His Love

Happy Tuesday friends! Here we are at another i {heart} papers Design Team challenge! This month we are focusing on Mint Motif stamps which are an IHP exclusive. Mint Motif just released 2 new sets earlier this month but I haven't purchased either of them (yet) so I chose to work with the Very Merry Sentiments set. I am just about finished with the set of sympathy cards I am making for my Mother-in law and I knew I could sneak in one more to show you {wink}. The original sentiment says "May His Love Surround You at Christmastime and Always" but I masked it off to read "May His Love Surround You" for my sympathy card. I layered it up on some Spellbinders die cuts and some Be Amazing DP by MME. I loved the subtle butterflies in the corner of the DP and added a large butterfly to my sentiment with a Martha Stewart punch.

This month we are trying a little something different to encourage our blog followers and i {heart} papers lovers to play along with us. Using the inspiration you get from any of the Design Teams' blogs and ANYTHING from the IHP store, create a card or project and link it to the Mr. Linky on Kate's blog. You can enter as many times as you would like until 6pm EST on Sunday March 25th for a chance at a featured post on the IHP blog! The winner will be hand chosen by the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by and check out the rest of the team too:

• Carolyn


• Deb
• 
  
• Loretta


• Lori


• Lynn


• Tracy


• Kate

stamps: Very Merry Sentiments (Mint Motif)
ink: chocolate chip marker (SU!)
paper: early espresso, crumb cake, so saffron, pool party (SU!); Be Amazing DP (MME)
accessories: butterfly punch (Martha Stewart); border punch (SU!); square, labels 1, labels 3 nestabilities (Spellbinders); pearls (Kaiser Craft)

Tag- You're It!

Yesterday's Free for All challenge on SCS was to make a gift tag inspired by a fellow crafter. Well, when I think of making gift tags there is only one person who comes to mind and she is the master of tags! Jackie just wows me with her tag creations and I am so jealous! I'm sure she has oodles of tags ready to go and never feels the panic of making one quick to add to a gift! (yep, that would be me!). I took the challenge and decided to get a jump on some gift tags for my book club. Yay me! I used Jackie's blog posts HERE, HERE and HERE for my inspiration.  Jackie makes quite a few tags of each design (that organized girl!) but I wanted to make all of mine different to fit each of my friends' personalities. The blue tag is kind of hard to read in the picture but it uses a sentiment from Mint Motif's Very Merry Sentiments and I added some rhinestones to accent it. The next 2 tags use dies from Verve and the last tag is simple with the DP as the focus. Most of my DP and accessories are available at i {heart} papers.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes (SU!); Very Merry Sentiments (Mint Motif); Richly Blessed (Verve)

ink: cherry cobbler, cool caribbean, early espresso, craft white (SU!)

paper: crumb cake, very vanilla, naturals white, cool caribbean (SU!); Houses DP (Winter Park by Echo Park); houndstooth and blue flower DP (Happily Lost by LilyBee Designs); red stripes and green polka dots DP (Jingle by LilyBee Designs)

accessories: red and clear rhinestones (Kaiser Craft); Sweet Scallop Die, Winter Fun Die, Cross Die (Verve); circle nestabilities (Spellbinders); word window punch (SU!); metallic white velvet ribbon (May Arts); Christmas Twine (Divine Twine); brown twine string (Creative Impressions); brown brads (Hobby Lobby); button (my stash)

Sketch Revisited

It's a winter wonderland here today! Six inches of light fluffy snow overnight and the neighborhood is all abuzz with the sounds of snow blowers and snowmobiles! Makes for a great day of stamping for me and outside fun for the kids. Pizza for dinner and then watching a movie together will round out our day!

 I started my crafty time by working on some Christmas cards. Every year our family "adopts" a family in need in our county and we buy them gifts to help make their holidays a little bit brighter. Our family this year is requesting gift cards so I wanted to make some nice cards to put them in. This sentiment is from Mint Motif's Very Merry Sentiments and I distressed the edges with frayed burlap distress ink. The beautiful DP is Basic Grey's Jovial collection. I happened to have these little pearly balls on wire picks that I had bought in the floral section for another project (that never came to be!) and they match my DP perfectly! My layout is one of Jen's Sketches from October.

Thanks for stopping by!

stamps: Very Merry Sentiments (Mint Motif)

ink: memento tuxedo black (Tsukineko); frayed burlap distress ink (Ranger)

paper: vintage cream (PTI); Jovial DP (Basic Grey); basic black, real red (SU!)

accessories: border punch (EK Success); silk ribbon, natural twine string (Creative Impressions); button (Basic Grey); floral picks (Michael's); circle nestabilities (Spellbinders)

Lights All A Glow

Hi my blogger friends! I had a wonderful and relaxing weekend with my girlfriends in Lanesboro! We laughed A LOT, snacked (a lot there too unfortunately) and just had an all around good time. We stayed at this charming B&B and the woman served a kick butt 3 course breakfast! It was delicious. Well, I know you are not here to hear about my social gatherings, you want to see something crafty!! Today the i {heart} papers Design Team is showing projects having to do with light. I made a candle holder centerpiece for my holiday table! If you browse any holiday catalog or store, you will see that bright pinks, turquoises and oranges are the hot colors this season! I found these sparkly jingle bells at Michael's and chose to use them as my inspiration for my project. I took a simple wide mouthed quart canning jar, added a small purple votive candle (in it's own jar) and placed floral pebbles around it. I tied a large bow with turquoise ribbon around the top and then added the jingle bells that I strung on some Canvas Corp. rope. I stamped my sentiment from Mint Motifs Very Merry Sentiments on vanilla card stock and used my Mitten Spellbinders die to cut it out. I then added another mitten cut from Crate Papers Snow Day collection and clipped the 2 mittens together on the rope. I am going to place it on a charger in the middle of my table along with the leftover pebbles and jingle bells!

Thanks for stopping by and checkout what the rest of the team created! (And yes, that is snow that you see in my picture- I think winter is here to stay!)

Carolyn

Cathleen

Deb

Kendra

Loretta

Lori

Lynn

Megan

Tracy

Kate

We'd love to see what you create too! Upload your project to an online gallery using the key word IHP1110 and leave us a link to check it out!

stamps: Very Merry Sentiments (Mint Motif)

ink: early espresso (SU!)

paper: very vanilla (SU!); Snow Day DP (Crate Paper)

accessories: turquoise ribbon (May Arts); twisted hemp rope, tiny clothes pin (Canvas Corp); nested mitten die (Spellbinders); jingle bells, floral pebbles, candle (Michael's); canning jar (Ball)

Merry and Bright

This new Crate paper called Snow Day, is so fun to work with because it has such non traditional winter colors mixed with traditional winter scenes like trees and snowmen! I chose to highlight the orange in this pattern of trees. I didn't want to cover up too much of the paper (because I love the funky little trees) but I needed a focus element so I chose this great sentiment from Mint Motif's Very Merry Sentiments. I added some vintage photo distress ink to the edges and a bit of distressing with my scissors too. I made the crinkly orange ribbon with a button and twine accent with hot glue this time instead of the sticky tape (because I was too lazy to cut a strip of sticky tape and my glue gun was already plugged in and ready to go- just being honest :) and it seems to be holding together nicely! Another Christmas thank you card completed (what's gotten into me?!)

My MIL and I had a great time last week crafting and we completed many of the Christmas projects we are working on! When I have all 25 of mine completed, I'll let you see them!

Thanks for stopping by!

stamps: Very Merry Sentiments (Mint Motif)

ink: early espresso (SU!); vintage photo distress ink (Ranger)

paper: whisper white, early espresso (SU!); orange (Bazzill); Snow Day DP (Crate Paper)

accessories: orange ribbon (Michael's); button (Basic Grey); brown twine (Creative Impressions); circle nestabilities, scallop circle nestabilities (Spellbinders)

A New Girl in Town!

Today is a very special day at i {heart} papers! Today begins the sneak peeks for IHP’s newest exclusive stamp line, Mint Motif, designed by Kimberly Crawford. Over the next week you will see peeks of the two coordinating sets, Very Square and Very Square Sentiments, which will be fully released on the 14th.


Be sure to check out Mint Motif’s fabulous design team:

Kimberly Crawford – designer

Charlene Austin

Latisha Yoast

Geny Cassady

Kazan Clark

Julie Overby

Kate - owner



Stop by all of their blogs today and see their first peeks of the new sets! You're going to love them!