Congrats Monica!

 Alexander has arrived!

We wish you joy, laughter, and SLEEP as this new chapter in your life begins.

Below is a link to add your cards to shower the new mommy of our group with love.

Baby Shower

This month we are throwing a baby shower!

Monica is having a little bundle of joy so I thought it would be fun to have a virtual shower for her.  Your challenge is to create a baby inspired card. 

Here are some inspiration photos to help get those creative juices flowing.  Congrats Monica!

Source: spoonflower.com via Sherry on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Jill on Pinterest

Source: dearweekend.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

June Challenge: Going in Circles

Summer is always fun and busy, and this month we are literally going in circles! Our June challenge is to create a card or project with round elements.

Papertrey Ink has recently released several sets with circular shapes (the Tag-its series, Simple Circles, Delightful Doilies and Button Boutique, to name a few). Some of the newer round dies are the Simple Circles border, the Doily Details die set, and both Buttoned Up die sets. The Tiny Treats sets, Mat Stack Collection sets, tag sets, Limitless Layers dies and Tag Sale #4 die are also round (or contain round elements). A quick peek through your older stamp sets will likely reveal a number of other options as well (Guide Lines ll, Dot Spot, Out to Sea and many others).

Please start working on your project and I will add Mr. Linky to a later post so you can add your link. All stampers are welcome to participate. It is not necessary to be a member of our group. Thanks for stopping by and we hope you will play along.

Remember to check back on Monday for my next post.

Happy stamping,

Dee

Pals May Challenge: Post your projects here!

The challenge for the month of May is to make a card for your mom (or other significant woman figure in your life). You must include some hand coloring in your project too! The details for this challenge can be found here.

Source: flickriver.com via Monica on Pinterest

Just add a link to your blog below! It can be a new post or could have been made and/or posted anytime throughout the month of May.

Thanks so much for playing along! Can't wait to see what you have made!

Inspiration Post: Rethinking the Vintage Style

Vintage.

What is the first thought that comes to your mind?

Lace, maybe? Distressing? Buttons? Twine? Lots of layers? Pastel colors?

That style of vintage is stunning, but when you look at authentic vintage cards from the past century, they have few to no layers with bold colors and patterns. They look more like this...

Today I thought I'd share with you a few of my favorite authentic vintage cards from the 30s, 40s and 50s that I've collected and that have been inspiring me lately. I'll show you some observations I noticed about how cards used to be made and how they looked. I'll show you how you can view vintage in a whole new light! There are also a lot of Papertrey Ink supplies that would work perfectly to recreate the look of these cards.

Here's another example of a vintage card...

Many of the cards have a border or scallop design with an elegant font.

The shading is very airbrushed and soft.

Almost all of the cards are made from a thin weight of paper and were folded into fours (so the front and back were doubly thick). I was also surprised that almost every single card has an intricate 4-color pattern on the inside too.

The vintage cards also have lots of airbrushed colors with gradients and graduated colors. There is also some dry embossing.

The vintage cards also have a lot of cut outs and clever folding techniques. The star is cut out in the card below so you can see the message beneath.

There are cut outs around the circle here too...

This card very cleverly opens only half way, so you still see the scene below. The colors are really vibrant and set the tone.

This one reminds me of PTI's Poinsettia set and the airbrushing adds a soft look and feel.

And the airbrushing on this card provides a glow for the candle.

The gradient background is stunning on this card and creates a mood for the card.

Now here are some ways that the vintage cards can be recreated with Papertrey Ink products.

This shape reminds me of the Sending You die...

PTI Background Basics: Retro and Holly Jolly would work well to recreate this authentic art deco card.

This linear style reminds me of PTI's Text Boxed set and the lines look like the Faux Ribbon set. 

 PTI's Tiny Envelope die would be perfect with the newly released YOF Collection to recreate this card.

A couple more examples of vintage cards...

 

If you would like to see more vintage cards, this site has a lot of wonderful examples of vintage cards: http://twocrazycrafters.blogspot.com/. Etsy also has some great examples of vintage cards too.

I hope you enjoyed looking at vintage in a slightly different way today! Just a reminder, this Monday I'll post the link so you can link up your Pals challenge for this month (to make a card for your mother with your hand coloring on it).

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Pals May Challenge: Make a Card for Your Mom!

Mother's day is approaching this weekend! Since May is the month for mothers, it seemed like it might be fitting to have a Pals challenge devoted to our mothers.

So the challenge this month is to make a card for your Mom (or other significant woman figure in your life). And remember how when we were kids we would color pictures for our moms? The additional part of the challenge is to add some hand coloring somewhere onto your project. You can use copics, colored pencils, watercolors, whatever medium you choose as long as it's got some of your beautiful artwork on it! :)

The card or project doesn't have to just be for mother's day--it can also be for your mom's birthday, just because or a thinking of you type of thing too!

Here are some more pictures to inspire you to get started! :)

Looking forward to seeing your hand colored cards for your mom! The link will open at the end of the month, but if you have a mother's day card you'd like to share early, just post it in the comments! Thanks for playing along!!

ETA: The link is now open! You can link up your projects here.

Paper Challenge

Hope you've been able to start on April's challenge! This is the week to link up your cards and/or projects. Remember, you need to have at least 3 patterned papers.

I've been up to my eyeballs in party planning for my (almost) 3 year old daughter. She's in love with Tinkerbell, so we're having a fairy birthday party next week. I'm having it at our local civic center, so I needed to have lots of decorations. Enter this month's challenge!

I thought the walls might need some fun butterflies. So, I cut out a TON of butterflies using my cricut and sewed down the center of them, making long strips. This was the easiest way to use a lot of my patterned paper (what you see here is only a few of the ones I used).

I can't wait to see them all together at her party. I have about 6 or 7 strips like this :)

Remember to link up your project. I can't wait to see them all!