Papertrey Ink 10th Anniversary - Day 1

I will have lots of blog posts coming this week and next as the 10th Anniversary Festivities of Papertrey Ink began in earnest this morning. Lizzie Jones knocked my socks off with her stitching project featuring Papertrey Ink's Stitching Dies!  She made this cute little project for a niece and nephew to take on road trips. Check it out!  Isn't this adorable and no more wadded up paper found after your trip. I love this idea although I have no stitching dies thus far.  But our challenge was to be inspired by the past and present projects so I went for a stitched "look" for my project today.

My daughter has been asking me for a bookmark to keep in her bible so I thought I'd try to put one together for her.  Now, I don't have any felt or other fabric that would have been suitable for hand stitching so I had to fake that, too.  So I pulled out this piece of specialty paper that appears to be some kind of super shiny rayon that's adhered to some kind of a paper substrate. It has the look of fabric so that is what I chose for my project.  I cut two of these using Papertrey's Basic Bookmark #3 so I could adhere them to each other back to back for a more finished look.  I did initially try to stitch them together but that only resulted in ripping the paper so I decided I better choose my battles and save the sewing for something else. There are tiny little pierced holes all the way around this die cut, but my needles were all to large to keep the holes intact.  I used Ranger Multi Medium Matte applied with a paintbrush to glue them together and ran them though my die cut machine with an embossing sandwich using an uncut top plate so it didn't leave marks in the "paper". The result is a very thin, flexible bookmark which will be perfect for her bible.  Even with the two layers, it is much thinner than a single sheet of cardstock.

Needing some kind of decoration to make it seem stitched, I pulled out my Button Stacks Dies and cut some from a scrap of the gold and white glittered paper.  These dies emboss as well as cut so they make the little impressions in the paper.  I used the leaves from the Friendly Flower Extras Dies and cut them from a scrap of Emerald Shimmer Cardstock leftover from a girlfriends wedding album that I did. The button stacks dies have the two plain small buttons included in the set and I did actually stitch all three layers together using DMC Gold Metallic Embroidery Thread.  I cut the Wonderful Words - Love Die from the gold and white paper and attached it and the flower clusters to the bookmark with Ranger Multi Medium Matte. I stacked a few acrylic blocks on top until the glue was dried.  I was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find a bit of ribbon to run through the hole in this bookmark.  I don't have much ribbon around but I did have this little piece of gold and white to use. It was slim pickings I tell you! and a minor miracle than I had anything that would match.  Although the bookmark looks like it might be red glitter paper in the photo, I assure you it isn't.  

I've seen some really lovely projects done with felt and I think I might have to get just a few colors (Hibiscus Burst and Berry Sorbet with some New Leaf come to mind) for the coming monthly feature that Lizzie will be doing for Papertrey Ink.   I hope you enjoyed my project for today.  I'll be back tomorrow with the next challenge.  Have a great week everyone!