Festive Friday Challenge #2

I heard about a new challenge on Melissa Phillips' blog. Check out the Festive Friday blog for some inspiration to help you beat the holiday rush!

The latest challenge is to create a project with a rustic country theme. Here's the inspiration photo:

And here's what I came up with:

And here's a close up of the wreath:

Love the idea of incorporating burlap but I don't have any on hand.  I decided to add a bit of texture with a burlap stamp instead. My friend Pattie sent me some cute die cut wreaths (thanks Pattie!) and this was a perfect occasion to use one. I'm making an early start on Christmas cards this year, so can't wait to play along with more challenges.

Supplies
Paper - PTI kraft
Stamps - Market Street Stamps Bit of Burlap, PTI Peace Joy Love
Ink - Amuse Cherry, Versamark
Accessories - Memory Box Breezy wreath die cut, brads from stash

Garden delights

Summer is a busy time in the garden. Lots of weeding to take care of and lots of produce too - from the vegetable garden and fruit trees.

This month, my pears went from looking like this:

And this:

To this:

Maybe some chutney next?

And another one

Christmas card that is. Here's another idea for a simple card that can be mass-produced this year.  The image in this one was covered with UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel). Not that easy to see, but in real life it's pretty shiny:

Supplies Other - SU patterned paper

Ready for Christmas?

I know it's only February, but I thought I'd try out a few designs for Christmas cards and tags. I like to make a few each month so the end of the year is not such a rush.

I usually use a different stamp set each year, and for this year, plan to use Papertrey's Star of Wonder. As I make multiple cards, it has to be reasonably easy to produce.  Here's the first card:

Supplies Other - SU patterned paper

Another spinning butterfly

I'm just churning these out at the moment! Here's another butterfly card using PTI movers and shakers spinners dies.  The butterfly at the top of the card:

And swooping down to the bottom:

I could play with these for hours!

Supplies

Embroidered birthday

I've been having fun creating with PTI's Embroidered Blooms set. Love the 2 step flowers and leaves in this set - it's so easy to create depth and shading. Here's a birthday card to put in my stash for later in the year:

Supplies

Spinning butterfly

On a bit of a roll now with the spinners dies (excuse the pun!). Here's an interactive birthday card which features a colour butterfly. The patterned paper all comes from Fancy Pants' Hopscotch paper pad. Perfect colours for summer!

Supplies

PTI 6th anniversary celebrations

Papertrey Ink are celebrating their 6th anniversary with various challenges and competitions. The Design Team have shared their 6 favourite projects and we've been challenged to create our own project inspired by one of the DT.

So many beautiful projects, but my eye was caught by this tag by Melissa Phillips:

I was inspired by Melissa's use of a paint chip card and the colours she chose. The background on my card also comes from paint chip cards, but I cut up the grey segments and die cut them using a small square spellbinders die. The greys are from one of Dulux's Colours of New Zealand palettes and they're named after different towns and areas - from Young Nick's Head to Franz Josef and Ohakea. Stocked up on a few sheets to use in other projects!

Supplies

Other - paint chip cards

Movers & Shakers

A while ago I bought one set of the Movers & Shakers dies from Papertrey. The spinners dies let you create your own interactive cards using either a straight or wavy track. Here's a card for the son of a friend who'll be turning two. When you turn the card, the little truck spins along the track. Great fun!

In this post, scroll down to see a video from Nichole showing how the dies work.

Supplies

Another mason jar

I recently gave some orange marmalade to a friend. Trying to make the mason jars look pretty - so this is what I came up with:

Supplies
Other - paper doily