Friday Favorite Things MMC

Happy Friday, Stampin' Friends! It's time for Friday Favorite Things, and this week I'm sharing the layouts for one of my favorite things every month, my Monthly Memories Scrapbooking club. 

I am always excited to see my Stampin' Ladies on the first Friday of each month. This evening we are getting our beach on with these six pages. The first two layouts are inspired by the fabulous Tamytha Jenkins from Paper Heartist. If you haven't been out to her blog, go now - you're in for a treat!

 I usually like to create my own for club, but when I saw Tamytha's layouts I knew I was gonna have to make those my own! I added this Wooden Mini Medley to our materials, and we coated a lot of those pieces with Stardust glitter glitz. 

The last layout is (sort of) the one designed by CTMH for the WOTG brochure. I had Artbooking, so I made a few changes, adding the adorable title and sunburst. I've been so busy with cConvention prep and then catching up at home from Convention that we haven't yet been to the beach at all this summer. Now that I need to fill these pages that I'm home again and we've got a month of summer vacation left it's time to get my littles to the beach. Ahem.

Anyhooo, a big congrats to last weeks winner, Karen G.! This week for Friday Favorite Things I'm sharing the new My Creations Burlap Drawstring Bags! Enter to win on the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

New Product Blog Hop

Welcome to our CTMH New Product Blog Hop! I'm so excited to participate and can't wait to see all the fabulous new product projects! Today I'm sharing a layout made with the tech-y, bold new ProPlayer Papers combined with a lot of Artbooking (the new CTMH exclusive Cricut Cartridge!!) details. Today's the day the new catalog goes live, so everything I've been sharing for the last month is finally here!!

I built my title using the new Snapshots chipboard Dimensional Elements. I stamped onto the chipboard with a new stamp set called Tech Speak in Outdoor denim ink, then sponged it with Whisper and Saddle inks.  I also used the new Irresistibles chipboard Hexagons with resist patterns built into the chipboard shapes so you can ink them to match any project. I'm linking this project to the Paper Issues Um, WOW Chipboard Party. 

I used a lot of Artbooking Elements like these sassy sentiments and bold arrows. I love the fabulous glitter buttons from the new Ruby Mini Medley - so sparkly! The stitched elements were pierced using the new Stitching Guide, which is one of my favorite new tools for sure.

Here you can really see the Artbooking overlay I used on the background. I really love how using an overlay in kind of tone on tone adds a lot of interest to the background without making it too busy. I jazzed up this adorable Artbooking Camera icon with washi tape, glitter glitz, and a corrugated gem from the ProPlayer Assortment. Those little metal word signs are from the new Base and Bling jewelry line, which works fabulously on non-jewelry projects too!

This blog hop is open for members of the CTMH Blog Boosters. Please do not enter if you are not a member of the group - just hop and enjoy! If you’d like to join our Close to My Heart consultant group for the next blog hop, please visit us on facebook.

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!