Pattern Play Day 3

 I'm having a great time in the Pattern Play class from Online Card Classes. Day 3 was all about using those hard-to-use patterned papers. There was great advice for using those bigger, busier patterns especially. Here's my first card for Day 3.

When I finished, I liked these two papers together so much that I decided to make another card with them. Here it is.

Details: stamps - Verve, Papertrey Ink; dies - Spellbinders, Papertrey Ink, various patterned papers

Pattern Play Day 1

I've been taking a class called Pattern Play from Online Card Classes. It's all about learning new tricks and tips for using patterned papers for cards. Since I feel compelled to buy all of the pretty papers that I find, I knew that the class would be worthwhile for me. And it has certainly exceeded my expectations! I've gotten so many great ideas, and have spent the week making lots of new cards. Of course, I waited until the last day to start photographing and uploading them, so there will be a flurry of posts all at once. I guess that's one way to end the long drought of posts here!

These cards were inspired by Jennifer McGuire's Day 1 tips. She showed four different ideas for using multiple patterns in the same card. Each of these four cards used slightly different treatments for the papers.

Details: stamps - Papertrey Ink, dies - Papertrey Ink, Spellbinders, paper - Papertrey Ink, various patterned papers

Using what I have for some bright spring cards

I get a lot of inspiration from the Papertrey Ink design team members. Here are a couple of cards that I made using stamps from other companies along with inspiration from the design team.

First up is a card inspired by Maile Belles. Click on her name to see the lovely card that inspired me (scroll down - it's the last card in her post). I loved the colors and the way she cut out the edge of the card along the outline of the butterflies. I bought the Amuse butterfly set called Papillon awhile back and was eager to use it. I have hundreds of butterfly stamps, but I think these may be the most beautiful ones of all. Here's my take on it:
 

Details: stamps - Papillon (Amuse), Thankful Blossoms (Verve); ink - Fresh Ink Pool, Amuse Grass, Amuse Blueberry, Versafine Onyx Black

Next is a card inspired by Jess Witty. Click on her name to see the beautiful inspiration card (scroll down to the pink/orange/yellow heart card). I really liked the colors of Jess's card as well as the repeating elements. I used a stamp from an old Fancy Pants stamp set. It's one horizontal line of diamonds. I used it eight times; two times each in four different colors. I flipped the stamp over each time I used it so that the text wouldn't look identical each time.

Details: stamps - Bella Brush (Fancy Pants), It's Your Birthday (Stampin' Up); ink - Memento Cantaloupe, SU Cameo Coral, SU Regal Rose, Memento Rosebud, Versafine Onyx Black

Mehndi a la Laurie

Here’s a card that I made last month when I went on the scrapbook retreat. We had a pretty sketchy wi-fi connection that weekend, so I was pretty much on my own for ideas. This one came to me easily, because it was inspired by a lovely card by Laurie Willison, and I’ve made several similar cards over the past few months in various colors and textures. Funny thing is, I remembered that I was inspired by Laurie, but didn’t have her original blog post pinned so that I could find it again, so a working wi-fi wouldn’t have made any difference that weekend. After speed-surfing Laurie’s blog (and finding tons more inspiration on the way!) I found the original card that inspired me. Check it out and see her lovely card. Even funnier is the fact that Laurie was inspired by someone she forgot to pin, too!



Details: stamps – Mendhi Medallion, Signature Greetings; paper – Kraft, Stampers Select White, Bermuda Bay (Stampin’ Up); ink – Versafine Onyx Black, Lucky Limeade (Stampin’ Up); accessories – Cuttlebug embossing folder (I think the name is Textile Texture or something like that?), Nestabilities circle die, Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)

Inspiration Challenge

Today's card was created for an inspiration challenge.



Maile’s card, which you can see above, used chevron stripes in a rainbow pattern. I thought I would make chevrons using my all-time favorite Maile-designed stamp set, Modern Basics. My love for this set is well known. In my opinion, it is the best stamp set on the planet, and will probably remain in that position for a long time to come.

I had a blast experimenting with chevrons using the shapes in this set! In the end, I went with this simple pattern. I only used two stamps from the set, the large solid 3-leaf stamp, and the corresponding single leaf. I love how easy it is to line up the stamps in Modern Basics, even if you’re covering a fairly large area. I started at the edge of the paper and lined up the center of the leaves right along the edge (see the blue stamps at the top of the strip) and then just built from there.

Here’s the card with no embellishment.



And since I’m indecisive, I put a ton of little adhesive-backed pearls on the second card. I like it both ways.


Just another view so that you can see the pearls better.


Details: stamps – Modern Basics, Think Big Favorites #3; paper – Kraft, Stampers Select White; ink – Versafine Onyx Black, Stampin’ Up Pacific Point, Perfect Plum, Regal Rose, Real Red, Summer Sun, Old Olive; pearl embellishments (source unknown)

A girly birthday card

This card is for a brand new challenge, Virginia’s View. This challenge is going to be a monthly one courtesy of the fabulous Virginia Lu. This is the inspiration photo that we were to use:



I love the colors and the dangling hearts, so I chose this dangling heart stamp from my collection and stamped it in various shades of pink and orange.



Details: stamps – Bright Spirits (Verve), Think Big Favorites #7; paper – White, Hibiscus Burst; ink (all Stampin’ Up) – Melon Mambo, Pink Passion, Cameo Coral; tools – large scallop border die

Scrappy birthday cards

Here are some colorful birthday cards created using scrap strips of various patterned papers. These were fun to make. The only tiny challenge was choosing the ink colors to go with the papers. I made these on the scrapbooking retreat a couple of weekends ago, where I had taken limited inks with me. I found that my dew drop Memento pads yielded close matches for pretty much every paper shown here.





Details: stamps – Birthday Bash Sentiments, paper – White, Kraft, Bitty Box Basics, Bitty Dot Basics, Distressed Dots, ink – various Memento inks; tools – Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)