{capture the moment}

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Christmas is right around the corner, my dear friends.

The gifts are all wrapped and under the tree.  Packages have been shipped to loved ones far away.  The last of the groceries needed for holiday meals and festivities have been purchased and tucked away in the pantry and refrigerators.  The turkey has almost completely thawed.  Company has safely arrived to celebrate with us.  The children are asleep in their beds, dreaming of what wonders will await them when they wake up on Christmas morning.  Such an amazing warmth fills my heart tonight, something I wanted to capture and engrave in my memory forever.

This is also a time of reflection in a way.  Looking back over the past year and being grateful for what you've been given.  Which brings me to a heartfelt message I would like to share with each and every one of you.  A special thank you that is almost too expansive to express.

Thank you for visiting me here and showing an interest in what I have to share. It is still unfathomable to me the reaches that this blog has found since I started it more than three years ago.

Thank you for all of your kind words & comments (I read every single one!).  You lift me up, you motivate me to reach higher, YOU, my friends, inspire me.

Thank you for expressing your enthusiasm and excitement.  It's contagious and inspires not only me, but others as well.  The joy of stamping is something that is spreading across the craft industry before my very eyes and each of you should be proud to know that you played a part in that!

Thank you for stamping.  For getting those new images inky.  For trying a new technique we might focus on one week.  For using & ENJOYING this hobby.  Nothing fills my heart with more joy than to see what you create with the basics & inspiration provided here and throughout the Papertrey family.

Thank you for being a positive force in my life.  I tell everyone that will listen what a wonderful group of customers we have built over the years.  Many of you have become like family to me and I will never, ever be able to adequately express my gratitude.

So during this holiday season, I wanted to be sure to thank you.  A from-the-bottom-of-my-heart kind of thank you.  For stopping by, for being there, for your support, for your genuine kindness, for the love of this hobby that we share.

YOU are truly one of my Christmas blessings.  I wish you wonderful moments of celebration during the coming days.  Time with family & friends and many happy memories made.  May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace, the gladness of Christmas give you hope & the warmth of Christmas grant you love.

Free Downloads...

Just to let you know, I spent a few hours today archiving the free downloads that have been offered here on the blog over the last few years.  What a trip down memory lane!

You can access this list by clicking the "Free Downloads" button in the right hand sidebar...

or just CLICK HERE.

Enjoy!

The day after...

Here we are, another release come and gone!  It's hard to believe that 2010 is right around the corner! 

I hope you enjoyed the past weeks festivities as much as I did.  It was so fun to put Christmas colors aside and work on projects that were bright, pink & girly!  As I've mentioned before, one of the first things I love to do after a new release is take a peek into the design team gallery!  It is always *so* fun to see what they have created with the stamps, especially with my very own sets because they always seem to come up with amazing ideas that I had never even considered when designing the images!  As new tradition holds, I thought I would share a few of my very favorite projects with you today.  Just to keep you inspired!

Debbie Olson used several different pattern strips from Simple Valentine to create the background for this stunning card.  I love how she was able to achieve a perfect balance by having a very simple focal point paired with a busy background.  And who could not love that little touch of glitter?

Geny Cassady used several bits of the new Simple Valentine paper to create small squares to adorn the cover of her card.  I love how she added random buttons to the squares to help break up all the straight lines.  Also, the clever use of the sentiments from the coordinating Simple Valentine stamp set as a border around the focal point was genius.  Adding the small hearts between each word just made it that much better.

 

Heather Nichols created this fun & cheery card with Blooming Button Bits & Polka Dot Basics II.  I love how she grounded the flower stems with the white border-punched cardstock and then utilized that as the perfect resting place for the sentiment.  The little button at the end of the ribbon tab was such a nice touch as well!

 
Becky Oehlers went in a really nontraditional direction with her Simple Valentine color scheme, going with a turquoise glitter along with white and black accents.  I love how she only stamped the pattern on the lower portion of the center block and divided the two halves with her black satin ribbon.  I cannot get over how perfect her glittering is either!  :)

Melissa Phillips totally went vintage with Say It With Style and I love the outcome.  the color scheme of Scarlet Jewel & True Black is totally to die for as well!  I always love the little touches and details she adds to her projects and am sure to take studious notes so I can attempt to recreate them later on!

Kim Hughes turned some predictable images from Blooming Button Bits and turned them into something I hadn't planned on when I originally designed the set.  She used flower pot upside down to make it look more like the upper portion of a vase.  Then she excluded a single stem from the stem trio and made it appear to be coming out of the vase.  Pair that with a single bloom added to the top and you have a delightful combination!  I also love how she curved the sentiment stamp to create a unique banner!

Lisa Johnson showcased Blooming Button Bits as well.  I am TOTALLY in love with the way she stamped the flower trio onto a circle of cardstock and then added the leaves underneath that.  Talk about a time saver!  By utilizing the circle rather than individually hand-cut blooms, you are still able to gain that gorgeous layered look but in a quarter of the time!

Niki Estes did lots of fun layering with the Simple Valentine papers along with Say It With Style.  I love the black stitching accents she added in between the strips.  They really make a bold statement (and why don't I ever think to use anything other than white thread in my machine? lol!)

Michelle Wooderson paired up last year's Heart Prints with Say It With Style.  She also used several bits and pieces from the Simple Valentine paper pad.  I love how she threw in a few borders from Borders & Corners Hearts as well.  The layering and colors are just so pretty and feminine!

Betsy Veldman used one of the flourishes from Vintage Labels in conjunction to Say It With Style.  I think their styles go together effortlessly and I look forward to trying the combo out myself.  One detail that I instantly took note of was the way she layered a single strip of the bitty heart pattern from Background Basics: Hearts underneath the "Smooches".  It adds just a touch of color and definition to the word without having to do any actual paper layering.  LOVE that!!!  Nice and clean & simple!!!

Many of you may have already seen these from the Tiny Treats: Valentine group post we did a few days ago, but I thought it would be worth highlighting them again, just because they were THAT good!

Lisa Johnson's Friends Forever card literally made me gasp out loud.  Oh, my goodness!  Could you just die over how cute that little cat and dog are together?

And of course there was Becky Oehlers' clean & simple notecard sets, complete with the punny sentiment on the flap of the envelope.  Totally will be recreating this for gifts at some point!

 

And last but not least is Dawn McVey's sweet little baby boy card.  I totally had a lightbulb moment when I saw those images in neat little borders like this.  Wouldn't they look so cute stamped on ribbon to tie a matching gift with?

I hope you enjoyed this little summary of the design team's best work from this month.  They are all so incredibly talented and willing to share thier craft with others!  If you haven't done so recently, be sure to stop by thier blogs today and leave them a little note of appreciation!  It will totally make thier day after all the work they put into this month's release admist all the holiday hustle & bustle! 

*Official* December Release Party Contest

We are so thrilled that so many of you decided to stop by tonight and participate in our festivities!  Want a shot at winning all of the stuff you've seen debuted this week during the countdown?  Just answer the following question to have your chance!

"What's your favorite love story?  It can be a movie, a book or even your own!"

Here's what is up for grabs...

The December I Want It All package (a $119 value!)

You have until 11:30pm EST to enter.  Please play nice, only one entry per person.  One winner will be randomly selected shortly before the release and announced at midnight here, in this post.  Winner is responsible for contacting Customer Service within 30 days to claim their prize.

Thank you once again and good luck to all of you!

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED!

Congratulations, Kelle!  Please be sure to contact customer service to claim your prize package!  And thank you to everyone for sharing your favorite love stories!  There were a few books & movies mentioned that I hadn't heard of!  And so many sweet personal stories as well!  What a wonderful testament to Valentine's Day and love!

Introducing Say It With Style

I'm sure many of you have been tuning into Dawn McVey's blog all week to see the amazing projects she has been creating with her new sentiment set, Say It With Style.  The collection of oversized words paired with smaller companion sentiments is perfect for those that like versatility in their sets.  Not to mention the bold style statement they can make!

The details.

• Say It With Style will be available for sale on December 15th.
• It will retail for $24.
• Say It With Style contains a total of 21 stamps (14 large words/phrases and 7 smaller companion sentiments)

One of the fun things about bold sentiment sets like this is the ability to pair them with so many other images you already have in your collection, making them fresh & new again.

(click on photo above for a larger view) 

With this first project, I decided to pair it up with last months release, Big & Bold Wishes.  They are the PERFECT complement to one another. The small companion sentiments in Big & Bold Wishes work really well with the large words in Dawn's new Say It With Style set; so much so, you would almost think they were made for each other!  I alos wanted you to take note of this color combo...IN LOVE with this!  Smokey Shadow, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss & Vintage Cream.  Yummmmm!

 
I also used the large flourish from Big & Bold Wishes to frame the sentiments.  The style of the flourished frame works really well with the trendy font style Dawn chose for her set!  I just love the way all this stuff looks when put together!

You might have noticed some fun epoxy accents flanking either side of my focal point.  Believe it or not, I created these sophisticated little tidbits with a few Papertrey basics!

I used a pattern from the Black & White Basics patterned paper pad, 1/2-inch circle punch and our epoxy stickers.  Since my card uses Vintage Cream as it's neutral, I dabbed a little Chamomile Tea Dye ink onto the paper to take away the starkness of the white. 

I punched out one of the designs with the circle punch and adhered it to the back of an epoxy sticker.  I then adhered the epoxy sticker to our True Black Vintage Buttons.  It was fun to dig through the mix and find buttons that were the perfect size to accommodate the epoxy accents!  I love the way they turned out!

(click on photo above for a larger view)

Next up is a fun card I made pairing the new Blooming Button Bits set with Say It With Style.  I wanted it to have a slight vintage western feel

For a fun treatment of the "Fabulous" sentiment, I stamped it in Dark Chocolate on Vintage Cream cardstock then colored in the bottom portion only with a BG11 (Aqua Mist Trio) Copic marker.

I then went back in with the BG72 (Aqua Mist Trio) marker and colored the upper portion.  I just love, LOVE, love the way this turned out.  The graduated colors are so pretty together.

You can see the finished product looks fabulous with it's companion sentiment, also from Say It With Style.  I trimmed out both parts of the sentiments into strips and edged them with our Tea Dye Duo.  I added a few stitches with Rustic Jute Button Twine and tied the ends in a dainty bow.

You might have noticed that I didn't use buttons in the center of my flowers, but rather text circles.  This look was created by stamping the typewriter text from Background Basics: Text Style II onto kraft cardstock using Dark Chocolate ink.  I then used three circle punches (all from EK Success) 3/4", 5/8" & 1/2".

After sponging the edges a bit with Chai Tea Dye ink, I adhered them to the centers of my flowers.

One last closeup from this card... the rhinestone border came out nicely with an alternating medium and small rhinestone pattern.  I love the way it creates a lovely transition by placing the rhinestones right on the seam between the cream layer and the scalloped border.  I will definitely be doing this again!

(click on photo above for a larger view)

One last card for the day today... this one is dedicated to my little Hannah.  If you ask her what her favorite color is, she will tell you that it's "rainbow".  So whenever I make a card with a rainbow color scheme, I think of her!  (Plus she makes me smile, so the sentiment is appropriate!)

The background started with stamping one of the patterns found in the new Background Basics: Hearts stamp set with Fresh Snow ink onto Kraft cardstock.  I think this pattern is just SO cute!!!

I then used some Copic markers to randomly color in a few of the open heart spaces in the centers of the dots.  If you just lightly dab the very point of the marker three times (once in each *hump* and once at the point) within each heart, the white ink resists the markers just a bit which helps to contain the color and make your project look polished, even if you don't have a steady hand!

I stamped the Smile sentiment from Dawn's set with Pure Poppy ink, followed by the companion sentiment with True Black.  I used one of my Nestabilities Circle dies to cut out the sentiment grouping.  After adhering it to the bottom of my card, I trimmed the lower portion of the circle off.

To continue on with the rainbow theme, I used a 1/2"square punch (EK Success) to punch out swatches from (L-R) Ocean Tides, Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Lemon Tart and Hibiscus Burst.  It needed a little bit of zing, so I added a length of Scor-tape to the rainbow border, obviously omitting the sentiment.

After I peeled away the paper backing, I sprinkled on some Prisma Glitter.  I love the look of a continuous sparkly border right over all the different colors of cardstock.  Isn't it so fun!  You will totally HAVE to try this the next time you are sitting down to stamp! :)

I hope you enjoyed today's projects as much as I did creating them!  Like I said at the beginning of my post, fresh sentiments like this can bring new life to your entire existing stamp collection!  We'd love to hear your feedback about Say It With Style!  Or even your comments in general about all of today's projects.   Leave a comment and let us know!  Just for taking the time to do so, we are offering up an AMAZING prize package...

• Say It With Style stamp set
  
• Big & Bold Wishes
  
• clear rhinestones
• prisma glitter
• 1/4" Scor-tape
  

This prize package has everything you need to make a lot of the projects shown today!!! You have until 11:30pm EST, Monday, December 14th to leave a comment and be eligible to win.  Please play nice, only one comment per person.  One winner will be randomly selected and announced before the release at midnight.  The winning announcement will be made on our December Release Winners page.

Want to see more of Say It With Style?  Stop by and visit Becky Oehlers today to see what she created using this set!

Dawn McVey has more using her new set as well!

Kim Hughes has another sample using her new Be My Valentine template collection.

Visit Heather Nichols today to see even more of Simple Valentine!

The moment we've all been waiting for!  Our new Distinguished Guest Designer, Jessica Witty, has a whopping three projects to show you using some of the new release stamp sets!

 

A complete list of supplies & dimensions for today's projects can be found HERE.