The past week has gone by in a whirlwind! It's hard to believe we are already up to day seven of this 14 day countdown! Are you getting excited for the release party on the night of the 14th? I know I am!
So, yesterday we introduced you to our dies & impression plates. One of the most important features I wanted to be integrated into the dies was the ability to cut a variety of materials with ease. The most of important of all being felt.
I don't know about you but I immediately fell head over heels in love with ALL the hype began about felt embellishments. Nearly every manufacturer in the industry had some kind of product that nodded to this new trend. But the PRICE! $6 for a dozen felt flowers? And I don't know about you, but whenever I broke down and purchased the expensive embellishments, I would end up hoarding them...because they're so expensive! Not to mention, I never seemed to have the right color felt accents for my projects.
Just like with the dies & impression plates, today's announcement comes after a year and half of sourcing, testing and everything else that comes along with a new product line venture.
Introducing 100% wool, high-quality, fabulous felt.
And it gets better.
It is going to be available in Papertrey's exclusive color spectrum. Yeehaw!!!
This is THE best felt on the market. Once you touch it, feel it, cut it, you will fall in love, just as I did.
It has German origins, which is where the best felt in the world has always been made.
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Our felt is 100% wool, NO ACRYLIC additives. This means that when it is cut, you are left with nice, clean edges and NO fuzzies!
100% wool menas the density and the luxuriousness of it is simply DIVINE. Really. It's THAT good!
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Our felt will be sold in rolls that measure 5" x 30". Perfect for snipping off a bit at a time to use with our new dies!
The rolls will retail for $6 each, a bargain for those of you who might be familiar with prices of quality wool felt like this. With a 5" x 30" strip, you will be able to get dozens upon dozens upon dozens of shapes, strips and anything else you can dram up for your paper crafting projects!
NO MORE HOARDING! If you love butterflies cut from Raspberry Fizz felt, you can make as many as you like for mere pennies each! And you can be confident that you will always be able to get more felt in your favorite colors, so you will never run out!
I've been watching our industry go into SO many crossover markets, and I am excited about all the OTHER crafts and projects this felt can be used for OTHER than paper crafting.
We will be introducing one new felt color per month, so you can build up your collection slowly and affordably! Eventually the entire Papertrey color spectrum will be available in this fabulous felt! True Black is the first introduction for February, but the photo above gives you a little sneak peek of the color swatches I have already approved that will be coming out over the next few months! *sigh* So pretty, isn't it?!?!
Can you see why we have been working SO hard to bring this product line to you? We are helping to give you the TOOLS & BASICS you need to affordably & easily create a never ending supply of all your favorite paper crafting supplies.
Why build your collection around expensive, under-used items when you can have a solid foundation that will take you through hundreds of applications, possibilities and projects in an easy one-stop-shop color coordinated way? This, my friends, is the entire philosophy behind Papertrey Ink. Something that you will see us expanding on now and throughout the future.
I thought I would share a little compare & contrast scenario with the acrylic felt you can purchase at any big box craft store to our felt.
Here you can clearly see the density differences between generic felt with a high acrylic content and our 100% wool felt. The generic felt is very fibrous & scratchy with a plastic-like feeling to it. Our wool felt is very dense & luxuriously thick. Once you try ours, you will never EVER want to go back!!!
As I said previously, the acrylic content of most other felts makes it difficult to get a good, clean cut with dies.Here, I've cut both types of felt with one of our new scalloped dies As you can see, the generic felt doesn't cut thoroughly and leaves behind lots of fibers that would need to be trimmed by hand in order to get a nice clean, professional look. With our wool felt, you will get a clean, crisp cut every time.
Our new dies cut our wool felt like buttah! You won't believe it until you try it yourself. It's just fabulous, fabulous, fabulous stuff. I just know that this new felt will be something I incorporate into my projects often. Not to mention that it is so lightweight and mail friendly!
Now how about I show you a few things you can do with this new felt?
I'm giving you a sneak peek of one of the new February stamp sets today, called Dot Spot. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail in this post, but I will be dedicating an entire day to it later in the week! I want you to focus on the felt butterfly and how much pizzazz it can add to this modern-styled project. I love all the hues of Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst and Berry Sorbet.
I stitched back and forth a few times through the center of the die-cut butterfly with my sewing machine. After doing this, the stitches kind of "pulled" the wings into an upright position so that it almost looks as though it's in flight. I also added a few scattered black rhinestones for added detail. The sentiment is from Big & Bold Wishes. Just love this project!
This next card uses ANOTHER new set from the February release entitled Asian Fusion, designed by Melissa Bickford (more about this set later in the week as well.) Notice this card goes in a completely different direction, leaning a bit more to the rustic side of things. The bottom Dark Chocolate strip uses Turning a New Leaf to embellish it, which I think looks a bit oriental in nature.
I used the new Medium Scalloped Border die to cut the black felt and create trim for the edge of my card. I did one line of stitching down the edge to hold it in place (if you don't sew, Scor-tape holds the felt in place nicely as well). The texture and warmth this creates is just amazing.
Papertrey Ink is sponsoring the sketch today over at the CPS Blog! Your challenge today is to use their sketch to create your very own project. (NOTE: The new CPS sketch will not go live until 6am, so for those of you who stayed up late for this post, you will have to wait 'til morning to jump on board!)
1. Make a project using the CPS sketch as a guide.
2. Upload a photo of your project to you blog or online gallery.
3. Add the link for your photo(s) to the Mister Linky box provided at the CPS Blog. CPS will be selecting one winner from the participants to win today's prize package.
4. We will be giving away a SECOND prize package here on my blog. You can enter to win this second package by leaving a comment here and providing us with feedback regarding the new wool felt, today's projects or anything else you might be excited about!
To give you a little jumpstart, here's what a few of our design team members came up with to meet this challenge! There are even some additional peeks of some of the new sets!
- Niki Estes
- Dawn McVey
- Kim Hughes
- Heather Nichols
- Michelle Wooderson
- Betsy Veldman
- Maile Belles
- Lisa Johnson
As I stated above, we will be giving away TWO of these prize packages, one to a CPS participant on their blog and one to a randomly selected comment here. These prize packages will each include THREE ALL-NEW February stamp sets
- Dot Spot
- Year of Flowers: Violets
- Asian Fusion
- and also our True Black Felt!
*You can use any products you like while creating your project, no restrictions.
*You have a full week to participate in the CPS sketch over at their blog and have a chance to be the randomly selected winner for our first prize package. They will announce the winner later in the week. The CPS gals will be showcasing the February release stamp sets throughout the week as well, so be sure to keep an eye out!
* You have until Monday, February 8th, 7am EST to leave a comment here in order to be eligible for our second prize package. One randomly selected winner will be announced on our February Release Winners page by noon EST the same day.
I hope you enjoyed today's announcements as our third anniversary celebration continues! Now GO GET INKY!!!!
