Out with the Old . . .

As a confessed paper hoarder I've started to wish I could use up MUCH of my older papers before I start getting the newest CTMH (and other brand) papers. Today was my feeble attempt to use up one of my old packs. The bright cheery colors of CTMH "Blossom" from Summer 2015 caught my eye. Although I played with it all afternoon, I still have a long way to go before it's gone.

I started with a stamp set I had gotten to go with the paper.

Then I decided to change it up a bit with my new Petaloo flowers:

Next I made a set of encouragement cards using a Verve scripture stamp which only allowed the background to peek around the edges. I used an embossing diffuser to leave a center space for stamping when I used the CTMH floral embossing folder.(It's marked down in price from $8.95 to $3.15 - an unbelievable price for a 5" x 7" embossing folder!)

I also made a matching box to put them in but didn't take photos of that.

Last I saw a challenge at  Challenge Up Your Life #56 and decided to play with vellum and some butterflies cut on the Cricut.

The word "BIRTHDAY" is embossed with black and "Blessings" is cut using my newest "Christmas Blessings" die set from Simon Says Stamp.

After several hours I decided I may be on an eternal quest to use up paper, but what's more fulfilling for papercrafters than to make lovely things to show others how much they care!

Thank you for visiting. May you look back on 2016 and count your blessings!

Tomorrow begins a new year, a new stamp of the month blog hop, and lots of new papers! I hope you'll visit tomorrow to see what's new!

Quick Florence Birthday Card

I love giving cards and writing personal messages to let people know how much I care. November and December decimated my card supply so as the weather turns colder I plan to start rebuilding my "stash" before January birthdays and anniversaries decimate it again!

I was inspired by the Cut It Up Challenge that is so perfect for the old and new years- Out with the Old and In with the New. I REALLY need to use up some old supplies!

OLD:  This week I enjoyed getting some great half-price buys at the CTMH Boxing Day Sale. I noticed they were still selling Florence Sequins and Complements at half price one day and I had to re-order. It inspired me to get out my leftover scraps of Florence papers, complements, and sequins from last year. I loved the copper foiled chipboard diecuts and sequins which I used to make two identical birthday cards:

The black "Happy" is a "Happy Easter" Cricut cut from the newest CTMH Flower Market Cartridge. I love using acrylic stamps. I can bend them a little to match the curve of my design. The stamp here is ten years old (C1257 Happy Birthday from 2007 )!

NEW: My Spellbinders die cut the curvy scalloped edge. The glittery blue ribbon is also brand new from Michaels and added the finishing touch to emphasize a birthday is something to CELEBRATE!

Thank you for visiting!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
4 Crafty Chicks #331 - anything goes
Cut It Up Challenge #112 - Out with the old, in with the new
DL Art Thankful Thursday #195 - anything goes
Southern Girls #150 - anything goes

God Bless You at Christmas

Cricut Christmas Cards

I played a little with the CTMH Cricut cartridge "City Sidewalks." The banner cut with Fa La La La La was my original inspiration. Then I added the diagonal striped background and the holly (on the second card), all from the cartridge.

 The first one has some non-traditional elements like the colors pink and brown and the alphabet embossing inspired by the letters of Fa La La La La.

Thank you for visiting! May God bless your crafting and bless the recipients!

I'm sharing these cards with the following challenges:
Crafting When We Can #134 - It's Christmas
Crafty Cardmakers #179 - Christmas with a non-traditional twist
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #312 - cute or anything Christmas
Dream Valley #146 - Christmas

Merry Christmas with City Sidewalks

Here's another  quick Christmas card using the pocket cards that come with CTMH City Sidewalks:

City Sidewalks Pocket Cards

I love to use some of the cut-apart cards that come with CTMH paper packs for pocket scrapbooking. Here is a card made with one of the 6" x 4" cards that comes with the City Sidewalks paper pack.

The pocket card has a white space in the center -  perfect for sentiments or embellishments. I cut a fishtail banners from a smaller red striped pocket card and Willow green cardstock.  The black sentiment panel was white embossed using the bold sentiment from the Happy Holidays Cardmaking Kit. The right side was punched with a Martha Stewart punch and a small strip of Willow patterned paper from the City Sidewalks paper peaks out. My favorite part is the black button with glittered edges, threaded with silver twine holding the red ribbon bow.

I hope this gives someone new ideas for using the leftover pocket card pieces from each paper pack. I thought it was a great way to make a few cards faster. I'll have another one tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting. May God bless your cardmaking and the recipients of your creations!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Cards und More #174 - Christmas
Christmas Card Challenge - Pick a previous challenge May Stash-punches (and or dies)
Craft-Dee BowZ December Challenge - anything with a bow
Dream Valley #146 - Christmas
HeARTful Stamping Challenge - anything stamped
Holly Jolly Christmas #86 - Christmas Card (or anything but a card)
Inky Chicks #76 - Christmas cards in traditional colors

Jolly Christmas Cards

When I was a teacher, every classroom had a steady crescendo of noise and excitement in the month of December until Christmas vacation arrived. I'm not sure who was happier to see the vacation, the kids or the teachers. This year four of my grandkids have been out of school since last Friday the 16th. Christmas generates an excitement unmatched by any other holiday. 
I loved this inspiration photo of kids singing at Sparkle Creations Christmas Card Challenge #2  and interpreted it with this first card of kids possibly singing as they danced around the Christmas tree.

 The image came from my oldest, long hoarded Graphic 45 Christmas paper collection, Christmas Emporium.

 To make several other cards quickly I used a similar design with other tags and images from Graphic 45, a strip across the top with fiber, and a few sequins.

 Thanks for visiting. May this season of God's love and joy spill over from your heart to all those around you.

I'm sharing the first card with the following challenges:
613 Avenue Create #192 - anything goes with option Holiday Happiness
Alphabet Challenge - U for Use something red (card base, background, ribbon)
Christmas Card Challenge #2 - picture inspiration
Come and Get It - Christmas Challenge #2
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #312 - cute or anything Christmas
Dream Valley Challenge #146 - Christmas
Pile It On #123 - Celebrations any holiday
The Ribbon Girl- December Challenge - any image
Use Your Stuff - Merry Christmas

God Bless You at Christmas and Always

It's been days since I was able to get a consistent internet signal to blog. I'll keep this post short in case I lose the signal again.  I love this sentiment that I got from Papertrey Ink this year. I mixed it with some paper from CTMH City Sidewalks and a dotted scrap that matched.  One thing that saves me time when I create cards is to have extras of die cuts to choose from.

The inside photo looks blurry, but it says: "May God fill our hearts with love and our lives with praise as we celebrate this Christmas season." It was part of the same PTI set.

Tonight we're having a snowstorm with morning temperatures down to 10 degrees below zero (F). It's a great time to stay inside, to craft, and count my blessings! I hope you're keeping warm and blessed, too!

Joy to the World the Lord Has Come Card

This is another card I made using the ODBD stamp set, Joy to the World. I wanted to use it on a card using the sketch #222 from Paper Craft Crew.

I embossed the navy blue background with a CTMH 5" x 7" star embossing folder to go with the old star paper below it. The white and blue star banner under the circle was stamped with an old SU rolling stamp my daughter-in-law used to sell. All of the CTMH silver sequins have sparkles, including Recollections star and heart sparkles to go with the theme. The MFT double stitched Die-Namics circle is embossed with CTMH Ranger Silver super fine detail embossing powder. It doesn't photograph well, but it looks great in person, especially with the silver ribbon.  Thank you for visiting.

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Christmas Cards All Year Round December - anything Christmas

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #311 - gray or silver

Crafty Ribbons Challenge #179 - Christmas

Creative Corner Challenge - Christmas time

Jingle Belles - Christmas

Perfectly Created Chaos Challenge #7 - anything Christmas

Really Reasonable Ribbons #154 - Winter holiday with ribbon

Word Art Wednesday #260-261 - anything family friendly



Mojo Monday 477 - Second Card

For this second card using the Mojo Monday sketch I turned it on it's side.

I used silver embossing of the Our Daily Bread Designs "Joy to the World" stamp set as you can see in the second photo. The frame is a Cricut cut from Artbooking.

Thanks for visiting!


I'm also sharing this card with the Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light Challenge 281.

Mojo Monday 477 - First Card

This past week was a very busy week with a stomach bug, a couple of migraines and a computer virus thrown in for a little extra diversion. Today was a great time to relax by making a few cards. This first one I made earlier in the week for the challenge using the Mojo Monday sketch, but it wasn't a favorite of mine so later I'll post the one I made today.

The sentiment came from one of my favorite Verve Christmas stamp sets called Peace on Earth. I also liked the two coordinating starry papers from DCWV. The cardboard star and music embellishment are old CTMH. The cream colored "stitched" panel was a Cricut cut. I think that's the feature I don't really like about this card.  Thanks for visiting.

Mojo 476 Hanukkah Card

I was making Christmas cards to give to 13 of my friends from high school. We still get together several times a year, but especially at Christmas. I usually mail their cards but I thought this was a great opportunity to hand deliver those bulky or square cards that our post office doesn't like. For years I wanted to give one of my friends a Happy Hannukah card but never did. Our last names both started with "G" so we would share a locker or stand next to each other in P.E. where we were in alphabetical order. I had three appropriate stamp sets but the images were all pretty small and I never got inspiration or knew what to do with them.  Finally, I was inspired this year when I saw the square Mojo 476 sketch. My night-time photo didn't turn out so well, but she loves her card, so I'm so thankful for this sketch that inspired.

Thanks for visiting!

December SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to our blog hop highlighting the Close To My Heart Stamp of the Month, Thoughtful Flowers. If you just came from Kathy Burrows' blog, you're on the right path. You can find the entire list of bloggers on Melinda Everitt's blog here.

There is such a wide variety of flower shapes with this stamp set I saw it as a chance to make cards appropriate for all seasons.

WINTER

My first creations were for Christmas. I used my black alcohol ink marker to color clear sparkles for the one embossed with white..

SPRING

Then I tried the pastel colors of spring with coordinating papers from Swan Lake. I painted the flowers using the small waterbrush and inks squeezed onto their lids. I'm sharing this card with City Crafter Challenge #340 - Garden Bliss.

SUMMER

They're also great for the hot, bright colors of summer. For the card on the right I made a sample of my stamped design on scrap paper first.  Then I used random stamping of the variety of flowers on some City Sidewalks cranberry patterned paper and the same black marker on sparkles for the tiny flowers..

FALL

Using papers from the Enchantment Paper Fundamentals and the black pattern from Swan Lake, you can even make them appropriate for fall. I cut a second set of petals colored with green in order to make leaves. The sparkle in the center was colored with a Mahogany alcohol ink marker.

Thank you for visiting! Now you are ready to see the creation on  Michelle Loncar's blog!

All CTMH Materials used:
Paper - Swan Lake paper pack, City Sidewalks paper pack, Enchantment paper fundamentals, Black, Slate, Whisper, Daffodil, Pansy, and Sweet Leaf cardstock, Raspberry pattern from Adventure paper fundamentals, White Glitter Cardstock
Inks - Versamark, Black Stazon, Memento Tuxedo Black, painted with Pixie, Raspberry, Poppy, and Fern, Cranberry
Embellishments - Clear Sparkles, Black and gold ribbon, white and gold ribbon, Black Shimmer Trim, Fern Thick Twine, Whimsy Ribbon Pack (Sorbet spring card) Adventure Ribbon Pack (hearts summer card), Red Enamel Gems, Gold Sequins, Enamel Purple Hearts
Tools - Ranger White Super fine embossing powder, wood slat embossing folder, Small Waterbrush, ShinHan Touch Twin Markers: Black (sparkles), Carmen, Golden Yellow, Lavender, Leaf green, Marigold, Mahogany