Papertrey Ink September 2016 Create Along With Us

Hello everyone!  It's time for the Papertrey Ink Create Along With Us Challenge for September 2016.  As always, we can use anything created by the Design Team during release week as our inspiration and there was plenty to choose from. Truly, the Papertrey Ink Design Team (we call them the Dream Team) is just the best.  Each has their own style but I continue to be amazed by all of them.

I chose a card by Kay Miller (who I confess is one of my favorite designers) this month as my inspriation for this challenge.  I had recently made a card that used Dark Chocolate Ink with Scarlet Jewel Ink and I loved the combination so when I saw Kay's card, it was a no brainer. Obviously, no one outside of the Design Team has the new stamps or dies yet, but I was only drawing my inspiration from her color choices at this time.  You can bet I will be trying to recreate a similar look once I get the Holiday Greens Stamps and Dies.

I started by die cutting the branches from Peaceful Pinecones Dies out of Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I just cut a few of each and then stamped them with the Peaceful Pinecones Stamp Set using selective inking for the green and brown branches.  Since I'm using ink cubes rather than pads, this was pretty easy to do.  I inked up the branch base using a corner of the Dark Chocolate Ink Pad and the same way for the pine needles part of the pine branch using Pine Feather Ink.  I know I'm going to be using Pine Feather a lot with the upcoming holiday season and I made sure I will have plenty of that color by ordering a reinker.

For my card, I wanted to use a sentiment from the Give Thanks Stamp Set so I also used a couple of stamps from there just to add a bit of the Scarlet Jewel to my arrangement.  I would have like to used Spruce and Sprigs Stamp Set for the berries, but I don't have that so I made do with what I could find that was an elongated shape. I think it worked out pretty well and I can't wait to get my Holiday Greens Stamps and Dies from this month's release. You can see the full release and details on Nichole Heady's Blog.

I made my arrangment on top of the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles die cut panel and then picked it up with my piece of Press 'N Seal to keep it in tact while I did a bit of ink blending on the background.  There's just a hint of Pale Peony there and in hindsight, I could have done a bit more to make a larger area, but it's okay.  This is a design that I will use again. The acorns on the top are also from the Give Thanks Stamp Set and I added them to the top of the arrangement with Thin 3D Foam Squares.  The Give Thanks Coordinating Dies makes it super easy.  I wanted to keep the card fairly flat for mailing purposes so I didn't use much foam adhesive.  The greeting is heat embossed using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I also cut another stitched rectangle for the inside of the card.  This creates such a nice, finished look on the Scarlet Jewel Cardstock base.

Be sure to stop by Nichole Heady's blog to take a look at all of the release inspired projects.  What a talented group we are!  It's been a hectic week for me and I haven't gotten as many projects done as I would have liked but I appreciate you stopping by and even more so when you take time to comment.  I'll see you all again soon but not until next week.  We're heading out to a car show tomorrow so I won't be near my studio all weekend.  Have a great weekend everyone!