Papertrey Ink May Release Fun!

Hi friends! The folks at Papertrey Ink were kind enough to share their May release with me, and I’ve been so busy during the month of May that I haven’t been able to share anything until now. My stamping roots start at Papertrey Ink, so it’s such a thrill to be able to use their products as a guest designer! My husband and I will celebrate our 15th anniversary later this month, and while we don’t have any over-the-top plans to celebrate like we had hoped (taking a trip to England and Scotland was contemplated, but we can’t really leave the kids for that long at this point), we have very fond memories of our 10 year anniversary trip to an all-inclusive resort to Mexico. We were particularly enamored of the sunsets; my husband proposed to me during a gorgeous September sunset on a bluff overlooking a river, so sunsets have always held a special place for us, and the sunsets during our trip to Mexico were astonishingly beautiful. I channeled some of those vivid Mexican sunset colors for these summery projects, so let’s get started with the details!

Whenever I am creating a suite of projects, I try to use coordinating ink colors, which can help keep things cohesive even if the subject matter on each card is different. The layering stamps included in the Papertrey Ink May release lent themselves well to summery sunset colors, so I selected Nectar, Watermelon, Sweet Pea, Wildberry, and Fig inks from Concord and 9th to create a unique, warm sunset palette.

For my first card, I hot foiled the beautiful Through the Palms hot foil plate from the May Release onto some white cardstock using the iridescent gold Aura hot foil from Spellbinders. The colors in this foil worked perfectly to create a vibrant tropical card! I used blending brushes to blend the ink colors, working from the darkest at the top to the lightest at the bottom.

I love a good shaker card, and the new-ish flat shakers are so simple while still allowing the entirety of your background to show. I loved the color blend and shining, iridescent palms so much that I didn’t want to cover any of it up, so I used some leftover packaging to create a shaker pocket around the entire blended panel, which I then filled with a variety of coordinating sequins from my stash. For a simple sentiment, I heat embossed a greeting from Hooray, It’s Your Birthday from Papertrey Ink using Iridescent Gold embossing powder from Hero Arts, which looked so gorgeous on the black cardstock. I fussy cut the finished sentiment with my scissors, then popped it up on the shaker front with some foam adhesive, embellishing only with a sparkling gold twine bow.

My second card uses the same vivid color palette, this time to create a sweet patterned background using the Suited For Summer layering stamp set. This set can be used in so many different ways, but I couldn’t resist creating some custom patterned paper using the different swimming suits and accessories included in the set. Using the same ink palette as the first card, I stamped many of the different elements from Suited For Summer onto an A2 panel of white cardstock, starting from the largest image and working my way to the smallest image, filling in bare spots and rotating the stamps so that the pattern was cohesive but still looked somewhat random. I also stamped a few extra swimming suits, the beach hat, and some sassy sunglasses, then used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

The colors were so vibrant on the stamped images, but I still wanted to add some contrast and make those blank spots a bit less open, so I used one of my fine point black markers to add tiny black dots over the white spaces on the background, as well as adding some black accents on the stamped images themselves. I trimmed down a panel of thin vellum to keep the die cuts from getting lost on the busy, colorful background, then added the die cuts and greeting (from Suited For Summer) on the vellum panel before adhering. I flipped the vellum panel over and added some foam adhesive squares behind the solid die cuts to hide the adhesive, then added it to the center of the custom patterned panel. I finished the project off with a few sparkling gems! I think this would be an adorable shower or wedding card!

For my last project, I used the fabulous new Frozen Delights stamp set to create this scrumptious looking gelato cone. I find the colors of gelato to be exquisite; they’re so much more vibrant than traditional ice cream. I used the “rock ‘n’ roll” stamping technique to add some extra shading on the solid layer of the swirled ice cream, stamping the first layer in Sweet Pea, then inking only one side of the stamp up with Wildberry and using my microfiber cloth to muddle the edges so that the shadow faded more smoothly. I stamped the last layer using Fig, the cone with Nectar and Watermelon, and the cherry and banner also with Watermelon. I die cut the finished images with their coordinating dies.

To create a lovely coordinating glow behind the gorgeous cone, I lightly blended Watermelon, Sweet Pea, and Wildberry inks in the center of a panel of white cardstock, then splattered the background with some super sparkly handmade watercolors. After it had dried, I trimmed the panel down and matted it with a black A2 card front, which completed the third black accent (keeping to the “rule of three” whenever I can for accent colors!). I popped up the ice cream cone with some foam adhesive, then added the banner with a double layer of foam adhesive to help it pop a bit. Sometimes simplicity is just as effective as the more involved projects!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. Thank you to Papertrey Ink for the opportunity to play with these super fun goodies! You can check out the entire May release HERE. What a great way to kick off the summer. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!