witticisms: March Release in Review!

March 15th already?
Man... time flies.

Today's the day of Papertrey Ink's March reveals! We're showing you all of our release projects created with March's all new products... get 'em tomorrow at Papertrey Ink.

First up for me...
a little Boutique Borders: Birthday/Birthday Style/Bountiful Banners combo...

Apparently I only allowed sets that begin with "B" on this card ;)

Lots to say here, but I'll try to just hit the highlights.

Birthday Style... surprisingly versatile. I have several more ideas in the hopper for this one. I think this is now my go-to birthday set. (Loved adding a rhinestone to each candle flame for a bit of sparkle.)
Boutique Borders: Birthday... love the fonts and the sentiments. Fits *perfectly* with Bountiful Banners. (I stamped the banner in black and embossed the sentiment in white to get a nice pop of white there.)
Bountiful Banners... winner, winner, chicken dinner ;) Seriously. Just go ahead and get it and use it with nearly every set you already own until the end of time. To prove it, I used it on, um, half of my cards this month.

See?

Those little Comfort Food Additions sentiments fit on there, oh, perfectly.

This card has a special little purpose.
You see, in our church, we make meals.
Lots and lots of meals.
If you have a baby, you get meals.
If you have a surgery, you get meals.
If you're tired, send up a white flag and someone will bring you a meal.
Seriously, a friend of ours brought a meal when our dog passed away.
And, yes, it made me feel better :)

So, this card is destined to go along with a meal package when a new baby comes along.
Hence, the congratulations sentiment plus Comfort Food soup bowl.

I added a sweet Mini Blooms flower and leaf to the bowl... reminds me of the Pyrex bowls my granddad used to have :)

On my rough draft I filled in the flower center with a white pen... I forgot before the pics but went back after and did it because it makes the flower look a bit more as if it's actually printed on the bowl.

One last project with Bountiful Banners...

this time I paired it up with Hello Foxy.

And good grief... I think he's adorable.

I used the Hello Foxy dies to cut one fox out of Terracotta Tile felt and another fox out of Vintage Cream felt. Then I just stamped the fox on both pieces of felt, trimmed the cream accents out, and glued them onto the terracotta fox. The Dark Chocolate ink looks a bit darker on the cream felt in real life.

Little fox is sitting on a branch from the new anniversary set (Birds & Blooms) that came out last month. I snuggled him right behind the branch for bit of depth.

The new burlap makes an appearance here on the card base. To attach it I just cut a slightly larger piece, laid it onto the card front, stitched it on, and trimmed around the edges of the card once I was done. Super easy and adds a ton of texture plus a nice warm feeling to the card.

Gotta say... I love this sentiment! I thought this card would be perfect for a special someone who has been getting fit lately... sort of an acknowledgement of how hard she's been working.

And now, for something completely different...

clean and simple to the max, right?

I have a feeling I'm going to love each and every one of the Wonderful Words sets & dies. Those intricate die cuts just get me every time.

For the Soft Stone panel I actually die cut the upper portion of the Wonderful Words: Birthday die without cutting out the bottom of the word. I used the exact same technique as in yesterday's post, lining the bottom portion of the word die up with the very edge of the die cutting platform and letting the rest of the Soft Stone panel just hang off the end of the platform. I used my craft knife to trim out the very bottom of the center of the "h"... it just seemed like that part should be removed so I went ahead with that little surgery ;)

I then die cut another "birthday," again out of Soft Stone, stamped the "birthday" image on top with VersaMark, heat embossed it with white powder, and adhered it to the same die cut section of the Soft Stone panel. Love, love, love the intricate look it all gives.

A little embossed "happy" from last month's previously released Stylish Sentiments: Birthday set finishes it off. Couldn't bring myself to add anything else to it :)

One more clean and simple card coming at ya...

this time using Polka Dot Parade #2.

I really wanted to show you that these smaller sets are so much more than they appear. I wanted to show the flowers off in a bit of a different way so I went with bright gold, black, and white instead of more traditional floral colors. You could do this exact same card in softer colors and it would have a completely different feel.

This sentiment pairs up perfectly with last month's Wonderful Words: Hello die cut. The embossed flowers and rhinestones add some balance to the left side and an old favorite, Polka Dot Basics II, makes an appearance on the card base.

My container clear embossing powder is running super low so I decided this was the time to experiment with it. I added just a bit of white embossing powder to it to bring in the white from the upper layer and used that to emboss the polka dots. A bit of a different look, just for kicks.

One last card to finish up today's post...

All right.
Here's the deal.
I made a complete dud of a first card for Spring Hills.
I don't know what happened, but man... I did not do it justice.
I just kept looking at it, thinking that all the elements of the card were great, but that it felt like I had two different cards going on.

Enter the scissors.
I salvaged off the Spring Hills houses and also took the coordinating Boards & Beams (previously released) fence. I paired it all up with the new Sunrise Impressions #2 impression plate (used on the yellow gingham) and Fabulous Frames die to completely change the rest.

And now I love it :)
{Bonus... the salvaged portion of the rest of the original card has already been made into a totally different card that you will see PDQ. Meaning pretty darned quick.}

I knew I wanted the polaroid frame to be white, so I mixed up some patterned papers (a small print, medium print, and large print) for the rest to make sure the frame still stood out. I'm really digging how the blue layer mats the house and fence.

We have some new neighbors so I thought this Spring Hills sentiment would make for a sweet "welcome to the neighborhood" card. I finished off the sentiment with some leaves from Mini Blooms and a tiny heart (Birds & Blooms) to tie in the yellow.

This dud is now a stud :)
Whew.

All righty, folks... it doesn't end here. The rest of the design team has all sorts of loveliness made with this month's releases just for your viewing pleasure...
Nichole Heady
Betsy Veldman

Cristina Kowalczyk
Erin Lincoln
Ashley Cannon Newell

Soooo... what do you guys think??
I'd love to know your thoughts :)

Later, friends!
{And by later, I mean tomorrow... a little surprise post coming up... shhhh...}