Papertrey Ink January 2015 Blog Hop

Hello friends! It's PTI Blog Hop day.....I'm so excited to play along this month. Haven't been able to participate in a while.  This month's theme is hearts and to create a card beautiful both inside and out. 

After seeing THIS card by gorgeous Laura Bassen in a video, I was inspired to use embossing paste and reindeers in my stash that have never been used (also known as NBUS in the crafty world). Before watching this video, I'd been scared to death to use embossing paste. 

I colored embossing paste with the Pure Poppy and Raspberry Fizz reinkers and used a Heidi Swapp stencil to make a scattering of hearts falling to the bottom of the card. Since the stencil had a different scattering of shapes in each corner, I masked off the other shapes so that only the hearts were exposed. Then after I added the colored embossing paste to the stencil on top of my card panel, I realized I didn't have any of those cool palette knives Laura used in her video. Yikes! Talk about a chef not having their mise en place ready before starting to cook! I'm improvised with popsicle sticks.   Not the perfect tool but a good stand-in. As you can see below, the hearts aren't perfectly smooth which I'm completely blaming on the popsicle sticks. :)

The sentiment from Everyday Photo Finishers and stamped on a Hibiscus Burst diecut from that set. The white panel was matted with black for some contrast before adhering to the red card base.

I added some embossing paste hearts inside too with a sentiment from Words of Comfort. 

Sharing a card I made for my Uncle's 80th birthday today. I used the the three panel technique that Ashley used in this week's Make It Monday. Can't enter it as the new rules only allow one entry per person but thought I'd share it anyway. 

I cut an 8.5 x 11 piece of dark blue paper so I had a 5.5 inch panel and scored it so it fit into a larger envelope I had. For the front panel, I used Big Birthday Wishes for the celebrating and amazing years (heat embossed in silver) and die cut the 80 our of silver shimmer paper and used foam squares to give the numbers some dimension.  I used a border punch for the edge and created silver wine glass from Propose A Toast die cut which was heat embossed in Brown Sugar for the 'champagne and bubbles' and adhered it to the edge. 

For the other side I stamped circles from Sketched Shapes in a random way in a glimmery silver/black ink for some interest when the card is closed. Forgot to take a photo of the finished card closed before I gave it. 

On the inside, I included two pictures of us - one when I was one year old and the other at his daughter's wedding. The left side has a panel of white glimmer paper with lots of space for my personal note and stamped with another sentiment from Big Birthday Wishes. Love how it turned out! 

On the "stovefront", I made Italian Sausage Lasagna Soup the other day. Very delicious and easy to make. This one is a keeper and definitely one of those recipes that I can make and freeze. Next time I'll add a small dollop of ricotta cheese on top when serving for added lasagna flavor. 

Looking forward to seeing all the pretty cards everyone made for the Hop today! Thanks for stopping by!