It's the final day of sneak peek projects from my new stamp set Simple Valentine. This set will be available for sale tomorrow (the 15th!) at Papertrey Ink! It's been so much fun sharing so many fun projects with you the past few days and I hope that you all have had fun too.

I have been very into felt lately, especially wool felt, and you are seeing it all over in scrapbooking and crafting right now. I especially love the little embellishments (as you might know from the Christmas embellishments and tags that I have been making lately!) and mixing felt, cardstock, and other things like buttons, rhinestones, and glitter.

Here are a couple fun felt embellishment projects that I put together using my Simple Valentine stamps, patterned papers, and some vintage felt from my stash.

First I put together these felt flowers. I stamped the outline heart onto the patterned papers and trimmed them out to use as the flower centers and layered them with a button over stitched felt and cardstock scallop circle layers. Way cute, aren't they?

I finished off my flower image with a piece of vintage green mini rickrack and added leaves from the Blooming Button Bits set (also available for sale on the 15th.) The card base has a heart border image stamped across the bottom with Fresh Snow ink and a bit of polka dot ribbon.

Love this "garden" of flower cards that I have to pick from for sending & giving to my special people for Valentine's day.

I stamped and trimmed out more patterned paper hearts and stitched up some felt hearts for these sweet embellishments.

Normally I don't make personalized tags for Valentine's day, but I couldn't resist putting these together for my girls with the felt heart embellishments and patterned papers. This might be a new thing on my list to make each year...!

My valentine card and tag box is stocked up for the season now! Now all I need to get done is my girls Valentines for their classmates - which I will be sharing with you soon!

There are more things to see on this last day of sneak peeks for this month's Papertrey Ink release: Nichole and Becky will be sharing projects made with Dawn's new Say it With Style set and I know that Dawn will have peeks on her blog too. Kim will have one last day of template peeks on her blog as well!

Don't forget that the online release party is tonight over at the Papertrey forums 10PM - midnight EST - we would love to have you join us!

And thank you so much again for joining me for the countdown and for sharing my excitement over my new set and patterned papers. You all make it so much for me and I love reading all of your comments.

Felt Flower Cards

stamps: Simple Valentine, Blooming Button Bits (Papertrey Ink)

ink: True Black, Fresh Snow, Ripe Avocado (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: Pure Poppy, Hibiscus Burst, kraft, Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy & Raspberry Fizz vintage mix buttons, Pure Poppy & Hibiscus Burst polka dot ribbon (Papertrey Ink), Cuttlebug flower die (Provocraft), scallop circle punch (Stampin' Up!), red & pink vintage wool felt, vintage green mini rickrack, white embroidery floss, dimensionals

Valentine Tags

stamps: Simple Valentine, Simple Alphabet

ink: True Black, Fresh Snow (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: Pure Poppy, Hibiscus Burst, Raspberry Fizz, Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy & Hibiscus Burst twill, Pure Poppy & Rapsberry Fizz vintage mix buttons (Papertrey Ink), Cuttlebug heart die (Provocraft), super jumbo scallop circle punch (Marvy), 3/4" circle punch (EK Success), white embroidery floss, dimensionals

Welcome back to day 4 of sneak peek projects from my new set Simple Valentine. This set will be available for sale at Papertrey Inkon the 15th (just a few days away!)

Today I have one sweet project to share that is a Valentine twist of a pocket style card.

First I cut my own heart from white cardstock to use as a template. The cool thing about this project is that you can adapt the size and shape to however you want - depending on what you want to put into the pocket. You will be able to see what I mean a little bit later...

So, trace your heart twice onto your choice of cardstock. I am using Pure Poppy cardstock for this project.

Next, I used one of the heart backgrounds stamped in Fresh Snow from the new Background Basics: Hearts set (also available for sale on the 15th.) On one of the hearts, you are going to trim off the top - I literally just stuck it into my paper trimmer and cut straight across.

Next you can either stitch (like I did) or glue the bottom half of the cut heart to the solid side of the full heart to create the actual pocket. I stitched the top part of the cut heart so that it matches the bottom part and also added a punched border strip to the bottom edge.

Next, I used a paper piercer to punch a hole through the top cut heart piece and the rest of the heart pocket base.

Put a brad into the hole you just pierced so you can open and close your heart pocket with the top part of the cut heart.

I didn't purposefully plan this stamp set too coordinate with any specific punches, but look how cute this heart looks with the large heart punch.

Here's the finished heart pocket with the cute punched heart on the front.

And here's the pocket opened up with a little love note tucked inside.  You could slide a gift card, photo, or whatever else you can dream up into it! Have something larger that you would like to tuck inside? Use that item as a guide when you first plan out what size heart pocket that you are going to make and make it bigger or smaller accordingly.

Looking for more sneak peeks today? Nichole & Michelle will be sharing more about the new Background Basics: Hearts set on their blogs, Dawn will have more projects to share with her new set, and Kim will share more peeks of her new template.

Come back tomorrow (the 14th) for one last peek before the release and also come join us for the online release party over at the Papertrey forumsfrom 10PM - midnight EST

Thanks for stopping by today!

Love Note Heart Pocket

stamps: Simple Valentine, Background Basics: Hearts (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: Pure Poppy, white, kraft (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy satin ribbon & vintage mix button, Rustic Jute button twine (Papertrey Ink), Apron Lace border punch (Fiskars), medium & large heart punches, 1 3/8 circle punch (EK Success), giga square punch (Marvy), silver brad, sewing machine/thread, dimensionals

Today, the Papertrey Ink design team got together to make a Valentine treat  projects with the set Tiny Treats that will be available for sale on the 15th. This is the sweetest set of little illustrations with coordinating sentiments. It will be so perfect for putting together treats for my girls and their friends.

(keep reading after my Tiny Treats project for some projects made with my Simple Valentine set.)

My Hana loves cats and I know she is going to be head over heels for this sweet little cat image that I used for my project...

I colored the cat image with Copic markers and used a circle sentiment around it that is from my Simple Valentine set. I cut the top off of the small size frosted tin tie bag with pinking shears tucked some polka dot stamped tissue paper inside, folded over the top of the bag, tie it up with ribbon, attached the polka dot heart and cat tag with a tiny staple, and tied on the purr-fect friend tag.

The images are so perfect for Valentine projects, but you are definitely going to be able to use the images year round for so many other projects. I took the same cat image and sentiment and paired it with one of the birthday greetings from the Birthday Basics set to make this card.

And really, I could use the treat package and card together for a sweet birthday gift!

I took the treat package treat package that I made with the Tiny Treats and made a version with my new Simple Valentine set that will also be available for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink.

I stamped another circular sentiment from the set and popped up one of the smaller hearts in the center of the sentiment. The heart print on the tissue is stamped with the background stamp in the set.

The hearts in the set can be used other heart images like the borders in the Borders & Corners: Heart set. The shapes aren't exactly the same, but they still definitely work to build an image.
 

I punched out the heart images with the super jumbo circle punch and made a tag base with Hibiscus Burst cardstock stamped with the heart background stamp in either Raspberry Fizz or Fresh Snow.

To finish off these tags I added the be mine sentiment from the Heart Prints set, some Raspberry Fizz satin ribbon and button stitched on with Rustic Cream button twine. I am all set to go to tie the tags onto more Valentine treats!

There are more sneak peeks of projects today. Nichole and the whole design team are sharing their tiny Treats Valentine treat projects - you can link to everyone over at Nichole's blog! Dawn will have more projects from her new set at her blog and Kim will share more peeks of her templates from the Click Simple library.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Purr-fect Friend Treat Bag & Card

stamps: Tiny Tags, Simple Valentine, Polka Dot Basics II (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: kraft, white, Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy satin ribbon, Rustic Cream button twine, small frosted tin tie bag (Papertrey Ink), large heart punch (EK Success), tiny attacher (Ranger), word window punch (Stampin' Up!), markers (Copic), white tissue paper

Be Mine Treat Bag

stamps: Simple Valentine, Polka Dot Basics II (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: kraft, white, Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy satin ribbon, Rustic cream button twine, small frosted tin tie bag (Papertrey Ink), large heart punch (EK Success), tiny attacher (Ranger), word window punch (Stampin' Up!), white tissue paper

Be Mine Heart Tags

stamps: Simple Valentine, Heart Prints, Borders & Corners: Heart (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Fresh Snow, True Black, Raspberry Fizz (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: kraft, Hibiscus Burst (Papertrey Ink)

other: Raspberry Fizz satin ribbon & vintage mix buttons, Rustic Cream button twine (Papertrey Ink), super jumbo circle punch (Marvy)

Welcome back to another day of sneak peek projects with my new Simple Valentine set that will be for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink!

Yesterday I talked a little about using the images included in the set to layer and build your own custom heart designs. Ink is a kind of important supply when you are stamping. And there are so many inks out there to try and use. But to really understand how ink works, you need to sit down and play around with them. You are going to find that some inks work well to layer versus others and you will also find that some colors of the same inks respond a little differently. To get to know them you have to play - call in to work "crafty" as Mish would say...!

So for today, I created 3 krafty cards where I played a bit with the image building and inks. I love the new formulation of pigment ink that Papertrey is transitioning to. Pigment inks have always been at the top of my list as far as what I like to use for stamping (I think it's the printmaker in me...) Normally, they take a bit longer to dry and you need to allow for that, but the new Papertrey pigment ink really dries so much faster. I am very impressed. 

Here's a look at my first card in progress. I stamped the solid heart base in Fresh Snow and then did the polka dot border overlay in Raspberry Fizz (pigment!) and you will see on the finished card that I also added a Hibiscus Burst (pigment!) heart to the center to finish off the heart image.

On tip I like to give about working with pigment inks, is that I like the pad to be on the drier side. If your pad is too "juicy" things will get messy and your ink will take forever to dry. Take your "juicy" pad and press out the excess ink on scratch paper. You will be so much more successful with your pigment ink stamping! Have a reinker of all of your colors of inks (order it right away when you order your stamp pads!) so that you can add ink in when your pad gets too dry.

For this next card, I stamped the heart bases alternating in Pure Poppy (original formula yet) and Raspberry Fizz. I layered on more hearts to build my heart images again with Pure Poppy and Fresh Snow ink (and yes, I know I need to clean my blocks...!)

This simple stamped heart border doesn't need lots of layers and mats of cardstock. Working with just the images and ink is what makes the card work.

For my final card, I played with just the solid heart stamp image itself and built a collage of hearts. I started with the lightest color and ended with the darkest: Fresh Snow > Hibiscus Burst > Raspberry Fizz.

I love how the colors look where they are overlapping. And when it came to finishing off this card, all it needed was the sentiment and rounding off the bottom corners. Simple, sweet, and beautiful all at once. The finished card reminds me of prints that you might find on Etsy.

I bet you noticed a few more peeks of my new Simple Valentine patterned paper in the cards I shared today. There are 6 sheets of 6 different designs included in the 8x8 collection and it too will be available for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink.

There's more to see today! Nichole has more sneak peeks of my Simple Valentine set on her blog today and Dawn will have more peeks of her new set over at her blog. If you haven't already, hop over to Kim Hughes' blog to see peeks of her new template from the new Click Simple library.

More tomorrow - thank you for stopping by today!

Krafty Valentine Cards

stamps: Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst, Fresh Snow, True Black, Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

other: scallop border punch (Stampin' Up!), corner chomper (We R Memory Makers)

I am so excited to share sneak peek projects made with my new stamp set, Simple Valentine, which will be available for purchase at Papertrey Ink on the 15th. There is a valentine theme going on all around this month at Papertrey, but boy it is so much fun and it really has been a good thing to take a break from holiday projects to create with all of the sweet images.

Simple Valentine set is a collection of images and sentiments for your valentine & love themed projects. You are going to have so much fun with the possibilites of image and background building when you start playing! I am pretty sure this will become a go to valentine basic in your collection and will coordinate with so much that you might already have.

I had to share this mini book project with you right away - love how it turned out. I wanted to make something a little more than a card for Chad to give him on Valentine's Day from me and the girls. I used the idea of the flash card mini book that I made here and incorporated Papertrey'smini 3x3 envelopes to create this little love note mini book.

(click any of the pictures to see them larger)

First I worked on building some heart images with the variety of heart images that I included in the set. You know how I love to layer ink and color and these images are perfect for doing that.

I know you are checking out that red polka dot paper that I used on the card pages. Yes, I designed patterned paper to coordinate with the Simple Valentine set. This is just one of the six prints that is included in the collection. I will share more peeks of the paper as the countdown continues!

Here's my little love note book front. I only did 3 card pages for the book to keep it short and sweet and that gives just enough pockets for me and my girls.

Here's Hana in the first pocket. When Valentine's Day gets closer I will add little love notes from each of us on the back of each of our pictures.

Here's the next page. I kept each page layout the same, just swapping out sentiments. Do you love that little library card on the opposite page? I will talk about that more at the end of my post!

Here's Tacy in the second pocket!

The last card page in the book...

With my picture in that pocket!

And of course the back. I know I put the year 2010 a little early, but I will be giving to Chad in 2010 and I wanted the date to reflect that.

If you remember the pile of heart images on my desk, you know I have a bunch extra for other projects. I made up some 3x3 cards with some of the images and polka dot paper scraps. Super cute and sweet and ready to hand out to some special people on Valentine's Day.

Now, about that little library card that I used in the mini book. When I was thinking about what I wanted to put on the back of my card pages, that is what came to my mind - something library cardish. Since I wanted the actual card size smaller I made up my own to use in an ATC card size (2 1/2" x 3 1/2".) I bet you all might like to have them too and so I am sharing this free printable that you can download by clicking the link below:

Download Librarycardhn1209

All I ask is that if you use the cards on your own projects and post them online, please give me credit and a link is much appreciated! Have fun!

There are more Papertrey Ink sneak peek projects to see today! Nichole & Betsy are sharing about the super cute new Blooming Button Bits set on their blogs and Dawn will have peeks of her new set on her blog.

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for more sneak peeks...

Love Notes Mini Book and Mini Cards

stamps: Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: kraft, white, Pure Poppy, Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

other: Pure Poppy polka dot ribbon, Pure Poppy vintage mix buttons, white 3x3 envelopes (Papertrey Ink), 3/4", 1 1/4", 1 3/8" circle punches (EK Success), scallop circle punch (Stampin' Up!), corner chomper (We R Memory Makers), red glitter tulle (JoAnn's), white embroidery floss, dimensionals, clip ring

It's time for another stamp set from me right? And can you believe it's time to think about Valentine projects in the middle of everything going on for the holidays? Sneak peek projects start here on the 10th and my new set will be available for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink. And I might have something else up my sleeve for this month too ;)

See you soon!

Happy December! Can you believe that we are into the final month of the year already? That means it's time for the Papertrey Ink senior design team challenge and we are bringing back a challenge that we did last year and making holiday ornaments.

I went to a local nursery that goes all out with their holiday decorating and especially inspired by a tree that was done up in vintage silvers and golds. I loved how the ornaments were really a simple design, but the vintage glitter and little details made them extraordinary. I came home from the nursery with a little silvery tinsel tree and got to work making ornaments to dress it up in the same vintage style...

I made these paper ornaments with 2 layers of cardstock (to make it a little more sturdy) cut out with a die from the Labels One set. All of the sentiments I used are from the Believe set and I used an image from Damask Designs that I stamped with a glue pad and then sprinkled with glitter. I used a glue pen on the edges to add glitter there.

My details to finish off my vintage inspired ornament were some silver eyelets, a jingle bell hanging from a silver jump ring, a gold glittered spring tied on with a bit of button twine, and a length of organza ribbon to hang it on the tree.

One of the other things I saw at the nursery were lovely silver star garlands. Theirs were hanging in a window (which i still might put together for my own windows) but I made up a garland to add to my little tree. I punched the stars from kraft cardstock, used spray adhesive to adhere the glitter to both sides (do one side at a time), added silver eyelets, and tied each star onto a long length of organza ribbon with the button twine. I love love love how it turned out.

A peek at the back of the ornament. These particular ornaments are going to be given to friends and so this sentiment from the Believe set was just perfect.

   
 
Here's a look at the collection of ornaments that I put together.

Check out what the rest of the senior design team put together fro their holiday ornaments: Nichole, Lisa, Becky, Betsy, Michelle, and our guest designer Annabelle O'Malley. If you haven't started putting up your holiday decorations, I am positive that this will get you into the spirit! 

Vintage Paper Jingle Bell Ornaments

stamps: Believe, Damask Designs (Papertrey Ink)

ink: True Black (Papertrey Ink)

cardstock: Rustic White, kraft (Papertrey Ink)

other: Rustic Cream button twine (Papertrey Ink), white gold glitter (Martha Stewart), gold glittered sprig (Michaels), 1/4" white organza ribbon (May Arts), star punch for garland (Fiskars) silver eyelets, silver jump rings, jingle bells, glue pen

If you haven't checked out the new releases at Sweet Shoppe Designs, be sure pop over there and check them out. I used a new collaboration kit for this card by Traci Reed and Penny Springmann called Away in a Manger. It is beautifully rustic with a vintage feel - right up my alley!

I assembled the card front digitally with the papers, ribbon, sentiment, leaf, and berry images. After printing it out I added some rhinestones, the glittered sprig, and tied on the button. Then I attached it to a kraft card base, rounded the corners and added some distressed edging with Dark Chocolate ink.

Rustic Silent Night

I had to do another project using Zoe Pearn's digital Winter Wonderland kit (available at Sweet Shoppe Designs.) For these gift card pockets, I added the snowflakes images onto the red polka dot paper before I printed it out and then punched them out with an Extra Giga square punch.

I stitched up the top and bottom of the kraft card base to create a pocket perfect for tucking a gift card, special note, or something else small into. The snowflake image is mounted onto Spring Moss cardstock that was cut with a Labels One die and then embossed with an embossing folder by Quickutz. The merry sentiment and snowflake are from my Holiday Tree stamp set.

We are celebrating our Thanksgiving with my family today and already celebrated with Chad's family this past weekend. I have so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family and friends, for being able to have this wonderful job that I love, for good health, a home... it's good to take a step back and look at what you actually have and realize that it is good.

Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday. And thank you to all of you :)

Snowflake Gift Card Pocket

hybrid supplies by Sweet Shoppe Designs:

Winter Wonderland by Zoe Pearn

traditional supplies:

Polka Dot Basics & Holiday Tree stamp sets by Papertrey Ink

kraft & Spring Moss cardstock by Papertrey Ink

1" circle punch by EK Success, Labels One die by Spellbinders, polka dot embossing folder by Quickutz, glitter buttons by American Crafts, corner chomper by We R Memory Makers, embroidery floss, sewing machine/thread, dimensionals

I fell in love with the Winter Wonderlanddigital kit by Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs.It has such a fun mix of reds, blues, kraft, and white paired with whimsical wintery images.

I created the card front digitally with 2 of the patterned papers and the ribbon image. I punched a half circle on the bottom to make a place for the sentiment and snowflake stamps (love how that turned out) and then added punched & glittered snowflakes and buttons across the card.

Thanks for visiting today :)

Winter Snowflake Wishes Card

hybrid supplies from Sweet Shoppe Designs:

Winter Wonderland by Zoe Pearn

traditional supplies:

Holiday Tree and 2009 Holiday Tag Collection stamp sets by Papertrey Ink

kraft, Vintage Cream, and Pure Poppy cardstock by Papertrey Ink

Scarlet Jewel and white/cream vintage mix buttons by Papertrey Ink

snowflake punches by Marvy and Martha Stewart

1 3/4" circle punch by EK Success

white embroidery floss