Throwback Thursday: Meet Me in St. Louie

I am absolutely stunned that it has been almost a year since I traveled to St. Louis for the Close to My Heart Regional Celebration.  The memories are still so fresh, and it really hammered home how amazing it is to represent this fantastic company.  Maybe it is because of all the fabulous new friendships I made during the trip?  :)  What better way to celebrate, than to finally finish one of the projects we got to take part in?  Sure wish I had planned it that way!  ;)

Remember that I promised to show you some cards that mix and match patterns from different paper packets?  Cards 2 and 4 below do just that!  Here are the four cards that feature the retired Close to My Heart papers from Avonlea, Flirty, Dakota, and Scholastic.  They all use images from the Casual Expressions My Acylix and the wonderful Burlap Ribbon.

Clementine Paper Packet

Scholastic and Dakota Paper Packets

Flirty Paper Packet

Avonlea and Dakota Paper Packet

So, tell me, do YOU like to stay current with all the new products and ideas from Close to My Heart?  Do you like to be the first to get your hands on newly released items, like our amazing Cricut cartridges?  Would YOU like to travel to a Regional Celebration or even CONVENTION in Disneyland next summer?

Guess what I am doing today?  As a consultant, I am pre-ordering the FABULOUS new products in our soon to be released Holiday Gift Guide!!!!  Guess what else?  I am getting them at a discount!!!  You can do the same thing when you join my team!  Do you need to rediscover YOUR creative side?  That is just what happened to me when I signed up to be a hobbyist a year and a half ago!  Little did I know how my business would grow in the months to come!  ;)  Click HERE to find out more about joining Team Been There, Blinged That, and invest in YOURSELF. 

Aaaaaand CUT! That's A Wrap!

This entire journey to St. Louis and back has been such a whirlwind!  It is literally a week later and this is my last post, so it kind of brings the whole incredible journey to an end.  *sniff*

I do have some amazing pics of artwork from corporate to share, and I saved them for the grande finale!  I want to make so many of them!!!  Actually, you may see some of them in the new "Clearly the Best" video series being released.  Here we go!

First up are a few of the Operation Smile Silent Auction items.  I believe we raised over $800 with all of the auctions.  Way to go, St. Louis!

This fabulous memo board had magnet, cork, and chalkboard sections and came with little magnets and push-pins that were customized to match!  Amazing!

This is a dry erase board created by using a simple picture frame and dry erase markers--had no idea you could do that!

Now this one was simply too adorable--a nightlight decorated with Stella paper and our new ribbon!  How cute is that!?

A beautiful Bracket Frame in Avonlea.

Gorgeous flower on this My Creations Cube!

Alright--now I found two pictures that had disappeared when I typed up my earlier posts--well, they won the game of hide and seek earlier, but I found them!  The first one is the ONE picture I took of  the colored cards for the contest.  I think it is beautiful!

The next one is my very first project we did--a very simple card that we got to try out the new pigment inks with.  I found out quickly that I needed to be more liberal with the ink, lol.

The following pics are projects they talked about and showed some techniques to us on how to do certain parts.  I would literally be typing forever to explain it all, so if you really like something and have a question about how they did that (hee, hee) then ask away and I will help if I can!  ;)

Whew!  Thanks so very much for staying with me on my journey to St. Louis and back!  I hope you learned something from our adventure together!  Here are just a few parting pics as we close.  :)

Thank you for making my trip super-spectacular, roomies!  :)
 

Cannot wait to do it again sometime!  :)

Crafting Away Again in St. Louis

Ok, so it was my first time being at a CTMH Regional Celebration in St. Louis, I just wanted to say "again" like Jimmy Buffet.  ;)

Today I would like to share some of the fabulous projects we got to work on while in our creative sessions.  The first is a wonderful little tribute to someone I rarely scrapbook about--myself!  They took all of our pictures individually when we arrived and Monica gave us a one-page layout assignment to complete.  Here's mine all finished!

Love the burlap ribbon with Clementine paper...

The Love Blooms My Acrylix Stamp Set was beautiful for this.  I used a combination of Saddle, Creme Brulee, and Goldrush Dye Ink pads and also the New England Ivy Pigment Ink Pad Mini.

Over the two days we were also able to work on two different two-page layouts.  This one is using the papers from the Scholastic Paper Packet.  I was fortunate enough to complete a lot of this one during our session since the pictures I brought were compatible.

LOVE how they used this Perfect Fit Frame My Acrylix Stamp and the twine together for this embellishment.
 

Here we used some strips of Colonial White Cardstock to make faux tape--awesome effect!  You just tear it to the desired length, mash/bash/crumple, and then used the saddle ink to bring out the creases and lines...super idea!  Ended up looking just like old, yellowed tape.  Almost enough to make a veteran scrapbooker's heart skip a beat though--TAPE???  WHO would use TAPE in a scrapbook???  ;)

I really loved the way the foam tape popped the picture up from the mat.

This next layout I did not get nearly as lucky with.  I totally LOVED it, but my pictures were from my honeymoon, and as much as I love him, my hubby did not fit the "cute as a button" theme, lol!  Muscles and buttons just do not belong on the same page IMO.  ;)  I created the layout using the mats instead of photos.  I will find some cutie pie pics of my girlies to fill them with. (These Clementine colors were really hard to edit, so I apologize in advance for the awful pics!)

The Clementine Papers and Cottage Buttons are so adorable.  Adding the greenery is a wonderful touch. 
 

Are you a scrapper who prefers to keep your pages mostly papers?  Well, Buttons, Bits, and Bobs My Acrylix Stamp Set created these adorable faux buttons without the bulk!   So cute!  The Artiste Cartridge can cut many of them out as well, so put those scissors away.  ;)

Another fabulous part of this layout is the addition of the Irresistibles Houndstooth Alphabet.  I used the Sorbet Ink to add the color.  Easy-peasy and fully customizable to any color ink you have!

There were two other projects we worked on while in creative sessions.  One was a set of cards that used many of our papers together that were brilliant!  Another was the bracket frame with the Avonlea papers.  I did not get either one accomplished, however, so I took them all home to finish sometime.  I will post them up when (and IF)that happens, lol.  Here I am concentrating hard on folding the rosettes for the Avonlea project:

That was all I finished of it! 

I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and well you get the picture.  Just one more post about St. Louis will wrap this baby up, though.  Actually, that is a good thing because my baby is having a birthday and I have WORK to do!  ;)

My First Regional Celebration!

I am super-excited to begin sharing the ooooodles of information that I was able to get my crafty little hands on in St. Louis at my FIRST EVER Close to My Heart Regional Event.  First, however, I have to share the heart of my adventure--the wonderful consultants that I was able to meet!

Here I am in the middle of two of my former Facebook friends.  I say former, because now they are also REAL friends!   I had an amazing time getting to know these beautiful women in the short amount of time we had together.  Shelly is in the pink and a consultant in Minnesota.  Dana is one of my Damask Diva teammates and a consultant in Iowa.   Here we are on Saturday on a break from classes.  I was lucky enough to get to room with each of these gals, and as a result stayed up far toooo late chatting into the dark, lol!  Thank you, Dana and Shelly for making my first Regional a memorable one!  From lost room keys, to getting stuck in rush hour traffic on our way a few blocks to dinner.  From wandering the streets of the Taste of St. Louis, to finding just the right magnet to bring home to my fridge, I will certainly cherish the time we spent together giggling and creating.  Just be careful in those parking garages, and watch out for the round cement columns!  Oh, yes--and never, EVER take your waiter's picture!!!  ;)

Next up in my Regional Celebration series:  Roomie Gifts!  Tune in tomorrow for more!