Monday, October 31, 2011

November SOTM Blog Hop!

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring November's SOTM, which is Cherish The Day, a set of 44 stamps! If you have come here from BRAE'S BLOG, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way all around. If you get lost along the way, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants here.

This month we have almost 60 Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using this month's SOTM and other great CTMH products on their blogs. This is simple to do - just click on the link at the end of the post on each blog to move to the next one! Here we go!

This month I made a crafty picture frame for my friend and downline Bao, who just welcomed beautiful baby boy Joseph to her family! I used the October image stamped on tickets cut with my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to create the big flower in the lower frame corner. I rolled the image in Sweet Leaf and Vineyard Berry inks, then pulled each ticket over the handle of my piercing tool to make the "petals curve". The paper is retired (Wings), but I have a not-so-secret stash since I just LOVE butterflies! I painted the frame with White acrylic paint, and stamped directly onto the painted surface with my CTMH inks for the swirls and title. Final touches included a few Just Blooms Flutter paper butterflies, Bling collection buttons, and Stardust Glitter Glitz. Now I have something fun and hand-made  to bring when I get to meet Baby Joseph!

Now "Hop" on over to DAWN'S BLOG to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great crafting ideas and other fun ideas! Remember, this SOTM is only available until the end of November! Contact your CTMH Consultant (or click here) to see how you can get this stamp set for just $5!

Here are some other projects I have made using this awesome Stamp of the Month...

Upcoming Holiday Gift Calendar Workshop
4th of July Scrapbook Wall Hanging
Set of 12 SOTM Cards

Stamp A Stack Preview!

One of my most popular workshops each year is Stamp A Stack, which this year will be a part of the Black Friday Holiday Hoopla! There are 4 designs this year, and you can make as many of each design as you need to fill your Christmas card list with beautiful handmade cards...for just $1 per card!

Stamp a little, or a lot - the choice is yours! Plus Earn FREE Glitter Glitz gel for each 25 cards ordered!

Option #1: Button Ornaments!

Price of $1 per card includes Red/White/Green button assortments. Upgrade to Bling buttons available.



Option #2: Wonderland Wonder!


Price of $1 per card includes White Daisy diecut snowflakes.
Sample shows optional Glitter Glitz Upgrade.








Option #3: Paper Ornament!


Price of $1 per card includes diecut plaid/bright stripes Ornament.
Sample shows optional Glitter Glitz Upgrade.








Option #4: Photo Card!


Price of $1 per card includes Sparkles. Photo Mat is reversible, with choice of Bright Stripes (as pictured) or Red Plaid.
Sample shows optional Glitter Glitz Upgrade.
Add your Holiday Photo sized at 3x3 up to 3 3/4 x 4.
Note: You can get precut 3x3's at Scrapbook Pictures for 15 cents each or Photo edit two pictures onto one 4x6 and print at Costco to get 2 for the price of 1!

Can't attend Black Friday Holiday Hoopla? Order Stamp A Stack To-Go Kits, which will come prestamped with Sentiment (unless otherwise requested). The price remains $1 per card, for any number of cards! To-Go Kits can also be shipped for $5 S/H.

The rest of the Black Friday Projects and full pricing will be posted by Wednesday. RSVP deadline is November 11th! Check back November 1st for an awesome November SOTM Blog hop!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

H2H Challege + More Swap Sneak Peek

After a fun time at the pumpkin patch today, we came home and I had a nap with Not-So-Baby Max instead of getting up to my room to photograph and post these cards - totally worth it! In any case, Last night I did these two cards, both for my Swap due on November 2nd. 3 down, 1 to go!

The first one is based off the Sketch Challenge from Heart 2 Heart from back at the beginning of October. I used on of the beautiful new Top Coats Icings Overlays for the shiny foil accented borders in the background. I used one of the 4x6 photo overlays, trimmed off the borders, and layered those as ribbons. I find it super helpful to use my Rub & Remove Eraser to help peel off the non-scratch shipping coating from the acrylic image.I stamped and paper pieced the coffee mug using the Stamp set that comes in our upcoming December Club kit called Wonderland. The sentiment is stamped on an oval frame (cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge). Then I accented everything with Stardust glitter glitz! There's a lot of sanding on the Chocolate Cardstock background - I love the super heavy grit on our adorable little sanding block. You just lay that awesome White Core CTMH cardstock on your scratch paper and sand away for that rough crosshatch texture.

The second card for tonight is also for the swap, and uses that same Wonderland paper and stamp set from our upcoming club kit. I paper pieced the mittens in Chocolate and Twilight by stamping the mittens once in each color. Then I trimmed off stripes of the Twilight color and mounted them onto the Chocolate colored image. I filled them in with Stardust (on the blue) and Bronze (on the chocolate) glitter Glitz Gel. Then I triple stamped the Polka Dot Border in twilight and accented with a teeny tiny organdy wrap and bow. Simple and sweet!

Tomorrow my Black Friday peeks continue. Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Sneak Peek #1: Black Friday Stampaganza!

OK - I'm not completely ready to share everything yet, but here's a sneak peek of ONE of the projects for the upcoming Black Friday Stampaganza! If you're new to Stamping Rules, every year I host a day of workshops on Black Friday. Instead of fighting the crowds, we stamp. Instead of buying more stuff, we craft gifts. And if you arrive with a bag of 4 a.m. bargains from Joanns/Target/Freddy's...we don't judge. We just offer snacks and coffee...and show you what we've been working on!
This year's line up of workshops is going to be fab! Here's your first peek: a beautiful Sonoma photo calendar! I like to do photo calendars for gifts for the grandparents each Christmas, and this one is so pretty. My friend Ginni designed this, and I was so excited to cross one item off my huge to do list - and I'm pleased as punch to have such a cute calendar decorating my studio now! It holds a picture for each month, plus an adorable stamped double calendar card, so you can see the current month and the next month's dates on each page!

This fabulous gift is just $15 per kit or you can get your kits for $10 each when you earn your SOTM for November for just $5! Attend Black Friday to assemble, or order your To Go kits pre-cut/stamped and ready to assemble at home. Now who's ready for the holidays?

See ya back here tomorrow for more Sneak Peeks!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Heart 2 Heart Challenge - scrapbooking!

A project I've been planning for a very, very long time is a display of 10 x 10 scrapbook pages as a focal point in my living room. Of course, now that we've bought a house, it's a lot more motivating to work on this project. I've got a few layouts done, and the frames are all purchased - just gotta fill them! I want a wedding page, and one for each boy's birth memorabilia, and I did one for the CTMH cruise in '05. This month I added one of the pics of the three boys from this July, wearing their 4th of July T-shirts.

The focus of the H2H challenge was journaling, something that I really love about scrapbooking. You think you'll remember everything, but life goes so fast that soon people's names are forgotten, and funny details escape you. For these pics I was not around. Daddy took Gramma Debby and Poppa with the three boys to have the pics done. I had gotten these adorable blue and orange coordinating outfits, so those were carefully toted to the photo shoot, since John knew if he dressed them ahead of time they were sure to get dirty. Plus when herding them someplace busy we like to dress them similarly in case one gets lost. "Do you know what your child was wearing?" "He looks just like this one!"

But somehow, the boys never made it from their kickin' around red fourth of July tees into the cute photo shoot clothes. Outfit change forgotten, they got their smiles on in one of their favorite shirts of the summer. So in the end, all is good - we probably have a billion casual shots of them running around in these $5 shirts. But none of them are as cute as these smiles, or clearly capture Max's constant bruise-on-the-forehead condition from summer 2011 (because he could NOT grasp the concept that he's smaller than his brothers, so he got into a lot of scrapes).

Can you see the row of tickets cut on my Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge and stamped with the November SOTM? then I pulled the same Cricut image in a Decorative layer to make my big Journal ticket at the top. The background scallop base and the scallop border are also AP cartridge - told ya I've been addicted lately! Now I just need to put it in the frame and bug John to start hanging my gallery downstairs!

I'm linking this post to the awesome Paper Issues Picnics and Patriots party!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fall Wreath Blog Candy!

Tonight, in between working on swap cards (posting soon) and watching "Walking Dead" online, I made a wreath for the front door! I have a beautiful Christmas one made for my by a sweet friend, Diana Yockey, but since we were renting before we didn't often decorate for the holidays. Now we're moved in, mostly unpacked (at least if you don't peek in the garage), and a wreath seems appropriate. Since the new challenge at Heart 2 Heart was to make something Halloween or Fall themed, and the Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab was so pretty, I combined the two ideas and created this wreath. Read all the way through to find out how you can win the Just Blooms leaves I used to create this wreath!

I used a big roll of Ponderosa Pine Organdy Ribbon to wrap the wreath form. Then I pinned and glued the Just Blooms leaves on the wreath (that was the watching AMC online part, lol). These leaves are retired now, but I want to make another of these for Spring using the new Just Blooms BUTTERFLIES!

Then I added a row of the big Vineyard Berry maple leaves with the new Cork Alphabet letters attached. then I made a triple layered bow using lots of green and orange (retired) ribbons and now we're ready to hang!

The Tuesday Trigger image is this neat collage of autumn colored wooden blocks. I liked the different heights of the wood blocks, which is what made me remember my stash of paper leaves tucked in the bottom of my paper flower drawer. They are precolored, accept more inks, and embossed with line detail...and unfortunately, retired. However, I still have one full tube of them left - and they can be yours! Just sign up to follow my blog via email on the side column and comment below to let me know you did (or that you already are!) to be entered into the drawing!

I will draw on October 31st and contact you for mailing info. Thanks a bunch for visiting, and see you back here tomorrow for more project fun!

Mojo 212 & Swap Sneak Peek!

I've got a lot of crafty pots boiling right now, and one is a regular swap group run by a wonderful fellow consultant, Tina Lovell. When I saw the Mojo Sketch 212 tonight, I knew that it was perfect for one of the cards I owe Tina. In the next week or so. Chop chop!  So tonight after my team departed (Thanks, girls!), I started working on the sketch.

I used the Roxie Paper Packet -so girlie! I don't get a lot of girlie in my all boy household, so pink is always good for me. I wish the detail in that pink B&T came through - there are faint white roses sketched through out. So pretty...so I distressed it with Black ink, of course!

I rough sanded the Desert Sand base to continue to  tone down the girlie factor. I added a sweet branch and 3-D flowers cut on my Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge, plus a tag with an adorable little heart cutout detail. I backed the heart with a bit of the plaid from Roxie.

The bottom scallop border is a piece of the Zip Strip you trim from along the top of the B&T papers. I love that there's no waste! A sprinkle of Sparkles and a swoosh of hemp finish off the embellishments. That is our CTMH hemp too - I just unraveled it into multiple strands, then grouped them in a wider band of fiber goodness. Now it's (way past) time for bed!

See ya back here tomorrow for even more projects!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Monday Motivations - 12 November SOTM cards!

So I sat down Friday night to stamp up a quick card for my team meeting tonight. I had already done a couple of projects with this adorable calendar-y stamp set (still coming up this week!), but I had yet to make a card with it. I stared at the stamp set. I turned it upside down. I had some more tea. I still couldn't decide how to use it. I worked on my Christmas tree (coming later this week!). I rolled roses for my bathroom wreath (coming later as well!) I just couldn't get going...and why? It's so cute! Then, finally, the ten o'clock inspiration hit. Something about burning the midnight oil that gets my stamping juices going I guess. Once I got going, I couldn't stop. TWELVE cards later, I finally put that stamp set to bed.

I did a series of cards, one for each month of the year using the November SOTM and the cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, plus some of the textures from that adorable little stamp set from the Elemental Scrapbook WOTG kit we just did. I love the stitch stamp in that set! All the cards are similar, but unique. Some are holiday themed, some are more general, so you could whip up the August cupcake card for any month of the year that you need a birthday card for example, just sub in the month for the birthday you need to celebrate! Each one is embellished with a little 1" Cricut image, often layered and stamped with textures. The only embellishment is Glitter Glitz Gel. My favorites include the butterfly on April's card (made with 3 layers of butterfly to give the wings spring and action), May's 3-D teensy tiny 3D flowers, and the super fast and adorable Christmas card, which is also the one that my team will be making tonight!

Here's a slideshow of all the cards - enjoy!

This post is shared on the H2H Challenges site: It's All in the Numbers Challenge





Sunday, October 23, 2011

Card Patterns 138 - October SOTM!

Hello there, Stampin' Friends! I can't believe that October is almost over! I've been stamping a lot lately, but I've had ADD of the stamping project or something...ten projects spread across my room in various stages of almost done and then I'd move onto something else. So I'm gonna try to post something every day this week and share what I've finally been finishing!

Tonight, I just have a quick card I whipped out today when I was cleaning up my creative mess so my team can come to play at Monday Motivations tomorrow night. I got the sketch for this card from the Card Patterns blog - love their sketches! So many cute ideas too. Check out the sketch and, if you play along too, leave a comment here so I can go peek at YOUR stamping goodness!

I have been addicted to my Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge this month (as you'll see in my projects this week), and there's barely a lick of stamping on this card. I cut the stocking and the White stocking accents, the scalloped bottom piece and the sentiment mat with my AP cartridge. The paper is from the Believe Paper packet - how cute is that star/polka dot sky blue paper? I added Stardust Glitter Glitz gel to the Stocking accents and the stripes of the stocking bodies. I tried them onto the card with Waxy flax and 3-D Foam tape, and polished off the sentiment with some Red Sparkles. See ya back here tomorrow for TWELVE more cards!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Goodie for my team!

Boy, I am stamping late tonight! I've got all kinds of holiday goodies to post soon, but tonight, after club, I wanted to whip out a little goodie for my team members who will be attending a big day long training with me tomorrow hosted by my awesome upline Ginni! I love these stamp camp team meetings - you get to stamp all day, learn about my favorite thing (CTMH in case you can't tell!), and I get to spend the day with my team - what could be better?

As it's very late, I decided to keep it simple. I used the new Love Life stamp set combined with Card Chatter-Thank You. I stamped the big flourish in Grey Flannel Ink. Then I added the big stars inked in Moonstruck ink, stamped off on scrap paper, and re-inked in Moonstruck by rolling the tips in the pad. A small second generation Moonstruck star plus bitty Grey Wool stars completed my corner stamp embellishment. I accents with dots of Silver Glitter Glitz - stars should shine!

I embossed a gutter for the sentiment across the top, something I saw on Lisa Johnson's beautiful blog. I think the subtle embossed lines really set off the sentiment and look so elegant! Then I added the sentiment stamped in Moonstruck and Grey Wool. I love how Card Chatter gives you so many options to finish off the Thank You sentiment!

Off for a bit of sleep before the big event tomorrow. Good night, Stampin' Friends!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Typeset Club Pages!

Here are our pages for November's Monthly Memories Club in the new Typeset papers! These were a lot of fun to design, using a bunch of fun Cricut Art Philosophy shapes (different from what we're doing with Elemental in October) and experimenting with Pearl Paint in our embellishing. As you've seen from my recent card, total Pearl Paint addict now!

Not a club member? Join us! We meet the first Friday of each month, and you can join up until the 15th of the previous month. Kits start at just $15, and can be mailed if you're a long distance fan. I make complete color instructions with cutting guides for all six pages, club only prize drawings, and (if you attend in person) you get dinner and a crop! It's the best deal in scrapbooking, and loads of fun too!

Page 1/2: One Fine Day


Page 3/4: Brave & Bold (although you can title it as you wish, of course)

Page 5/6: You are UNIQUE (& I like you)


Club sign ups are open now through October 15th for November's Typeset pages!

Elemental Club Pages!

Here they are - October pages, finally! Typeset/November is coming up in a sec, and club bring list will be out momentarily! I loved working with these papers - the patterns are so versatile and neutral! The first 4 pages are (slightly modified) CTMH designs, and I did page 5/6 of course. Lots of Cricut Art Philosophy on these, including those gorgeous new 3-D flowers! See ya Friday!

Page 1/2 Celebrate Life's Every Day Moments


Page 3/4: Celebrate Love


Page 5/6: Hip Hip Hooray

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Liebster Blogs to share!

I love working on my blog, and I always wish I had more time to devote to it. I love reading your comments, and it makes my day when you like something I've made as much as I do! So you can imagine how tickled I was when Lisa from Lisa's Loft left me a little surprise in her comment - a Liebster Award! Her blog has some super cute projects on it, too! (Check out this gorgeous Garden Journal!)


Liebster is German for "beloved" or "favorite." The creator of this award wishes for it to be bestowed to five worthy people whose blogs have fewer than 200 followers--as a way to acknowledge creativity while promoting an increase in blog traffic. The rules of acceptance are as follows:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun!

So after much searching through so many deserving blogs, here's my top five. Whoooo buddy... was it hard to choose! In no particular order....
 
1. heatherjanedesign.blogspot.com :  Heather Jane's projects make me run for the Pinning button. Be sure to peek at the  I Daddy frame - it'll be case-ed for my hubby soon. Good thing he doesn't read my blog!
 
2. paperheartist.com Tamytha takes amazing photos of her lovely artwork, so her tutorials are awesome.
 
3. creativelycreating.blogspot.com  Hello - Tiffany Cheney always puts up the awesome artwork. How can her blog not have 200 followers? And it's got adorable crafts other than CTMH/stamping on it too - how does she find the time? Go there and marvel with me!
 
4. mprantner.blogspot.com Miriam is a new consultant, but her blog is nicely done with lots of cute projects. Look for the fish card - it'll make you smile!
 
5. kponte.blogspot.com  Kristine has some seriously cool scrapbook sketch LOs on her blog, and the photography is awesome, with nice detailed closeups of the embellies. Blog candy indeed!
 
Thanks to Lisa for choosing me, and I hope you'll all go peek at these adorably deserving blogs!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Heart 2 Heart Challenges (plus a Card Pattern)!

Ok, so nothing like sneaking in under the wire...I believe I have until 10 p.m. tonight to finish up my challenges for last month, lol. I can't believe I was so sick - It felt really good to stamp the night away tonight. What a bunch of fun challenges I almost missed! I love the Heart 2 Heart Challenges - and the artwork is fab, so go check it out!

The first Challenge for the month was a color challenge, using a fab color combo of Sorbet, Pear, and Cocoa. Since I've got Christmas on my mind, I made a snowflake card using one of my favorite sets, Snow Flurries. It might not be new, but it's just so pretty! I made a similar card to this for swapping at convention this year - that border is hand pieced with tiny strips of Sorbet Cardstock, then sanded and cut with scalloped scissors and hand punched for the border. Insane? Maybe, but it's awesome! And there's something zen about the process of making it, too. I embellished with a bit of Mocha Opaque Pearls, Bitty Sparkles, and you can't so much tell, but the cut out snowflakes were swiped with Pearl Paint, which was apparently my go to tool tonight!


The next Challenge was also a color challenge - to use your favorite color combo! It's like trying to choose your favorite child...how can you do it? So since I've got snow on the brain, I went with my favorite snowflake color combo: Moonstruck, Pansy Purple, and Crystal Blue. Ahhh, Snow! I used Snow Flurries again and stamped the big flourishes alternating down the card front with Crystal Blue Ink. Then I came back with the smaller Snowflakes and stamped them in multiple generations (Meaning 2 or 3 times for each inking) in Moonstruck. Then I sponged Pansy Purple ink all around through my flurry of snowflakes. I topped it all off with a good coat of Pearl Paint - it's pretty shiny in person.I punched that border with a Martha Stewart punch, and added 4 ribbons: a Moonstruck Grosgrain, and three matching fibers. Remember when we had fibers? Finally, I painted some retired CTMH Snowflakes I've been hoarding saving for way too long, painting them with Pearl Paint and adding Pearl Opaques to the snowflakes before adhering them with Liquid Glass and Foam Tape. The layout for the card I got from the Card Patterns Blog, Sketch 135. And my heart was happy...but there's more!

The next Challenge was to use cardstock only, at least three colors! I modified a card I just did with my team, using Desert Sand, Sweet Leaf, and Cranberry cardstocks. I created a "plaid" pattern at the top by dry embossing crossing lines into my Cranberry Cardstock using my paper trimmer and my embossing stylus. Ok - I was too lazy to go get my embossing stylus, so I used a mechanical pencil that had run out of lead. Whew! It feels good to tell the truth! Then I sanded those lines to bring out the white patterns and drew in so additional lines using my Cranberry marker for a casual country-feeling plaid. I stamped the Desert Sand CS with snowflakes and swiped it with a bit of my pal Pearl Paint. I did another of the emboss resist trees (See instructions on my previous post on the Die Cuts challenge), and popped it up with a big ol' sparkle on top. Popped on a Pearl Painted corrugated star and my country Christmas card was complete!

There was one more challenge to go - my favorite! The challenge was to use only a sentiment stamp in creating your card. I think that's such a fab idea! We have so much beautiful paper just hanging around, how bout some awesome, quick cards that we could just pop a sentiment onto and roll with it? Ok, I'm about to use the "P" word - I saw a similar layout for a card on Pinterest. So easy and simple - just a corner rounder to create the flower petals, and some scraps of paper from the new Believe paper pack and I was in business! Once I had rounded and inked all the flowers, I swiped everything with a coat of Pearl Paint - added just the right amount of shine to make this feel even more Holiday. I popped up the teeny-tiny "Celebrate" sentiment from the October SOTM to give it more presence, as I didn't want the sentiment to take over from the clean feeling of the card. Quick, Easy, 5 minute card - truly a reason to celebrate!

4 cards and  5 challenges in one night - not bad for a recovering sickie procrastinator! I think I earned the rest of the evening to go read my new book, A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin...Back tomorrow with scrap layouts for Friday night!

Alos linked to We Have Paper Issues Snow Day!

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