PTI Stamp-A-Faire 2013

The event we've been waiting a year for is finally here!  I am just beyond excited!!!  I was able to get an early start with the hopes of keeping up with the schedule this year ... alas, there was just too much crafty inspiration to be had and tutorials to drool over.  lol!  The posts and videos are still free for the viewing, but the challenges aren't, so let me get right to it!  In case you would like to check out all the fun for yourself, you can find it on Nichole's blog, here.

My day started very early getting one of my soccer players up, ready, and out the door.  She and DH left a couple minutes before 7am - perfect timing for me to place my SAF order and earn that sweet Reasons to Smile stamp set for free.  * Score! *

I ate my farmer's market-fresh cinnamon roll (delish!) while browsing all the sketch and color combos for the Morning Bake & Take challenge.  Here are the sketch and color combos I chose:

And my take:

Then I started rolling out some paperclay to use later as well as get some tea boiling for the next challenge - Tea Staining!  I stained some muslin fabric and promptly dumped out the tea before realizing that I wanted to also dye some laces.  Hmmm.  Instant coffee crystals to the rescue!  I got the lace wet with boiling water and then sprinkled on some coffee crystals.  The effect was neat, since I could get an overall color, or a speckled look depending on whether I mixed up the coffee or just sprinkled and let it sit.

I just Adore (with a capital A) Melissa Phillips' works of heart.  She is one amazingly talented lady!  I made my fabric flower much like hers in the tutorial.  I used some watered-down coffee to spritz my bookprint (love how that turned out) and fashioned my card after Melissa's.  I love, love, love how it turned out!  Thank you, Melissa!

I also wanted to try Betsy's dip-dye technique using the Kool-Aid packages for coloring.  I dipped an A2 size piece of white card stock into some red Kool-Aid on one side and then flipped it around and dipped the other side into some purple.  It's a neat effect and I think I'll try it again with some brighter colors next time.  I die cut my dip-dyed card stock with the Rainbow Stripes die and mimicked the design of this awesome card by Erin.  I used the sugar-coated technique of Betsy's to glitter the die cut star.

Now, the rolled dough challenge proved a bit difficult for me.  It took ages to dry and then it was nearly too thick to cut.  I seriously thought I might break my poor Big Shot!  Late on Sunday, I did finally manage to eek out some die cut stars and heat embossed them in gold.  

I made this card with my DD's in mind as they both played awesome at their soccer games over the weekend and green is one of their team colors.  :)  So proud of those girls!

The mixing mists challenge was much more fun than I'd anticipated, I mean, how could I possibly make a mist that would rival Mr. Hueys?  I ended up making a mist from Hawaiian Shores ink refill and used it to spritz over a handmade chevron mask.  I found the homemade mist to be a bit more translucent without any shimmer (because I opted not to add the perfect pearls).  The results reminded me of the color wash look that's so popular right now.  So, Nichole proved me wrong ... there is most definitely a use in my craft room for homemade mists!

Onto the Sprinkle of Salt challenge.  Who knew?  Who knew you could use salt like a coarse glitter?  I sure didn't.  A heavy dose of glittery goodness makes me think of snow, so I chose to salt-up my Peaceful Pinecone image to make a festive holiday tag.

Have you heard of the Gallon, Quart, Pint theory?  I had.  But, let you tell you, I had trouble with this challenge.  The theory is pretty straight-forward.  Shouldn't have been an issue, but this one took me awhile.

Time to revert to your childhood.  Remember way back, way, way back to when you played with Shrinky Dinks?  Yep, time to revisit that art form!  I took Melissa's cue and decided to make a cute jar pendant.  I used green (my DD's favorite color) embossing powder to include some stars as well as silver to stamp the jar image. The resulting little jar is just so tiny and cute!  On a side note - the jar ended up curling a little bit while cooling off.  I was afraid to try and flatten it on account of the embossing, and when I tested it with my fingernail, it ended up smearing one of the stars a little bit - oops - still wet, I guess.

I also used frosted shrinky dinks and my copic markers to make this little cutie:

This was such a fun technique and there is such possibility.  I can't wait to explore it more, especially with my DD's by my side.  :)

Next up on the schedule are the Scent-sational cards.  I canNOT wait to get my grubby little craft hands on that cute stamp set designed specifically for scratch and sniff cards.  My DD's thought that was the neatest idea and loved smelling the card I made ... Mmmmm, strawberry!

Getting towards the end of the fun with the Limited Ingredients challenge.  After I decided on a design, this one went pretty quick.  I used inspiration from one of the DT (I can't find who at the moment) for the sentiment/balloon string idea, along with the angled panel idea from Maile.  I love the result - festive, fun, and pretty easy!

One last challenge - Sweet Sugar-Coated Embellishments.  I have to say, Betsy's tutorial for glittering paper or embellishments is the best I've seen yet!  The spray adhesive gives a nice even coat, which gives a nice even appearance to the glitter layer.  Ever brush on some glue and then sprinkle it with glitter?  Did you have good results?  Well, I tried it, and bleh, the results were terrible!  The glitter came out thin in some spots and denser in others.  Betsy's technique worked great!  Then, add that layer of clear coat like Betsy suggests, and it's pure glittery heaven.  :)

To wrap up the festivities, I've got a photo of all my projects along with a glimpse at my work area, including the 8"x14" spot of cleared desktop I used to make all of my creations.  haha!  

Hope you had a great time this weekend.  I know I sure enjoyed myself!  I'm already looking forward to SAF 2014!  :)

Thanks ever so much for stopping by!