confetti by lexi

january release in review

i finally had time to take my usual release line up pics from the papertrey ink january release. with two pieces of confetti sets making their debut, i had a bit of a split personality, but it was mostly birthday related. and it was especially fun to put them together! if i had to pick a favorite hey, cupcake! card from the ones above, it would have to be the "frosted" cupcake, but i also love the pop of color with the white on white diecuts. i will be making more of both of those to have on hand for sure!

Follow Lexi Daly's board pieces of confetti: hey, cupcake! on Pinterest.

as always, i have pinned all of my projects along with those of the design team to a dedicated pinterest board. i'll continue pinning whenever i create with the set, so be sure to follow it if you want new projects to pop up in your feed.

zappy birthday was definitely a crowd favorite - lots of product, including dies and fun papers, pushed it into the spotlight a bit more, i guess. to be fair, two of the cards above feature hey, cupcake! as well, but they fit better in this picture - that little cupcake is versatile! if i had to pick a favorite of this group, i think it would be the shaker card, but i also love the glasses one and the little comic scenes. this is such a fun set to play with!!

Follow Lexi Daly's board pieces of confetti: zappy birthday on Pinterest.

i really love the primary color story the papers offer, although i think the images also look great in other colors too, as demonstrated by a few design team members. i kept wanting to create in other colors, but i had so many ideas, i just didn't get to it. eventually i will and when i do, i'll post to the pinterest board with all of the release projects from me and the design team. and don't forget: if you post projects with these or any of my sets, let me know and i'll pin them too! thanks so much again for following along and commenting during the release - it definitely adds to the fun!

happy stamping...
:) lexi

three cupcake wishes

as i said in my last post, i felt like hey, cupcake! took a back seat to zappy birthday during the countdown, so i wanted to create a few extra cards with it. in particular, when i looked back at what i did share, i had only shown the reverse block image on the quickie card from day one. and i hadn't gotten to the biggest idea of all that i had in mind - molding paste frosting! so first up, i give you both. after stamping a die cut cupcake with the two step cupcake liner, candle, and flame, i frosted the cake with molding paste using a stencil created by die cutting the cupcake top out of a square of vinyl template material (i can use again and again!). i left strokes instead of scraping the template clean and while the paste was still wet, i pressed in some yummy sprinkles from betsy's shakers & sprinkles kit. it looks so real! i finished off the die cut with glossy accents on the candle and a litte wink of stella clear glitter brushed on the flame. once it all dried, i layered it on three additional die cuts and added it to a pink card base prepared with a scallop punched reverse block image in light green. can't wait to frost more mini cupcakes!!

next up, a mini card in blues on green. this time, i stamped the cupcake pieces directly onto the stamped reverse block image. the pieces fit perfectly into the white space and the result is a full color single layer focal piece. i added it to a 3 x 3 card base with foam tape for a little added dimension. clean and simple with pop! now all i need is a gift to put it on.

and last, but not least, a chocolate cupcake! pink and chocolate, with a touch of sparkle and gold. this time, i stamped a die cut cupcake and layered it on top of a scallop punched reverse block image in pink. i used the die cut here because i was using the same pink on the candle and cupcake liner details as i did on the background and i wanted the extra white edging space to set it apart. i added a coating of glitter on the cupcake top for a bit of sparkle and finished it off with a quick brush of wink of stella gold for a deeper shine. pink and brown is such a perfect color combo for sweet food images - looks good enough to eat...

yum!
:) lexi

new stamps and more!

i know i'm late posting this, but i had to hop from one project to the next - no time to stop and smell the cupcakes or enjoy a zappy day! it was quite a release for me, with two stamp sets and coordinating dies plus a cover plate and patterned paper. so much fun stuff to play with! i do feel like zappy birthday took center stage because of all that goes with it, so i have a few more hey, cupcake! cards to share, but i'll do that in a separate post. first, here are all my new product details and links. 

hey, cupcake! mini stamp set

hey, cupcake! die collection

zappy birthday stamp set

zappy birthday die collection

cover plate: comic strip

comic strip patterned paper collection

the hey, cupcake! dies and cover plate: comic strip are both sold out at the moment, but if you click the notify me button, you'll be the first to know when they're back. i'm really excited about the non-comic possibilities with the cover plate, so when it's back in stock, i'll be sure to share more. thanks again for following along and for your comments - they really make my day!

happy stamping!
:) lexi

super zappy hands!

sorry for the delayed post today - i almost didn't make it, but it's day five and i have more to share, so here i am! new stamps, including zappy birthday and hey, cupcake!, will be available at the papertrey ink store tomorrow night. yay! but first, a couple of cards. i decided to take out last month's give me a hand for a little superhero fun. i thought of the flying superhero hands idea above during the countdown last month, and couldn't wait until zappy birthday got here to put it to paper. and then, as i've been working with the die cuts on my desk, wow kept spinning around and i kept seeing mom. i decided that it would be fun to put the two concepts together for a unique mom card - because moms are total superheros who fly above and beyond! wouldn't this be fun to receive?

i didn't mean to continue with the same colors again today, but i have so many pieces and parts from the comic strip paper collection on my desk that i couldn't help it. so for my next card, i decided to play with some the extra cover plate: comic strip pieces for a non-coverplate colorblocked card. the pieces can fit together in different ways, depending on their size, like the rectangle i pieced above. once i blocked the layout, i added a design element to each block - hey, cupcake! and the lightning bolt and speech bubble sentiment from zappy birthday, of course, and since it was out on my desk, i couldn't resist a hang loose hand from give me a hand! the cupcake is popped up for added dimension and sharp black and white calls attention to the sentiment. can't you picture doing the same thing with other papers and stamped diecuts? the possibilities really are endless with this cover plate! well, that's it for the countdown. if i can, i'll be back sometime tomorrow with a bonus post - either way, new product goes live at 10:00pm easter time! until then, check in with nichole and the design team for one last group post today and their release round ups tomorrow. what will they make you want?! thanks so much stopping by all week and leaving comments, and especially for all of your zappy birthday love - i'm so excited that your excited about it and i can't wait to see what you create!

'night!
:) lexi

day five - coming soon...

i'm juggling and struggling, but plan to have day five projects up later this afternoon. i apologize for the delay. if you missed my big zappy birthday post yesterday, scroll on down!

to be continued...
:) lexi

it's a super zappy day!

welcome to day four of the papertrey ink countdown to new stamps - and my favorite day this month because zappy birthday is part of the group post day today! so far i've shown you the stamps and matching dies, plus the stand alone coordinating dies and little snips of the paper. and today, i'm bringing it all together, with a closer look at all the details, including the 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" comic strip paper collection and the new cover plate: comic strip. my first order of business with the paper collection and cover plate was to create a shaker card, of course! one of the paper designs is a full comic strip page that matches the cover plate, which makes for an easy start. i strategically placed the three word die cuts and a lightning bolt, followed by the cover plate cut from sticky foam. then i sprinkled stars into each section and closed it up, with the cover plate in white on top. the speech bubble sentiments are placed right over the clear cardstock to finish it off. zap! bam! wow!

once i got the shaker card out of my system, i decided to use the cover plate as a guide to colorblock another comic strip card. after die cutting a page of each color in a different pattern, i chose the portion of the cover plate that fit my layout, placed a section of each color and removed the frame. the city silhouette die fits perfectly into the lower right section like the one on the full comic page. since i used that section, i started with that in black and built my comic strip from there - zappy birthday! have a super day! this colorblocking layout could be used with a variety of papers and images for a quick and easy card - no need to worry about math and measurements!

since nichole's secret agent is a part of the group post with zappy birthday, i couldn't resist a mash up of the two. i have a few ideas with secret agent himself, but i just love those glasses. i immediately pictured them as clark kent's glasses and this card came to life! the black dot paper is perfect for a comic book look on the lenses. the sentiment was a no brainer, given who's glasses they are - wow, you're super! in addition to stamping the sound effect starburst in blue, i also colored it with a lighter blue copic to create a tone on tone look rather than the higher contrast of blue and white. the whole things just makes me smile! as much as i love the shaker card (my fave of the day!), this one is a close second. i love a non-traditional layout and these glasses make such a big, fun statement on a card.

and finally, last but not least, i was also compelled to create a mash up of zappy birthday and hey, cupcake! i figured with all the red, blue, and yellow in this post, i couldn't possibly do just a typical cupcake card today. so, i created a zappy birthday cupcake die cut from scraps of the comic strip paper collection, and layered it on a section of the plain white comic strip paper on top of a piece of the yellow starburst. that's one super cupcake!! and one super collection of stamps, dies, cover plate, and paper. i hope you like all of the pieces and parts - they really are so much fun to play with! nichole has all of the details up on her blog, plus links to the team's group posts. i know i can't wait to see what they've done! so go check it all out, and then come back tomorrow for one more day...

:) lexi

zap! bam! wow!...

celebrate now! welcome back to day three of the countdown to new papertrey ink stamps, including two new pieces of confetti stamp sets, zappy birthday and hey, cupcake! now that you've seen several of the stamps in zappy birthday, it's time to move on to some of the other fun details. in addition to the dies that match the stamps, there are three word dies - zap, bam, and wow - plus an exclamation point. above, i've used all three for a clean and simple birthday card, finished off with two more sentiments from the set. for added depth and comic strip pop, i die cut them twice, in color and in black, and used the black as a drop shadow - an easy technique that packs a graphic punch!

the sound effect words are also perfect for layering over the two step sound effect image. the result is classic comic book, especially when paired with the city silhouette die, also part of the die collection, featuring tall buildings and "super" details like spotlights and antennaes. i've built a two tiered city scape by cutting buildings off of a few die cuts to layer behind and on the sides of a full die cut popped up on top. and there's more of that paper i've been slowly sharing - it all comes together perfectly in super comic book style!

switching gears to hey, cupcake!, i just had to create a card similar to one of the white die cut cards i created for the rattled release - those were two of my favorites and with the two sets being similar, it's a fine time to recreate a fave! i wanted to really see the cupcake shapes, so instead of using the whole cupcake die, i used the individual die cut pieces and topped them with asterisks from one of betsy's shaker shapes. a leftover confetti streamer ended up being the perfect icing detail for the focal cupcake - mmm, chocolate! 

as i was working, i realized that all of my cupcakes so far, including the chocolate one above, were very pink and girly. so my next challenge became to make one that was boyish and blue. i decided to stick with the white on white look using the extra betsy confetti pieces all over my desk, setting the stage for a simple popped up focal cupcake in blues and greens. three tiny stars were the perfect sprinkle embellishment for the icing this time. mission accomplished, right?! and that does it for today - two from each set! of course, there will be more tomorrow. can't wait!! until then, it's monthly moments group post day, so head over to nichole for more scoop and links. lizzie and melissa are sharing with their product as well.

have fun!
:) lexi

hey, cupcake...

happy birthday! welcome to day two of the papertrey ink january release countdown. today hey, cupcake! is being featured, so i have two cards to share along with nichole and ashley. first up, i used the cupcake on it's own without the reverse block image. i stamped the different parts in bright colors on a full cupcake die cut. the cupcake liner, candle, and flame all have two step options for versatility - here i chose to go with tone on tone colors, but you could mix it up as well. the simple cupcake top lends itself well to adding embellishments like i did here - a little scrappy glue and chunky glitter make perfect icing and sprinkles - and a nice touch of sparkle, too

next, i decided to create a row of candles, again in bright colors, and again with tone on tone two step stamping. the sentiment portion of the reverse block image is easy to separate out - a 3/4 inch punch is actually the perfect size if you happen to have one. as soon as i punched it, i pictured it surrounded by candles, and i love the outcome - doesn't it make you want to blow them out and make a wish? you can wish for new stamps!

and last, but definitely not least, i had to share another zappy birthday card! it follows the same "recipe" as yesterday's card - the sound effect and speech bubble sentiments stamped on die cuts (notice zappy birthday! is a die cut today), and a little bit more of the paper!! yes, i will continue to drag this reveal out - and as long as you keep coming back, you won't miss a thing!! until then be sure to check in with nichole to see what else is in the spotlight. (as i mentioned above, she and ashley are showcasing hey, cupcake! and their projects are amazing!) heather, dawn, maile, erin, lizzie and melissa all have projects up too.

see you soon!
:) lexi

introducing new stamps x two...

welcome to day one of the papertrey ink january countdown to new stamps - and two new pieces of confetti stamp sets!! i've had one of those weeks, and i never got to post the sneak peeks, so here they are now. first up, zappy birthday. and it's so much more than just stamps!

next up: hey, cupcake! similar to rattled, this is a mini set that packs a big punch. use the images all together or separately for different looks. as always, i like to start of with a couple quick and easy, clean and simple designs to ease into the week...

zappy birthday! happy birthday! it's your day! this set features bold lines and fonts that you would typically see in a comic book, with several fun birthday and encouragement sentiments. the two-step sound effect shape is particularly fun to play with. here i masked the two step zappy birthday sentiment, but there's also a die for zappy birthday if you prefer to add it on top. i actually tried to stick to just stamps today, but i couldn't resist using the dies and a little bit of paper, too! (hint, hint)

hey, cupcake! arrived a little late, but i still managed to stamp out a quickie! one of the things i love about this set (and rattled as well) is that the reverse block image stands so well on it's own. i'm a sucker for white space and graphic lines. this card would be perfect for a sweet little girl's first birthday - and it's so easy you could stamp it on the way out the door! that's it for today - i can't give it all up at once! so c'mon back tomorrow for more. until then, be sure to check out nichole's blog to see what else is in the spotlight - betsy, melis, dawn, heather, lizzie, and melissa all have posts up as well...

enjoy!
:) lexi