Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop Challenge

Last Tuesday when Papertrey Ink posted the inspiration photo for their blog hop, my first thought was that I had no tea-related stamps — oh well! But after I moved on, I recalled that I did, in fact, have one tea image: an old Stampin’ Up wood-block stamp from the very first set I ever got, a Christmas gift about fifteen years ago. I rarely use the set anymore since the sentiments are wrapped around the images, limiting their versatility, but when I pulled out the stamp I realized it wouldn’t be hard to fussy-cut the image.

I wanted to follow the color palette of the inspiration piece as closely as possible, but once I began swatching colors I realized that the simplicity of my image required more flexibility. Magenta and aqua were just too stark when paired together, so I ended up going with one image in cream and rose and another in white and soft aqua.

When sifting through my sentiments to find ones to pair with my focal images, I almost settled on “You’re as sweet as can be” from PTI’s “Just Desserts Sentiments” set — a current favorite — but then I spotted “Find beauty in each day” from PTI’s “Spring Hills” set, and that was perfect to go with a tranquil cup of tea. Equally ideal was “His mercies are new every morning” from Stamp Simply, which I’d been wanting to use on a card for my mother.

In an attempt to match the Copic color R22 that I had used for the flowers on the cream-and-rose image, I layered several Hero Arts inks for the sentiment, starting with a double-stamped base layer of Fresh Peach, then a layer of second-generation Pale Tomato, followed by a final layer of Cotton Candy.

I gave the “mercies” card to my mother for World Juggler’s Day — I don’t know how she manages to do all that she does, but her success amazes me — and I’ll be sending the aqua card to my paternal grandmother soon.

Supplies
Stamps:  Stampin’ Up “Nice & Easy Notes” (image);  Papertrey Ink “Spring Hills” (“find beauty...”);  Stamp Simply “Farmhouse Scriptural Thoughts” (“His mercies...”)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black;  Hero Arts Fresh Peach, Pale Tomato, Cotton Candy;  VersaColor Celadon
Copics:  E0000, E30, R22, YG45, G12, BG000, W00, W1, and the colorless blender;  Stampin’ Up Stampin’ Blendabilities: Costal Cabana Light
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, Uni-ball Signo UM-100 0.8 mm in gold, Sakura Pigma Micron 0.25 mm in black

Dimensions
Aqua card:  4.25” x 4.25”
Rosy card:  4.75” x 3.5”

Kaboom! World Penguin Day

Meet Pingy, a pyromaniac penguin.

He loves anything to do with explosions — firecrackers, fireworks, dynamite — but he can be lured away from such hazardous materials with goldfish or animal crackers.

Little rogue that he is, he’s taking a few sticks of dynamite to my friend’s house to celebrate World Penguin Day, which is April 25.

This card was super easy to pull together and a blast to design. It’s all a single layer, too, embellishments notwithstanding. The penguins in the set all wear ice skates, but a stamping platform and selective inking did away with that. I debated using tiny googly eyes but decided against it: he looks cuter without them.

Supplies
Stamps:  Mama Elephant “Arctic Penguins”
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black;  Hero Arts Butter Bar
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape, white glue, two red bugle beads, DCWV red foiled cardstock, an orange gel pen of cheap and indeterminate make, a mechanical pencil, Spectrum Noir Sparkle clear

Dimensions
Card:  3.5” x 3.5”

Small Trio Layout

Eight whole years have passed since I last posted something here — thank goodness for Blogger’s “revert to draft” feature, or I’d have to delete this blog and start afresh. As things are, I have a nook already prepared where I can publish a little something if I have a mind to share it with the internet. I don’t expect to publish with any regularity, but posting here will, I believe, be easier than trying to use photo site links, so here I shall be.

The reason for this resuscitation? Susan recently posted a lovely card with a color scheme and layout that appealed to me so much that I wanted to mimic it immediately. That was not to be, however: freelance work comes in either a trickle or a deluge, and that week I had more work than I usually see in a month. Card-making was sidelined to such an extent that I forgot about my desire to CASE Susan’s card. When she replied to my comment on Monday, I was just catching my breath after the deluge, and the impulse to craft struck so hard that I sat down immediately and pulled out my stamps and ink.

Another deluge week is falling about my ears now (April was this busy last year, too — something in the air, maybe?), but in the six intervening days I’ve produced five cards, which is a pretty high average for me. Perfectionist that I am, I usually spend about three days on a single card, working on a couple elements each day (planning the layout, testing and selecting colors, stamping and coloring the focal element, creating the base, and assembling the components). But why make only one card if you can make two at once?

Although I don’t have any of the exact stamps that Susan used, I do happen to have a set that contains a bird, a dragonfly, and a butterfly, which made emulating easy. The text background — the main theme of her card — I had to improvise, since I don’t yet have a script background stamp. The larger and more legible words required a more subtle ink, and I realized early on that I couldn’t just stamp whole sentiments across the squares. Figuring out how to stamp selectively inked words around the focal images in a way that looked halfway decent took me longer than I’d care to admit, and I still goofed a few times on the final product. The vanilla ink was forgiving; the cyan, less so. While inking the edges of the cantaloupe dragonfly panel, I dropped it onto my ink pad. There wasn’t any way to salvage the panel without starting over, so I’m just considering it a little extra distressed.

Verdict: This was my first time truly CASEing anything, and it was a good learning experience. For the most part, I enjoyed the process, but I won’t be doing text backgrounds again until I get a background stamp! The selective inking is too time-consuming to employ frequently.

Supplies
Stamps:  Papertrey Ink “Happy Trails” (images and background words), “Spring Hills” (“sending springtime smiles”);  Hero Arts “Many Everyday Messages” (“thinking of you”)
Ink:  Memento Nautical Blue, Peanut Brittle;  VersaColor Vanilla, Celadon, Cyan;  Hero Arts Soft Cantaloupe
Paper:  Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White
Miscellanea:  Scotch Permanent Double-Sided Tape

Dimensions
Cards:  6.75” x 4.5”
Squares:  1.5” x 1.5”