Papertrey Ink November 2017 Blog Hop

It's the 25th of the Month which means that it is time for the Papertrey November 2017 Blog Hop.  This is my second post for today so if you are looking for the Simply Sweet Inspiration Hop, it's the next post.

I really struggle to take accurate pictures of anything with yellow in it and this was no exception. This is some of that special paper that I've used before, albeit very sparingly.  However, once I saw Nichole's Inspiration Image, I knew I didn't have anything else as perfect as this plaid, and so I used it.  I have just 2 full 12 x 12 sheets of this plaid left now.  That means I should be able to get at least 8 and probably 12 more cards before I am completely out of this paper forever.  It is a very old Sandylion paper from back in my scrapbooking days and I have carefully hoarded it to make it last this long.

Nichole always finds the most beautiful inspiration photos to inspire us and also mentioned that it would be a great time to have one last hurrah with some of our favorite autumnal products.  This card uses one from last year and one from this year as well.

Give Thanks is a favorite set of mine designed by Dawn McVey.  I love the wheat stalks in it, particularly since I am from Kansas (the largest producer of wheat in the world) and it always makes me think of the family farm back home.  In this case, I just wanted to use one of the sentiments from the set.

For my card base, I started with a top folding card made from Kraft Cardstock and worked my way up through the layers.  The very bottom layer of the mat is cut from Sun Shimmer Cardstock, and then a slightly smaller rectangle of the plaid paper was put on top.  I wanted to use a label or banner for my sentiment and this one is always on my desk. I had just one panel of Gold Shimmer Cardstock (another treat from my friend Cindy O.) and I wanted to use that little bit lighter shade. It's an oldie Spellbinders Die that I got a GASC more than a decade ago.  The cool thing about it is that it embosses also.

Because my RA and Fibro have been giving me so much difficulty lately, especially with intricate dies, I gave in and ordered a Gemini Electric Die Cutting Machine which arrived yesterday afternoon. I really wanted to see if this machine would do anything at all with dry embossing because the embossing pad is so very thin that you wouldn't think it would work at all.  HOLY COW!  The embossing is so impressive and about ten times better than I could ever get with an embossing mat in my hand crank die cutting machine.  I was impressed!  You can find more information about the Gemini on the Crafter's Companion Website, HSN, or Blitzy.com as well as others I'm sure.  The Gemini Junior is pretty hard to find right now.  They were only available at Crafter's Companion and HSN before, but I wanted to be able to cut a full sheet if I wanted and I have a dedicated space for my studio, so smaller and more compact was not important to me. I have my little red sidekick and the new thicker cutting pads for it sitting on my desk for small dies.

Some of the embossing detail was there just from the die cutting sandwich but when I ran it through with the embossing sandwich, I was floored at how well it worked!  After that, I took some Summer Sunrise Ink and an inexpensive cosmetic brush using it like a stencil brush, and inked all around the edges of the label. I dried it just a bit with my heat tool to make sure the ink was dry and then prepped my surface with my powder tool to get ready to heat emboss it.  I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat set it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, then stamped it again and heat it again with another layer of embossing powder.  This has become my preferred way of Heat Embossing with at least two layers of embossing powder and sometimes 3 or 4.  This particular card was done with two but I kind of wish I had done one more.

For the final element, I die cut the large branch from the Beautiful Berries: Autumn out of the scrap of Gold Shimmer Cardstock and then stamped it out using Dark Chocolate for the branch, and Melon Berry and Orange Zest for the Bittersweet Berries. I thought it would look strange if I did the die cuts from White or Cream Cardstock and the Gold Shimmer Cardstock took the ink very well.  Just as I was finishing this card, I decided it needed some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Copper Penny for the finishing touch.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Be sure to go over to Nichole Heady's Blog to see all the projects from today's hop!

While I made this card for the Papertrey Blog Hop, it will work very well for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge #470 as well!

Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Dies Shop at: SSS	WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS
Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI | SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Papertrey Ink Kraft Cardstock Shop at: PTI
Papertrey Ink Gold Shimmer Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops - Copper Penny Shop at: SSS	Give Thanks Stamp Set Shop at: PTI	Beautiful Berries: Autumn Shop at: PTI
Beautiful Berries: Autumn Dies Shop at: PTI	Perfect Match Summer Sunrise Shop at: PTI	Perfect Match Melon Berry Shop at: PTI	Perfect Match Orange Zest Shop at: PTI
Perfect Match Dark Chocolate Shop at: PTI

Day 3 of the Official We Love Dawn Blog Hop

It's Day 3 of our We Love Dawn Blog Hop!  It is my intention, although I'm not making any promises, to have at least one card each day of the week long hop. Today's card features a favorite stamp set created by Dawn called Give Thanks.  As a Kansas girl myself, the simple wheat stalks and the sentiment really speak to me. Dawn lives in Johnson County Kansas and I grew up there. I moved to Northeast Kansas not long before my 16th Birthday.  I lived in a very small town in an area that is predominantly farming related.  Although my Brother-In-Law farms, he doesn't plant wheat.  However, you can still see lots of it in Kansas, and particularly in Western Kansas. When I was a senior in High School, several of the guys in my class had been on Wheat Harvest and that was my introduction into that. My husband's twin brother even delayed college for a semester because he was away for wheat harvest somewhere in Western Kansas. Since Kansas is the largest producer of Wheat in the world, it's a symbol that represents home to me (and I'm sure it does to Dawn as well) so I have loved this set since it came out a year or two ago.

For my card, I had found some really pretty watercolor paper at Hobby Lobby with all this gold embossing on many of the sheets that looks like paint splatter and I thought of it right away when I pulled out this stamp set to make a card.  The thing is, while I liked the basic design and style of the paper, I didn't feel like the colors were intense enough for a "Dawn Card", so I did something that I like to pull out and use once in a while; I pulled out some of my color sprays.  I like to make my own using shimmer mist or glimmer mist of some kind and reinkers and I now have the rainbow spectrum.  I use a ton of Shimmer Mist and every time I empty a bottle, I set it aside because they have great nozzles and spray a very fine mist. So while I had Coral and Pink sprays that were already made, I needed to make a yellow color spray. I don't like all colors of yellow, but I do have a lot of affection for a warm kind of Tuscan yellow.  I made this using Summer Sunrise Reinker from Papertrey.  I didn't change the location of the three colors on the paper at all, I just intensified each color with a color spray that was more saturated and vibrant. A tip for you here: be sure to spray a few times on a scrap piece of paper to get the solution up into the nozzle so that it sprays correctly.  Those first few burst on a spray that hasn't been used recently will be pretty unpredictable in how they come out of the nozzle. And you'll need to let the paper dry thoroughly before you die cut it or heat emboss it.

Once that was dry, I die cut the heart shape using some Little B Stitched Heart Dies.  I cut one from the watercolor paper and one from heavy white cardstock. Once I had the cardstock cut, I laid the heart die cut into the white negative and put some post it tape on the back to keep it from moving.  That way I could line it up in the MISTI.  I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed using Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  With all the gold on the watercolor paper, I felt like the sentiment kind of got lost so I used a technique that Jennifer McGuire posted in a YouTube Video yesterday; triple or quadruple heat embossing.  This worked so well that I wish I had known about it before, but I will definitely use it again.  The secret to doing this and having it come out well, is stamping lightly each time. I used my powder tool, stamped it again, heat set that layer, put it back in my MISTI and did it again. Use your powder tool between each layer.  The heart and wheat stems on this card were done three times.  I also found that when I had embossed the wheat stalks three times, it made it very easy to get the die lined up for cutting. I stamped and cut those from the negative pieces of the heart to keep that same texture in the paper.

I cut a stitched rectangle from Gold Foiled Cardstock, and a slightly smaller one from more of the watercolor paper for the background panel and adhered those to a Melon Berry top folding card base.  I die cut a piece of fun foam in the heart shape one size down from the other to give it stability from behind. I arranged the wheat stalks and the acorns to the left of the sentiment and adhered them with Ranger Multi Medium Matte and finished off with some sparkle cognac sequins that I got a few years back from Cartwright's Sequins.

I hope you've been enjoying all the cards along the hop.  I'm ready to go check out the newly added ones that have been created.  Thanks again to Nichole for hosting the Link-Up at the Papertrey Ink Blog this week.

I forgot to say that I am linking this card up at the Double D Challenges who has a theme this time around of "Feeling Fallish". 

Rustic Neutrals

I have a quick project and post for you today for the challenge over at The Card Concept featuring Rustic Neutrals.

The card I made for today features a fast and easy way to create a card and uses the Thankful For You Stamp and Die set from Papertrey Ink.

This particular set was designed by Betsy Veldman last year and I still love it today.  It is the epitome of "home" to me, especially because of the wheat. Kansas is the largest producer of wheat in the nation, with an estimated 10.8 million tons harvested each year.  It was also home to many for all of my growing up years and many of my adult life years as well.

To my knowledge, there are only two stamps sets at Papertrey Ink that have wheat and I own both of them; Paper Clippings: Thankful For You and Give Thanks, both with Coordinating Dies. They were released about a year ago.  This particular card uses the Paper Clippings: Thankful for you Die.  There is also the Paper Clippings: Thankful For You Details Die which cut each of the small individual pieces so that you can create a scene (not my particular strength) or add layers for dimension.

The nice thing about the Paper Clippings: Thankful For You Die is that you can make it pretty simple if you like.  It takes up most of the space on a A2 card front and you can color it by any means you wish.  For mine, I did a combination of the simplest copic coloring and also using stamps from the set to stamp the leaves. I wanted to go with the rustic fall colors so I chose my color accordingly by choosing Melon Berry, Summer Sunrise, Fine Linen, Dark Chocolate and Ocean Tides. The background panel is Melon Berry Cardstock on a Classic Kraft card base.

I had so many ideas for the inspiration image but only time enough to execute one of them.  However, there are many beautiful cards from the other Design Team Members, so be sure to stop by The Card Concept Challenge Blog and take a look!

Sunday Stamps #137 - Part Two

So while I was playing with the papers and inks from the Sunday Stamps Challenge #137 today, I decided to go ahead, while I had everything out try my other idea for this challenge. I actually like this card as much as the first one I made.  I used all the same color of inks and papers (Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Spring Rain, Rustic White) along with Simon Says Stamp Gold Embossing Powder. I wanted to see the difference between the Antique Gold and Gold since I haven't used the plain gold for a while. The Antique Gold is just a little bit warmer than the Gold embossing powder in the Simon Says Stamp brand.   I think this color combination will be a bit unexpected for this time of year and I like that. I also feel like I could have used Smoky Shadow Cardstock for my base but I already had the Dark Chocolate on my desk so for once I decided to go with the flow.

I have some Thanksgiving cards to send out and I'm really happy with this particular design, especially since hubby and I are from Kansas. I was born in Missouri, but I was raised in Kansas. Winter Wheat accounts for 70 to 80 percent of total production in the U.S., with the largest amounts produced in Kansas (10.8 million tons) and North Dakota (9.8 million tons).  To me, the image of wheat is synonymous with Kansas and in Western Kansas in particular, there are miles and miles of interstate highways that run along side the wheat fields.  No matter what time of year it is, it's a sight that always evokes a feeling of being home.  My husband's family has been farming in Kansas for over 100 years and his brother still farms there, so we feel pretty connected to the land there.  I know his family will enjoy these cards.

Since I already did another post today for this challenge, I am going to keep this one short, but I hope you enjoy this "Take Two" version of my card.