Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge

(This is my third post for today. I know, I'm on a roll. Please scroll down for more.)

Today is Papertrey Ink's monthly customer blog hop today! This month the challenge is to use embroidery floss.

Essay
Why I Love Embroidery Floss

I love embroidery floss. I have tons and tons of it in my stash and use it all the time, much as I would use twine. It's great for tying into flat-ish bows, super for stitching on buttons, and awesome for tying on tags and charms. I also make flower stems and string up banners with it. Plus, it's so cheap and comes in so many colors. And that is why I *love* embroidery floss.

The End

Here's my take on the challenge (which you can read all about here.) Let's move on to meeting my challenge card, shall we? The balloon strings and "here to give you a lift" sentiment come from PTI Everyday Button Bits. I used embroidery floss (in green, yellow, and orange) to stitch the button "balloons" to my card and added an orange embroidery floss bow to tie the balloon strings together.

I wanted this encouragement card to be bright and cheery. This week's Tuesday Trigger challenge in the Moxie Fab World inspired me to use those yummy citrus colors. I'm also playing along with these challenges:

• Crafty Creations: in stitches
• Paper Sundaes: Embossing (The green triangles in the background were heat-embossed with dots and flowers in white.)
  

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog to check out my little slice of bliss for today! I appreciate your visit. :)

Have a super weekend!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Everyday Button Bits
Paper: MFP white storm CS, various CS from The Paper Company
Ink: Marvy LePlume II black marker, Versamark
Accessories: white EP, heat tool, MS loops corner and border PATP punches, assorted embroidery floss, needle, Doodlebug buttons (tropical assortment)
Techniques: hand stitching, embossing

You Take the Cake

(This is my second post for today. Please scroll down for more.)

After several days filled with errands, work, and those must-be-attended-to life tasks, I finally have some time for creating. Yay!
All week I've been wanting to play along with the new EtsyInspired challenge, which is to be inspired by the wares of the Etsy shop Dollbirdies. I just love the fantastic variety of fabrics used in the purses, wallets, and passport covers found here. I was particularly taken with this adorable passport cover. I found a decent match for it with some papers from my BasicGrey Green at Heart pad.

The sentiment is a computer-printable "Simple Sentiments" from Paper Crafts magazine. You can find it, along with nine more from the March/April 2011 issue, HERE. The "You take the Cake" sentiment I used is actually a bright, pretty fuchsia color in the file, but there must be something wrong with my new ink cartridge, because when I printed it out (unaltered by me!), it came out much darker. Which turned out to be just fine--looks kinda razzleberry to me and suits my color palette for this card just perfectly! I'm entering this card in the Paper Crafts Simple Sentiments Gallery Challenge.

I'm also playing in these two challenges:

• All Things Unity #27: Bling, which I used to turn the sentiment into a thought bubble. (My Unity stamps are from the Total Cuteness kit.)
• 4 Crafty Chicks: eyelets. I used some green eyelets from my stash to anchor the corners of my DP panel.
• Crafty Creations: in stitches
  

And that wraps up my first card {of probably several} today. Just wanted to leave you with this thought, something I spied on a bumper sticker earlier this week:

Nothing is foolproof
to a sufficiently talented fool.

Now, isn't that the truth??? I had a good chuckle in the car after spotting that one.

I'll probably be back later. See you!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Unity Total Cuteness
Paper: SU rich razzleberry CS, white CS from The Paper Company, SU pumpkin pie CS, BasicGrey Green at Heart DP
Ink: Palette bourdeaux
Accessories: EK circle and scalloped circle punches, foam tape, scissors, computer printer, sewing machine, googly eyes, Crop-A-Dile, eyelets, Peapod baker's twine from The Twinery, rhinestones
Techniques: machine stitching, paper piecing

We have a WINNER!!

Thanks so much to everyone who helped me celebrate my 200th blog post by leaving a comment on my Blog Candy post!! I just used random.org to draw a winner, and that lucky duck is:

Erin
of Erin's Heart Sprinkles!!

Erin, you have until noon EDT on Monday, March 28, 2011, to email me with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize. (Click on "View my Complete Profile" under ABOUT ME in the right-hand sidebar. You'll find a link to my email address there.)

If I don't hear from Erin by the deadline, I will draw a new winner on Monday afternoon. So stay tuned!

I'll be back later today with some cards to share. Have a great day, everyone!!

StampinB Masculine Birthday Challenge

***Today is the last day to enter the drawing for
my Blog Candy in celebration of my 200th blog post!
You can check it out HERE.
The drawing is open until 11:59 p.m. EDT tonight.***

It's time for a new challenge from the Stampin' B's DT! This week the challenge is to make a masculine birthday card. What a good challenge--that's one area of my stash that always seems to be lacking.
I was intrigued by the Cityscapes Are On the Rise Challenge in the Moxie Fab World when it was issued two weeks ago. I had to think and think of how to approach it, having nothing in my stash that was remotely city-related. I finally heat embossed some white dot patterns on dark card stock and clipped the buildings of my city skyline from that.

I'm playing along with a few more challenges, too.

• My color scheme comes from this week's ColourQ Challenge:
• Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday Challenge #7: Adding Color to Non-Neutral Card Stock with markers or colored pencils. I chose this adorable airplane and banner combo from PTI's Fly Away set. I added some subtle shading with my Prismacolor pencils.
• Paper Sundaes: Embossing. The Happy Birthday sentiment and dots on the buildings were all heat-embossed in white.

I feel pretty good about this card. I wasn't sure that my makeshift "buildings" would come together to make a convincing skyline, but I don't think I should have worried. This will be perfect for my nephew's birthday when he turns 11 next month.

I hope you've been inspired to play along with the Stampin' B's!! If you do make a card, post it on your blog or SCS gallery, and link it up to the Inlinkz tool on the Stampin' B's blog. We'd love to see what you create!! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my little slice of bliss for today!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Fly Away; {ippity} Love in Return (dot patterns)
Paper: SU bashful blue CS, SU kiwi kiss CS, SU bermuda bay textured CS, dark purple CS from The Paper Company, MFP white storm CS
Ink: Palette noir black, Versamark
Accessories: white EP, heat tool, Prismacolor pencils, scissors, foam tape, Caribbean baker's twine from The Twinery
Techniques: embossing

My First Window Card

***Have you checked out my Blog Candy in celebration
of my 200th blog post this week?
If not, you can find it HERE. The drawing is
open until Thursday, March 24, 2011.***

I have been having a blast playing along with Amy Tsuruta's Flashback Friday Challenges. I love the idea of looking back to find my "first" of something (like last month's challenge to post your 3D project) and re-posting it in the present day. It's a wonderful affirmation of how far I've come as a papercrafter and a chance to reminisce about past projects (even if my "first" of something means reminiscing about a project I made only 8 months ago lol!!).

Flashback Friday 9.0 challenges us to re-post our very first window card. I didn't have to go back very far to find the first time I tackled one of these--just last June. An SCS friend had recently sent me a fun barn window stamp and I was itching to make a card for my horse-loving daughter. Here's what I came up with:

I was so very proud of it at the time, but cringed a bit when I looked at it with fresh eyes just now. Does that window look a little crooked to you? And how about those cheap dollar-store raffle tickets I used. Doncha think I should have trimmed those down a bit? I mean, they are totally printed off center. Yikes! But you know what? Even with all of these cringe-worthy details, my daughter loved it and still has it hanging on the bulletin board in her bedroom. :)

Thanks for taking a peek at a little piece o' my cardmaking history today!!
Emily

H{IPPITY} HOP + Blog Candy

I am so thrilled to be participating in my first H{ippity} Hop blog hop for {ippity} stamps! I've been using {ippity} stamps for just about a year now and absolutely adore them. I figured it was high time that I joined in a H{ippity} Hop! Please visit the {ippity} blog for a full list of the blog hop participants so you can see all of their inspiring {ippity} creations. (And keep reading for a chance at a little blog candy, 'K?)

With today's card, I'm playing along in the March 2011 {ippity} Monthly Challenge {with a twist}--specifically the inspiration photo of this lovely pillow:
Here's the 5" x 7" card that I came up with:
After staring at that fab pillow for a while, all I could see was a flock of layered paper lollipop flowers! So I set out to recreate it. I used the leaf image from Now & Always and the birthday sentiment from Just Wanted to Say. For the flowers, I used my circle punches to punch four circles in different sizes for each flower. I spritzed them lightly with water, pinched and crumpled them, and then allowed them to dry. Finally, all I had to do was stack them up to create a flower and attach it to my card with a rhinestone-studded brad. Easy!

I also incorporated these challenges into my card:

• All Things Unity #27: Bling It On
• ABC DT Challenge: Happy Birthday
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Happy Birthday
• The Shabby Tea Room: Birthday or Celebration theme

And now for some exciting news: this post is my 200th blog post!! I was stunned to realize that I've made that many posts, especially since I only started blogging last July. To celebrate this milestone, I am offering some blog candy:

one brand-new
Margarita Moments stamp set
from Unity Stamp Co.
(isn't it adorable?)

Yes, I know you must be thinking "How fabulous! What can I do to win this awesome stamp set?" Well, it's really quite simple. To enter my random drawing for Margarita Moments:

• You should be a follower of my blog or become one.
• You should be a U.S. or Canadian resident. (Sorry, I'm not able to ship internationally.)
  
• Leave me a comment on this post telling me your current favorite color of card stock! (One comment per person please). Be sure to mention your favorite card stock color in your comment or you will be ineligible for the prize.

Entries for the blog candy drawing close at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 24, 2011. I will announce the winner here on my blog on Friday, March 25, by noon EDT. The winner will have until noon EDT on Monday, March 28, to contact me via email to claim her prize, or a new winner will be drawn.

So, how does that sound? Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today, checking out my little slice of bliss, and helping me celebrate my milestone 200th blog post! I hope you'll come back to visit again soon!!

Cheers!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: {ippity} Now & Always and Just Wanted to Say
Paper: Kraft CS from Paper Maniac, various card stock scraps for flowers and leaves
Ink: Palette bourdeaux, Palette jardin moss
Accessories: various sizes of circle punches, scissors, various brads, Queen & Co. rhinestones in various colors, sewing machine
Techniques: machine stitching, handmade flowers

Button, Button

Happy Spring!! Finally, the first day of spring is here. I am soooooooooooooooooooo ready for it. We actually hit 70F on Friday and were enjoying some fabulous spring weather, but it has cooled off since then. But that's OK. I know there's more where that came from!

This week's Tuesday Trigger in the Moxie Fab World features vintage buttons cards. Lots of stamp companies (including Stampin' Up! and Papertrey Ink) have been bringing very cool vintage button card stamp sets to market recently. They are oh, so tempting but not in my budget. When I inherited my gramma's sewing basket over a decade ago, her collection of buttons came with it. Not only was there a treasure trove of vintage buttons, there was a nice selection of button cards as well. I do love my buttons, so I was thrilled to receive these! And they immediately jumped to mind when I saw the Tuesday Trigger photo inspiration:
I fished around in my button collection to see if I could find an actual vintage button card to use in my TT project. I found several that were promising. Not wanting to immediately use up this precious vintage resource, I decided to try scanning one (then printing it out on Neenah natural white card stock and cutting it out) and had fabulous results. Here's the card I came up with:
I sewed on an assortment of "fashionable" vintage buttons in neutral colors from my stash and mimicked the ribbon treatment seen in the inspiration photo. (BTW, you know those sometimes annoying ribbon loops sewn into the shoulder seams of tops and blouses? A new shirt of mine had those--and the first time I wore it, the loops kept sliding out of the armholes for all the world to see. Annoying! While folding laundry yesterday, I decided to make them annoying no more and clipped them out. Fixed! And as I did so, I realized that the ribbons were the perfect color for the scheme I had planned for this card. And that's where my ribbons came from! I love repurposing.)

Do you like the look of vintage button cards but have no source of your own? I'm happy to share the one I used on this card. First, click on the image below (to see it full size) and then right click on that image to save a copy to your computer's hard drive. Feel free to resize as needed and print out for your own projects!

I wrapped a few other challenges into this card, including

• Unity Stamp Co. Challenge #2: Fashion Forward. My fashion angle is my "Fashionable Buttons" card. All the stamps I used are Unity: the hearts on my pennants are from Little Me and the sentiment is from {ippity} Just Wanted to Say.
  
• Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge:
• Flourishes' Bring Back Beautiful Challenge: to use neutral colors in your creation.
• Papertake Weekly: to use 3 of something (I used three paper flowers.)
  
• Clear It Out Challenge: to use buttons

OK, now that you've made it through the description of one of my projects for this weekend (another post will be coming your way soon with the other one I tackled), here's a little family update. Today our second-grade son celebrated his First Communion at church. He was so excited and did a wonderful job. We're so proud of him! And our sixth-grade daughter wrapped up a big project for science. They have been studying a unit called "Building Big," all about the science and engineering of constructing buildings. Their project was to use the building principles they'd learned to design their own building and then make a model of the building framework. With guidance from dad (which was allowed as long as it was in the form of teaching and side-by-side working), she built this awesome model. My dear hubby did a fantastic job of teaching her how a real house is built--that the walls are built in sections on the floor/ground and then stood up in place as you go. He helped her figure out what size to make the wall sections, etc., and then she built all the walls. He taught her how windows are braced, how loads are carried, about floor joists, roof rafters, laminated beams, and more, plus how all of these things could be translated into the miniature. And then she went to town and built the pieces she needed. Today, the two of them worked together to assemble all the parts into this beautiful DD-designed house. It's been a wonderful experience for both of them; a valuable learn-by-doing experience for our daughter and memorable teaching opportunity for my husband, one that neither of them will soon forget. :)

All right, let's wrap up this long post now. Thanks for stopping by to check out my little slice of bliss for today! Have a great week this week--and I hope to see you back again soon. :)

PS Oh, one last thing!! (Sorry!!) I just realized that this is my 199th blog post. I can't believe it! Anyway, I've decided that with my next blog post (yup, that will be #200!), I'll be offering some blog candy to celebrate this milestone. Be sure to come back to check it out!!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Unity Little Me and {ippity} Just Wanted to Say
Paper: SU not quite navy CS, MFP kraft CS, Neenah natural white CS, The Girls' Paperie On Holiday DP
Ink: Palette burnt umber, Ranger tea dye distress ink
Accessories: SU small oval punch, foam tape,sponge dauber,salvaged satin ribbon, needle and thread, vintage buttons from my stash, sewing machine, mulberry paper flowers, hemp twine, scissors
Techniques: hand stitching, machine stitching, ink distressing

Flourishes Speed Challenge

Tonight was Flourishes' March Release Party on SCS. It was a fun time (I won a $10 gift certificate to use in the Flourishes store. Yippee!!), and I'm just loving this release!! During the party, Flourishes revealed their first-ever Speed Challenge. It's a sketch (shown below) and the winner could nab the entire release. I know, right? The catch is that it must be posted to the Flourishes blog within 12 hours of the end of the release party--that's 10 a.m. Central Time on Friday, March 18. It's past my bedtime, but I zoomed to my stamping table and threw this together.
It's not my most polished (and it's too late to get very creative with this sketch! No thinking out of the box here), but I think it will do nicely as one of my birthday thank you notes!

Here's the sketch we were to use:
I'm also playing along with Papertake Weekly (to use 3 of something--I used 3 rhinestones) and Delightful Challenges (show some green).

Thanks for taking a peek at what's making me happy today in the middle of the night. See you again soon!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Flourishes A Year in Flowers, Calendar Set #1; Flourishes Peaches and Cherries (sentiment)
Paper: SU certainly celery CS, MFP CS, BasicGrey Kioshi DP, Canson watercolor paper
Ink: Palette noir black, Ranger tea dye distress ink, various inks for watercoloring
Accessories: Fiskars 2" circle punch, SU scallop circle punch, SU scallop border punch, SU small oval punch, watercolor brush, foam tape,sponge dauber,sheer ribbon, rhinestones
Techniques: watercolor painting, ink distressing

StampinB Spring-Colored Thanks

Another Thursday brings another Stampin' B's DT Challenge!! I am honored to be the challenge hostess this week. My challenge is to create a thank you card using spring colors--the added twist is that one of the colors must be PINK. Let's meet today's card:
Daffodils have a special place in my heart because they are my birthday flower! This gorgeous daffy image is from Flourishes, and I had the best time using my favorite coloring technique: watercolor painting with inks. Yay! That's always so enjoyable. I thought that a pink, yellow, and celery color scheme would be just right for this spring thank you note. The yellow and pink ledger paper DP in the background is from Pink Paislee's Sweetness collection. The yellow lace is vintage stuff from the sewing box I inherited from my Gramma.

I incorporated several additional challenges into this card:

• CPS209:
• Flourishes' March Release Challenge: FLLCMAR11, to create and use a cut edge on your card. I have several that I created with border and corner punches!!
  
• Tuesday Throwdown: Lace
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday: FTTC109, Butterflies
• Clear It Out: Buttons

I hope you've been inspired to play along with the Stampin' B's!! If you do make a card, post it on your blog or SCS gallery, and link it up to the Inlinkz tool on the Stampin' B's blog. We'd love to see what you create!! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my little slice of bliss for today!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Flourishes A Year in Flowers, Calendar Set #1
Paper: SU regal rose CS, SU certainly celery CS, Pink Paislee Sweetness DP, Canson watercolor paper
Ink: Palette noir black, various inks for watercoloring
Accessories: EK 2.25" circle punch, MS topiary border and corner punches, SU scallop trim border punch, SU jewelry tag punch, watercolor brush, foam tape, vintage lace, buttons from my stash, embroidery floss, Sandylion butterfly sticker
Techniques: watercolor painting

A Heart-y Birthday to You!

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you had a fabulous weekend. We were busy, busy, busy. And then the time change hit!! I hate how that throws everyone off. I'm pretty sure it will take a week or so for all of us to get all the time kinks worked out.

So, how busy, busy, busy were we? Let's see . . . Friday evening DD had Girls Scouts, then we had our homemade pizza night (DH makes one mean hand-tossed pizza from scratch. Out of this world!), and a movie with the kids. Saturday morning DH and I updated our finances while the kids worked on homework. DD and I wrapped up her Girl Scout troop's cookie sale by counting up the cookie money turned in by her fellow Scouts and getting a deposit slip ready. After lunch, it was off to the bank to make the deposit. Her troop did an outstanding job! Now they are all set to go camping later in the spring.

Once the cookie money was safely deposited, the kids and I headed to the mall. They had more freebie coupons to spend at Build-A-Bear Workshop! Last month they had each received a coupon for a free bear accessory (up to a $5 value). This month DD received two free accessory coupons, and DS received a coupon for a free accessory AND a coupon for a free bear (up to $12). I know--crazy, right? They had a best time picking out their free stuff. And as we were leaving BABW we passed a stand that some nice folks from Chik-Fil-A had set up giving shoppers the chance to "spin the wheel" for free food and drink items from Chik-Fil-A. We each got a turn! Both DD and DS got coupons for free hand-spun milkshakes, and I got a coupon for a free soft-serve vanilla ice cream. Not ones to let free stuff lapse, we immediately headed over to the food court to cash in. What a yummy, well-timed snack. And nothing tastes sweeter than free! Then it was off to the family-friendly Spring Fling dance at our church (it's always such fun and our kids look forward to it for weeks). Completely exhausted, our kids collapsed in bed shortly afterward. DH and I caught an on-demand movie (Date Night) and double-checked all our clocks before collapsing ourselves.

Whew! So, on Sunday afternoon I finally had the chance to restore my sanity with a little papercrafting while DH helped DD get started on a building project she's doing for science class and supervise DS's computer programming efforts (that child just started learning it program in Python and, man, is he gung ho!! And understanding a surprising amount of it). Here's what I made:
I wrapped some of my favorite challenges into this card:

• Unity's Hip Hop Sketch #48:
• {ippity}'s March 2011 Monthly Challenge with a Twist: I'm playing along with the Week 2 color challenge to use pink, green, blue, and yellow.
• EtsyInspired Challenge #130: to be inspired by the wares of the Etsy shop Artwork by Lori. I was inspired by this painting.
• The Shabby Tea Room, Week #53: Party Time! To design a CARD, BANNER and/or GIFT with a BIRTHDAY OR CELEBRATION THEME!
• Unity Challenge: Heart theme
• Cute Card Thursday: Birthday Cards
• All Things Unity #28: Birthdays
• Paper Sundaes: Keep it Simple
• Stamping with Shimmer Sprays Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. I cut out little hearts from plain white canvas (check out that awesome freehand cutting!) and sprayed on some Pink Sprinkles Smooch Spritz to match my color scheme and add some glamorous sparkle and shimmer! Here's a closeup for a better look at that Spritz.

Thanks for hanging in there with my looooooooooooooong post today. See, I told you it was a busy weekend!! I'm so happy you dropped by to check out my little slice of bliss. :)

Card Recipe:
Stamps: {ippity} Party Hat Wishes
Paper: SU pacific point CS, SU regal rose CS, textured CS by DCWV, MFP snow storm CS, SU pacific point DSP
Ink: SU pacific point, Palette bella rose
Accessories: EK 1.5" square punch, sewing machine, white canvas from my stash, Pink Sprinkles Smooch Spritz, scissors, foam tape
Techniques: machine stitching, misting, canvas


PS Want a chance for some excellent blog candy? Check out this new Ribbon Carousel!
For more info, see THIS post.