming, it certainly didn't stop me from collecting all the new released craft/stamping goodies. :)

Today I finally made a card using Mojo Monday's sketch 196 as long as the reverse masking technique used in PTI's make it Monday.

I got my inspiration from this cute little seed package:

I planted it last Friday and can't wait to see some of those cute patty squashes~~~

So I made a seed pocket from Papertrey Ink's according dies. Also there is a frame die so it made the negative mask so very easy..... I used the raspberry stamps from the fruitful set in the frame, which is my absolute favorite. The rest images were from PTI garden variety set. Actually I don't really love eating raspberries, but for some reason their images are just so cute to look at.

I'm quite happy with it, and I could use it as a gift card holder someday. But I didn't want to stop here yet, so I made the following card:

The sketch is just perfect and smart as usual and the finished card made me smile. Now I just wish PTI will design a vegetables stamp set one day, oh, just imaging the cute images of carrot, corn, tomato....... Gosh, I didn't ask too much, did I? :)

Catching up

Hi everyone, I'm back. I worked in China for three month and I really missed my craft corner. I had so many things to catch up since I came back, the house, the garden, all the new paper craft stuff......

Since I came back on May 1st, so I didn't make anything for mother's day. Here is my problem: If I want to give something I made as gifts, it had to be perfect to my eyes. I want it be to both handmade and good. Scrapbooking is another story. But for the cards, if I spent so much time and money, put in so much heart and it got to WOW people. Otherwise I will go with the store bought ones. So.......I'm keeping almost all the cards I made so far.

This has been really upsetting me, but I have no idea why I'm so hesitant and shy to give out my creations.. Recently I think I found out why I was always not happy with my cards. Because the cards didn't go along with the gift packaging! Most of the time, you seldom send out only one card, but have something to go along with it. Thus, I was really excited to make something coordinated. Since I missed Mother's Day, I got to prepare for Father's Day earlier. So here is what I made today: (click the photo for larger image)

The simple decorated box:

And the equally simple card:

But they look so mice when putting together!

I used large fold n' go from my timeless template and it perfectly holds two bottles of Kiehl's face cream for men, my Dad's favorite. I really should use Aqua mist as the box body. But these two look better than one fancy card to me, even though the box and the card are really simple. I'm just very happy with my new discovery and I need two more sets.......

Paper: Papertrey ink Kraft, Aqua Mist

Stamps: Tag-it #3, Ribbon Trail, Fillable Frame #11, Tin Types

Other: limitless layers dies, Ribbon Die

Pink on Pink on Pink

Ok, this will absolutely be my last post or card before I leave for the trip tomorrow. I was only browsing on the Moxie Fab world and their choices of yummy monochromatic pink totally caught my eyes. So I had to pull out my paper stash again.

So the above was my finished work. I was stuck after I made the flower using the nestabilities dies again. I knew the card was screaming for something a lot more, but I really couldn't think out anything better.

I'm really not good at making the clean and simple cards, but I always always enjoy the style. I guess that's what they said about " opposite attracts ". ^^

Love you all ways

I absolutely love this week's challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps. They are not only proving us a cool sketch, but also asking us to use the monochromatic colors. I love paper and I love playing with color too, even though I'm not good at it yet :P

And here is my take on the challenge:

I played with my Nestabilities Blossom dies last night and made lots of flowers by cutting the panels up. I really love the effect so I had to include them today. BTW I used the red on the heart and I hope it's OK to do so, since I felt yellow tone hearts would be wired. ^^

Oh, I also entered it for the PB allsorts Challenge for my third chance. I know, I'm a greedy girl......

A Trifold Card

Continuing with my fancy fold trials, I made a trifold shutter card. Quite simple to cut and fold it up, the hard part is coordinating the pattern paper from my stash.

Soooo here is the final card:

Since there are layers of cardstock and pattern paper, the card is very sturdy and I really like the heavy luxury feeling when holding it.

The frond panel, use the stamp from the "every which way" set.

The inside panel, used Papertrey Ink's fillable frame and a sentiment from Signature Series: Dress Form.

Entering for the PB Saturday Challenge. The new stuff I recently bought are Martha Steward butterfly border punch, and the pretty glittered cardstock. Joann was having the 6 open stock paper for 96 cents and I went there twice. ^^

I also used Nellie Snellen Flora punches for the flowers. I really love these flower punches since thy gave the flowers a subtle dimensional look.

And I also entered this card for the Pink Stampers' Birthday Challenge. Happy Birthday Ms. Robyn and thank you so much for sharing so many awesome creations using cricut! And I used lots of pink for you! ^^

A Gatefold Card

This week's Simon Says Challenge is a really cool one. I chose the brads, flowers and ribbon from the bingo card provided. But when I checked the Allsorts Challenge blog link on the challenge page, boy, I was blown away by all the totally awesome talented creations on it.

I was inspired by their earlier fancy fold challenge. So I searched how to make a gatefold card and made this one:

The inside is very simple with the sentiment from the same PB stamp sets.

This is my first time of making such a card, so quite a few things turned out different from my imagination. The biggest problem is that I don't know how to close it properly. If I ran the ribbon across the card, it looked weird with the focal image. I guess it's because my card size (4 1/4 square when closed) is too small to have too many elements flowing around. I will try to make something larger next time.

Also entered for Penny black at Allsorts Jan. Challenge.

All you need is Love

I made this card to enter this month's PB Challenge at Allsorts: All You Need is Love. The image is from the set of "every which way", and I also used Mojo Monday's sketch 174. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

If I pull out the glitters, I won't be able to control myself not over doing it. So I didn't use any glitter at all. ^-^ Really love all the sweet images on this set and the hedgehogs are absolutely my favorites!

Say Cheese!

I'm still working on the photos *discovered* on my Dad's iphone. He captured quite some precious moments, but sadly nearly 3/4 of the pictures were out of focus :P

These two pictures are so totally Alex, one minute he would stare at you sincerely, and the next minute he would show you his sweet smile. I used the week one POTW sketch on scrapbook challenges. The picked layout was fabulous.

I thought different colored cheese would be cute, but I guess they are not very realistic. Ok, I know they are not. I hope they didn't ruin the whole thing ^-^

Glittered hugs

Love love love the cute critters by Penny Black and this one is from the Hugs set. I guess I used too much glitters. It's just so hard to control myself. :)

sucking toes

Nowadays we can almost take pictures with anything, sometimes I forgot about those taken by the cell phones. I came across some photos in my Dad's iphone of my son sucking on his toes. It was so cute and I got to make a scrapbook page.

I used MS fence punch and several cricut font cartridges as well as New Arrival.

A Happy Hedgehog

Oh, the Peachy Keen Stamp Challenges are back! I really enjoy looking at the work from their talented design team. This week's challenge is a sketch and I made the card with my new Penny Black stamps.

Such a cute and happy hedgehog. I really should have run the blue flower backing through the cuttlebug. Well, there is always a next time. ^^

A Butterfly Dream

I was thinking to make something with my new Penny Black stamps to play the Mojo Monday 173, but the background paper I chose didn't match the cute critter image very well. So after many changes, I finally came up something like this.

The big butterfly stamp was from Papertrey Ink and the small butterflies are actually from body tattoo stickers. And yes, I put one on my hand too! The paper was from K & Company. The final card looks quite beautiful to me. But it was really way different from what I've planned. It's interesting that our imagination can take us so far far away ^^