{capture the moment}

Inspirations

This week I have been thinking a lot about inspirations.  Why certain things inspire me.  Where I gain my inspiration.  Thinking about where it all begins.

This morning I had about half an hour to be creative before I dug into my work day.  I wanted to get a "quick fix" so to speak.  When searching for inspiration, my eyes stumbled upon this card sitting on my desk.  It is a special note from my good friend Dawn. The squares really struck me and I just began thinking about how much fun it would be to play with bits of patterned paper and a square punch.   Immediately, I gravitated to our NEW Everyday Blessings 6x6 paper pack.  All of the patterns in it are card makers scale.  This means when using just a small portion, as you would with the square punch for example, you will still be able to include several elements from the paper.  I know a lot of times with other papers the patterns are quite large and it's difficult to do this type of technique.

For this one I was inspired by the precise spacing Dawn had in between her four accent squares.  I matted mine on white and centered it on the card front.  The sentiment (one of my absolute FAVORITES from Alli's new stamp set, Shapes By Design) is simply stamped in white ink at the bottom.  I love how "clean" this is, love the colors and I love how I could make several and leave the bottom blank to add a sentiment later.

With this project, I created a strip of patterned squares, side by side.  I matted them with white cardstock and attached it to my card.  I am crazy in LOVE with the way our white velvet flowers (from the Air Collection) coordinate with our patterned paper.  So fresh looking and the texture just adds that subtle detail!  The sentiment is from Butterfly Kisses and was stamped in white ink.

...........................................................................................................................
In my small 30-minute  stamping session I  made both of these cards.  Simple,  quick & easy!  So what are you waiting for?  Got 30-minutes?  Grab a square punch and our new pack of paper that you just bought and see what you can whip up!  I would LOVE to see your results!  Please feel free to link your project in the comments section!

SUPPLIES.................................................................................................................
Stamps: Shapes by Design (life's small pleasures) & Butterfly Kisses (Birthday wishes) from Papertrey

Ink: White craft from SU!

Paper: Spring Moss cardstock & 6x6 Everyday Blessings paper from Papertrey

Other: 1-3/8 inch  square punch from EK Success, white velvet flower from Maya Road, small blue paper flower from Making Memories, green brad from Chatterbox

and the winner is....

Customer #2085

USERNAME: grace01

Congratulations!  You will be receiving each and every stamp release from Papertrey Ink, now through January 2009!  Thanks to everyone else for playing!

Today is the DAY!

Tonight we will be drawing the winner of our FREE Stamps for a Year Contest!  I will announce the winner here at 10am EST tomorrow morning!

Have you entered yet?  It's easy!

1. Go to our homepage (www.papertreyink.com) and click on the "FREE STAMPS" icon at the top of the page.

2. This will lead you to our registration page.  By setting up your user account with us, you will be automatically entered in the contest!

3. Once you are registered you also have the ability to participate in our forum, which is buzzing with excitement!  So be sure to stop in and say hi!

The one VERY lucky winner will be chosen tonight! Good luck! 

Stampers Choice Winner!

After calculating ALL of the votes we received, I have actually determined TWO winners.  Their tallies were so close, I decided to award them both!

Juile-Ann Wells for her Family Tree project

Julie Cameron for her Out on a Limb card.

You each will receive one stamp set of your choice!  Please email customer service with your selection along with your shipping information!  Thanks again to everyone for participating!

Patterned Paper Winner

With all of the excitement in the last few days, I forgot to post the winner of our patterned paper give away.  I apologize for the delay and thanks for your patience!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

246	

Timestamp: 2008-02-19 18:14:30 UTC

Comment #246 belongs to:

You have a way of keeping your customers so excited!!! I am so glad I found this site. I come here everyday. I am getting ready to order those fabbbbbb egg boxes as sooooon as they are available...and the ribbon...and the paper....and Just Hatched stamps set. I can't wait.

Posted by: Ramona | February 14, 2008 at 07:21 AM

Congratulations, Ramona!  You have won both the  12x12 & 6x6 packages of our new Everyday Blessings patterned paper!  Please email customer service with your shipping information and we will get you prize package right out to you!  Thanks to everyone else for playing!

Picking & Packing

David and I just returned from a weekend in Cincinnati to help Julie & Jane with the huge task of shipping out all of our anniversary release orders!  We have never been there to help right after a release, so to see the whole process in action along with the sheer volume of EVERYTHING that they are dealing with was absolutely fascinating!  I took a few photos so that I could share a bit of the process with you!

Everything starts here with Jane.  She does all the legwork in preparing your order to be packed.  She prints invoices & shipping labels, processes payments and organizes all the paperwork for the pickers.

..........................................................................................................................

The pickers take the paperwork and collect all of the items that you have ordered.  This is the "stamp wall" where most of the stamps are organized in order by item number.  This makes it easy for the pickers to find the set(s) they need easily.

...........................................................................................................................

They also make the decision about which box would suit your order the best.  After they are done with that they set the box filled with merchandise in a stack for the packers.  (This is one of the stacks of shipping boxes that were ordered to have on hand for this release!)

...........................................................................................................................

There were two "packers" in place when we were there.  Here is Julie double-checking the contents of the packages.  Every order is checked twice to make sure there are no errors.

............................................................................................................................

Here is Michelle packing up a box.  She has just finished wrapping everything in tissue and preparing the contents for its journey to its final destination!

............................................................................................................................

David is adding another package to the stack waiting for USPS to pick up.  I was so impressed with their speed!  These stacks are what they had completed packing on Friday alone!  And that doesn't include the UPS stack in the back room!

............................................................................................................................

While I was there I tackled the job of making up the stamp packages.  I really enjoyed the process!  Here are ALL the new stamps, waiting to be packaged!

............................................................................................................................

It all starts with assembling the stamp boxes.

............................................................................................................................

It is easiest to do 150 at a time.

...........................................................................................................................

Then it is time to insert the stamps, CD case and rolled instructions with our new label.

...........................................................................................................................

Finally, it is time to add the box band.  And then when these are done, the process is started all over again.  It seemed almost as if in a matter of minutes a batch I would have just completed would be gone!  I am in awe of how fast they work!  So, I am proud to say that many of you will be getting stamp sets that I personally assembled!  I hope you enjoyed this little peak into the process!  After seeing the progress they have made, you should all be getting your packages very soon!!!

Guest Star Stamper

We accept entries each month for our Guest Star Stamper Contest.  (You can read more about it HERE).   We receive HUNDREDS of entries, but there can only be one winner per stamp set!  Here are February's winners!

April Constantine really caught my eye with her use of Out on a Limb.  She decided to emulate an Asian style and create these adorable, clever & EASY lanterns to adorn her project!  (You can see them HERE).  The matching bag holding fortune cookies is SO appropriate!  And I just love the finishing detail of the tassels.  I am excited to see others use this idea inn some alternate colors too!

Barb Schram use Mixed Messages to the best of her abilities by making some beautiful page pebbles.  You can see her entry in our new gallery HERE.  There were a couple things that I loved about her projects.  The page pebbles look like store-bought embellishments.  With the ability to make your own that look this stunning, you can customize color & subject.  I love hints like this that offer versatility!  I also enjoy the layouts that Barb utilized.  They have a nice clean feel without being over done.  Great job, Barb!

Congratulations to both of you!  Please be sure to check out the next post featuring the honorable mentions!

Honorable Mention!

I loved Julie Cameron's layout and thought it was so unique (it would make a great sketch!).  With long vertical stamps, like the branch in Out on a Limb, it is sometimes difficult to break out of a few standard designs.  Julie's was fresh and I loved her color scheme too!

Katie Renz did some creative work with embroidery floss on her project.  The popular "french knot" from ages ago made the perfect flower buds in celebration of spring.  I thought this was such an incredible combination of papercrafts and needlework.

Julie-Ann Wells decided to create a family tree with her Out on a Limb set.  She says that it took a lot of stamping, but she is anxious to get it properly framed and displayed in her home.  So creative!

I love the way that Tracey Cuccia integrated a photograph with the quote in her project.  This would be such a meaningful project for someone to receive from a child!

Jennifer Cozzens went all out and created a calendar.  Not only did she utilize Out on a Limb, but she combined several other Papertrey sets such as Faux Ribbon (calendar gridlines), Sweet Love (center label) and Ambassador Mongram Edition (numbers).   What a wonderful way to display hand-stamped art in your home year round!

Cheryl Knutti created this really pretty "olive" paper.  She was also able to utilize the dove from "Believe" to compliment her project.  Gotta love this one because it focuses on my favorite color, green!

Niki Estes created this clever baby carriage from the Nestabilities circle dies paired with a few snips with scissors.  All of her patterns were stamped with various Papertrey stamps.   I love how she was able to mat the sentiment several times with the Nestabilities rectangle.

Charlene Austin jazzed up regular patterned paper with Mixed Messages.  She suggested that with the variety of words in this set, you could customize paper like this for almost any occasion.

Elizebeth Neumann made these SUPER adorable baby diaper bags to hold nuggets!  The itty bitty sentiments from Mixed Messages were the perfect scale to add an accent to the bag and to the centers of the nugget labels.

...........................................................................................................................

Thanks so much to everyone for their amazing submissions!  It was a difficult choice this month!  Because it was so difficult, I am offering up a Stamper's Choice award!  Please be sure and "vote" for your favorite honorable mention project above.  The project with the most votes wins!  The winner will receive a free stamp set of their choice.  I will announce the winner here on Tuesday, February 19th.  I look forward to hearing your comments!

The WINNER of the ENTIRE February Release!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

809	

Timestamp: 2008-02-15 04:34:39 UTC

And the winner with comment #809 is:

This has to be the MOST exciting reveal yet! From the daily sneak peeks, the generous contest, the new additions to your staff, the wonderful projects and ideas. The anticipation just builds and builds. Is it Midnight yet?

 

Posted by: DM | February 14, 2008 at 10:11 PM

Congratulations, DM!  You will be receiving our ENTIRE February release, absolutely free!  Please email customer service with your contact information and we will get that shipped right out to you!

Thanks to everyone for playing and happy shopping!

My Favorite Things About February!

We want to know what you have enjoyed the most about our February release & Birthday Bash!  Just for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, you will automatically be entered to win...

Our ENTIRE February release (a $170 value!)

All you need to do is leave a comment on this post.  The contest will close @ 11:30pm (EST) and the winner will be chosen via the Random Number Generator.  The lucky winner will be announced here before midnight!

Good luck to everyone and thanks for playing!