{capture the moment}

Make It Monday #20: Reverse Masking

Join Erin Lincoln today for a reverse masking tutorial and see your stamps and their possibly combinations in a whole new light. Talk about expanding the possibilities.

A still shot of her project. Take note of the tone-on-tone look of the hearts.

If you are joining along this week, here are the details concerning the Make It Monday Challenge.

--A new Make It Monday Challenge & video will go up every Monday morning at 9am EST.

--Create a project utilizing your take on the challenge.  Your project must use at least one Papertrey product and use the reverse masking technique.

--Post your project on your blog, in your gallery or on any other photo-hosting site (such as photobucket or flickr).

--Add your link to our --->InLinkz List<---

--You will have until 7am, Monday, June 27th, to add your link to the list to be eligible to win.  And you can enter as many times as you like.

--We will be tweeting and posting on our Facebook page every night (between 5-9pm EST) highlighting a Featured Project.  These tweets/Facebook postings will just be a shout-out regarding projects that caught our eye.  The tweets/Facebook postings no longer have any special merit regarding the actual contest.

--One randomly selected winner will be chosen from ALL the entries on Monday, June 27th, after 7am.  The winner will be posted here on this blog post, on Twitter and Facebook.  The randomly selected winner will get to select a FREE Papertrey stamp set of their choice!

 Good luck to everyone and we look forward to seeing your projects!

 

 

The Make It Monday #20 winner is #39 - Audrey T.  Congratulations, Audrey! Please make sure to email Customer Service with your choice of stamp set and your shipping information so we can get your prize package out to you! Thank you to all the participants for the fantastic inspiration.

Papertrey Radio #10

 

Enjoy our bimonthly podcast episode today. Because of the long length of our Lizzie Jones interview and an extended Q&A segment, we are postponing the discussion question from Episode #9 until July 2nd. Talk to you then.

Papertrey Radio - Episode 10

or you can download the mp3 file below to save it to your iPod or mp3 player

-for Mac, right click on link below, select "download linked file"

-for PC, right click on link below, select "save target as"

Download Papertrey Radio 10

 

And if you think of a great question for our stamp designers, Nichole, design team members, or Jenn, please be sure to call us at (301)799-8338. If chosen, you could be a participant in a future podcast and have a chance of winning a stamp set of your choice!

Here are some links to things you may find of interest after listening to today's podcast...

CLICK HERE to visit Lizzie Jones' blog!

CLICK HERE to see the original Paper Tray stamp set, our very first release!

CLICK HERE and scroll all the way to the bottom of the list to see the very first ten day countdown from February 2007!

CLICK HERE to see the original stationery collection that Papertrey released in 2006.

Father's Day

It's just around the corner!  And if any of you are like me, you've waited until the last minute to put a little something special together for the dads in your like, hoping to come up with the perfect, meaningful gift!

I was browsing around online the other day and stumbled upon THIS amazing project.  I knew immediately that it would be the perfect thing to put together for David this year.

(click on the photo below for a larger view)

I executed my version just a bit differently since I didn't have as many kids as the artist of the original piece.  

I had my three kids spell out "DAD" at the top of the frame and had them hold up a blank sign in a photo where I was able to add text with Photoshop.  

I also added a kraft block that reads "Happy Father's Day 2011" and had the kids sign their names around the sentiment.  I always LOVE preserving the kids signatures every year.  They change so much and it is fun to go back and look at the differences from year to year.  For example, in Kindergarten, Owen was insistent on always making his "n" backwards!  And this year, Hannah is doing what she calls "fairy letters", complete with lots of curls and flourishes.  

This was a super quick project, the kids had a blast helping to form all the "letters" and it was inexpensive.  Most importantly though, I know David will absolutely adore it!

Here are a few more projects you may possibly be interested in for inspiration if you are a last minute kind of person like me!

CLICK HERE for another Dad's day gift I made for David a few years ago that you might enjoy where I created silhouettes of each of the kids.

CLICK HERE for a special mini album I created dedicated to David and to honor him as a father.  (The photos are kind of small in the post, so be sure to click on each of them to enlarge)

Enjoy your Father's Day weekend!

The Day After...

As tradition holds, I like to share some of my favorite DT projects from this release the morning after.  I hope some of the art I selected leaves you as inspired as it did me!

Betsy Veldman made me weak in the knees with this project using Mehndi Medallion.  I love all of the layering she did with the images...and the color scheme?  LOVE!  The large Think Big Favorites #5 sentiments across the middle is the perfect finishing touch!

Danielle Flanders used It's a Jungle Out There to make this super girly card.  You goota love the black stripes paired up with that beautiful Raspberry Fizz & Pure Poppy Damask Designs paper!  I adore how she has the zebra coming out of the decorative frame...such a clever use!

Dawn McVey created this simple pocket card with more of the Damask Designs paper and Gracious Vases.  I thought it was so clever the way she cut the top of the pocket with the Edgers #1 die.  Such a classy touch.  

Debbie Olson made her own version of a onesie card with the new Shape Up Series: Onesie die.  I love how she added the adorable little giraffe from Sweet Baby to the front.  The cute little tag she added with the Tiny Tags die is the perfect accent for the little guy!

Erin Lincoln wowed me with this flashcard style project pairing up It's a Jungle Out There and Fruit Fusion: Apple.  As she has shown here, it is totally appropriate for a child's birthday, but it would also work nicely as a teacher's thank you!

Heather Nichols went flashcard style as well for this series of projects which I immediately fell head over heels about!  They look so realistic and effortless!  The simple design would make it easy to mass produce them as a gift or to keep on hand for last minute notes.

Jessica Witty and the clever girl that she is used the Alphablocks die to create a window for Gracious Vases to peek through.  I love how she creates a "window box" to hold the sentiment!  And the watercoloring she did on the flowers is so beautiful, making the flowers just pop from the page!

Lisa Johnson made this fantastic card with Daydreamer.  I love how she split the sentiment to create visual balance.  Not to mention, her color scheme happens to be one of my all time favorites right now!

Maile Belles amazed me with the way she paired Think Big Favorites #5 with Gracious Vases on this project.  Such a simple concept to layer them like this, but so striking!

Melissa Phillips paired the Picket Fence die with the flowers and sentiments from Tag-its #5 on this amazing project.  Her felt flowers cut with the Buttoned-up #2 die are just stunning and I love the way she added the adhesive pearls to the cloud die-cuts as well.

Michelle Wooderson made this ultra-feminine guitar using Rhythm & Soul.  I just LOVE the floral paper used to paper piece the guitar!  So clever!  The "U Rock" sentiment from Say it with Style was just the perfect complement to all of the other elements on the card!

All of these girls manage to *wow* me time and time again with each and everything they create!  I am so incredibly thankful for them and all the hard work that they dedicate each month!  Now, go through the projects above one more time and pick a small attribute, a technique, a color scheme, a layout and go into your stamping space and create something fabulous!  Go on!  You know you want to!  And be sure to link your creation in the comments section so I can see!  Or, be sure to throw the rock-n-roll technique in there somewhere and enter your creation into our Make It Monday contest for this week!

Have a fantastic rest of the week!

*Official* June 2011 Release Party Contest

I am absolutely smitten with all of this month's new releases and I can tell by the excitement that some of you have shared with me that you are too!  A big thank you to each and every one of you who have joined us tonight during release festivities as well as the last five days of countdown fun!  

To finish up this exciting celebration, we're giving away a fabulous prize package tonight!  Practically the entire June release!  All you need to do to have your chance to win is post an answer to the following question in the comments section below.

Congrats to Laura for being the BIG winner tonight!  And thank you again to everyone else who stopped by tonight to celebrate along with us!

Also, don't forget to check out our June Release Winners Page to see if you've won the Day 5 prize package from the countdown!