Farewell

Hello? Testing…testing…1,2,3…*tap tap*….is this thing on? Here goes:

Well it’s been an extremely long time since our last post. Life has been busy and 2013 has thrown some curveballs – one of which has been this blog. For those who don’t know, we ran this challenge site ourselves. We paid for prizes out of our own pockets and received no products or incentive to promote Papertrey Ink. In recent times, we’ve all found little time to keep the challenges going and therefore, we have made the decision to close A Passion for Papertrey.

The blog will remain open, and who knows what may happen in the future, but for now there are no planned future challenges.

However, we have one last point of business before closing for good and that’s selecting a winner from our last challenge:

Number 1 is lucky for Maria F who has just won a $5 Papertrey Ink gift certificate! Congrats, Maria! We’re sending you your prize today so please email us if you don’t receive it within the next 24 hours.

Finally, we’d like to thank you for playing along with our challenges and making A Passion for Papertrey a fun challenge site. Without you, it would have never have worked so thank YOU for making it a fun few years! 🙂

Aimes, Caryn & Kate

xxx

Challenge – Something Sweet!

Hey folks and welcome to a new challenge.  Its been a busy few weeks for us APFP girls so for this challenge we thought we deserved a little treat!  We all have a bit of a sweet tooth so with that in mind we want to see what “sugary, sweet, and tasty” creations you can come up with.  Don’t just think of cupcakes and ice-cream – it can mean fruits, pies, drinks, etc.  It might even be a colour or sentiment!  Let your imagination run free!

I was in the mood for a bit of water-colouring so pulled out my Inktense pencils and had a play with the Cupcake Collection stamp set.  A good dollop of Stickles, some pattern papers and a few sequins finish it off nicely!!

Caryn

Over to Kate: ‘Nothing says summer birthday like an an ice-cream treat! I’m not entirely sure which flavours these scoops of ice cream but they I still think they look yummy!”

 

Stamps: Sweet as Can Be/Birthday Bash Sentiments
Card: Kraft/White/Raspberry Fizz/Summer Sunrise/Hawai’in Shores
Ink: Kraft/Black
Other: Ric-rac die/Sweet as Can Be die/Cuttlebug Swiss Dots EP

Over to Aimes: Well I’m in the full swing of summer holiday mode so for my sweet treat I opted for a retro-favourite of mine:

{fab friend}
Stamps: Wonderful Word Additions (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Versamark
Card: White, Raspberry Fizz, Dark Chocolate (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories: Blue Thickers (American Crafts)/Gems (Want2Scrap)/White Detail Embossing Powder (Stampendous)/Pink, Yellow and Orange Promarkers (Letraset)

Do you remember fab ice lollies? I loved them as a kid and I’m still partial to one now (I have to eat them the same way: peel the chocolate layer off first, then the cream layer and finally the ice layer.) 🙂

We can’t wait to see all the goodies you come up with for this challenge. Have a look here for all the challenge deets. The challenge closes at 9am on Monday August 26th and one randomly selected peep will win a $5 PTI gift certificate!  Just link up your offering with the tool thingy below!

Caryn Aimes and Kate xxx

Winners!

Hello all.  Thank you to everyone who joined in our last challenge – a tricky one eh?  We loved the different ways you incorporated those embellishments – very creative.  Here is our randomly drawn winner.  (until Aimes shows me how to do it, I can’t show a picture but I used Random.org!!)

And the winner is Number 1 ………………… LAURIE!!  Pop us an email with your details and we’ll whizz your $5 gift certificate over to you.

Now on to the top 3 Passionistas.  Here’s who caught our eye….

GRETA – what a gorgeous use of vellum and background stamping.

LAURIE – we love little boxes and cute packaging – this is just the sweetest!

VICKI – Such a stunning colour combination and lovely layered stamping.

Thank you for entering our challenge ladies.  Please feel free to grab our blinkie from the tab at the top and don’t forget to pop back later for another “mouth-watering” challenge.

Hugs,

Caryn, Aimes and Kate xxx

Challenge – Use 3 embellishments

Hey!

Welcome to a shiny new challenge here on A Passion for Papertrey!

For this challenge we want to see you get busy with embellishments – three different embellishments to be precise. An embellishment is simply an item that’s added to provide interest to a design. Don’t worry, we’re not going to be strict on the definition of what counts as an embellishment and what doesn’t – but think of things like ribbon, pearls, gems, sequins, die-cuts, buttons etc…Oh, and don’t limit yourself to cards – any creative project will count!

You won’t be surprised to see that I opted to create a card for this challenge. I was a little daunted by three different embellishments but cheated thought a little bit outside the box and combined three embellishments to create one larger embellishment:

So I used a stamped and die-cut star, a button, and some twine for my embellishments that when combined make a little star embellishment. Easy peasy and great for those of us that edge towards a clean and simple style of card making. *wink*

Over to Caryn…

Caryn

Hmm, this one didn’t turn out to be as simple a task as I first thought!  I am actually pretty pleased with the result although it is a tad busier than my usual style!!  My embellishments are gems, pearls and ruffle ribbon!!  Very girly don’t you think???!

Our lovely Kate is very busy moving/unpacking boxes at the moment – we don’t envy her that task! But she’ll be back for the next challenge. 🙂

We hope you get a chance to join in and show us what you can do with embellishments. Have a look here for all the challenge deets. The challenge closes at 9am on Monday August 12th and one randomly selected peep will win a $5 PTI gift certificate!

Aimes & Caryn

xx

 

Winners!

Hey!

It’s a day late, the summer holidays are keeping me busier than I’d planned, but I’m here with the winners from our previous Birthday Challenge.

We were overwhelmed with the amount of entries and stunning cards we saw, thank you so much to all who joined in the fun with us! 🙂

So, without further ado, it’s time to draw the random winner of a Papertrey Ink $5 gift certificate:

Number 16 is lucky for Jean! Congrats Jean! Pop us an email and we’ll get that $5 gift certificate on its way to you. 🙂

And now for our Top 3 PTI Passionistas. With such a high level of entries, each one of which worthy of being a top 3, it made it super tough to narrow the field down to just three entries. However, after much ooohing and ahhhing we’ve selected the following:We loved Sue’s stamping on this birthday card! So fun and bright!

Janet’s super trendy, collage-style birthday card is fabulous in design and rocks the CAS collage look.

And who said collage style had to remain CAS? Betty had our jaws hitting the keyboard with this stunning birthday card. So much attention to detail!

Congrats to our Top 3 PTI Passionistas! Please feel free to grab a blinkie to blink with pride on your blog here.

Seeing as we’re a day late posting the winners, we’ll post our new challenge tomorrow. I hope you can join us then! 🙂

Aimes, Caryn & Kate

xxx

Challenge – Birthday Celebrations!!

Hey – here we are with a brand, spanking new challenge and this time it’s easy-peasy!  One thing we girls here at APFP all have in common (amongst other things) is a deluge of birthdays in the month of July!!  I think I have 7 in my family alone!!  So, to help us out a little with the demand we thought we’d make this challenge a simple “Birthday” theme – anything goes as long as it is a card made to celebrate someones big day.

For my card I got out my favourite ink colours at the moment – shades of coral, peach and aqua.  I love the Mini Blooms set from PTI and although it can be a tad fiddly with all the little die-cuts – the overall effect is usually worth it.  I don’t know if it shows that well in the photo but I painted the raised die cuts with my clear Wink of Stella brush and it looks super sparkly in the light!!

Caryn

Over to Kate: “Do you have a few basic card sketches that you fall back on when you’re really against the clock? This is one of mine – so I know it’s not going to win any prizes for design but it’s a trusted favourite when I need to make a card in a hurry!”

Stamps: Birthday Tags 2012/Background Basics: Heart
Ink: Raspberry Fizz
Card: Basic Black/White
Other: Oval dies/Black grosgrain ribbon

Over to Aimes:

I challenged myself to play with some of my scraps for this challenge and created a little birthday scene:

{Card Deets}
Card: Spring Rain, New Leaf (Papertrey Ink)
Stamps: Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)/Fresh Snow (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper: Fine & Dandy True Blue 6×6 Collection (My Mind’s Eye)
Accessories: Jute Button Twine, Cloud Die (Papertrey Ink)/Staples (Office Supplies!)

It’s hard to see, but I also used my cloud die as a stencil and inked some subtle white clouds in the background 🙂

We hope you get a chance to join in and share your birthday creations. Have a look here for all the challenge deets. The challenge closes at 9am on Monday July 29th and one randomly selected peep will win a $5 PTI gift certificate!

See you soon,

Caryn, Aimes and Kate xxx

Our winners!

Just popping by to announce the winners of the last challenge, “Inspired by…”.  We loved the entries and loved seeing where all your inspiration comes from!

And so the winner of the $5 PTI gift certificate this time is ……………………………

NUMBER 6 which means Betty is our winner.  Please get in touch so we can email your prize over to you.

There was  a great selection of entries and after much deliberation here are our three passionistas:

Ruth

Ruth’s card is just bursting with texture and colour yet still manages to capture a light and airy feel!

Lynn

Lynn used Pinterest as her source of inspiration for this fabulously CAS card.

Gerdine

You NEED to check out the gorgeous bouquet that inspired this beauty from Gerdine!

Well done girls – feel free to grab out Papertrey Passionista blinkie from the tab at the top of the page.

And please check back later for our latest challenge!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Caryn, Kate and Aimes xxx

Challenge – Inspired by

Greetings and welcome to a new challenge! Are you ready to be inspired?!

As crafters we take our inspiration from many different sources – nature, packaging, clothing, fabric… the list is endless. So for this challenge we’re asking you to provide your own inspiration piece and make a card based upon it. Please add a picture or link to your inspiration piece with your entry.

I’ve been doing more sewing recently, and my fabric addiction is getting as bad as my stamping one! I love looking at beautiful fabrics, I can just never decided which ones to get!

I decided to base my card on a rather cool fabric I bought recently – I love this colour scheme (although like a lot of fabric I buy I still haven’t made anything from it yet!)

Inspired by the colour scheme I made a set of mini 3 x 3 Thank You notes:

Stamps: Round and Round (PTI)

Ink: Hawai’in Shores, Summer Sunrise, Pure Poppy (PTI)
Card: Hawai’in Shores, Summer Sunrise, Pure Poppy, Stamper’s Select White (PTI)
Other: Sizzix border embossing folder (SU), Copic Markers

Over to Aimes:

My source of inspiration came as a surprise even to me for this challenge! I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and studying hard for a very cool (in a geek chic kinda way) psychology course and I was inspired by the PowerPoint template used for a certain lecture on memory:

Please ignore the blurb and lecturer – or be inspired yourself and take up a course! LOL! Although the lecturer, Prof. Steve Joordens, is pretty inspirational, it’s the strip of colour on the slide that inspired my card *wink*:

Card Deets
Stamp: Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey Ink)
Cardstock: White, Spring Rain, Enchanted Evening, Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Over to Caryn:

Well my source of inspiration isn’t from one thing but from an entire event!  I was super-lucky to attend the Glastonbury Festival over the weekend and so was completely  immersed in sights, sounds and smells of every kind!  If that place doesn’t inspire you, NOTHING will.   One of the most enjoyable areas for me was spending time in the crafting tents in the Kidz field area.  The whole place is an explosion of colour and people dressed in all kinds of costumes just pop up everywhere (oh, and so did Chris Martin from Coldplay (just sayin’!!))

My card pays homage to the big Glastonbury sign that sits right at the top of the site.  The colours are bright and bold just like the whole festival!

{HELLO}
Stamps: Watercolour Wonder, Banner Builder
Ink: Hero Arts Neon Inks
Card: Stampers Select White
Tools: Modern Alphabet UC, Minim Hearts (Simon Says Stamp), Glossy Accents

There we are – now it’s over to you! We can’t wait to see your inspiration pictures and cards! Have a look here for all the challenge deets. The challenge closes at 9am on Monday July 15th and one randomly selected peep will win a $5 PTI gift certificate!

Kate, Aimes & Caryn

An InLinkz Link-up

Our winners!

A big thank you to everyone who entered our last challenge – let’s get straight to it and draw our winner shall we?!

And the winner is…

Here are your random numbers:

6

Timestamp: 2013-07-02 16:20:03 UTC

(Random.org)

 

Congratulations Sharon! You’ve won yourself a lovely $5 PTI gift certificate! Please email us at apassionforpapertrey@gmail.com and we’ll get your gift certificate sorted for you.

Do take a minute to have a look through all the fabulous entries to the challenge  – again it was tough to narrow it down to three for our Top 3 PTI Passionistas! Here are our final choices:

Maria F

We loved how Maria interpreted the circular theme with her die-cut circle but maintained the continuity of those fabulous vines! And a great layout to boot!

Greta H

Greta was the only entrant who made a circular card! We love how she kept the circular theme going throughout the card and used very on-trend ombre for her focal colour scheme!

Marlou McAlees

Wow, what a bright and fun card – great colours! We loved the layout of Marlou’s fabulous creation, and especially her use of die-cuts throughout!

Congrats ladies! Please feel free to grab our Top 3 blinkie for your blogs to blink with pride if you haven’t already got one!

Do check back later for a brand new challenge!!

Kate, Aimes & Caryn xxx

 

 

 

 
 

Apologies!

Hello! We’re very sorry for the delay in the next challenge here on A Passion for Papertrey.

Due to unforeseen circumstances we are not able to set the next challenge (and announce the winners of our last) until next week. We hope to welcome you back to a brand new challenge then – thank you for your understanding!

 

Kate, Aimes & Caryn xxx