Farewell 2010!

Hello everyone and a very happy new year's eve to you all! My turn to send out some heartfelt thanks for all the support you've given A Passion for Papertrey over the past year and to also wish you all a wonderful night and all the very very best for 2011!

Unfortunately I've been laid up in bed for the past four days with flu so there'll be no partying for me tonight (sob!) but I'll be thinking of all you revellers as I snuggle up in front of my fire! Being ill has meant no crafty time for me since Christmas, so I thought I'd share some of my Christmas cards that I didn't get round to posting before last weekend - if you can handle a few more festive projects?? (If you can't look away now!)

This was one of designs - I made more than 50 of these!


Here are a few:


Recipe:
Stamps: Tiny Treats Christmas
Card: Vintage Cream/Kraft/Aqua Mist
Ink: Soft Sky (SU)/Memento Black
Other: Mat Stack 1 Die/Snowflake Cuttlebug Embossing Folder/Copic Sketch Markers

And a super simple CAS card:



Another mass production line:


Recipe:
Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia/Fancy Flourishes
Card: Purely Pomegranate (SU)
Ink: Versafine Black/Versamark/Purely Pomegranate
Other: Mat Stack 4 Die/Corner Chomper

That's all folks! No more Christmas! Roll on 2011 and here's to a fabulous year!

Kate x

Celebrate with Cake!

Time to celebrate the ending of a year and beginning of a New year! I know that on behalf of Kate and Caryn as well as myself that we'd like to thank you for all your wonderful support on this li'l blog of ours. We truly appreciate it! You've made 2010 a year to remember!

How about a card to celebrate?

OK, so it's not a fabulous New Year's card. In fact, it's a wedding card I made for the fabulous snowy wedding my guy and I attended on the 27th. But we could all get stuck in with that cake whatever the occasion, right?!

So whether you're celebrating with friends or family, out and about or snuggled up indoors, have a fabulous New Year and we'll see you in 2011....!

Aimes, Caryn and Kate
xxx

Card Deets
{Celebrate}
Stamps: Damask Designs
Ink: London Fog (Memento)
Cardstock: Stamper's Select White, White Shimmer (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Clear Gems (Hero Arts)/Cuttlebug/Swirls Embossing Folder (Provocraft)/Fresh Snow Satin Ribbon, Polka Dot Impression Plate (Papertrey Ink)/Chompy (Corner Chomper)

A Winner!

Thank you so much for all your wonderful entries for our Perfectly Pretty Pearls challenge - we were so happy to see so many of you play along with us during what is a super busy time of year!

We won't keep you any longer though - let's see who Random.org selected as the lucky winner of the Fillable Frames #6 Stamp Set....

Here are your random numbers:

9

Timestamp: 2010-12-29 00:51:24 UTC

Which means that Mandy is our winner! Congrats, Mandy! Email us your snail mail addy and we'll get that sweet stamp set posted out to ya!

And now for our Top 3 PTI Passionistas:


Imke - Imke's tags look amazing and are even better when you know they've been created from scraps! What a way to make the gift really special.

Lorena - Lorena's card just screams Christmas to us. We loved her clever use of the Christmas tree and the gorgeous paper pieced chair and lamp. The pearls on the tree make the perfect baubles too!

Chris - We loved the mixture of textures on Chris' tea for two card. The subtle use of the woodgrain background on the mat makes the focal point just pop. Fabulous colour combo too!

Congrats ladies! If you would like a blinkie to blink with pride on your blog then drop us an email for the code.

Here's hoping you can all find time to join us with our new challenge: there's another sweet stamp set up for grabs y'know *wink*

Caryn, Aimes, Kate and Aga
xxxx

Background Basics...

Ahhh! Christmas: the presents have been unwrapped, the turkey has been cooked (and a month's worth remains in the fridge), and I've still got numb fingers from building lots of Lego toys with my nieces a nephews! Love it! I hope you've all had a happy Holiday
too!

Apologies for this challenge being posted later than usual: straight after Christmas I had a birthday to celebrate and a very snowy wedding to attend! I'm still recovering from the drinking, eating, celebrating and socialising (not necessarily in that order) that I can't believe I've even managed to get my head around posting this challenge!

We know it's still a super busy time of year so our challenge is pretty simple to join along with if you're lucky enough to find a few spare, inky moments *wink* For this fortnight's challenge we'd like to see how you use your background stamp sets on your projects. Don't own a background set? Then get creative and make your own if you fancy it!

My example is actually the card I gave to my mum for her Birthday (celebrated on Boxing Day so it's present galore all over again for us!)

Card Deets
{happy biRthDay}
Stamps: Birthday Bash Sentiments, Polka Dot Basics II
Ink: Spring Rain (Papertrey Ink)/London Fog (Memento)
Cardstock: White and Pink Shimmer Cardstock (Papetrey Ink)
Accessories: Fresh Snow Satin Ribbon (Papertrey Ink)/Chompy (Corner Rounder)/Ribbon (Scraps!)/Clear Gem (Hero Arts)

I do think Polka Dot Basics II is my most favourite background stamp set ever (don't tell my other sets that though!) nothing like a few polka dots to add an element of fun to a project!

Over to Kate:

"A very Happy Christmas to you all! I hope everyone has had a happy and peaceful few days, and now the festivities have quietened down a bit maybe you're even finding time to sneak into your craft room! My samples for this challenge are some Christmas cards I made a few weeks ago - I went for a slightly unusual Christmas colour (Hawai'in Shores) then like the card (and the speed with which it came together!) that I made a few more in other PTI colours:

Hawai'in Shores:


Ocean Tides:


Enchanted Evening:


Raspberry Fizz:


Recipe:

Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia (background stamp)/2010 Holiday Tags
Ink: Fresh Snow/Versafine Black
Other: Adhesive Gems/Mat Stack 3 Die/White Grosgrain Ribbon

Over to Caryn:

"Hi there folks and a happy holiday season to you all. We have had another fantastic Christmas in our house and once again everyone is feeling very happy and a bit spoiled - me included! My card sample this week is, I'm sorry to say, ANOTHER Christmas card!! I know, probably the last thing you all want to see now but all I've made recently are Christmas cards, I can't think about anything else at this time of year. This card features the Big and Bold Holiday Wishes and Background Basics: Christmas sets. I love that little peppermint background stamp! Now I promise my next challenge card won't be a Christmas card - although I fully intend to make them throughout the year so there's no panicking at the end as usual!!"


And as our featured stamper for December, here's Aga:

"I love stamping custom backgrounds. It's a quick and easy way to create your own patterned paper and it gives you an almost endless possibility to create something unique!

Here are my samples of background stamping: two cards I made using one stamp from Guide Lines set. The sentiment comes from Blooming Button Bits set. Both are super quick and easy to make!"



So what else could tempt you to play along with us this fortnight? Well how about a sweet little stamp set:
Yup, one randomly selected European peep could be the owner of this new Signature Series: Cupcake mini stamp set!

Ready to play along? I hope so! Here's the deets:
* All entries must contain at least one PTI product to qualify (please state what is PTI as sometimes for us it's hard to tell :D)

* To enter, use our inlinkz thingy at the bottom of this post (be aware that we've got a text based linky thing and not a piccy one at the moment!). Please leave the correct URL for your entry post and not just your generic blog address! If you're having problems then just leave a comment with a link to your post featuring the project on your blog or online gallery.

* Worldwide entries are more than welcome to share the inspiration and can be in with a chance of being a Top 3 PTI Passionista, but unfortunately prizes can only be shipped within Europe!

* Challenge closes on Monday, January 10th 2011 at 9.00am GMT

* As well as a randomly picked winner, we'll select the top three creations we like the most and feature them on the Blog. The top three PTI Passionistas will have chance to display a Top 3 Passionista Blinkie on their own blog.

We can't wait to see what you come up with!

Aimes, Kate, Caryn & Aga
xxxx

Christmas cards without Christmas Stamps!

***This post comes courtesy of our Featured Stamper, Aga!***

Hello!

I’m just popping in to share one of my last Christmas cards. My passion for PTI began not so long ago and for this reason my collection of stamps is still quite modest. When I started my holiday card making season I sadly discovered that I don’t have any PTI Christmas stamps. Therefore, I've challenged myself to create a holiday card without any holiday stamps.

My recipe is: 1 stamp from Guide Lines set, leaves and ‘joy’ sentiment from Blooming Button Bits set, a pinch of red embossing powder, white gel pen and few silver rhinestones to decorate. I made this card using one of the sketches from Paper Craft Magazine’s “Go to Sketches” issue. I’m wondering what you think about the result:

I am enjoying my time with my family in Poland and I hope you have a great holiday time too!

Thank you for stopping by!

Aga

Our winners!

Apologies for the delay in announcing the winners of our Christmas Theme challenges - the run-up to Christmas really is taking over isn't it?! Thank you for all the truly fabulous entries to our festive challenge, it was a real joy to browse through all your wonderful and inspiring creations!

So let's get down to it shall we ;) The winner of that super-cute Fly Away stamp set is...


Here are your random numbers:

6

Timestamp: 2010-12-15 18:49:38 UTC

(Random.org)

...Imke! A big congratulations Imke! Please email your postal address to apassionforpapertrey@yahoo.co.uk and we'll pop your prize in the post asap.

We found it especially tough to pick our Top 3 PTI Passionistas this time round, maybe we should make it a top ten?!! Anyway, we finally narrowed it down to these fabulous creations!

- KimB - We fell in love with Kim's adorable treat boxes using the Tiny Treats: Christmas set - she even made girls and boys versions!!

-Tina - Tina's card is so stylish - with that fabulous bow hanging from the wreath balanced with the embossed woodgrain effect. Gorgeous!

-Linda - Just look at Linda's work of art! She's pulled together so many elements to create such an orginal and tactile card, thank you for the inspiration Linda!

Congratulations ladies! If you'd like to have our blinkie adorn your blog just drop us an email to apassionforpapertrey@yahoo.co.uk and we'll give you the code you need.

Thank you all again for playing along - we hope you can join our current challenge!

Kate, Aimes, Caryn & Aga xxxx

Perfectly Pretty Pearls

Hi, Caryn here.

Firstly - sorry this is appearing a bit late - I've been suffering a wee bit with the lurgy over the last few days and thought we still had another week to run on our last challenge!! Oops! Luckily I was organised enough to have my card made so without further ado, here we are with our new challenge Pretty Pearls. As usual you can interpret this as you wish but we want to see you using pearls in some way on your creation (which must incorporate at least one Papertrey Ink product).

I am still in Christmas card-making mode at the moment so my card is another festive one! I used my beloved Peaceful Poinsettia set along with Big and Bold Holiday Wishes. The image and sentiment have been stamped in Versamark and then embossed in white filligree powder. I am loving this colour combo of Pure Poppy, Aqua Mist and Kraft - loads of my cards this year have used it! Caryn x

Recipe:
Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia/Big and Bold Holiday Wishes
Ink: Versamark
Card: Kraft/ Aqua Mist/Pure Poppy/Spring Moss
Other: White Filligree embossong powder/Martha Stewart Edge punch/adhesive pearls and gem/Nestabilities: Lacy Circles and Standard Circles

Here's Kate:
"My mum asked me to make some cards for her this Christmas and for two of the three designs I used the Wreath for All Seasons set, I can see this becoming one of my most-used PTI sets! The gaps in the wreath design just calls out for some pearly berries!"

Here's a close up of the pearls:

I'd better make a start on my own cards now!

Recipe:
Stamps: Wreath for All Seasons/2010 Holiday Tags
Ink: Purely Pomegranite (SU), Versafine Black
Card: Vintage Cream/Purely Pomegranite (SU)
Other: Cuttlebug embossing folder/Purely Pomegranite ribbon (SU)/Adhesive Pearls/Rustic Twine/Mat Stack 4 die.

Over to Aimes
"OK. So I am in the middle of a huge panic. Breathe, Aimes. Breathe! It's only 11 days until Christmas and I'm still making Christmas cards! *Argh!* Still, I like to tell myself it's because I'm at my 'most creative' when I'm under more pressure - ha!

So here is my 'pearly' creation:


I've kinda cheated - hope you'll forgive me. I know you've seen this card layout before (for the last challenge) and I'm using it again for my example for this challenge. I think the change of colours and the pearly touches certainly make it different from my other two....well it's more girly anyways!"

Card Deets
{We Wish you a Merry Christmas}
Stamps: Holiday Signature Greetings, Fancy Flourishes (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Fresh Snow (Papertrey Ink)
Cardstock: Spring Rain, Sweet Blush, White Shimmer Cardstock (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Snowflake Die (Provocraft)/Nestabilities/Fresh Snow Satin Ribbon and Spring Rain Button (Papertrey Ink)/Pearls (Hero Arts)/'Chompy' (Corner Chomper!)

As our featured stamper for December, here's Aga's fabulous take on the challenge:

“I've always been a fan of red berries on Christmas cards. There's something so pretty about them. To create my card I used the leaves from the Blooming Button Bits set with white embossing powder and red pearls. Don't they look cute together? I also added a baker's twine, printed sentiment and a piece of red punched border.”


Ready to play along? Here are the deets:

Here are the deets:
* All entries must contain at least one PTI product to qualify (please state what is PTI as sometimes for us it's hard to tell :D)

* To enter, use our inlinkz thingy at the bottom of this post. Please leave the correct URL for your entry post and not just your generic blog address! If you're having problems then just leave a comment with a link to your post featuring the project on your blog or online gallery.

* Worldwide entries are more than welcome to share the inspiration and can be in with a chance of being a Top 3 PTI Passionista, but unfortunately prizes can only be shipped within Europe!

* Challenge closes on Monday, December 27th 2010 at 9.00am GMT

* As well as a randomly picked winner, we'll select the top three creations we like the most and feature them on the Blog. The top three PTI Passionistas will have chance to display a Top 3 Passionista Blinkie on their own blog.

So here's what you can win - A Fillable Frames #6 stamp set.

We can't wait to see what you come up with!
Caryn, Kate, Aimes and Aga
xxxx

Christmas Treats.

Hey there, just popping in to share a card I put together using my Tiny Treats: Christmas set.  Although I haven't owned it very long it's become one of my most used sets over the past few weeks!  I coloured each of the little images with ProMarkers and added a tiny bit of bling to each one (not that you can tell in the photo)!

 
Keep those Christmas entries coming for our current challenge - I'm getting SO much inspiration from them!
Hugs,
Caryn xxx

'Tis the Season

Well all good things come to an end don't they? My bonus week off work due to the snow is over and I'm back at school. It's funny how I'm now just moaning about the snow and ice when I was so excited about it when it gave me bonus inky sessions last week; it's not so fun when you have to drive in it when it's minus 18 degrees Celsius - eek!

So lemme try and warm things up a little with a Christmas card:

I think this kinda feels warm. Is it vintage? Is it CAS? I've no idea! But it certainly warms me a little in this freezing weather!

Well it well and truly 'tis the season and although I spent last weekend making so many Christmas cards, I'm yet to buy a single present! Don't tell anyone though; everyone is under the impression that I'm organised. Little do they know that their gifts will probably be bought from a petrol station on Christmas Eve - Ha!

Right, I'm off to find me a pair of ice skates so I can get to work in style this week!

Aimes
x

Card Deets
{Tis the Season}
Stamps: Stocking Prints (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Hint of Pesto (Versamagic)/Antique Linen (Distress Ink)/Rich Cocoa (Memento)
Cardstock: Kraft (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper: Sugar Plum (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Crochet Lace, Leaf Ribbon (Reasonable Ribbon)/Border Punch (EK Success)/Jute Ribbon Twine (Papertrey Ink)

December's Featured Stamper

OK, OK, I know it's technically the 2nd of December but it's December nonetheless which means it's time for a new featured stamper!

We're so grateful to Bev and her fabulous work during her month here on the PTI blog. Thank you, Bev!!!

And so who is our featured stamper for December?

Aga!

We had the pleaure of meeting Aga during our Make and Take in Sheffield. She's a super sweet lady and super talented too! Let's find out a bit more about her:

1)How did you get into papercrafting?

I’ve been crafting almost my whole life. I enjoy drawing, painting, knitting, needle crafting etc. I started my papercrafting adventure from Origami, paper quilling and then I got into cardmaking. I got started by making cards for my friends and family. I seriously never thought I’d get addicted to it but here I am :)

2)How long have you been stamping for?

I've only been stamping since January 2009 and I still don’t have much experience. There are so many new things that I would like to try or learn and there are so many creative options with stamps that the possibilities are endless.

3)How did you get into PTI and why do you love it so much?

I was looking for some new (for me) stamp companies and I came across Nichole Heady's blog. I just fell in love with her creations and the stamps. Love the style of PTI stamps and how well different sets coordinate with each other.

4)What would you say is your stamping style?

I’m not sure about that, I guess it all depends on my mood :) I just love combining papers, stamps and handmade embellishments and I try to get a little from different styles.

5)Do you have a favourite PTI colour or colour combo that just makes you drool?

I love all shades of green, however I adore all soft and bright colours.

6)If you had to choose just one PTI stamp set to keep, which one would it be and why?

It would be something with a flower theme, maybe "Life" or "Larger Than Life" set as it still on my wish list, or "In Bloom", or ... no, it's impossible to choose just one!

7)Who is your PTI Idol?

I don’t have one as I love all PTI design team. Each lady has a different and unique style and they all are so inspiring.

8)Where do you get your inspiration from?

Blog world is a big source of inspiration but I also love finding inspiration from sketches, magazines and all kind of challenges.

9)What’s your stamping dream?

PTI stamps available to buy in Europe and especially in UK. That’s one of them.

10)Where can we go to check out more of your wonderful creations?

You can find me at http://justmadefrompaper.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much, Aga! We definitely agree with your answer to question 9 LOL!

I'm sure you'll join us in welcoming Aga on board for this festive month and like us, can't wait to see what creations she has to share with us!

Tiny Treats Christmas

***Sorry this is a day late from our Featured Stamper, Bev. Blame me, (Aimes) and the chaotic snow for not posting this yesterday!***

Hey All! Well today is the last day of me being featured stamper over here on A Passion for Papertrey. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time over here and I hope that I have provided you with some inspiration to create?!

I have one last Tiny Treats Christmas card to share with you. This is another CAS style card which is a larger scale than the ones I created for the challenge, but they are still super cute and easy to mass produce!

I just love this reindeer image, he is SO cute! I stamped the image on some Shimmer card stock another new FAVE of mine! The snowflakes are stamped using the background stamp from Snowfall. I added some bakers twine & a punched snowflake from more Shimmer CS as the final touches!

I hope that you have a go at the new challenge. Thanks to Kate, Aimes & Caryn for having me!

Bye for now!

Bev