August SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to our Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!  We will be featuring August's SOTM, which is called A Chocolate Affair, a super sweet set of 16 yummy stamps.  If you have come here from JILL'S BLOG, you are on the right path! 

This month we have dozens of 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 sweet layout of my boys on a berry picking trip. We like to berry pick around here, but the season in Oregon is short, so when berries are in, that's our activity again and again. There were a ton of photos, so each of those little photos along the side opens up to show two more photos. Of course, I'm usually the berry picker, while my boys are really there for berry eating. I'm hoping as they get older that I'll actually have good berry pickers. For now I think they just love the freedom of being the the fields, in the sunshine, with sweet berries everywhere! 

I think that's why the quote from the Frosted Designs Quote Blog Hop struck such a chord with me, making me abandon my original hop project (and plans to clean in my stamp room) to whip up a new project! I did the quote/title with a combo of Kraft Alphabet stickers and the new Framework Alphabet. I did the background with an Artbooking overlay that I heavily sponged with Pearl Paint to create the textured background.

I just love these adorable strawberries from the SOTM. I inked the bottoms in ruby ink, then rolled the leaves in Topiary for the base layer. Then I cleaned my stamp and re-stamped it with White Daisy ink, heat embossed with White embossing powder. I cut that portion out and mounted it onto the colorful base, then added some Glitter Glitz for the sweet swirl. 

I created my layout using a sketch from Scrap Friends. I was inspired to choose soft and sweet strawberry colors from this week's Just Us Girls Photo Inspiration challenge. The papers I used are from the new Frosted collection, and that's the new Lagoon washi tape and Slate twist ties you spy there.

Now "Hop" on over to NIKKA'S BLOG to see what fabulous thing she's been crafting Be sure to visit all the Consultants Blogs to soak in the great crafting and SOTM ideas!

Remember, this SOTM will fly away at the end of August, and this month you can even get this delicious stamp set for FREE!  Contact your CTMH Consultant (or click here) to see how!

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

Friday Favorite Things Sundae Card

Chocolate Understands Card
Equal Opportunity Chocolate Love Card

Equal Opportunity Chocolate Love

This is the card my team made at out monthly meeting last night. I knew I wanted to do a smidgen of paper piecing, so I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple. I based the design on this sketch from Retro Sketches. I had made the cuppie stamped element but was holding up against background paper after background paper to no avail!  So I gratefully took a cue from the CAS on Sunday Kraft and Twine challenge, and made my background from Kraft CS stamped with my favorite In the Background chevron stamp in Desert Sand ink.

I inked the cuppies in Whisper Ink, the rolled just the bottom edge in a bit of Slate ink. Don't stamp it yet!! Then I rolled the top cake bit in Chocolate ink, carefully using the notched side of my pad to get the Chocolate ink just on the cake and not the cuppie liner...well, mostly. When avoiding multiple layers of paper piecing...be flexible, lol. Then I cleaned my stamp and inked it in Creme Brule to stamp the frosting. After piecing my cuppies together I dabbed a bit of Stardust glitter glitz over the frosting for sprinkles and topped my cherry with Red glitter glitz. I stamped the sentiment twice (Ruby and Chocolate inks) popped up the Chocolate word with foam tape, and topped everything off with a heart I hand cut from a snip of the new Red Shimmer Tape. I finished off my stamped panel with a line of pierced holes but left off the stitching - still a nice border, but way less time and effort!

I'm linking this project up to the Hybrid Chick's Card Caravan, where you'll find tons of cupcake inspiration! Meetcha back here soon for the SOTM Blog Hop - such yummy sweetness is in store for us!

Ten Things Premade Flowers

Today the Ten Things Team over at Practical Scrappers is exploring new ways to use premade flowers for our crafting enjoyment. I am sharing one of my favorite projects made using the new Base and Bling ring bases, an interchangeable ring! This first ring stacks a metal flower with a glitter button topped with a clear red acrylic flower. Cute, but the real magic is made with my secret weapon...velcro!

When I made the ring base I just applied a circle of the Base and Bling adhesive and topped it with a large velcro dot (which I buy in a big box from Staples). Then I adhered a ring of sequin trim from the new Black Mini MEedley to cover up the silver edge (and peek out from under my flowers!)

I attached velcro dots to the back of lots of different Acrylic flowers so I can change out the look of my scrappy personal embellishment any time I please!

If you're doing this project with a little helper, she'll be happy with one ring for all of 3.2 seconds...With five colors of Acrylic Bling flowers and two kinds of metals I figured this was a fun way to change out your ring coordinate with your current workshop project in a flash! 

The premade acrylic Bling flowers are the easiest to swap out, but I built this ribbon rose and hot glued it to a velcro dot as well!

A wardrobe of new flower rings done in minutes - velcro to the rescue! Now I hope you'll go check out what the rest of the team did with their premade flowers over at Practical Scrappers!

Life with Kids

Apparently going a month posting something every single day is now turning into two posts a day. July is almost over and there's too much fun stuff to share. Like Stasha's topic for Monday Listicles this week, which is ten photos about life with kids. 

I totally {heart} Instagram. My Instagram feed is a weird mix of photos of my kiddos, current art projects, gluten free food, and random Jamberry nail shots. They may not be the most perfect photos I've ever taken, but I absolutely love scrapping them, and the boys love flipping through my Printstagram prints. Now I've found Instaport so I can easily grab my feed photos and drop them into my photo files on my computer. Sweet!

10 Photos about Life with Kids in July

1. First day back after being gone for a week...my lap was 100% occupied, 100% of the time.

2. Papa got a new boat. He asked if I was getting pics. Apparently he meant of the BOAT,
not the Bat crew manning the laser cannons attacking Joker. Whoops!

3. Max loves to pose with statues of any kind. That's my boy!

4. While Ben loves babies...he's our little Elmira!

5. GF Coconut Milk Fudge bars...in the car...I deserved this clean up.

6. Mo Willems party! We totally {heart} Mo!

7. Keller Park...everyone in the fountain!

8. Baby Monkey piggie back rides. Don't click that You Tube link unless you're prepared
to hum Baby Monkey for the next eleventy billion hours.

9. Found about 8 of these forehead shots on my phone the other day. So I Instagram'd it...
and thankedmy lucky stars that he was taking pics of his forehead. Just sayin'.

10. Balloon Paddle Ball. One more reason that Pinterest is NOT a waste of time!

There ya have it...ten of my fave pics from the 100+ I sent to Instagram just in July. If you make one or have an Instagram, put your link here too - I'd love to cruise your kid photos and stalk your Instagram feed. 

Chocolate Understands

Today I'm sharing my swap card for my team meeting tonight. The August SOTM is an adorable set of chocolate yumminess paired with sweet, sassy sentiments. My design was inspired by this fab sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

I used an Artbooking overlay (just a couple more days until it's available!!) to sponge the hexagons onto my background with a sponge dauber and Cotton Candy ink. I stamped over those with a new arrow stamp set called One Way Borders. The chocolates were stamped using the Chocolate pigment ink square and topped with Stardust Glitter Glitz. 

This was going to be my SOTM Blog hop project, but then I got off on a tangent and instead of cleaning my room for the meeting tonight I, um, well, I built a shiny new project. hope you'll join me on the hop to see what captured my imagination!

Love U Card

I'm back to share one of my favorite ProPlayer cards today. I sued a variety of chipboard pieces fro,m the ProPlayer assortment, the new Signage Dimensional Elements, and the Irresistibles Hexagons to create my spray of hexagons. I topped it off with a Base and Bling word accent, some bitty sparkles and a Tiny Type Epoxy alphabet sticker to complete my "love u" sentiment". 

Some of the chipboard is stamped in Pacifica Ink. The Irresistibles were inked with a Sponge Dauber to bring out the adorable prints secretly embossed on the hexagons. All the chipboard pieces were detailed using a silver marker.

It's hard to tell from the main photo, but I actually used a craft knife to cut a window in my card for the largest hexagon with the bling cluster. 

I'm linking this card up to the Paper Issues WOW Chipboard Challenge. 

I heart U

Happy Saturday! Today I'm sharing this sweet card made with one of my favorite stamp set to be released on August 1, a new font called Framework Alphabet. I simply stamped each letter to fit inside my card design in black ink, except the I and U which were stamped in Ruby and colored in, and the O. I replaced the O with a piece of Base & Bling word accent and a heart hand-cut from the new Red Shimmer trim. 

At the bottom I built stripes from a Chevron Artbooking Overlay that I trimmed apart. I topped those with a washi tape ruffle that I made using the technique I first talked about in this Disney card post. Now I've discovered than instead of using actual rubber bands it's a lot easier to use a double length of the regular old sewing thread that I keep on my table top. I just cut it longer than the washi, sandwich it between two lengths of washi, and scrunch it up to look ruffly! It's still cute but way easier to manage than the rubber band technique.

I'm linking this card up to the Krafty Girls Anything Goes Challenge and the Unscripted Sketches Challenge #220. 

I know I've been pretty much doing one month long sneak peek, but I'm so excited to be participating in this hop coming up next week to celebrate the actual launch of the Fall catty. I hope you'll join us for all the fun! 

Friday Favorite Things

Welcome back to another week of Friday Favorite Things. Congrats to last weeks winner, Kelly J! This week I'm sharing a new card that I crafted using the Cardabilities Sketch #79. Today's project features the August SOTM, "A Chocolate Affair", which is awesome since chocolate is certainly one of my Favorite Things! I used my favorite new paper packet (Babycakes) and one of my favorite new accessories, the new Slate Twist Ties. I'm linking this card (that I made for Karen Morris's swap) to the Addicted to CAS Glitter Challenge and the Heart 2 Heart Ice Cream Challenge. Multi-tasking is sweet!

I paper pieced the sundae using Whisper Ink rolled in Slate for the initial stamping. Then I stamped the image again using the Bamboo and Chocolate pigment ink spots. I trimmed out my "vanilla" ice cream and the chocolate sauce, and layered each onto the gray base image. I patted on Stardust glitter glitz with my finger and topped off my sundae with a red sparkle cherry.

I accented my focal point with a Seam binding bow topped with a baker's twine bow and some curliques made from the twist ties. I like to roll those up using my quilling tool. I hand trimmed a heart from small pieces of the new Bronze shimmer tape to top off my sweet side bow confection. 

Ready to win? This week's Friday Favorite Things giveaway is a roll of the new Bronze Shimmer Tape! Use the Rafflecopter below to bring that sparkly sweetness home to you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Today is a good day for a Color Dare

This week I'm so excited to be a guest designer over at the Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge blog! The colors for this week are Gypsy, Blush, and Sorbet. I added my current favorite neutral (Whisper) and used White Daisy for the card base and stamping the flowers.

I inked these new flowers from the new Happy Autumn stamp set (available August 1st) in Blush first, then rolled the edges in Sorbet. Then I detailed them with a bit of Stardust glitter glitz gel. I stamped the biggest flower twice and trimmed out a few sections of the center to pop up with foam tape for more dimension.

I used a sentiment from All the Details and backed it with more Washi Wonder stamped in Whisper Ink. I finished it off with some hand stitching in grey using the new Stitching Guide. Now that I'm used to using it I can't stop!

I used this lovely Sketchbook Saturday card sketch for my card. I hope you'll make a project with this fun color combo to link up over at the Color Dare too. If so, comment here so I can go have a peek...see you back here tomorrow for Friday Favorite Things!

Practical Scrappers Color Combo

Today over at Practical Scrappers we are rounding up cheerful projects using Royal blue, Emerald Green, and White. I used Pacifica CS for my card base, and accented that with elements stamped in Topiary.  I used sketch #73 from Retro Sketches as the inspiration for my card. The stamp set is D1555 All The Details (available August 1st)...plus a bit of that new hostess only Washi set. The joy of always having the washi pattern you want in the color you need!!

I painted the same chipboard star from those $1 Milepost shapes I used yesterday with White Acrylic paint mixed with Pearl Paint to change up the look. I topped it off with a blue button filled with a clear sparkly gem, a scattering of round Sparkles, and a hand stitched border.

I hope your day today is a good day, too!

Ten Things Letter Stickers

Good morning! Today we're breaking away from ProPlayer to take a little taste of Babycakes! Babycakes is absolutely my favorite new paper pack...and Frosted...and Laughing Lola...but I digress! Anyhoooo, the Practical Scrappers Ten Things team is exploring Altered Letter stickers today. Be sure to head over there and check out the list - it's super creative!

I went super simple with one of my favorite things to do - make new colors of glitter! I used the silver Pixie Glitter Alphabet and an Autumn Terractoa alcohol marker to turn the bright shiny silver letters to a nice muted bronze shade that better complemented my lovely Babycakes card. I embellished with a Milepost Star shape (which are clearanced at $1 on my website now - a crazy good deal!) and a pretty fabric covered button from the Chantilly assortment plus a scattering of Tan Sparkles. And yes, that may be a smidgen of the new Hostess only Washi Tape set peeking out there under my ribbons. That set is taking up permanent residence on my tabletop!

I'm going to link this card up to the CAS-ual Fridays Count Me In Challenge and the Craftin Desert Diva's Birthday Link Party.