Introducing Happy Hearts + More It's A Banner Day and Dies

It's the first group post of the December 2013 Papertrey Ink release and we're focusing on the new Happy Hearts stamp set and cover plate. It is aptly named, seeing as creating with them both make me very happy. You can get as simple and basic as you want or go all crazy with the creativity. Either way, you're going to have a winner of a project when you are done.

One of the initial things that drew me to PTI several years ago were the stamp collections that feature the same shape with different patterns. They appeal to both the orderly and whimsical sides of my creativity. Happy Hearts continues that tradition. Lots of little hearts with lots of big possibilities.

On this card, I mounted a line of hearts on a grided block and stamped it just a few times to cover an entire background. Quick and easy. You are looking at Royal Velvet ink on Winter Wisteria cardstock.

I die cut the Mega Mat Stack 3 out of Aqua Mist Simple Stripe patterned paper and trimmed it to fit up top. A single, simple Limitless Layers: 2.5" Circle in Aqua Mist was home for my Inside/Out: Love sentiment. I pulled a matching purple heart in to coordinate in the space left open on the sentiment stamp to tie it all together.

Next up, I've got Happy Hearts stamps working with the Happy Hearts Cover Plate. This cover plate is unique in that it has a solid stripe about 3/4 of the way down vertically to accommodate a sentiment, four of which are included in the stamp set. I though that it also represented an opportunity to trim it at that particular point and have a shorter design for a card front. So I trimmed off the bottom line of hearts below the sentiment strip and placed the now shorter cover plate cut on a Raspberry Fizz Simple Stripe background.

My hearts are stamped tone on tone with Scarlet Jewel and Raspberry Fizz ink and cardstock.  I heat embossed a sentiment from Happy Hearts in white on a Smokey Shadow base.

Now how's this for a lucky fit with this month's Wonderful: Love nicely covering a heart in the cover plate? It's not perfect, but it's close enough to work really well. Great design possibilities.  I've got an arrow die cut from this month's Cupid Arrow accenting the word as well.

Next up, I've got something super simple and almost one layer. All the black ink images (hearts from Happy Hearts and banner from It's a Banner Day) are stamped directly on the white cardstock base. Only the red heart and banner middle are cut out of Pure Poppy cardstock. The sweet sentiment (works for many different types of "love", not just the romantic sort) is from this month's It's a Banner Day and the itty bitty arrow is from the previously released Live Love Life set.

How about some stitching die love? Notice I didn't have a blog post yesterday? I was working on this extra special project. A bit more involved then the average, but worth it. And I thoroughly enjoyed my annual viewing of Love Actually as I sat next to the lit fireplace in a big cozy chair working on it. :) I cannot wait to hang this up for Valentine's Day.

I have three embroidery hoops (small sizes, nothing bigger than six inches) holding Valentine's themed fabrics and felt die cuts from both my upcoming Valentine's Stitches and Limitless Layers: Heart Stitches die collections. All of these extras were purchased at Joann's the other day. I really tried to get simple yet trendy, tone on tone patterns for my look. I wanted interest, but nothing that would be too distracting from the felt die cuts.

Taking each hoop separately, we have the open window heart of the Limitless Layers: Heart Stitches collection featured on the medium pink hoop. I teamed it up with the original Limitless Layers: Hearts to get the scalloped mat (Vintage Cream) and solid heart (in turquoise polka dot felt).

A banner and sentiment from It's a Banner Day on a little pin adds a little something. The solid red heart is from the Coffee Cozy Detail Dies.

The Valentine Stitches collection consists of stitching die pairs for a "X" and "O" as well as two different sized arrows. The larger arrow has a separate little heart that can be stitched into the open cock/fletching. It's nice to be able to have a contrasting color there for interest.

The "X" and "O" were stitched into felt cuts from the Tremendous Tag die set and tied with red and pink baker's twine.

And for my last little hoop, we have the second arrow from the Valentines Stitches die collection. This one is designed so you can add two different colors of floss on the fletching/cock. Here I took two of the arrows and stitched them in an overlapping, crisscross pattern. The little heart from the other arrow accents the intersection.

That's a lot to take in for a day! Whew! Still with me? All these products (Happy Hearts stamps and cover plate, Limitless Layers: Heart Stitches and Valentine's Stitches) are available on December 15th at 10 PM EST at www.papertreyink.com. I hope they've stolen your creative heart as much as they have mine.

More Valentine's inspiration can be found below. Never too early to be thinking about it. I seem to object less to Valentine's in December than I do to Christmas in October for some reason! Go figure.

Nichole Heady

Maile Belles

Dawn McVey

Melissa Phillips

Heather Nichols

Betsy Veldman

Cristina Kowalcyzk

Ashley Cannon Newell

Laura Bassen

Supplies
Happy Hearts Purple Card
Stamps: Happy Hearts, Inside/Out: Love
Cardstock: Winter Wisteria, Aqua Mist, Stamper's Select White
Ink: Aqua Mist, Royal Velvet
Dies: Mega Mat Stack 3 and Limitless Layers: 2.5" Circles
Patterned Paper: Aqua Mist Simple Stripe and Bitty Dot

Happy Hearts Raspberry Fizz and Smokey Shadow Card
Stamps: Happy Hearts, Cupid's Arrow
Dies: Happy Hearts Cover Plate, Wonderful Words: Love, Cupid's Arrow
Ink: Raspberry Fizz, Scarlet Jewel, Stamper's Select White
Cardstock: Smokey Shadow, Raspberry Fizz, Scarlet Jewel, Hawaiian Shores'
Raspberry Fizz Simple Stripe
White Embossing Powder

Simple White Happy Hearts Card
Stamps: Happy Hearts, It's a Banner Day, Live Love Life
Dies: Banner Day, Happy Hearts Cover Plate
Cardstock: Pure Poppy and Stamper's Select White

Valentine's Hoop Trio
Stamps: It's a Banner Day
Dies: Limitless Layers: Heart Stitches, Limitless Layers: Hearts, Tremendous Tags, It's a Banner Day, Coffee Cozy Details
Felt: Vintage Cream, Aqua Mist, Lavender Moon, Pure Poppy, Smokey Shadow
Floss
Fabric
Embroidery Hoops