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. 

A Scrapbook Layout for Color Dare #43

I have fallen a bit behind in my goal this year to make a layout a week.  I think I have completed four, so don't bother with the math.  ;)  I decided to put my Color Dare Design Team duties to work for me this week by completing a layout towards my goal...um, yeah, lol.

Our colors for Color My Heart's Color Dare #43 are Cranberry, Honey, and Outdoor Denim.  Totally Tommy!  I headed for my craft room to see what pics I had next in my stache...um, I mean stash!  No Mustaches in this post, lol!  ;)

I love the way this one turned out, even though *gasp* there is no bling!  It just didn't fit with the layout theme, lol.  But I love it anyway.  :)  I do know the pic is a bit large, but it was way to small at another size, so I went with this...

One of the stars of my layout besides the challenge colors, are the Milepost Shapes corrugated cardboard embellishments.  They are ON SALE right now on my website!  ONLY $1 nets you 48 shapes like the ones I used!  I also used the Scholastic and Tommy Paper Packets.  I had a lot of fun with this journal box.  I layered some vellum over the B&T paper from Tommy and used my Crop-O-Dile to chomp some holes down the side to run the Cranberry Baker's Twine through.  I just don't like the way adhesive shows through vellum, so this was a nifty solution!

I sprinkled images from another of the Tommy B&T papers all over the layout.  There are many different ones to chose from, and I cut them each by hand with my Micro-Trim Scissors.  The little wooden arrows are form the Color-Ready Trinkets Wooden Shapes.

Love the faux Washi on the B&T Duos in Scholastic!  I trimmed this one out and roughed it up to add to the pic.

The Keyboard Kraft Alphabet is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.  There are so many letters included that I might never run out! 

I hope my layout has inspired you to try this color combo!  Did you happen to notice that they are the primary colors?  ;)  

I wonder if you also notice what I left OUT of this layout?  Any guesses?  If you are the first person to guess correctly in the comments, follow my blog, and follow me on FB (link is at the top right,) then you will win your very own pack of Milepost Shapes!  You must have a mailing address in the US to win, please.  Join in the fun and tell me what I left OUT of this layout!  :)

Then, it is your turn!  Use your Close to My Heart Colors Cranberry, Honey, and Outdoor Denim or some similar substitutes to craft up a project of your own to link up with the challenge this week!  Remember to stick to the color combo for the challenge only adding your choice of NEUTRALS!  You can read up on the rules HERE in the sidebar before you start!  :)  Happy Crafting!

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!  ;)