Happy Halloween!

Sorry I haven't been posting much this week--it's been busy and sick!

I made this fun card with some digital paper from the Digichick by Quirk Twerp called All Hallow's Eve . I stamped my witch twice, once in black and again in versarmark so I could heat emboss. I then machine stitched and distressed the edges of the paper and added the bow and tag.

Hope you have a fun and safe night...I am off in a bit with my ninja and lion to trick or treat!
Melissa

"Halloween witches" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Spooky Sweets II
Digital Paper: All Hallow's Eve by Quirky Twerp ( The Digichick )
Paper: Kraft, True Black, and Summer Sunrise
Ink: Versamark and True Black
Other: True Black satin ribbon, twine, Tags Trio Nestabilites Die, sewing machine

October PTI Blog Hop

"It's time for our annual Holiday Hop! Show us your best upcoming holiday plans for cards, gifts, wraps or whatever else you have up your sleeve! With everyone's cumulative efforts the participant list will be an amazing resource!"



I wouldn't call this my best holiday plan for gift--but it sure is any easy one! I made one of the new Timeless Templates, Cash or Charge #1, and used the Holiday Cheer patterned paper to decorate. I also stamped a circle tag with the dotted border circle from Take Note, a sentiment from Holiday Button Bits and a snowflake from Snowflake Serenade.



Thanks for taking a look!
Melissa

"A gift for you" (all PTI unless noted)
Template: Cash or Charge
Stamps: Holiday Button Bits, Take Note, Snowflake Serenade
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Scarlet Jewel, Antique Linen and Walnut Stain (ranger)
Paper: Scarlet Jewel, Holiday Cheer PP
Other: Ripe Avocado Satin Ribbon, Hole Punch, Craft Knife, Sponge, Scor-Tape

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge

Hi everyone and Happy Friday! I'm back today with my card for Dawn's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 18 . Aren't those colors beautiful together?



I used Waltzingmouse's Off Beat Backgrounds and the PTI sets Holiday Button Bits and Vintage Label.



Have a great weekend!
Melissa

"Sweetest Holiday Wishes" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Vintage Label and Holiday Button Bits
Ink: New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz, Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate and Walnut Stain (Ranger)
Paper: Vintage Cream, Kraft, and Dark Chocolate
Other: Sewing Machine, New Leaf buttons, Memory Box gems, Copic maker to color gems, Foam Tape, Sponge

Happy Birthday Brock!

Tomorrow is my son's best friend's birthday...Happy birthday Brock! He is having a Star Wars party, so I tried to fashion a card with that theme!



I used several sets: Off-Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Boy (Sandylion) and Mother and Fresh Alphabet (PTI). The colors used are the new formulation of Spring Rain (Love it!), Pure Poppy and Starlite Silver (Brilliance Dew Drop)

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

"Happy Birthday Brock" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Boy (Sandylion), Mother and Fresh Alph
Ink: Pure Poppy, Spring Rain, Starlite Silver (Brilliance Dew Drop), Black (Memento)
Paper: Stamper's Select White, Pure Poppy, Shimmer Silver, Spring Rain
Other: sewing machine, Copic markers

Joy

I made this card for the "Just us Girls" Challenge Week 3 .

The colors are Aqua Mist, Pure Poppy and Vintage Cream and I used Snowflake Serenade.



Thanks for stopping by!
Melissa

"Joy" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Snowflake Serenade
Ink: Aqua Mist (new formulation), Pure Poppy
Paper: Vintage Cream, Pure Poppy, and Aqua Mist
Other: Aqua Mist Satin Ribbon, Kasiercraft Gems

Embellish the Cure Challenge

I'm back today with my card for the Embellish the Cure Color Challenge , which, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October), is to use two shades of pink, with gray and bling!

I made a card with a new (to me) and quite possibly the most beautiful snowflake set ever, Snowflake Serenade. I also made a notepad using the same snowflakes and the new set Take Note. Here is the notepad open:




And here it is closed.



Thanks for looking!
Melissa

"Peace" and "Holiday Planner" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Snowflake Serenade and Take Note
Ink: Smokey Shadow, Sweet Blush and Raspberry Fizz
Paper: Vintage Cream, Smokey Shadow, Sweet Blush, Notepad
Other: EK Sucess Scallop Punch, Raspberry Fizz Satin Ribbon, Kaisercraft Gems, Copic Marker RV19 (to color gems), foam tape, Scor-Tape

Sweetest holiday wishes

My new Papertrey Ink order arrived and I had to stamp something! I love this holly image with the polka dots. I paired it with a bit of Holiday Cheer patterned paper, which I sewed onto the card.

I'm sure I'll be back soon with lots more!
Thanks for coming by!
Melissa



"Sweetest holiday wishes" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Holiday Button Bits
Ink: Ripe Avocado and Scarlet Jewel, Walnut Stain (Ranger)
Paper: Vintage Cream, Ripe Avocado and Holiday Cheer PP
Other: Scarlet Jewel buttons, sewing machine, sponge

Dog Frame

Dog Frame, originally uploaded by madtown17.

I made this frame for a friend's daughter who loves dogs. When I saw the dog paper in the Basic Grey JuneBug collection, I knew I had to make this!

I traced the frame onto the paper for the pink polka dot mat. I cut out the dogs and the "speech" bubbles, inked the edges and added those with foam tape to the frame. I then added the threaded buttons randomly.

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

"Believe" in plaid

Hi everyone! We are having a cold rainy day here, but both my kids are off at preschool, so I'm happy! I've been trying to make a card for a few days now, but nothing seemed to be working...tried different colors, different stamps, it all looked bad! I'm not super excited about this card, but at least I finished one, LOL! Hopefully I'll be feeling more inspired soon!



Believe or not, the plaid (from Waltzingmouse Stamps) is stamped with Enchanted Evening and raspberry fizz--it looks more like Scarlet Jewel to me, so I think I may have overdone it with the reinker, oops! The Santa and sentiment are from Believe (PTI).

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

"Believe" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Off-Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Believe
Ink: Raspberry Fizz, Enchanted Evening, Vintage Cream, Versamark
Paper: Vintage Cream, Enchanted Evening
Other: Scarlet Jewel Copic Trio, Scarlet Jewel buttons, Clear Detail EP (Filigree), heat tool, foam tape, Sewing machine, Label 1 Nestabilites, Liquid Applique

Rocket Wish

Hope you're having a great weekend! This card is a different one I made when playing around with Off-beat Backgrounds by Waltzingmouse Stamps . I love this set, very well designed and great quality! Congratulations Claire, on making your successful new venture and making your dream come true! This card is going to my son's friend for his 5th birthday!



The card also uses a rocket, trail and star image from a Sandylion set, but I'm not sure of the name...maybe baby boy??

"Make a wish" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), ???? (Sandylion)
Ink: Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart, Black (Memento)
Paper: Stamper's Select White, Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise
Other: Copic markers, foam tape

M's Challenge

Once I read about M's Sketch challenge on Savitri's blog, I just had to play along. What a great little crafter at such a young age! I decided to make a Halloween card using PTI's Spooky Sweets II set.



Have a great night!
Melissa

"10/31" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Spooky Sweets II
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Smokey Shadow
Paper: True Black, Summer Sunrise and Orange Zest
Other: Clear detail EP (Filigree), Orange Zest Twill Tape, Coluzzle Circles, Scor-Tape, glitter (Doodlebug), Scor-Pal

Sweet Little Baby

I played along with the "JUGS- Just us Girls" challenge this week. The challenge was to use pink and to paper piece.



For my card, I made a....you guessed it...plaid background using Waltzingmouse's Off Beat Backgrounds and a tone on tone polka dot background for the top portion. The little bunny is paper pieced from that same pattern.

I also used Sketch #35 from 2 Sketchs 4 You .

Enjoy your day!
Melissa

"Sweet Little Baby" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzinmouse Stamps), Bitty Baby Blessings
Ink: Smokey Shadow, Sweet Blush, Black (Memento), Antique Linen (Ranger)
Paper: Vintage Cream, Smokey Shadow and Sweet Blush
Other: Sweet Blush satin ribbon, 2 " circle punch, EK Success Scallop punch, foam tape, sponge, Threading Water edge punch (Fiskars)

Plaid Peace on Earth

Happy Saturday! I got my stamp set from Waltzingmouse Stamps the other day and I finally had enough energy to play with it! I stamped the plaid pattern using Ripe Avocado and Enchanted Evening, sponged the edges and machine stitched onto my layer stamped with the houndstooth background.



I also used Vintage Labels (stamped in vintage cream), the dove image from 2008 Holiday Tags and the sentiment from Believe.

I may just have to try it all again with a different color combo, it was fun! Thanks for coming by!
Melissa

"Peace on Earth" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Vintage Label, 2008 Holiday Tags, Believe, Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Houndstooth Scrapblock (Cornish Heritage Farms)
Ink: Enchanted Evening, Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream, Antique Linen and Walnut Stain (Ranger), Versamark
Paper: Vintage Cream, Ripe Avocado, Kraft and Enchanted Evening
Other: Clear Detail EP (Filigree), Enchanted Evening Satin Ribbon, Foam tape, Sewing machine, sponge

Make a Wish

ETA: Totally forgot to mention that this card is based off a sketch! It can be found here , at Kristin's blog. I flipped the sketch upside down and changed it a bit.



Hope you're having a great week! We seem to have been hit with a cold at our house--the parents get it the worst, right?? My daughter has a double ear infection but seems to be on the mend and my son (with tubes in his ears) is pretty good! I think it's going to be a long winter in terms of illness!



Anyway, I made this card after Dawn shared her cute ruffly ribbon technique. I like how it turned out except that my Melon Berry ribbon doesn't match at all with the Melon Berry cardstock!

Thanks for having a look!
Melissa

"Make a Wish" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Wishing You and Recipe Label
Ink: Ocean Tides, Smokey Shadow and Antique Linen (Ranger)
Paper: Vintage Cream, Ocean Tides, Melon Berry, Earth Love PP (Cosmo Cricket)
Other: Oval and scallop oval Nestabilities Dies, foam tape, Ocean Tides and Melon Berry Satin Ribbon, sponge, sewing machine

Beginnings card and box set

Hi everyone!
I wanted to share that I have a project up today at The Hybrid Chick . My project includes some instructions on masking and stamping a background paper, and includes using digital papers in a hybrid way.



Click here to see it.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Melissa

World Tour

I'm back tonight with my cards that I made for the PTI World Card Making Day challenges. Nichole Heady took us on a world tour!

Up first is Australia and here is the inspiration



And my card



Next stop is India:



I was inspired to use red and gold and lots of shine:



After, we go to Mexico:



I went with lots of bright colors and some stitching:



Final stop is Japan:



I searched a bit on my own for some inspiration and found an awesome website with art from the Freer and Sackler Galleries , which is located in Washington DC. This is the beautiful painting by Ogata Kenzan off which I based my card:



And my card:



Thanks for taking a look!
Melissa

"Australia" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Star Prints and Everyday Classics
Ink: Pure Poppy
Paper: Stamper's Select White, Raspberry Fizz and Pure Poppy
Other: White gel pen, dimensionals

"India"
Stamps: Background Basics: Retro
Ink: Pure Poppy
Paper: Gold (AC Moore) and Pure Poppy
Other: gems (Kaiserkraft), Gold wired ribbon (Michael's), and Copics--to color gems

"Mexico"
Stamps: Background Basics: Retro
Ink: Pure Poppy, Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest, Lemon Tart, Enchanted Evening and New Leaf
Paper: White, Raspberry Fizz and Orange Zest
Other: Raspberry Fizz satin ribbon, sewing machine, Copics

"Japan"
Stamps: Life, Scattered Showers Additions and Mother
Ink: Spring Moss and Enchanted Evening
Paper: Soft Stone
Other: Enchanted Evening Satin Ribbon, sponge

Embrace Happiness

Hi everyone!
Hope you had a great weekend! Today I'm sharing the card I made for the Everything but the Kitchen Sink Challenge that Courtney has debuted!



The challenge is to "Use something from the mail as part of your card or scrapbook page!" I received a Boden catalogue in the mail a few days ago and I love all the photos of the cozy sweaters arranged together in beautiful colors.

I cut out a portion and matted it on the back page of the catalogue to give it more weight. Then, I handstitched a line of twine from button to button on the photo. I tried to give the card lots of texture with the embossed dots and the machine stitching around the mat.



Thanks for coming by!
Melissa

"Embrace Happiness" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Mixed Messages
Ink: True Black
Paper: Kraft, Vellum, and purple (Bazzill)
Other: Cuttlebug embossing folder, Nestabilities tag die, Rustic cream twine, Plum Pudding Buttons, sewing machine

Happy World Card Making Day!

For the blog hop today I created two cards based on Dawn's RSSC #17 . Seventeen is my lucky number!!



I stamped the background using an image from Simply Stationery on kraft, cut it, and used each piece to create two cards.



The "just a note" sentiment comes from Autumn Abundance and the "thank you so much" is from Damask Designs.



Thanks for visiting today and hope you are able to celebrate this special day by making a card or two!
Melissa

"Just a note" and "Thank you so much" (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Simply Stationery, Damask Designs, and Autumn Abundance
Ink: Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy and Walnut Stain (Ranger)
Paper: Aqua Mist, Pure Poppy, Kraft and Dark Chocolate
Other: Dark Chocolate Satin ribbon, Pure Poppy buttons, Rustic Cream twine, Threading Water Border punch (Fiskars), sponge

Perfect Harmony

Hi everyone and Happy October!

I wanted to share a card that I finished up today. My friend asked me to make a wedding card for her to give, and she gave me her idea of having two separate birds on the outside and then the two together on the inside. I thought it was great and designed the card based on that. I tried to show the birds singing happily together with the tree in bloom!



I also used no white or cream on this card (the lighter color is Soft Stone), so it qualifies for Cheryl's challenge. I used a ton of stamp sets and a ton of different inks on this card, it was fun! It's hard to see the polka dots I stamped with Smokey shadow on the Smokey Shadow paper, next time I'll use black. I created the sentiment with the computer.

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

"Perfect Harmony" (all PTI unless noted)
Size: 5x7
Stamps: Birds of a Feather, Background Basics: Retro, Polka Dot Basics, Out on a Limn, Heart Prints
Ink: Rich Cocoa (Memento), Versamark, Creamy Brown and Wisteria (Colorbox), Walnut Stain (Ranger), Pearlescent Purple Brillance (Tsuineko), Smokey Shadow
Paper: Soft Stone, Smokey Shadow, Plum Pudding
Other: Label One Nestabilities Dies, Plum Pudding Satin ribbon, sponge, clear detail ep (Filigree), heat tool