Back from Convention!

Oh my gracious! I am currently ensconced in the California Pizza Kitchen at Sacramento Airport marvelling at how FAST the interent is here compared to at our fabulous room at the DisneyLand Hotel. I had such an amazing time at CTMH Convention, hanging out with my team of wonderful ladies and filling my head to overflowing with new products, techniques, and projects to share! If you've friended me on Facebook, you may have been following our fun, from Mickey Shaped rice Krispie treats and Brand new BLING to inspiring speakers and consultants tied to the bed from too much excitement (and 5 hour energy drinks...you know who you are!). It was, as ever, an event to remember forever.

I'll be adding more pictures and artwork to this blog soon - so much to share, I can't even tell you! But for now, here's a fabulous little video about one of the biggest announcements - a brand new exclusive CTMH Cricut cartridge! It come with 3 coordinating stamp sets and works with many of our other stamps sets, plus it makes the most beautiful 3-D items - woo hoo! It's is like a multipack of cartridges in one tiny package, Cricut as only CTMH can do it. Enjoy, and check back here daily for more art and projects this week!   SHOW ME THE CRICUT!

And a big shout-out THANK YOU to my team! You ladies made this trip such a hilariously good time! See you soon for Monday Motivations - Monday the 25th!

Fanfare Club Pages

Here's our club pages for Friday - gotta get to Costco and grab my pics! See ya Friday!

 

 

 

July SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring July's SOTM called American Celebration, which is a wonderfully patriotic set of 12 stamps. Of course you can whip up beautiful Americana projects using the images in this set, but how about some Christmas in July?
If you have come here from CARLA'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 60 Close To My Heart Consultants sharing wonderful 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!

When I looked at the beautiful star collage making up the main star image of this set I thought it would be beautiful for a Christmas tree! So I stamped the star on White Daisy Cardstock using Petal Ink. Then, since you can see right through My Acrylix stamps, it was a cinch to use on of the points of the star to fill in the bottom of my star, creating a purple Christmas tree!


I snipped out my tree shapes (easy fussy cutting for once!) and added sparkle with a bit of Glitter Glitz on the dots and Bitty Sparkles on the bigger stars.
I also did a brayered background on the pleated paper ribbon. I inked the big star in Petal Ink, and Picked up the image with my brayer by rolling the brayer across the star. Then I rolled it back and forth, changing the angle on my brayer on a 2 x 5 piece of White Daisy CS. I repeated this purple star brayering 2 or 3 more times to fill the cards with an airy soft starry background. 


Then I Brayered on a second generation image of the starbust with the trialing dots image in Moonstruck ink - second generation because 1st was way too dark. I added that on with the brayer here and there, maybe 2 times to deepen the textured of the brayered background.


Finally, I direct stamped a couple of the small starburst image I'm using as a snowflake in Petal Ink. Then I cut off three 3/4" chunks of my newly brayered starry night sky and created the pleated ribbon effect on my card front, complete with a pierced stitch-line along the edges of the "ribbon". 

I used that image randomly across the card background too, each time filling the center with Glitter Glitz and topping it off with a Bitty Sparkle. I topped off hte card with part of the Celebrate banner, trimmed out and attached with foam tape on one side for dimension.



Whew! Writing it out it sounds like a lot, but it actually came together pretty quickly. To make this card en masse for Christmas, I'd just brayer a whole 12 x 12 sheet of CS and cut it apart all at once. Same for the random stamped snowflake background - no need to stamp each card front. Sweet!

Now "Hop" on over to LISA'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 July 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).
 
I'm heading off to Convention in 12 days!! Friend me on FB if you want to see my Convention highlight updates - can't wait! 

Studio J Free for All and FREE Stamps too!

If you haven't gotten your FREE Studio J Layout this month, what are you waiting for?! It's fast, easy, fun, and FREE - just pop out to my website and click on Studio J Online Scrapbooking. You can do it...at least for 2 more days, then the free offer is over!

Here's what I made for free this month, a Layout of John and the boys for Father's Day. I turned all the photos Sepia in the Studio J tool, and they let you do Black and White too - so handy!

I added the stitching along the left page using the button hole stitches under the Embellishments category. The new Snap in place guidelines made lining up the tiny stitches pretty easy!

I also resizes the star StickEase to better fit my title area. I love that in digital scrapping you aren't limited to the original look of the product. I added a lot of digital distressing too: Sanding in cocoa to most layers. Just click and BAM! You got sanding, Baby! So easy and no mess to clean up later!

Now get out there and make a scrapbook page! Show me your free Studio J Layout by Friday to be entered in a drawing for a FREE June Stamp of the Month!

Mojo Monday 195

Squeaking in under the wire, this will be two weeks in a row I managed to get my Mojo on! I know it's not Monday anymore, but this week has been nutty with the allergies, so I'm glad I got some major card stamping in today: 55+ cards completed - woo hoo!!

To play along, just make a project using the provided sketch and upload it to your blog or online gallery. Then leave a link to your project on the Mojo Website using the linky widget at the bottom of this post HERE.

Here's my Mojo for this week. I used the Fanfare papers as I am in a birthday card making kind of mood. For someone who makes a gob of cards, I seem to have trouble actually getting to the post office to mail them, so I'm gonna try to be better about that! I swear a birthday card is coming to you, Dayna!

On this card I used my spellbinders scallop die combined with a Cuttlebug Swiss Dot Embossing folder to create my focal piece. I lightly swiped over the embossed CS with Pacifica Ink on a sponge dauber to bring out the dots and create more texture. The stars are fussy cut out of the Fanfare paper - loving those easy multi colored stars! A little paper banner hung from some waxy flax (using one of my FAVORITE stamp sets from the last year, C1429 Party Pennants ), and a sentiment from the new Card Chatter Birthday and I'm done with this one lickety split! OK - Maybe I spent a few minutes indulging in my love affair with the glitter glitz, but really, who can blame me? Glitter glitz is awesome!