Jen Caputo

‘Pin’spired cards

I’ve been pinning a lot of cards lately and I thought I’d share some that I made recently, ‘pin’spired by my pins. (There’s got to be a better way to say that)

The first card that inspired me is this one by Shari Carroll for heroarts.com

Source: heroarts.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

My experiments with this didn’t turn out too great so I’m going to need to play more but here are my versions so far:

 

 

My next card is a combination of two pins:

   

Source: leascupcakesandsunshine.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest  Source: mailebelles.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I made this:

I loved the simplicity of this card, in fact I love everything that Maile Belles does!

Source: mailebelles.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I made these:

 

 

And finally, here are a few cards that weren’t inspired by pinterest, but while I was working on the cards above I found these images that I’d stamped and colored years ago and figured it was finally time to make them into cards.

 

I made the backgrounds with alcohol inks. For the one on the left, I smeared alcohol inks on the back of a piece of vellum. For the card on the right, I lightly swirled a felt pad tabbed in alcohol ink on white glossy paper.

If you want to follow me on pinterest you can do so right here. Leave me your pinterest links in the comments so I can follow you too! Have you made anything you were ‘pin’spired by? I wanna see/hear about it!

PTI Blog Hop: June 2011

It's been a long time since I've played around with a Blog Hop but since I'm home sick instead of at the Green Music Festival with Adam, I decided to jump in.

Nichole gave us this photo as inspiration:

{photo credit}

I loved the way the colors all blended into each other so I focused on that as my inspiration. I took a piece of vellum and used Alcohol Ink in stripes, blending as I went all over it. This left me with a full sheet of striped paper so I cut it into quarters and used it as the background for 3 cards.

The artist in me really wanted to add some buttons to this card but I am sick of my recipients telling me they arrive damaged due to the buttons getting stuck in the machines at the post office so I restrained myself and went embellishment free.

All of the white stamped designs are embossed (after letting the alcohol ink background dry for a few hours).

This one uses Background Basics: Stars and Tiny Tags.

For this one I stamped various circles from Borders & Corners: Circle. The sentiment is from an anniversary set a few years ago. I really wish this one had a few buttons :)

Finally, I stamped a bunch of whales (they are so cute!) from Whale Wishes.

The color is off in all of these photos, the olivey green strip of paper is actually "Simply Chartreuse" but I took these pictures at 7pm so it's about all the natural light I could hope for.

Fathers Day Cards

Happy Fathers day going out to my dad, father-in-law, and grandpa. These are the cards I sent them this year.

Here's a peak at the inside of one of them.

All of the paper strips are embossed.

All supplies are Papertrey Ink.

Margarita Birthday Gift

Thomas accompanied us to Mexico for our wedding so we decided he needed Margarita making supplies for his birthday. We started off with a bottle of 100% Agave Blanco Tequila. We still had some of our favorite Mexican triple sec left (Controy) but we'd already opened the bottle and thought it was tacky to gift that, so I dug around in my supply of liquor bottles that I'd saved and found a nice 375mL bottle. I cleaned the label off of it, stamped a new one, and used a funnel to fill it up with the perfect amount of Triple Sec to go with the Tequila.

Added a handful of limes and a matching card and had a fun and easy birthday gift that anyone who loves a good Margarita would love!

 

Our perfect Margarita recipe follows.

Margarita

• 2 oz tequila
• 1 oz triple sec
• 1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice (no substitutes!!!)
• 1/4 oz agave syrup (simple syrup may be substituted, add more or less to taste)

Shake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a glass, half rimmed with salt. If ice is desired in the cocktail, add fresh, not the tired stuff in the shaker. 

 

All stamping supplies by Papertrey Ink.

Aunt Ginny's Sugared Pecans

Last Christmas we were over at my Aunt Ginny and Uncle Jack's and they brought out these delicious Sugared Pecans. We loved them and Aunt Ginny sent me the recipe.  We've been making them ever since. They are such a crowd pleaser. This year, I decided to bag up a few for Christmas Gifts.

The cast of characters includes:

• 1 lb pecans
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinammon,
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 egg white with 1 tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 250 and melt a stick of butter on a sheet pan.

Beat egg white and water until medium peaks form

Add pecans to egg whites and stir until coated

 

 

Stir in sugar, salt, and cinnamon until evenly coated

Spread on buttered pan, bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

After removing from the oven, stir a few more times so they don't stick together while cooling.

Package 'em up!

(all stamping supplies from Papertrey Ink)

Recipe

Sugared Pecans

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp. water
• 1-1.5 lbs pecans (recipe calls for 1 but with the full stick of butter, I find it's enough for 1.5 - your call)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 250. Melt 1 stick of butter in jelly roll pan in oven
• Beat egg white and water until medium peaks form
• Add pecans to egg whites and stir until coated
• Combine sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add to pecans and stir thoroughly.
• Spread on buttered pan
• Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  After removing from the oven, stir a few more times so they don't stick together while cooling.

We miss you Aunt Ginny

Salted Caramel Jars & Money Cards

I was watching Kelsey's Essentials on Cooking Channel this morning and she was crafting Holiday food gifts. One of the items she made was a salted caramel sauce and I decided to give it a try this morning before Adam woke up.

You can find her recipe for the caramel right here. It says the caramel only stays good for 2 weeks in the fridge so I decided to package it in these small 4oz jars (or maybe they're 3 oz) so people wouldn't have to figure out what to do with all that caramel. But I had to pretty them up first!

I started by die-cutting canvas with the largest scalloped Nestabilities die and stamping a snowflake on each with Palette Hybrid ink.

Then added a little Homemade stamp on top of it.

 

I added the date the Caramel would be good until in the date box as opposed to the date I made it. With the lid already on the jar, I placed the canvas over the top and centered it.

Then I screwed the band on 

 

I used the Papertrey Ink coordinating dies to die cut a bunch of snowflakes in 2 different sizes.

I decided to die-cut the whole sheet since I thought it might make a cool background for another project (look for that at the end of this post).

Then I stamped the coordinating snowflakes on the dies and punched a hole in each one.

 

Tied some jute around the jar bands.

And then tied the snowflakes with a button onto the ends of the jute.

 

 

 

 

I also needed a nice card to use to hold a monetary gift and I wanted to see what I could do with the leftover die-cut paper.  I started with an entire sheet of 8.5 x 11 cardstock and scored it at the 4" and 8" marks.

Then I cut about an inch off the 3" flap and rounded the corner. This will hold the money.

I added a contrasting piece of paper on the middle section of the inside and then adhered the left hand side only.

And then I used the leftover piece of die-cut paper that I mentioned above as the base of the card.

Baby Card

This is the year of the baby in our circle of friends.  I think we are up to 12 pregnancies so far! I made this card for the birth of baby Harper Lou.

Here she was in her mom's belly back in March.

Adam and I got to hang with her when she was just a week old!

I'm pretty much in love with this little one! 

August

August is birthday month in my family.  I only have 3 cousins total that were not born in August. Most of us all in the same week!  So of course, the month always flies by.  Here are a few cards I made for my cousins, brother, aunt, etc.

For the boys:

And the girls:

All supplies from Papertrey Ink.

Still a Stamper Too!

Dad - don't read this.  Lindsey - you too.

Seriously, go away.

Are you gone?

 

 

 

My cousin's wedding is this weekend and I was flat out of wedding cards.  This is what I whipped up.

 

It's simple but I like wedding cards that way.  I used an embossing plate on the bottom and PTI paper for the top.  The Congratulations stamp is from My Cute Stamps. Ribbon is PTI. Nestabilities dies.

 

 

And here are my Father's Day cards this year.

Everything here is from Papertry Ink except for the Fiskars border punch.

 

It was pretty sad to make one less Father's Day card this year :(  I miss you Grandpa.

Thank you cards

These went airborne on Monday so hopefully they've made it to their new homes by now...

Everything is from Papertrey Ink as usual.  Except the punch - that is EK Success.

I'm a little worried how the button stacking bulk made it through the postal service. If you got one - let me know!

Money Card Tutorial

I needed a card to put some cash in as a Christmas gift so I decided to get in the craft room for the first time in a while.

Here's the diagram I made to help me cut and fold the card.

Cut a piece of paper to 6.75" x 8" and score at 3" and 6" on the long side, cut out a corner from the 2" piece, then round the part that's left.

You'll have something like this:

Then tape it up on the left hand side with a thin layer of adhesive

After it's all decorated you have this:

Happy Father's Day

Since I'm pretty sure this didn't make it to my dad on time... here's a peak at your card! Love you, Dad!

 

Supplies
Stamps: Father Knows Best by Papertrey Ink, Background Basics: Text Style by PTI
Paper: PTI Spring Moss, Craft, Rustic White, Dark Chocolate
Ink: PTI Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate
Other: Twine (Papertrey Ink), Buttons (Unknown)

Greetings from Seattle

We flew out to Seattle on Thursday night and our headed home in the morning.  I haven't been here since middle school. This city is awesome :)

Thought I'd share my Mother's Day cards.

The inside:

Supplies
Stamps: Life, Mother - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Spring Moss, Melon Berry
Paper: Stampers Select White, Spring Moss, Melon Berry
Ribbon: Melon Berry Satin
Other: Labels 1 Nestabilities

Herb Box

Who doesn't love the $1 aisle at Target?  A few weeks ago I found these tins and seed packets w/pots there and couldn't wait to set up a little window herb garden!

I used PTI's Life set in various shades of green which made them look very herb-like in my opinion!

The ribbon was attached by punching holes through the tin with a crop-a-dile. 

I made labels for each pot with a toothpick, some nestabilities, and a few more PTI stamp sets.

All in all, this project cost me less than $5 to make 0 wouldn't it make a great gift?  The herbs have been growing for about 10 days now. It'll probably still be another 2 months before the edible but in the mean time, they sure are cute!

Supplies
Stamps: Life, Borders & Corners: Circle, Simple Alphabet
Ink: New Leaf, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss
Paper: Stampers Select White, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss
Ribbon: Ripe Avocado Grosgrain
Other: Brads, Scallop Scissors, Circle Nestabilities, Paper Crimper

Notebook paper doodle fun

 

I was just so tickled with myself  when I finished this card.  See that "notebook paper" that the flowers are resting on...  It started out as PTI's Stampers Select White.  I used Heather's Journaling Lines set to stamp the lines in Spring Rain.  I drew the pink line with a copic marker.  And then I punched the holes with a new punch from EK Success.  Custom made notebook paper in a matter of seconds.   I love it!

The notebook paper screamed for doodley type images so I was happy to oblige with these fun flowers from My Cute Stamps' Celebrate Today set.. I stamped them with Memento Black, colored with copics, and then cut them out. 

A little patterned paper and another EK Success Punch finished this quick card off.

 

Supplies
Stamps: My Cute Stamps Celebrate Today (Flowers, leafs), My Cute Stamps Hello Doodle (Hello), Fancy Pants (stems), PTI Journaling Lines (lines on notebook paper)
Paper: PTI Stampers Select White, Club Scrap Kraft, PTI Bitty Dots (Sweet Blush), Making Memories green vine
Ink: Memento Black, Palette Landscape, PTI Fresh Snow, Copic Markers
Punches: EK Success
Ribbon: PTI Spring Moss Grosgrain
Other: Button, Brads, String

Quick Card & Hybrid Page

I whipped this card up tonight in a matter of minutes thanks to some fun goodies from The Paper Maven along with a Making Memories rub-on.  The bunched up fabric thing is actually a Venetian blind sample.  A friend of mine picked up an organizer full of them for $5 at a Great Indoors going out of business sale.  He just wanted the organizer so he gave me all the samples thinking I could do something crafty with them.  Kinda fun huh? 

Next, I have a hybrid scrapbook page for you!

I used one of my digital scrapbooking templates to size and print the pictures and to print the journaling in the shape around the circle. I also designed a file in Adobe Illustrator of the large scallop circle (about 6.5 inches) and cut it with my Wishblade.
I curved the "'till the end" sentiment on the block to make it match the curve of the flower.

Supplies
Paper: PTI Raspberry Fizz, PTI Ripe Avocado, Kraft
Stamps: PTI Friends 'Til the End, PTI Borders & Corners: Circle (small flowers in each scallop)
Digital Template: Sketch Collection #28 @ Scrapbookgraphics.com
Ink: PTI Fresh Snow, Raspberry Fizz
Buttons: PTI New Leaf
Ribbon: PTI Ripe Avocado Grosgrain
Chipboard Vine: Maya Road
Chipboard Letters, Metal: Making Memories
Flowers: Prima
Paint: Kaiser

PTI Blog Hop - Backgrounds

It's blog hop time at Papertrey Ink!

The challenge was this:

Background building sets have rapidly become one of Papertrey's signature traits.  For this month's Blog Hop, we want to see all of your very best backgrounds.  They can be multi-colored or monochromatic.  Simple or elegantly detailed.  They can be created with a set originated for that purpose or a reinvention of images that were not.  Be sure to include a separate photo of your completed background BEFORE you add it to your project so we can see it in all its glory! 

I created two projects for this blog hop because I wasn't sure I loved the first.  So I'll show you the one I do like first.

Here is how my background started.

As you can see, I drew my color inspiration from this makeup ad. I loved those rich regal colors together!  I used Background Basics: Retro to create the card pretty simply, just alternating colors as I stamped down my sheet and adding the circle detail in the center with a different color.

My finished project:

In order to allow the card to still fit in a A2 sized envelope, I trimmed about a 1/2" off of the right side so that the completed width is still 5.5".

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Friends Till The End, Background Basics: Retro
Paper: Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Fizz, Stamper's Select White
Ink: Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Fizz, Ripe Avocado, Ocean Tides
Dies: Nestabilities Large Rectangle
Other: PTI New Leaf Button, PTI Ocean Tides Saddle Stitch Ribbon, String, Corner Rounder

This was the original card I made.  I wanted to try a clear card and while  I love the idea, I'm not so sure on my execution.. I think I need more practice...

The original background, scored a piece of acetate and stamped the border image from Damask Designs using Staz On White

And the finished Card

I'm not sure if you can tell but the only paper adhered to the front of the card is the Lavender Moon. The Plum Pudding is adhered on the back of the front of the card and the white paper is adhered on the inside of the card.  When the card is closed and flat they are perfectly matted.

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Damask Designs
Paper: True Black, Lavender Moon, Plum Pudding, Stamper's Select White
Ink: Plum Pudding, Staz On White, Versamark
Dies: Nestabilities Large Rectangle
Other: PTI True Black Button, PTI Plum Pudding Saddle Stitch Ribbon, String, Acetate, White embossing powder

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #1

Dawn McVey always has the best color combos ever! When she decided to host a color challenge I had to play along. You can see her swatch above.

And here's my card.

Have you noticed I'm kinda diggin' that anniversary set lately?

For the inside I use the remnant of the scallops I cut for the front to get the reverse scallop effect. I thought it looked kinda cool.  I cut the scallops with the Long Rectangle Nestabilities and then just trimmed off the part I didn't want to use.

Supplies
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Everyday Classics, Mega Mixed Messages
Paper: PTI Stamper's Select White, Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Fizz Bitty Dots. Club Scrap Orange
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Summer Sunrise, Raspberry Fizz. Ranger Adirondack Terra Cotta
Ribbon: Summer Sunrise
Dies: Nestabilities Long Rectangle Large, Small and Large Circles & Scalloped Circles

Fern Card

This was another one of my GSS entries at PTI last month. I submitted it for "best use of a previous set". I was pretty happy with it :)  I'm kinda likin' odd shaped cards lately :)

Supplies
Stamps: PTI Text Boxed, PTI Limitless Labels
Ink: PTI Melon Berry, Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream
Paper: PTI Melon Berry, Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Bitty Dots Patterned Paper
Buttons: PTI New Leaf
Other: Long Rectangle Nestabilities, Scallop Scissors

Congratulations, you did it!

Friday was my good friend, Quinn's, last day of business school!  We are celebrating today with lunch at our favorite place in Chicago for pizza and beer - Piece. Yum, can't wait for my white pizza with spinach & goat cheese!

Here's a glimpse of the inside of the card I made him.

Supplies
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Everyday Classics, Simple Alphabet. Stampin' Up (Celebrate on the inside). Apostrophe from Messy Dates by Autumn Leaves
Paper: PTI Stamper's Select White, New Leaf
Ink: True Black, Spring Rain, New Leaf, Spring Moss
Punch: Creative Memories Corner Rounder
Other: Button, String, Foam Tape