Papertrey Review

Another sure cure for the blues is a delivery of paper and ink. On many of the on-line forums, I'd always read great things about Papertrey Ink (PTI). Yesterday, I got in my first order. With the exception of one item, I'm extremely pleased with the sampling of products I ordered. (These are of course only my observations.)

Stamps: All are acrylic stamps sold in sets. Most are either $15 per set or $24 per set. They release new sets every month! The Polka Dot background set I ordered came packaged with the stamps, a jewel case for storage, clear labeling sheets for the case and instructions for care. I'm already repurposing the nice packaging for a Christmas gift :-)

You'll see my polka dots in this card. It is one of Kristina Werner's designs. I had picked out other sets before I saw her use this a couple of time. The set comes with several sizes of dots even individual dots in each size in case you miss one when stamping a strip - very thoughtful. I love this set! You'll probably be seeing spots of all sizes around here . They recommend using a gridded block which I already had.

Colors: Their Perfect Match ink, paper and embellishments are all available in matching colors. Each of the colors has 5 coordinating ribbons and a bag of buttons! No trying to figure out what paper has ribbon to match. (They also sell some other colors of ink that don't seem to have matching stuff but I'm not sure what that was about. I stayed with the Perfect Match colors.)

I compared the colors to my SU! colors and found many that are very, very close. The one that was the most off was Dark Chocolate. SU!'s chocolate chip, used in the card above, has more red in it. I like both colors they are just quite different. SU! has a much larger palette of colors. Papertrey's match more of the Earth Elements and Soft Subtles.

Ink: PTI's hybrid ink is a pigment ink. It is available in full size pads and ink cubes (like Stampin' Spots, but you can buy them individually). I love the Vintage Cream as it really shows up on dark paper. I do have two complaints with the packaging: I find the full size pads a little hard to open and the cover of the stamp pad is a brown tinted plastic. Why not make them clear so you can see the color inside? When I first opened my box, I thought they had sent me the wrong color. I have not tried to emboss this ink yet. I'll post about that experiment later on.

Paper: Their cardstock is excellent - a very good quality for card making. The only drawback is size. It comes only in 8 1/2 x 11" and there are no plans to add 12x12" which is my preferred scrapbooking method. I like having larger cardstock for background pages, cutting borders and stuff. I do love the PTI pricing. They are a little less expensive than Stampin' Up! The best thing is the option to purchase only 12 sheets of a single color for $3. I purchased a variety pack of colors - 50 sheets for $9 which is a great deal on this quality of paper.

Ribbon: It seems every time I see a beautiful bow on a card it has been made with Papertrey Ribbon. I'm trying the satin and the grosgrain. Their grosgrain is softer than most and I got a pretty good double knot (for me) on this card. Again, I love the pricing. Five yards of any style, any color is $3. This is a reasonable quanity of ribbon to purchase in a single color.

Another positive on their pricing is free shipping on orders of $55 or more. And I really LOVE that they price in whole dollars. None of this $12.99 or $3.95 stuff. Why can't everyone do that? Do stores and catalogs really think they fool us by dropping a penny or two from the price?

Envelopes: Here was my only disappointment. Stampin' Up! still sells the best envelopes for the money - actually better than anyone I've found for the money.

So I'm sure I'll buy from Papertrey again. There are more sets I want, the paper is a great price, and I really love the ribbon in price, quantity and usability. They sell a lot of other stuff too. I'f you've used their products and have a favorite, please leave a comment here. Check them out at http://www.papertreyink.com/

Card Ingredients: Stamps: Polka Dot Basics by Papertrey Ink; Trendy Trees by Stampin' Up!

Ink: Vintage Cream and Scarlett Jewel by PTI; Choc Chip, Sage Shadow, Kiwi Kiss by SU!

Paper: Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla by SU!; Ocean Tides by PTI!

Ribbon: Ocean Tides grosgrain by PTI!