January Musings and lots of Inspiration

I haven't posted in a long time.  I've been on an inspirational kick lately, so I wanted to share a few more cards with the community.  Pinterest has been a regular 'go-to' site that I've been dropping an obscene amount of lurking-time into, paired with the fact that my local scrapbook store has been getting some fresh, beautiful paper collections to die for....that spelled out serious card-making time!

I am in love with Basic Grey's "True Love" paper collection.  Apparently I like pink - who knew? - and it is even more fantastical when it's paired up with teals and aquas.  I also recently purchased Papertrey Ink's Limitless Layers Hearts dies, which is such a winner in my book.  Often times I think the many size options in my other dies sets will forever see no action in my die-cutting machine, but these PTI hearts dies?  It's guaranteed I will use each and every one of them repeatedly.  Since I'm definitely more of a card maker than a scrapbooker, sizes in the neighborhood of about 3 inches will always be more attractive to me, and this is why I can appreciate PTI's business approach of keeping such layers within the 3-inch mark.

For this first card I'd like to share, I used the above mentioned paper, along with the hearts dies:

The heart border is another PTI die (love!) and the canceled postmark to the bottom-right is another PTI stamp collection (called Postmarks): another great stamp set!  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention a very important thing: Papertrey Ink (aka PTI) came out with a GORGEOUS stamp set called 'With All My Heart.'  I was taken by surprise by this set because I won't normally gravitate toward a "valentine-y" type stamp set, and hearts are typically not my thing.  I guess I've expanded my horizons, or something, because now I'm all over that AND pink (which is not a "regular," either).  The images in this set are very versatile, but what's also brilliant is that there are many 2-step stamping opportunities with the images, and I LOVE this feature.  Honestly, I'm surprised more companies don't do this for potential buyers; I would imagine most stampers are like me where they'd rather stamp a flower THEN a leaf, than stamping an entire flower and leaf with just one color (unless it's a lined image, but that wasn't my point :)))

Authentique is another paper company I love, and they came out with a collection called "Renew" (and it's a mountain of gorgeous paper!).  Again, the teals are just oozing out of this collection, and I am absolutely in love with all their patterns.  I will say one thing: I noticed that their newer lines don't feel quite as thick and as textured as their previous releases, which makes me a little sad - all in all, I still love working with it, and the quality is still awesomely USA-made.  Here is a picture of what I came up with:

For the clouds, I used a Die-Namics Clouds trio die; the loopy die for my pseudo-sun is a Memory Box die (I believe it's called Whimsy Circle); then of course there is also the proverbial Spellbinders scalloped/regular circles thrown in for good measure.  My sentiment is from 'Bring on the Sun' by Technique Tuesday (another FANTASTIC USA-made company!).  I really like how this card turned out and luckily for me, I was given the chance to showcase it for the next Demo Day at Photo Scraps - 11am on Saturday the 19th.  If you are anywhere near Carroll County in Maryland, come by and say hello - I'll be there up to my eyeballs in Authentique (and loving it!).

Hope you like the card...enjoy, and have a nice day!