February PTI blog hop!!

Time again for another PTI blog hop, wow, how the months fly by. This month for the February blog hop challenge, the instructions were as follows:

"Since we just finished up our 3rd Anniversary Festivities, we thought we would do something extra
special for this month's Blog Hop! Design Team Appreciation Day! Your challenge is to go through the
Design Team gallery or any of the Design Team Members' blogs and find a project that is especially
inspirational to you! Then recreate the project with your own spin, making it unique! Be sure to share a
link and photo of the original project that inspired you! And you can also use this opportunity to thank
the team for all their contributions this past year! "

I really do wish to thank the design team for all the wonderful inspiration they provide, the jaw dropping creations, the color. There's a reason why we call beautiful things in this hobby 'eye candy.' The design team always provides wonderful eye candy and I think I especially appreciate it in the winter when most everything around me is white!

We were supposed to choose a designer's creation to emulate and I would have liked to have done one from each, maybe I can make that a side trip for myself over the course of the next few months. They're all so talented and I almost felt guilty just choosing one. I selected one of Betsy Veldman's projects found in this post of hers here. I liked the strips of images on kraft, the paper piercing and the scallops. This is Betsy's card below:



For my creation I used vintage cream on kraft instead of white and different stamp sets except for the Giga Guidelines. I turned my card on its side as well because it just seemed to fit the teapot shape better. I was not fortunate enough to snag one of the scallop dies on release night so I used a 1/2-inch hole punch to cut out circles and create my own scallops. I also liked the look of Quilter's Sampler with the teapot and couldn't quite figure out how to incorporate it without covering up too much of the kraft background. You do that paper piercing and you want folks to see it! So I made little buttons out of the quilt squares by first layering them on regular cardstock for firmness, punching two holes in them and then putting on a nice thick layer of crystal effects glue. To me they kind of look like little potholders or something or a trivet to place the teapot on.



The ultimate designer at Papertrey is of course, Nichole Heady and although she didn't seem to include herself as a member of the design team, I thought I would take one of her recent creations and make a sample of that as well. Papertrey wouldn't exist if she hadn't started it and she deserves kudos aplenty! Here is her card from the introduction of Asian Fusion. I liked the colors, the simplicity and the buttons.



I decided to see if Green Thumb could achieve this look. I don't know if I reached zen, but here is my take on using Green Thumb to make a version of Nichole's card using Asian Fusion.



Teapot Card
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Damask Designs, Giga Guidelines, Background Basics: Spots and Dots, Hearts, Tea for Two, Quilter's Sampler
Ink: SU Pink Pirouette, black stazon, PTI vintage cream
Cardstock: PTI vintage cream, kraft, SU Pink Pirouette, Basic Grey DP
Other: glitter, twine, crystal effect, labels nine nestability, paper piercing tool

Aqua Card
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Green Thumb, Background Basics: Spots and Dots
Ink: Versamark, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Avocado, Chocolate
Cardstock: PTI white, Aqua Mist
Other: random ribbon, PTI aqua mist ribbon, Avocado buttons