{capture the moment}

Make It Monday #59: Computer Generated Sentiments on Die Cuts

Every now and then, you'll likely want to create your own sentiments and personalized messages for your paper crafting projects. Let Erin Lincoln show you how to do that easily and without fuss, while at the same time getting computer generated text perfectly positioned on your die cuts. It's a great technique to add to your crafting arsenal.

Stills of Erin's personalized bookplates and folder project this week: 

 

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

--A new Make It Monday Challenge 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 computer generated text on die cuts.

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

--Add your project to our --->InLinkz List HERE<---

--You will have until 7am, Monday, April 2nd, 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. 

--One randomly selected winner will be chosen from ALL the entries on Monday,  April 2nd, after 7am. The winner will be posted here on this blog post, on Twitter and Facebook. The randomly selected winner will get a $25 PTI gift certificate to spend on whatever they like!

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

Congratulations, joykanani!  You've been randomly selected as last weeks Make It Monday winner!  Please send an email off to customer service with the email address you would like your $25 gift certificate sent to.  And thank you to everyone else for playing along.  There were so many fantastic entries for this challenge!

March 2012 Blog Hop

Welcome everyone to the March Papertrey Blog Hop!  We are so thrilled to see you here!  First, the challenge...

We are excited to get back to our inspiration challenges for the blog hop each month.  For the month of March we wanted to focus on sunshine and the upcoming spring season.  What better way to do so than with a fresh color scheme of aqua & yellow.  Use the inspiration piece as a jumping point for your color scheme, pattern combinations, overall design or whatever else inspires your creativity.  We look forward to seeing your creations!

I have included an inlinkz list below for you to add your link to your blog hop project.  This type of link list will allow you to select a thumbnail to go along with your link, making it easy to go back and find a project later that might have perked your interest.  

You have until 11:30pm EST tonight (March 25th) to add your link to this list.  THREE random participants will be selected to win a FREE Papertrey Ink stamp set of their choice.  They will be announced and highlighted here, on my blog, tomorrow morning.  We look forward to seeing all of your creations!

EDITED TO ADD RANDOMLY SELECTED WINNERS:

Deb created this beautiful Mother's Day card using the aqua & yellow color scheme showcased in the inspiration photo.  I love how she incorporated the contrast of the texture of the impressed white card front and the houndstooth background.

Gabriela Duclos made this stunning yellow card that just screams happy spring.  I love how she made yellow the primary color and aqua the supporting color.  Such a bold choice that really makes this card stand out from the crowd!

Tina used Modern Basics to create this clean & simple tulip card.  The added stitching around the mat and the shading she added to the tulip are just gorgeous together!

Congratulations to all three winners!  Please send a note to customer service along with the email address that you would like your $25 PTI gift certificate sent.  And a big thank you to all of the other participants!  You have all left me feeling inspired and have surely done the same for hundreds of others!

March 2012 Blog Hop Tomorrow!



Tomorrow we are excited to present the BIG monthly Blog Hop that Papertrey Ink hosts for all of its talented customers to show off their skills! The Blog Hop is an ALL DAY EVENT!  A Mister Linky list will be posted here on my blog at 10am EST and you can add your link anytime up until 11:30pm EST.  And don't worry if you aren't going to get a chance to make a project and play along, there will be a contest for non-participants as well over in our forum in the designated thread. I hope that I will see many of your familiar faces over here tomorrow! I look forward to seeing all of your creativity!

A day dedicated to seeking inspiration through projects utilizing Papertrey Ink products.   This event allows all of our customers who enjoy sharing inspiration & artwork with their peers do so through their personal blogs.

The actual Blog Hop will take place tomorrow, March 25th, beginning @ 10 am EST and run until 11:30pm EST.

{photo credit}

We are excited to get back to our inspiration challenges for the blog hop each month.  For the month of March we wanted to focus on sunshine and the upcoming spring season.  What better way to do so than with a fresh color scheme of aqua & yellow.  Use the inspiration piece as a jumping point for your color scheme, pattern combinations, overall design or whatever else inspires your creativity.  We look forward to seeing your creations!

 -Participating bloggers can add their link to the appropriate list here anytime between 10am EST and 11:30pm EST on March 25th within the InLinkz list that will be posted.. The title of your post should be "Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge".

-Customers & participants alike can peruse all of the links and absorb all of the amazing inspiration that will be shared!

-After you have made your way through the list, simply return to our forum and participate in all of the fun!

-You can chit chat with everyone in the Blog Hop forum! Take this time to praise your peers efforts, discuss anything new you might have learned and which projects really offered something unique!

-The three random blogger participant winners will be announced in the morning on our forum and highlighted here on my blog!

-You can enter our Blog Hop Forum contest. There will be a special thread posted in our forum specifically for this purpose asking a question. Please only post once, as the winner will be picked via the Random Number Generator. The forum contest will end at midnight EST and the winner announced tomorrow morning in the thread.

-Create a project while you are here, using the new inspiration you have gathered from the Blog Hop. You can post your projects in the gallery, even if you do not have a blog! We are looking forward to all the fun tomorrow and we hope to see you there!

A fond farewell...

Today I am posting to share a bit of news regarding one of our most treasured employees, Jennifer Ellefson.  

After much thought and consideration, Jennifer has opted to leave her position with us as Customer Communications Director.  She has had some amazing opportunities arise in a different career field which she has opted to take advantage of.   After ten years in the paper crafting industry as a whole, four years of that with Papertrey, she is moving back towards her original career and some dreams she has within that.  I am certain that with her talent & dedication, she will be able to achieve everything she desires and more!

Saying something like "we are so sorry to see her go" does not even begin to express the amount of emotion that the team feels as a whole.  Jennifer was our anchor, her organizational skills were amazing and she kept us all on track.  She was not only a dedicated employee, but she was a dear friend to every one of us and always with a smile and a virtual hug.  She is an extraordinary woman who I have been honored to work beside these last few years and I will forever be grateful for all she has done for both me personally and the entire company.  It is not very often that one gets the opportunity to work with someone so full of grace, intellect, empathy, creativity, kindness and dedication all in one package.  I can honestly say that Jennifer has been my true north, my guide, my confidante for years and I know I will never cross paths with someone like her again.  She is an amazing person inside & out and anyone who has the opportunity to meet her would feel the very same way.

While you may not see Jennifer's face on the forum any more, members of our design team are taking on more presence within the forum and helping to facilitate some of Jennifer's past duties there.  This transition has already begun to take place and it will continue on into the future.

I hope you will join me in wishing Jennifer a wonderful journey.  I hope that every goal, every dream she has for her future in her new career will be achieved and fill her with joy & happiness that is so well deserved.  Cheers, Jenn!  We will all miss you more than you will ever, ever know!

Blessings in a Backpack

Today I am stepping a bit out of my creative zone to share with you something else that is close to my heart.  A charity you may or may not be familiar with, Blessings in a Backpack.

A few facts that I found shocking...

-3 out of 5 U.S. Public School  children qualify for the free or reduced lunch program.

-60% of American children depend on the government to feed them Monday through Friday.  That equates to more than 20 million kids.

The end result of statistics like this is millions and millions of children go hungry on weekends.  As the video above states, many of them know when the final bell rings on Friday afternoon, they will not eat again until Monday morning.  

Blessings in a Backpack provides elementary school children who are on the federal Free and Reduced Price Meal Program with a backpack of food to take home for 38 weekends during the school year. Backpack food includes easy-to-prepare, ready-to-eat foods, like granola bars, juice boxes, mac and cheese, and oatmeal.

• A donation of a mere $80 will feed one hungry child in the U.S. every weekend for an entire school year.  100% of your donation goes directly to feeding the children.  You can donate directly HERE.
• You can adopt a school and start a program in your area if one doesn't already exist.  You can read all the details about doing so HERE.
• Become a volunteer to help fill backpacks on Fridays for these hungry children in need by finding a local school that participates in this program HERE.
• Coordinate a fundraiser at your church, with your scouts or other civic organization to contribute to the cause or possibly partner with a local school as a permanent sponsor.

I hope that this cause possibly touches your heart as much as it has mine.  Sometimes we forget all to easily how much need there is right here within our own country.  Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share this with you today.