make.it.monday no.117

phew, i've missed out on quite a few make it mondays lately :( but glad to grab a minute to participate in this week's challenge of paper piecing. this is another favorite technique of mine. i like that you don't have to be good at coloring, or own a million copics to do this lol. and i'm always happy to use some of my gorgeous pattern paper for a good reason. i really love how this flower came togethere once i got the patterns together. this might be one of my favorite cards i've ever made! :)

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in other news, i can't stop crying tonight. i took my baby to get his first haircut today...i did fine while we were there, and he did too. he got to sit in a fun car chair and watched an elmo movie. he sat still and didn't make a peep, so as far as that went, he was great! he got a special certificate, a balloon & sucker, then we went on our way to the mall. on our way home from the mall, however, eh hum, mommy lost it. i kept glancing back at my sleeping boy in his carseat and the tears have been coming ever since then. he looks adorable with this sweet new do, but i can't believe how much it changed him and made him look like a big boy. (these photos were taken just 3 days apart) i guess that's part of the process of growing up & becoming a parent though. he'll always be my little bean, no matter if he's got long or short hair or how old he is :)

make.it.monday no.110

i've had a busy last few weeks and this is the first time i have played along with the make.it.monday in quite a few weeks. it felt good to get a little crafty time in! collage stamping is one of my favorite ways to build scenes...it's fun to just stamp away without really having to worry much about placement or if your impression isn't totally perfect.

we had beautiful weather yesterday, and will again today & tomorrow. a perfect spring weekend. i'm about to go out to start weeding the flower beds and prepping for flower planting! hope you have a nice weekend. thanks for stopping by!

make.it.monday no.104

pinwheels! that's what this week's papertrey ink make it monday is focusing on. as i was creating my little pinwheel, i kept trying to think back to the last time i made one...and i'm not sure that i ever have!? i used some sweet blush pattern paper and a cute strawberry pattern paper from a dear lizzy collection. sigh...& i'm totally loving these sentiments from maile's mini blooms set! hope you enjoy!

westy & i had a quick weekend vacation and traveled up to indiana for a couple special visits. we even got to stop at university of indianapolis and have lunch with my sister, billie. hi bill! thank for having us for lunch! :) xxo andrea.

make.it.monday no.103

i finally finished up my card for this week's make it monday...my mom and her boyfriend came to our house for a quick little visit this weekend! it was so nice to have them. my youngest sister, kate, went to spend the weekend with my other sister, billie, for her college's little sibling weekend. billie lives halfway from our hometown and my home, so since my mom was already halfway here, they headed south for the weekend instead of going back home. we had a good time catching up, drove through the jim beam factory area, went for a walk around lake nevin at bernheim forest, and cooked out on the grill on saturday night. we missed seeing the girls, but weston had some good one.on.one time with his grandma. pretty sure they both enjoyed it :)

i had fun making this card...love the mix of bright colors and neutral pattern paper for the background. thanks for taking a peek! xxo andrea.

make.it.monday no.102

ashley's challenge for this week's papertrey ink make it monday is to stamp on, then assemble a pillow box.  viola:

 

i chose to die cut my pillow box from kraft cardstock and emboss with gold using background basics: medallion. i love how fun this pattern is, but how elegant it looks when using gold embossing powder. the vintage cream tag is one of the new tremendous tag dies, with a sentiment (in dark chocolate ink) from fillable frames #9, one of my most favorite mini sets! super cute if you ask me! in the detail pictures, you can see how the pattern wraps around from front to back in a seamless pattern.

thanks for taking a look!
xxo andrea.

make.it.monday no.101

i broke out an older stamp set for this week's papertrey ink make it monday. the challenge heather presented features layered embossing, something i've never tried out before. i only have neutral powders (white, clear, silver and gold)...so it was especially challenging trying to figure out what to do! i decided to start with a neutral patterned paper, but one that had a subtle design to it to add a little interest. i stamped the largest flower from sending you in clear, then overlapped the next sized flower with silver embossing powder. boy, does it looks interesting in person...almost like the silver is made up of tiny glitter crystals where it overlaps the clear. i kept adding to my flower arrangement, building the composition with leaves and other small flower clusters. i added a sentiment, and finished with a pop of color, using green embroidery floss to tie a little bow around the pattern paper before adhering to my card base.  the only problem i was having was that the paper kept wanting to turn up at the end where i did all the embossing...i used a lot of score tape to adhere it, but it still looks like it's coming un-stuck in a couple spots. i have it smooshed in a heavy book from college right now. lol :)

thanks for stopping by!
andrea.

make.it.monday no.100

well it just so happens that last week for papertrey ink's make it monday, the card that i made extended over the confines of the card base, so i decided to use that card to continue on with this week's challenge...how to package cards with oversized embellishments.

i placed my card inside a large glassine bag, added a strip of pink airmail washi tape, a white paper heart doily, stamped banner (which i fussy cut ), plus a new tremendous tags heart with a stamped sentiment. i simply just finished off with a little bow of pink/white baker's twine through the tag hole. i really like how simple and easy this was, but how much it adds to the presentation of the card, especially because you can get a glimpse of the card through the bag. love!

since this is the 100th make it monday, the prize is $100 gift certificate...if ever i win a make it monday (which i have and i've been so lucky in that!) i hope it's this week! :) hope you have a nice weekend!

xxo andrea.

make.it.monday no.99

i created a fun little CAS card for this week's papertrey ink make it monday. following along with rainbow color scheme no.1, i chose to stamp some repeated hearts in all of the different ink colors and the sentiment in a light grey, underlined with some stitching. i think this would be a fun card to give you your child or even could be used as a non.traditional valentine. 

have you been keeping up with all of the CHA releases? i've been seeing lots of new product that would love to make their way into my stash, that's for sure! maggie holmes' new line for crate paper...love it. new dear lizzy...love it! love some of the new studio calico patterns too!

make.it.monday no.98

just popping in to share my card for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday #98. thankfully, after Betsy originally showed her chalkboard technique, i added black cardstock to my cart and so i was ready when this popped up for this challenge! yeah! love when that happens.

it was so much fun to mix and match stamp sets for this. if you need some inspiration, just google "chalkboard art" and you will be in for a treat. there are so many beautiful examples out there! recently, the cover of Oprah's O magazine even featured chalkboard art...very cool! anyhow, i used the following PTI stamp sets: 2012 birthday tags, fancy flourishes, simply you, and the star is from stylish sentiments: holiday. the little arrow is a stamp from a heidi swapp set. i added lots of lines with my white colored pencil! must now find my pencil sharpener! the pattern paper is from a studio calico 6x6 (i distressed around the edges) and then finished the card off with some black twine & orange sequins tied at the bottom...can't resist adding those almost all the time now! :)

thanks for stopping by today. enjoy the rest of the weekend!
xxo andrea.

make.it.monday no.96

are you ready for christmas? i'm not, LOL...so i'm just popping in quickly to show my card that i put together for pti's make it monday no. 96! the challenge was to create a patchwork diecut using scraps. like melissa, i used the new limitless layers hearts and the stamp sets: with all my heart, framed out #11, heart border die & countdown banner die. i did lots of watermark stamping with my versamark onto sweet blush cardstock. the brighter pink ink is hibiscus burst. patterned papers were pti's pure poppy polka dot and the others were random scraps from american crafts (light pink with flowers), making memories (dark red polka dots), and the red damask was a basic grey pattern. thanks for taking a peek!

make.it.monday no.85

 

yesterday for world card making day, i created a card for papertrey ink's make it monday feature. this week's challenge was to create a project with glitter tabs. i tried using versamark, dipping in coarse glitter and heat embossing. nope, that was a no go. the heat gun just blew the glitter all over. so then i redid it using fine glitter but it would not heat set either. finally i ended up adding strips of scor-tape to the tabs and coating them with glitter. that worked perfectly. as a happy accident, i think the tabs ended up looking a little like clouds, which was fitting with the sunrays and sentiment :)

make.it.monday #78

hello! very quickly stopping in to post my PTI MIM card for this week. not a whole lot to it besides a couple stamps from PTI chair-ished set, washi and strip of pattern paper, and yellow embroidery floss, of course! i am having a very busy week (today especially) so gotta run! thanks for taking a peek!

make.it.monday #77

this week's pti features using ink pads as watercolors. can i just say that i am in love with this! i especially love it because dawn featured her delightful dahlia stamp set. i was just posting on the product idea forum thread that i was also hoping they would release a solid filler stamp for this flower because i don't usually color flowers like that, so thought i would never use it. but now i can watercolor with my stamp pads and i am so dang excited about it! so my card uses these sets: delightful dahlia, frienship jar & the stem is from botanical silhouettes. i really really am hoping that nichole will see my request for a $5 flower stem set that will be long enough to use with this jar and work with flowers like these dahlias, rosie posie flowers, in bloom flowers etc. something like the stem from the daydreamer stamp set would be perfect! so crossing my fingers. anyhow! i really loved the messy, artistic look this created and didn't stay in the lines on purpose. i "oopsed" a little and dropped my block after stamping my jar (which was of course the last thing i stamped) so there is a faint double stamping of the jar which is why i didn't mount it to a card base. but i definitely plan to recreate this when i have a chance! thanks for taking a peek!

Make it Monday No.67

this week papertrey ink's challenge is to create a card with three or more pattern papers. betsy made a great video talking about her process when mixing & matching papers. again, my picture isn't great but i actually used 4 patterns as the tiny star border was die cut from a piece of pink paper that had some texture printed on it as well. the papers are all from 6x6 basic grey pads, label sticker by martha stewart office, and papertrey for the rest: button twine, star border & sentiment from up, up & away stamp set. thanks for taking a peek! xxo andie...

make it monday #63

hiya! this week's papertrey ink challenge is to step up your layering and showcase it across multiple cards. i created two cards for this challenge...my first card was suppose to be a single layer card with many stamped images onto the card base itself...but i hated the first stamped card i started, so i cut that card apart, turned over the card block & started over! i originally used pti new leaf ink for some large flourishes and i really was not feeling it what.so.ever! i'm glad i talked myself into starting over because i am really loving the new cards! :) so long story short the one layer card got the stamped panel adhered to a card base instead of it truly being one layer...but i'm ok with that! my second card features diecut flowers and the stamped panel is raised from the base with 3d foam. the stamp sets i used are all from papertrey ink: rosie posie, in bloom, think big favorites 12 & pretty peonies. i think that about covers itthanks for stopping by today! :)

Make it Monday #60 : Generational Stamping

hiya!

i'm here today to share a birthday card i created for this week's papertrey ink make it monday challenge.  the technique this week is generational stamping, which basically means that you stamp your image multiple times without re-inking...this creates a lighter variant of your ink color and produces a soft effect with all of the different tones. i used papertrey's "pretty peonies" anniversary stamp set which i absolutely love love love. the images & especially the sentiments are just gorgeous.  my ink colors were sweet blush, aqua mist, new leaf and summer sunrise, all from pti as well, plus smokey shadow for the smaller sentiment. i added some glitter to the full color flowers with my spica glitter pen...looks much  prettier in person...i need to invest in a light box so i can take better pictures :)

thanks for stopping by to take a peek!
andie...

make it monday no. 40

for this week's papertrey ink make it monday challenge, i kept sifting through my die-cuts to figure out what to create using the reverse applique technique. i decided that i wanted to use this pretty butterfly and as soon as i opened up my patterned paper drawer, this awesome butterfly paper jumped out at me. what a perfect combo! it's one i picked up at hobby lobby awhile back when they had their paper sheets 50% off...gotta love that! they have some really pretty papers nowadays over there. :)  anyhow, i also added a punched butterfly to the middle of the reverse applique...which wasn't how heather did it in her video...but i thought it looked pretty like that, so what the heck, right?!  thanks for visiting & taking a peek at my card! have a great evening!

xxo andie...

make it monday no 39

just popping in quickly to post my card before the make it monday no 39 deadline!

i believe this is quite possibly the first time i have created a card without using pattern paper. it was a fun challenge, and i keep thinking of background possibilities using just stamps. for this stamped background, i used papertrey's mehndi medallion set, along with the flower fusion no 7 set. i really like the combo i used on the focal image as well, which was the notebook image from tag its #7, with a sentiment from tag its #2 and a smaller medallion in the corner.

xxo andie...

make it monday no. 36: faux watercoloring

just dropping in to quickly post my card for papertrey ink's make it monday no. 36...faux watercoloring technique :)  it's a bit hard to tell in the harsh photo i just took, but i watercolored in the owls wings, around his eyes and ears and also on the leaves...the color didn't spread as well as i had hoped, but it did soften the lines of the stamp somewhat, which left a nice effect.  i ran the background paper through my cuttlebug with a woodgrain embossing folder almost 3 times before i realized what i was doing (made this card while watching the chicago bears) and it really roughed up my argyle paper. it ended up stretching my paper so much that i just tore the edges and really like how it turned out...goes nicely with the woodsy theme. :)

baby update:  tuesday (october 18) is my due date! um, yes, as in 2 days away...) i can't believe it...but this little one is not ready to come out from hiding yet. i think i will probably go a few days past. my doctor told me at last week's checkup that she will let me go until oct. 25 and then we will have to schedule an induction. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will come on his own. he is sure performing a circus act in my belly right now as we speak! lol!

make it monday #30

another busy week's going by...just made a tiny card for this week's papertrey ink make it monday challenge. this time we're suppose to use colored pencils to shade. so i broke out the trusty prismacolors to shade in that cute little witch's face.  that halloween stamp set is from the paper studio and fillable frame and polka dot circle are both from papertrey ink.  the finished card size is 3in x 4.25in. after i finished it i realized that the bottom frame kind of looks like a big witch's cauldron lol. halloween will be here before we know it! i love fall so maybe i'm getting a little bit ahead of myself...but i can't wait for warm apple cider and pumpkin decorations!