Be Still and Know Take Two

Hi again!  I combined this beautiful Close to My Heart My Acrylix sentiment with a different paper packet today.  It really is striking to see how different it can look.  Here is the wonderful A1141 Be Still sentiment with the Chantilly Paper Packet.

I used a new embossing folder from Lifestyle Crafts called Whimsy for the background on this card.  Then I sanded the paper to let the white core peek through a bit.  All of our Close to My Heart papers have a white core that can be used in this way, and I love the versatility it adds.  One of the other things our paper packets have are these lovely little trim strips called Zip Strips.  Do you see the strip of paper behind the sentiment and across the card?  I cut it from the end of one of the B&T Duo papers in Chantilly and there is still a full 12 x 12 sheet of paper after you cut it off.  Each double sided pattern paper has a different Zip Strip pattern too.  This one inspired me to actually purchase the embossing folder since it matched so well!

This is my old friend the Color Ready Seam Binding Ribbon--but this time I used my Cotton Candy Alcohol Marker to color it!  It was so easy and dried right away.  Thanks to Consultant Pamela O'Connor for that fabulous tip on her Facebook Page!  :)  I used my trusty bow-easy tool to make the perfect little bow.

This sentiment is just such a comfort for so many occasions.  It really is a steal at only $6.95!  It is one of my favorite stamps in the new Idea Book, and I highly recommend it!


Before I let you go, here is our current Stamp of the Month!   I am sooooo excited to try this one soon!  Click HERE to see it on my website and get it for only $5 with a $50 purchase!  Otherwise, you can always get it for the regular price of $17.95 during the month of March.  :)

Floral Happiness, March 2013 Stamp Of The Month

Color Dare #34 Kiss Me, I'm Irish! I am!

Yep, I am part Irish lass and proud of it!  That is why I cannot possibly keep from using this stamp for this week's Color My Heart Color Dare...even though it is from Verve!  The Color My Heart blog has a different Color Dare each week, and this week the colors are Olive, Sweet Leaf, and Goldrush.   I promised myself this year that I would not limit myself creatively to only one brand, even thought I love my Close to My Heart products so much.  The rest of my project is CTMH, except the frame that I already had laying around, and I really love the way the marriage turned out!  ;)
 

The neutrals I chose to go with this week's colors are Cocoa (Dark Chocolate) and Champagne with a tiny bit of Colonial White in the Dark Chocolate Striped Grosgrain Ribbon that you see at the top.  Next to that ribbon, I stamped a strip of Sweat Leaf Cardstock with the screen background stamp from My Acrylix Stamp set D1477 Universal Backgrounds.  I stamped the beautiful sentiment in Cocoa Exclusive Ink onto Champagne Cardstock and matted it with Olive.

Each of these little  shamrocks were stamped onto Sweet Leaf Cardstock using the Olive Mini Pigment Ink and hand trimmed when dry.  They can be found on the retired Joyful Jar My Acrylix Stamp Set.  Make sure you give your pigment inks time to dry!  They sit on top of the paper instead of soaking in, so they take a bit of time.  

My background paper is one of the B&T Duos from the Florentine Paper Packet.  These leaves I stamped on the background are from a retired stamp CTMH set called Dragonfly & Friends.  I used a bit of the Bronze Glitter Glitz Gel and some Brown and Tan Sparkles to give it some interest and attract the eye.  :)

Now, just like every week, it's YOUR turn!  Make any kind of paper creation with your Sweet Leaf, Olive, and Goldrush colored supplies and link up to us over at Color My Heart!  We would love to see what you create!  :)

Glue Dots, Chantilly, and Glitter, OH MY!

I wanted to show you guys this idea really quickly tonight, so hang on!

I recently saw a Pinterest or FB post (cannot remember and cannot find it!) about putting glue dots on Easter Eggs and then rolling them in glitter--how clever is that?!?  SO it got the wheels turning in my head, and I put some of my Martha Stewart glitter stash to work using that same technique on my cards! 

Here are a couple of first tries...

I used the glue dot mini's on this one...

 ...and the regular size glue dots on this flower.  The flower and leaf are cuts from the Cricut Artiste Cartridge.  That pretty flower is a stamp from the Hello Blooms My Acrylics.   The sentiment is on Card Chatter Sympathy.

Totally worth the experiment!  I really like the way this looks, and it was not hard at all!  Give it a try!  :)  If you like the stamp sets I used, they are available in my Close to My Heart Shop.  Just click the links to take you there!  :)

Close to My Heart and Verve Come Together

Alright, I confess, I use other products and stamps besides Close to My Heart.  ;)  Just like any other papercrafter, I have several favorite lines of papers and embellishments.  I have recently discovered other lines of stamps that I also like.  I love religious themed stamps and while we carry several options, I have found others that I also love from Verve.  I recently received a set that came in perfect time to send a card to uplift my friend.  It just so happened that I had a stamp from CTMH to add to the card and bring the two together.

This sentiment and sailboat are from the Learning to Sail Stamp set from Verve.  I love the font style and the saying equally.  I had also just received a new embossing folder from Lifestyle Crafts called Tide.  I love the rolling waves that were revealed when I sanded away the Lagoon Cardstock. 

These clouds are cuts found on the Cricut Artiste Cartridge.  They are floating in front of a beautiful sunshine from the Close to My Heart Just Chillin' My Acrylix Stamp Set.  I stamped it in my color of choice these days, Buttercup, and then rolled the edges of the stamp in Creme Brulee to make the ends of the rays a bit darker.  To add some shine (and sparkle) I used my Gelly Roll Stardust pen.  I absolutely LOVE how this pen only adds sparkle without color.  I highly recommend it!  In fact, it almost ran out on me this time, so I need to get another!  ;)

Anyhow, I am really happy with how this one turned out by combining the two stamp sets.  Take it from me...don't limit your creativity by brand--find and use what you like and you will love the results.  :)

Spring Ahead for Alison McGuire! :)

Hello my crafty friends!  I am posting today on behalf of a fellow consultant, Alison McGuire, so that she can enter the Heart 2 Heart Spring Forward Challenge for March.  I loved it when I first laid eyes on it, and since I am guest designing this month for H2H and knew about the challenge, I suggested she enter it!  This is her first entry, and since she doesn't have a blog, I offered to post it up and link it for her.  :)

Be sure to leave her some blog love!  Here is Alison's card from the front...

From the side this beautiful card takes on a whole new dimension!

Alison writes:

"I used the Chantilly B&T papers, Artiste Cricut Cartridge, and the SOTMs for April ("My Sunshine") and June ("A Flowering Bunch").

The card base is made with a 5 x 12 piece of Pear cardstock, scored at 1", 2", 4", 6", and 9". 

The clock stamp comes from "Key Moments," a retired stamp set.  This card will fit into a standard size A2 envelope.  I love the sun, balloons and flowers of these stamp sets, clocks are my thing, and the Chantilly Paper Packet has got to be my number one favorite from CTMH!"

I really love how this card came together.  I am inspired to try one like this too!  Remember to leave Alison some blog love here for her to read!  Thank you!  :)

H2H Goes Green for March Madness!

Is it really Monday already???  Time sure flies when you are having a fabulous time, and that is true for me right now guest designing on Heart 2 Heart.  I am having a blast!  Oh, and there is that little matter of the hour of sleep I lost yesterday... :)

This new challenge for March is called Go Green!  Hmmmm...what do you think that means?  ;)  I'm an Irish girl at heart and it is certainly in my blood, so I knew which direction to go with this challenge right away.  I made a little gift set that includes a little girl's headband with a matching gift bag.

When I first got my hands on the new Chantilly Textiles, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them since I absolutely don't sew!  I figured out an easy way to make a flower with it using Close to My Heart's Liquid Glass to hold it together.  You can see the video tutorial I made HERE.  This particular flower is a bit bigger than the others I had made, and I embellished it with three fun four leaf clovers stamped in Topiary and Sweet Leaf Inks on White Daisy Cardstock.  I found this little stamp (and the word "lucky" on the tag) on the retired March Word Puzzle My Acrylix.  I also placed a retired sparkle brad in the center. 

I happened to have a plain green elastic headband sitting around that my girlies don't use, so attached it easily by using another circle of cardstock underneath it and my trusty liquid glass.  Let me tell you, my little model was more than happy to try it on and show it off.  Getting it off of her though, was another story!  ;)

A few green Sparkles add just the right amount of bling!

On to the gift bag!  I immediately reached for the fabulously versatile Chantilly Paper Packet for this one.  The cut for this bag is on the Close to My Heart Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge.  I cut it at the biggest size it would allow which escapes me now...

I haven't been stamping with Close to My Heart for long enough to have a collection of St. Patty's day stuff, hey wait a minute, what day is it???  March 11th???  Oh my goodness, today is my FIRST ANNIVERSARY with Close to My Heart!!!!  I signed up one year ago today with my upline, Mandy Leahy!!!  Do you know what I told her?  *whispers* That I was only going to be a hobbyist!!!!  Well, we both know how that turned out, lol!!!  In a few short months I had held my first open house, booked my first gathering, and met my Straight to the Top goals!  Now I mostly have card and scrapbook workshops as my business, but I am working it every day right here on my blog!  I LOVE MY JOB!!!!  Ok, sorry about that little tangent!  Where were we?   The gift bag...

I decided to use some of the cute little tags on the Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge that have an adorable little shamrock cut out on them.  Then I just used the shamrock part of the cut, lol!  I shimmered the Pear Cardstock up a bit with my Glitter Glitz in green.  I made a lucky little tic-tac-toe game on the front with my Slate Polka-dot Washi tape.  Guess the O's lost...

My paper crimper that my sis got me for Christmas sure came in handy to fill the bag!  :)  AND I did use one of those left over shamrock tags for the gift tag.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this golden glitter paper!  

I hope you liked my little gift set.  It is definitely a more out-of-the-box project for me, but I am certainly glad I tried it!  Now, I either need to make a few more, or figure out which little girl gets to wear it on St. Patrick's Day!  Yikes!  ;)

Please join in at Heart 2 Heart this month by making something green with your own Close to My Heart supplies (mostly.)  Link your project up at the Heart 2 Heart Challenges Blog and play along with us during March Madness...you just might get lucky yourself this month and win a prize!  Read more about it here!

Moxie Fab Word Bubbles

I happened to stumble upon a new challenge this month at Moxie Fab World--a blog hosted by Paper Crafts Magazine.  To enter, you simply need to make a card using a new trend--word bubbles.  Lucky for me, Close to My Heart does a fabulous job of trendsetting and has already came out with an awesome set with word bubble stamps AND the cuts to go with it!  You can get this awesome set with the Cricut Artiste Collection!

While I was making my Mojo Monday card, I simply swapped out one of the elements for a word bubble!  It was perfect!  In fact, I was not sure which one I was going to use for Mojo Monday!

I love all the dimensions in this card that I created with my foam tape.

This is only one of the SIX word bubble stamps found in the Artiste Collection My Acrylix sets.  The coordinating shape can be cut out on your Cricut Machine with the  included Artiste Cartridge!  Love how easy this makes it.  :)  To celebrate National  Scrapbook Month, I am offering the Artiste Collection with FREE SHIPPING!!!  Just click on THIS LINK to order! 

This beautiful flower can also be found on Artiste, along with a total of 700 images!  This is definitely one of my go-to Cricut Cartridges.  To see how I inked this flower and made the leaves out of ribbon, see my Mojo Monday Post.

Do you have an idea for a card using a word bubble?  Link up to the Moxie Fab Challenge by the end of March and play along!  :)