PaperTrey Ink November Blog Hop

The challenge for PTI's November Blog Hop Challenge was to make festive holiday tags. Since I don't celebrate the holidays, I adjusted the challenge to fit my own circumstances this winter. For the first time I am participating in a soap swap sponsored by www.brambleberry.com. Basically, you make 12 bars of soap using your choice of Bramble Berry products, send the bars to Bramble Berry and then they send you back a mixed dozen of other swap soaps. It's such a great way to see what other creative soaps people are making. I made my famous Jersey Beach Bar...a coconut scented soap with an exfoliating layer of sand in it. I then printed up my tags, die cut them using PTI's Fillable Frames #9 and stamped a few nautical images from Out to Sea and Day at the Beach on both the front and back of the tag. The paper around the soap is a beautiful stripe from PTI's Men of Life patterned paper pack. I just love the way it all came together and I can't wait to get my box of soap!

An idea for PTI's Friendship Jar stamp set

I love the whole concept of PTI's Friendship Jar stamp set series. We have always used Mason jars as drinking glasses in my house (they are rather shatter proof) and there is something especially summer-y, drinking a vodka tonic out of a mason jar filled with ice and lime...I digress! Anyway last September a very dear sweet friend of mine (like a sister) was married and it was a fabulous, mostly home made wedding, under a big white

tent in her husband's family's

backyard. She made all of the paper products (ie: the invitations, placecards, signs, tags on the wedding favors, ect.) from PTI CS and the wedding colors were Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise and lots and lots of polka dots. And on each of the tables we had these great big Mason jars filled with all these beautiful sunflowers that we ordered online from Costco! The wedding was stunning...here are a few pictures from the big day, including one of the bride and groom with 3 of my kiddos, who were all in the wedding.

So when this September rolled around and it was their first anniversary I knew the perfect image for their card-the sunflower and Mason jar combo! But I was thinking and trying to come up with a way to make the jar look more glass-like. I remembered the technique of layering Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) and letting it cool and adding more UTEE to give a nice glossy surface. I colored the image, stamped the jar image around it, then completely covered the jar with a glue pen. I then applied my UTEE and heat set it. Well guess what, it looks just like glass! The pictures don't do it justice, but I was so happy with the results in real life. It really looks like glass. You could do multiple layers, let it cool and crackle the enamel...then rub with a light greenish/blue ink to get the look of the old time Mason jars. The possibilities are endless...For the inside of the card I colored in another sunflower image from the set and punched it out, offset with a small circle punch. I know the pictures are all mixed up, I'm still trying to figure this whole blog thing out ;) Hope you enjoy!