IHP DT Challenge: Crafty Trends from CHA

Walking the floor of the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Trade Show is always an adventure! What could possibly be more exciting than getting to see three huge showrooms of brand new products that you can hardly wait to get your hands on? Only one thing: getting to share that experience with your girlfriends!

From the very beginning, the i {heart} papers team has had strong ties to Paper Craft Planet. Our mutual love of paper and paper-crafting was the foundation for our friendship, and CHA has given us the opportunity to meet face-to-face and translate those online friendships into real life. It's so much more fun in person than it is on screen!

Those who were fortunate enough to walk the CHA floor this winter (sadly I was not among them) were drawn to certain products and projects. Over dinner discussions they discovered some emerging trends. That's what today's challenge is all about.

Thankfully, those who couldn't be there can live vicariously through the next best thing: photos! Check out these in this post from Susanna, and several posts from MoxieFab!

Some of the current trends that they identified were:

Chevrons

Paris

Travel themed products

Sewing (not new but still going strong)

Quilt patterns as paper backgrounds

City skyline

Pinwheels and Flowers and Butterflies

Pennants

Twine

Small sticker letters

3d embellishments

The ones I used in my layout are highlighted in red. I created my own chevron pattern using the Mint Motif set Beyond Borders. This set has been getting a lot of play lately, having been featured in the recent issue of Stamp It! 3 Ways (published by Paper Crafts Magazine). I actually pulled out my sewing machine for this. Major shocker for those who know me. Almost as much of a shocker as the fact that I made a scrapbook layout in the first place!

The sticker letters came from one of my favorite 12x12 Collection Kits, Little Girl by Echo Park. I created my cupcake embellishment with an old Sizzix die I have in my collection. Cupcakes are also not a new trend, but I refuse to give them up!

The sweet baby in this layout is my adorable new granddaughter, Lilia. Don’t get me started…I have become the stereotypical grandma in so many ways!

Anyhow, you’ll definitely want to check out the rest of our team, as well as the Paper Craft Planet Supernovas, to see how they interpreted the trends. 

Carolyn (you are here)
Deb
Gretchen
Loretta
Lori
Lynn
Tracy
Kate

and our guests from PCP:
Adela Rossol
Lisa Somerville
Lyn Bernatovich
Susanna Boyd
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price

Have fun!

January SFYTT (just barely!)

Talk about slipping in just under the wire! I decided (we’ll avoid using the word “resolved”) to try to do the SFYTT challenge every month this year. Well, I did get January’s sketch done in time, but not by much – good thing January has 31 days!

What I used:
Stamps: Just My Type (A-muse)
Ink: Memento Black, Copic Markers (C1,2,3,4)
Paper: Smokey Shadow, Going Grey, Real Red and white cardstock; patterned paper from Black & White Timeless (KaiserCraft)
Other: Nestabilities

Oh, here’s the sketch:

Wow -- three blog postings in as many days! Not sure how long I can keep this up, but I sure am having fun!

Mint Motif & FTL175

During my “don’t feel sorry for yourself because you’re not at CHA” stamping session this weekend, I also made this card using this week’s Clean & Simple FTL175 sketch:

I know the panel looks black, but it’s really Smoky Shadow, very dark grey. It’s stamped in white with Kimberly Crawford’s Mint Motif set Beyond Borders, which is featured in the new PaperCrafts issue of Stamp It! 3 Ways. Here’s the sketch it’s based on:
I swapped out some punched hearts for the flowers. The XOXO stamp is from the LilyBee Design set Head Over Heels.

I have to say, I really, really love how this card came out!

I’ll be back later this week to show you more…

Playtime!

Rather than feel TOO sorry for myself about not being with so many of my crafty friends at CHA in Anaheim, I decided to do some stamping this weekend. Didn’t get much else accomplished, but at least I had fun!

One of the cards I made was based on this week’s Card Patterns Sketch 150. For some reason, I’m still stuck in baby girl mode (being a recent new grandma and all), so this is what I came up with:

I used stamps from Lawn Fawn. The bear is from the Christmas set, Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum, and the sentiment is from Just My Type, Too. The paper is from the Sweet Owl pad by First Edition. You can’t see it in the photo, but it’s got shiny, glittery elements in it. The ribbon and pearls were colored with Copic Marker RV32. I LOVE how you can always have the right color embellishment this way! The frame was cut with Nestabilities.

I actually did quite a bit of stamping this weekend, but I’ll show you more throughout the week.

Have a good one!

IHP DT Inspiration Challenge

This month’s i {heart} papers Design Team Challenge was so much fun! Our challenge-meister, Deb Felts, gave us some gorgeous pictures of living spaces to inspire us in our creations. First I’ll show you the inspiration photo I chose:

I love pink (big shocker, I know), and I just loved the way this bold pink played off the neutrals and the brightness of the sunlit room. I also wanted to pick up the elegant feel of the room. So this is what I came up with for my card:I used stamps from the LilyBee Design set Head Over Heels. It’s such a beautiful, elegant set. The motif is stamped on white cardstock using Desert Sand ink, which is in the Memento Sorbet Scoops Dewdrops assortment that Kate sells in the store. The LOVE is stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa. I punched out some hearts and popped them up with some Sticky Thumb dimensional dots. I backed it with the same pink (Hibiscus) cardstock and mounted the whole thing on a Kraft card.

TIP: to save paper, I punched the hearts out of the pink  layer that’s behind the main panel, since I knew it wouldn’t show.

I love how this card came out! I think I need to do more inspiration challenges. I had a hard time choosing which of the beautiful rooms to pick; I can’t wait to see which photos Kate and the rest of the IHP Design Team picked to work with, and what they did with them.

Deb

Gretchen

Kate

Loretta

Lori

Lynn

Tracy

We’d love it if you’d like to play along with this Inspiration Challenge. Just post your project into the gallery at Splitcoast Stampers or Papercraft Planet and use the keyword “ihp0112” so we can find it.

Have a wonderful day!

How did I NOT post these?!!!

I was looking through my camera, trying to delete stuff and make room for photos of my upcoming trip, when I found pictures of cards that I had somehow never posted! Well, this being a new year and a time for fresh starts, I figured it was as good a time as any to catch up on posting last year’s cards!

Forgive me if I don’t go into detail – some of these were made a LONG time ago! Also, for the same reason, please forgive me if I can’t remember whose work inspired me enough to CASE it, or which sketch challenge, if any, I used at the time.

This one is the most recent of the batch. My niece Hannah turned 18 last month (how did that happen?), and this was her card.

OK, I’m just gonna start putting them up here. If you have any questions about what I used, just leave me a comment and I’ll answer if I can.

There. I think those are all the ones that are worth sharing. I do have my share of duds, you know. And it is quite possible that some cards actually got mailed/given (gasp!) without my having taken a picture of them first.

If you’ve made it this far through the post, please accept my most sincere thanks for sticking with my blog even though I am probably the world’s most recalcitrant (look it up) blog poster. I know I’m bad about it, and obviously all my intentions to be better haven’t done much good. So thanks. Really.

And let me take a moment to wish you the most joyful, healthy, successful (whatever that means to YOU), and fulfilling year yet. I can feel it already – 2012 is gonna be GREAT!

HUGE Sale at IHP!!!

Beginning today (Dec. 20) IHP is doing an end of year inventory blow out with savings up to 75% off on some products! Hundreds of items on steep markdown including:

• Unity Itty Bittys only $3.25
• All other Unity sets $5-$7 (that's 75% OFF!!!)
• All 6x6 pads only $3.50
• All Echo Park and MME 12x12 kits 50% off
• All Hero Arts sets (including die and stamp sets) 50% off
• Lawn Fawn 50% off
• Market Street Stamps 50% off
• All My Cute Stamps 50% off
• All Technique Tuesday, including Ali Edwards sets, at least 50% off
• All Lifestyle Crafts nesting dies only $12
• All Spellbinders Nestabilities only $12
• 3D Embellishments $0.50 - $2
• Zva bling only $1

and much, much more! Check the sale page for more amazing deals!

Sale will run while supplies last or until New Year's Eve.

So what are you waiting for? Go shop!

Good stuff!

It’s been a busy baking weekend. I know lots of my friends were busy baking holiday cookies, but my baking was for other purposes.

This afternoon we threw my daughter-in-law a virtual baby shower. She’s out in Michigan, and the rest of us, well, aren’t. So a few family and friends had gifts shipped to my son’s office so he could sneak them into the house, and we all gathered via Skype and surprised her. Gotta love modern technology! The bulk of us were at my sister’s apartment, so of course there had to be food involved! And of course I had to bake something…

You may know that my son is married to a fabulously talented (and sweet and lovely) children’s book illustrator who goes by the nickname “Chicken Girl.” They’ve been referring to the baby (due anytime in the next few weeks) as Chicken Nugget. Hence:Can you think of a more fitting goodie for this particular baby shower?

And more baking. Tomorrow is my friend/co-worker’s birthday. Something yummy is in order:
Chocolate cupcakes with a mini Reese’s cup baked into the center. Topped with the most incredible vanilla buttercream, which I swirled with some peanut butter. And in order to NOT eat the rest of the candies, I cut them in half and topped the cupcakes with them.

Now I have to mention this buttercream again. I thought I had tasted great buttercream before. Then, a week ago or so, my daughter’s sister-in-law, Morgan, posted a recipe on her blog for what she calls Fantabulous Vanilla Frosting. The blog entry is linked here, and you MUST check it out, as well as the rest of her blog. First of all, she’s insanely talented. But really, you just have to make this frosting. To. Die. For.

OK, gotta go clean up the mess. And mentally prepare myself for Monday. Ugh.

i {heart} papers and Market Street Stamps blog hop!

Welcome to the i {heart} papers and Market Street Stamps combined teams blog hop! We're so excited to have you join us, and we know you're in for a real treat!

You should have arrived here from Brenda Weaver’s blog. If not, visit Kate's i {heart} papers blog to start from the beginning. You'll go from there to the blogs of our designers and finish up at the Market Street Stamps blog. If you get lost, both company blogs have the complete list of links. And make sure you read this post carefully, because there’s a discount and a GIVEAWAY involved!

about i {heart} papers:

i {heart} papers is proud that we recently celebrated our 3rd anniversary in October. We’ve grown by leaps and bounds and have not strayed from our core principle of stellar customer service with FAST and FREE shipping. You ALWAYS receive free shipping with your $50 US order/$150 CAN order with no gimmicks or restrictions like so many other companies, and orders are almost always shipped within 24 business hours. We’re thrilled to be hopping along with the MSS team today and to be carrying the MSS line of stamps. If you’ve never ordered from us before, please mention that you learned about us on this hop for a free gift with your first order! Please visit us at www.iheartpapers.com, “like” us on Facebook, (where you'll find over 1900 other IHP fans!) and follow us on Twitter (@iheartpapers). If you order by Wednesday midnight EST, all MSS sets are 15% off! Leave comments along the hop to be entered in a drawing to win one free MSS set. The more you comment, the more chances to win! You have until Wednesday at midnight...winners will be announced on the ihp blog on Friday! Enjoy the hop!

about Market Street Stamps:

Market Street Stamps, LLC, was founded in January 2010 by Angelica and Jorge Suarez, a husband and wife team who create unique stamps made from peach-tinted photopolymer, the best available on the market today! Market Street Stamps' goal is to produce durable, high quality designs that you'll turn to again and again! We are thrilled to be hopping with i {heart} papers and their incredibly talented design team today! Be sure to "like" us on Facebook for the latest releases and project ideas from our Design Team!

about my card:
The sentiment is from Essential Holiday Elegance, and I used the Flurries background stamp on both the background panel (in white) and the sentiment layer (in Aqua Mist). I stamped the sentiment layer before I removed it from the die (Nestabilities Labels 8). The background panel is tied with a piece of white herringbone glimmer ribbon and the card is adorned with a snowflake that I die-cut from a sheet of white glitter paper. I used the Dimensional Dots Assortment Pack to hold everything on (LOVE those things!).

From here, you're headed to Deb Felts’ blog. Enjoy the hop! 

Remember to order your MSS from ihp before Wednesday to get the 15% discount! Thanks for your comments!

Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum

This little drummer boy is just too cute!

I wanted to use a modified version of this week’s FTL #168 layout, and thought this little guy would be just the focal point. He’s part of Lawn Fawn’s aptly named Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum set, along with lots of other really cute images that could be used for things other than Christmas cards. I curved the sentiment to match the contour of the circle (love that about clear stamps!). If I were to make it again, I’d move everything down a little in the circle.

The patterned paper is from S.E.I.’s Corinne paper pad, which was not intended for Christmas cards at all, but the colors were so pretty!

I got the stamps, paper, Copic markers and Nestabilities  from Kate at i {heart} papers, who is still having her awesome Black Friday Sale. You need to go check it out, because it’s only on until tomorrow!

• Black Friday sale valid Wednesday 11/23-Sunday 11/27.
• 25% off EVERYTHING storewide (in stock items only, not valid on gift certificates) using code (min. order $35): black25dt
• 10% gift certificate bonus. IHP will add an additional 10% of the value of the gift certificate during this sale.
• 25% discount does not apply to Gift Certificates. Gift Certificates need to be ordered separately from merchandise.

Happy shopping!

It’s beginning to look a lot like…Thanksgiving!

Gobble, gobble! Every year in recent memory, I’ve made some kind of table favor for the Thanksgiving table (except for last year, when I made turkey cupcakes for dessert). Usually it was something crafted out of cardstock and filled with some kind of chocolate. This year, since I got a cake pop maker from my son and DIL (♥♥♥) for my birthday, I decided to make special cake pops for the occasion.

These guys (who will be wrapped up in cellophane) will grace each place at the table, and I’m guessing they won’t last until after the meal.

Despite a slight mishap (I dropped a whole tray of finished ones on the floor!), these were a LOT of fun to make! They are not the usual cake pops that are made from mushed up cake and frosting and then formed into balls. These little (chocolate) cakes are baked in balls and then dipped in melted chocolate.

The heads are Sugar Babies candies, the beaks are colored mini chips, and the wattles are little candy hearts. The cake decorating supply store was out of tiny candy eyes, so I had to improvise – these are little white candy confetti circles that I used a black edible marker on. I think they came out cute, if a little deranged-looking!

I had a few left over cake balls, so I decided to make a few sitting turkeys.
They’re just attached to individual candy melt disks with some melted chocolate. The middle one is adorable; the two outer ones look they escaped from the turkey loony bin!

OK, gotta get back to my preparations! Doing a mini-Thanksgiving dinner here tomorrow, and a big one at my dad’s with more of the family on Friday. I will miss having my kids with us this year, but when they’re all grown up, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Maybe next year we’ll all be together!

Wishing all of my readers a wonderful Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings!

IHP Design Team Challenge: SRM Mini Calendar Stickers

This month our Design Team Challenge focuses on a particular product, one that I was very excited to see at CHA this summer: the Mini Calendar Stickers by SRM.

I decided to create a piece of wall art with mine. I have a red accent wall in my dining room, so I made it to coordinate with that. Starting with a 12x12 piece of red cardstock as a base, I cut 2.25” squares (the size of each sticker) of white cardstock, onto which I adhered the calendar stickers, and 2.25” squares of different papers from the Black & White Timeless pad by Kaiser Craft. The first square, with the year, was stamped with numbers from the Mint Motif set, I’ve Got Your Number.

Here’s a close-up of one corner:

I found the stickers very easy to work with. They come in two different styles (same size); this is the Decorative Style sheet. I might have to get myself some of the other ones to play with…

To frame it, I found a really reasonable solution at the photo supply store, Adorama. They happen to be a few blocks from my office, but they sell this frame online also, and it’s just over $5. Yes, I said $5! It is a plastic frame (comes in white too, I think) with a glass front. It’s perfect for this, and for displaying treasured scrapbook pages as well.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the Design Team did with these very cool stickers! Won’t you join me as I hop around?

• Carolyn (you are here)
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Tracy
• Kate

Thanks for visiting!

Sometimes you just wanna color…

even (especially?) when you’re supposed to be doing a million other things. I’ve had a couple of the floral images from Paper and Such for a little while now, and I’ve been a little intimidated to color them. Yes, I’ve taken the Copic certification class. Twice. But you really want to do these images justice. Today I just couldn’t wait any more.

The coloring is a little more nuanced in real life than I could capture in the photo, but I think you get the idea. Took me over an hour to color them, and I decided to just trim it down and mount it simply on a light blue card. No other layers or bling. Let the image speak for itself. I’m happy. Way behind on everything else, but happy.

Enjoy your Sunday!

USE those patterned papers!

We all have them (well, my paper crafting readers, anyway). Those gorgeous sheets of 12x12 paper that we just HAD to have because … well, because they were so gorgeous. We didn’t know exactly what we would do with them, but we just KNEW they would be perfect for … well, something.

I’ve been going through my stash of gorgeous papers and using very simple layouts to make bunches of cards. For example:
This uses a piece of paper from S.E.I. I think it’s from the Juliette collection, but it’s irrelevant -- any piece of beautiful paper with an all-over pattern will do. This one is just full of shimmer and texture, as so many of the S.E.I. papers are. A layout like this will give you 6 cards from 1 12x12 sheet of paper (plus some scraps of coordinating papers for the scalloped trim and punched piece). Add a little bling. Change up the sentiment as needed. Make a set of Thank You cards, or make an assortment. Box them up and give them as a gift.

Here are some more examples (I’ve been a busy girl!):
These use paper from the Basic Grey Porcelain collection. Again, 6 cards out of each sheet. I made 2 each of Thank You, Happy Birthday, and Thinking of You.

Want to get even more out of a sheet?

This layout will give you 9 cards (cut 4x4) out of a 12x12 sheet. Add a 1/4” strip of coordinating cardstock, and stamp a greeting. I think this is also from S.E.I., but I’m not sure. Again, it doesn’t really matter – there are tons of gorgeous papers out there (of course, my favorite source is i {heart} papers).

Insanely simple. It’s all in the paper. You know you have it. USE it!

IHP October DT Challenge – Fireworks!

This month our Design Team was treated to a wonderful new product from Tsukineko called Fireworks! It’s a water-based, acid-free and non-toxic shimmer spray that coordinates with the Memento ink pad colors. We’re all using them in our projects today.

I wanted to keep the thoughts of Katie Renz and her valiant battle on the front burner (honestly, it’s nearly impossible to get out of my mind), so I used another one of the digital images that is being sold to raise money for her family. This one is the mermaid that was designed by Marianne Walker. I thought that the Pear Tart Fireworks would be perfect for an underwater kind of background.

I printed the image and sentiment out, and sprayed it with the Fireworks. I did it inside a carton to contain any spray mess from getting all over the place. I printed the image a second time and colored it with my Copic markers, and fussy-cut it to adhere on top of the sprayed image. Unfortunately, I couldn’t, no matter how I tried, get a picture to show how beautifully shimmery this stuff is! You’ll have to use your imagination a bit. Oh, and I also used some Stickles (Icicle) to add some sparkle to the mermaid’s tail and the little stars in the sentiment.

Before I added the Stickles, I cut the piece out with Nestabilities, embossing it with that fabulous new No More Shims Embossing Mat. I glued a layer of green cardstock onto a white card base, and covered it with a piece of printed vellum I had in my stash that was perfect for the watery scene. The image was then popped up on some Dimensional Dots. Once it was all put together, I put the whole thing back in the carton and gave it another shot with the Fireworks to give it just a little bit of subtle shimmer.

Kate will be giving away some Fireworks to a random commenter ON TODAY’S DT POSTS so the more you hop and comment, the more chances you have to win! Winner will be announced on Friday so you have until Thursday 9PM EST to leave those comments!

Here’s the roll call:

Carolyn (you are here)

Deb

Gretchen

Kendra

Loretta

Lori

Lynn

Tracy

Kate

Have a shimmery day!