June Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring June's SOTM Jubilation, which is a super versatile set of 24 stamps. This is a stamp set loaded with possibilities!


If you have come here from SHEILA'S BLOG you are on the right path. If you get lost, you may want to go back to Helen's Blog to find the entire list of blog hoppers!


This month we have over 50 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!

Since this month's set can be used for so many special occasions, I wanted to make a simple, quick card that could be adapted for any occasion. Here I used Bamboo cardstock, dry embossed on a angle to create an elegant diamond background. I added a stripe of Bliss B&T (the floral and the stripe), plus a bit of Colonial White Crochet ribbon. Topped off with the Cake from the Jubilation set and the Celebrate fireworks sentiment (see tip below), this would be a nice birthday or Wedding card (if you chopped off the candles). I accented the dry embossed background with Opaques self adhesive pearls, and added some Glitter Glitz to the cake frosting.

One quick tip on marker masking - the sentiment I used here is the word "celebrate", but in the set that word is embedded in an image of fireworks. I simple colored just the word with my Cocoa Marker and stamped it without the fireworks background. Sometimes I feel like my Cocoa marker just isn't as dark as I'd like when doing a marker masking technique like this, so I like to dab the brush tip of the marker onto my freshly inked Cocoa Pad to make sure that my markered image will be as dark as I like it to be. You could also trim the image apart to use the word separately, but since this one is so small, marker masking seemed the way to go!

You could easily adapt this card to any of the images in that set, subbing in B&T patterns for the dry embossed CS - there are loads of possibilities, all in this quick 5 minute card!


Now "Hop" on over to LEANNE'S BLOG to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants in the hop to get some great crafty ideas for more fun projects! Remember, the June 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) - and don't forget to order your absolutely FREE Studio J jpg file, this month only! 

June SOTM - thank you, Marry Gunn!

I have to share this super card idea from a fabulous fellow CTMH Consultant, Mary Gunn. Clever Mary used the adorable June SOTM to create this BATMAN card! I had to make one of these as soon as I saw it, of course. Gabe has flipped over this card, and I can't stop humming the theme song - thank you Mary Gunn!

To make my version of Mary's awesome idea, I cut a strip of 1 1/2" by 5 1/4" Grey Wool CS. I put that in my trimmer and made some cuts into the strip every so often, randomly spaced, but always double cutting by shifitng the paper jsut a smidge between cuts to create a bunch of tiny slits. I trimmed those off with my Micro-tip scissors and snipped the resultant "buildings" into multiple heights. To add a bit more color I used some of my hand punches to pop out "windows" in my buildings and backed those with Sunflower CS. A bit of Glitter Glitz for a starry sky and our call for superhero rescue is complete!

Come back tomorrow Wednesday for more June SOTM ideas - the Blog hop is coming!
Na Na  Na Na  Na Na  Na Na  Na Na  Na Na  NA! Blog Hop!

May Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring May's SOTM with the adorable armchairs, called Chairs to You!

If you have come here from NANCY'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 May I used my stamp set to make this cute change of address card - appropriate since we're moving into our new house this weekend, finally! I stamped the comfy armchair onto the smaller floral paper from the Miracle paper packet. I'm so glad they turned that special into a full blown paper packet.

Then I made an "area rug" from a bit of the larger floral paper and some bitty pieces of the new Kraft borders. I trimmed my border apart to make the fringe on the rug. I love how versatile and easy the new borders are to work with! I inked a different border to go along the bottom of my little living room scene.

Now "Hop" on over to LISA'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 May 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!

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!

April Workshop: Mother's Day Frame

Hello, stampers! I've been hibernating this month, getting ready for the CK show this week. Are you going to be there? Look for a coupon and more detail in your email tonight! We have a fabulous booth planned, with awesome (and affordable) hands-on projects, adorable page kits, and outstanding products, of course! Hope to see you there - I'll have a gift in my pocket for the forst 25 of my stampers who come visit me at the booth!

I've also been a busy bee working on our workshops for April. Monthly Memories club pages for April are Sophia - so adorable! Those will be up on my website later today. For now I want to share the Mother's Day Frame project we'll be doing at the crop day on April 30th. I just LOVE this project!

We'll be learning to make three different kinds of paper flowers, and tips for pleating that yummy extra wide Stitched Sweet Leaf grosgrain ribbon. You can even change the title to whatever you need for your gift! Best of all the project will be $7 or 2 for $12 - an affordable, beautiful, handmade gift from your heart!

I'm only planning to make 24 kits for this frame project, so RSVP asap to reserve your gifts! I can make them up as a take home kit if the date doesn't work for you too. See ya at the show!!