Day 45: Butterfly Message Card

One more April SOTM card...I just couldn't stop with this set once I got going!

I used a bit of leftover Yuletide Carol paper for the background. I stamped the pointy finger and all the butterflies onto the B&T paper with Memento Tuxedo Black.

Then I stamped the butterflies again, colored them with OR1 and CR10 Spectrum Noirs, and went over all the black with my fabulous Black Wink of Stella pen that I got from Paper Issues. I wish you could see the shimmer on these in real life! I trimmed out the wings and popped them up just a bit over the stamped butterflies. 

Want more April SOTM? Check out this month's blog hop here.

Pair-a-Phrase Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Pair-A Phrase Blog Hop! Over 40 consultants will be posting beautiful artwork featuring the new "Double-D" Pair-A-Phrase stamp set, available FREE with a minimum purchase starting on August 15th! That's TWO D-sized stamps in one package for FREE. Combine that with the SOTM special this month, and for $5 you can get FOUR stamp sets - what an amazing deal! 

If you are coming here from NIKKA'S BLOG, you are on the right track! Leave a comment below - I'll draw a winner next week and send that lovely winning commenter this adorable card!

I made a cute 4 1/4 inch square card inspired by a circle card I saw by a wonderful UK designer named Wendy McKee. I shrunk the card down to a square, and swiped all the circles on my card with black ink on the edges for more definition. Don't you love all the little patterns? This new paper is called Elemental, and it is so versatile!

I stamped a bunch of the images from Pair-A-Phrase in Black ink and heat embossed them with Clear powder for shine. Then I colored them using my watercolor pencils and my blending pen.

I grabbed the fancy bracket for my sentiment from a set called Made With Love, and popped up my Pair-A-Phrase sentiment with 3-D foam tape. I love to stamp my sentiment once full strength, then repeatedly until the ink is gone to give more dimension to a sentiment focal point.

I stitched around my card front with rainbow thread! I used the White floss from the Neutral Floss assortment and ran it through the four colors of ink that matched my paper using a sponge dauber. You just lay the floss onto your scratch paper, press the inked dauber on top and pull the thread through; repeat until you have the intensity you desire. What I like about this is when you separate the thread to stitch (I used 2 strands) you still get some white in there so it looks even more tie dyed! I also added a few stitches across the bodies of my butterflies to ensure they wouldn't be popping off and for more texture.

Final touches include a bit of glitter glitz for my embossed images, and Liquid Glass eyes for my owl so they look kind of googly. I swiped my card front and base with Black ink, then popped my embellished card front up on the card base with foam tape.

Love this amazingly versatile stamp set? So do I! Be sure to ask your consultant or CLICK HERE to get yours today. Don't forget, with minimum purchase you can get all 4 bonus stamp sets this month for just $5!! Now hop on over to PAMELA'S BLOG to see what scrumptious craftiness she's got in store for you!

April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring April 's SOTM called Blessed, a set of 12 swoopy swirly flower and bird stamps. There's a lot of two step stamps in this set, where a, easy to fill in shadow stamp matches a more detailed outline stamp!

If you have come here from DEBRA'S BLOG you are on the right path! If this is your first stop, you may want to go back to Helen's Blog and start from the beginning!

This month we have dozens of Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their artistic creations using this month's SOTM and other great CTMH products on their blogs. Hopping 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!

For April I used my stamp set in a couple of ways on this sweet standard sized card. I Random stamped the Bamboo CS background with the medium flower image in Garden Green Ink to coordinate with this beautiful Creative Basic paper. Then I punched 1 1/4" circles with my new punch and stamped the butterfly outline image once on each circle. I stamped it again four times on some scrap Colonial White CS, then filled it in with the coordinating shadow stamp. I stamped the shadow with a Rock N Roll Technique - stamping the first inking off onto scrap paper, then rolling the edges into the ink again before stamping it on my project. Finally, I cut just the wings out of my four extra butterflies and adhered the wings over the butterflies stamped onto my CS circles for more dimension. And, of course, I accented the borders and butterflies on my card with lots of Glitter Glitz gel!

I made the card based on a cute sketch from Taylored Expressions that you can find here!

Now "Hop" on over to CARLA'S BLOG to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great crafty ideas for more fun projects! Remember, the April SOTM is only available until the last day of the month!  Be sure to ask your CTMH Consultant how to get yours FREE (or click here) - you're gonna love it!