Hogs and Kisses Card

One of my favorite crafty escapes is watching our CTMH team training videos on Mondays. Our fearless leader Naomi makes these live videos for us each week, with craft challenges and new techniques to try out and it's just so friendly and fun! 

This week she challenged us to use a sketch from the new Make It From Your Heart, which is super simple and so versatile. You might have noticed I'm the kind of crafter who LIKES ALL THE THINGS, so simple isn't usually my bag, baby...but I really enjoyed using the sketch in my own way. I combined the idea of that sketch with the Seize the Birthday weekly challenge, with the topping of using patterned paper. I chose this sweet watercolor dot paper from Central Park, which I changed up by adding in a sentiment from the Operation Smile charity set called Punny Pals. I bent the sentiment in a circular shape and stamped it around some of the circles, and then completed the circular embellishing with hand drawn dots, customizing the patterned paper for my project. The blue dotted paper is actually the backside of the watercolor dots - love that double sided patterned paper! I mounted some Coral Shimmer Trim under this stamped patterned paper panel across the top of the card base and just above the bottom of my card front, which I tore to expose the blue dotted B&T I mounted inside the card. That shimmer trim is on clearance right now for a super good price, and I'm desperately trying not to buy the rest of the stock myself right now!

I stamped the background of my banner piece with my second sweet sentiment in Pebble ink before also popping it up in Ruby ink. I colored my little Punny Pal Pig with my zig clean color markers before adding his little googly eyes. I'm partial super dupe sad that we've only got a short time left with Punny Pals...and partially super excited to see what we will get next since the Operation Smile charity sets tend to be pretty high on my favorites list each year!

While I haven't been blogging as regularly as I'd like, I have been crafting a LOT more as I come back to my real life. My team made really adorable t-shirts (PLUS my favorite shirt to wear right now) for our trip to Las Vegas convention next month. I also made ten adorable cricut signs for my fourth grader's Pioneer day. Sometimes I'm still sad, maybe even a lot of the time, but every day, and with every project it gets better. #craftingismytherapy . Stampin' Friends, and I am sending out lots of Hogs and Kisses to all my fellow craft therapy group buddies!