Holiday Expressions New Product Blog Hop

Welcome to our blog hop featuring new products in the new Close To My Heart Holiday Expressions catalog. You're on the right path if you just came from Lucy Marino's blog.  To see the entire list of participants, visit Melinda Everitt's blog post.

There are so many fun stamps, papers, dies, embellishments, etc. from this book it was hard to narrow down what to share. Since I need about 200 Christmas cards this year, I picked one Christmas stamp set, Prince of Peace, to show you three examples. I thought the Joy to the World stamp in this set would work perfectly for this week's Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #230.

I used three different papers from the Beary Christmas paper pack to show how versatile this stamp can be.  

I did make one mistake with this project by including gold sequins so that the cards would be flatter for mailing. I had overlooked that they retired last month.  These are no longer available, but the bronze sequins have a sheet of gold sequins. You can check out the products I used below or you can move on to Emily Sararas's blog so that you can start making your own projects right away! Thanks for visiting!

I'm also sharing this project with a couple of the Christmas challenges:

A Snowflake's Promise Challenge #44 - anything goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - anything goes

The Holly and the Ivy Christmas Challenge #15 - anything Christmas goes

Papers - Beary Christmas Paper Pack, White Daisy Cardstock, Red Glitter Paper, Gold Glitter Paper, Cranberry Cardstock 

Stamp - Prince of Peace 

Inks - Versamark, Black Memento, New England Ivy, Glacier

Tools - Rose Embossing Folder, Thin 3-D Foam Dots,  Ranger Princess Gold Embossing Powder

Embellishments - Basics Ribbon Pack (gold), Whimsy Ribbon Pack (glacier and gold stripe), and white and gold ribbon,     Bronze Sequins can be used instead of gold

Autumn Colored Cards

Tomorrow is the first day of autumn and I'm already creating with a favorite color palette. Autumn colors are warm and rich. They inspire me like no others. When I was a girl, my mom thought my brown hair, green eyes, and gold skin were best if I wore autumn colors, so most of my clothes were in shades of greens, browns, and golds. Here are some cards inspired by these colors.

First is a pair I made using this month's CTMH From the Heart special for National Stamping Month. One of our daughters just finished her defending her thesis for her doctorate in psychology. The congratulations card is an expression of how proud we are of her.

 The card is interactive. There's a small tab on top that you pull up which reveals the inside message by sliding the front up over the card base.

The flowers and leaves were  stamped in two or three layers for more details and  dimension.

Below, you can see the side views of pulling up the tab at the top which slides the card front away from the inside message. For my CTMH friends, you can find directions on the blog here.

The next card is one celebrating the abundance of blessings we continually receive from the Lord. The larger background paper was a digital one I printed long ago from being on the design team of one of the digi stamp companies, either Doodle Pantry or Clear Dollar Stamps. I enhanced it with a strip of retired CTMH Passages. I love the new CTMH leaf die, even just the skeleton without the backing. The leaves stand out on the retired CTMH burlap ribbon and are combined with Recollections burlap flowers.

  I love the artful scripture verse on front and inside, which saus, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good." Both verses are Psalms from Papertrey Ink. I wanted to stamp fairly big leaves inside, but I couldn't find my large box of autumn stamps.  I had one stamp set called Spring Leaves from CTMH more than 10 years ago which you won't remember unless you've been with CTMH a long time.  (I rarely get rid of stamps.) This one was stamped with retired Saddle ink with the edges rolled in Chocolate ink. I like to use older ink pads for the rock and roll technique in case mixing the colors on the darker ink pad changes the hue a little.

Thank you for visiting! May you begin autumn enjoying many blessings from the Lord.

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

Craftaholics Challenge #37 - Fall Colors
Crafty Gals Corner #141 -  Fancy fold
Double D Challenge - Sentiments/Quotes
Fab 'n' Funky Challenge #363 - Floral Embellishments
Little Red Wagon #412 - Leaf it to me
Mod Squad Challenge - Leaves
Moving Along with the Times #54 - Sentiment as Focal Point
Word Art Wednesday #300-301 - anything goes

National Stamping Month Blog Hop

Welcome to our blog hop celebrating National Stamping Month. You may have just come
from Michele Rowley's blog. To see the entire list of participants, visit Melinda Everitt's post.

You can purchase the From the Heart card kit which includes card bases, envelopes, and an E-sized stamp set for a 20% discount this month only. You can also buy just the stamp set or just the card bases. I wanted to show you how the beautiful gold framed card bases can be used for any kind of card, so I made a Christmas card using one of the pocket scrapbooking panels from the new CTMH Beary Christmas paper pack and the Christmas stamp, First Noel. After I made it I knew I wanted to buy extra card bases for more unique interactive cards!

I had already put one card together to see what to fold and what to adhere. I didn't want to risk getting ink on the gold border after it was adhered so I chose to stamp the inside first. To be sure I stamped within the space available, here are the steps I followed:

1. Before folding or adhering anything, fold the gold frame over the inside, lifting the middle panel.

2. Lightly mark the side and top edges of the stampable area with a pencil.

3. Be sure the sentiment stamp you choose fits inside that area.

 4. Line up your stamps inside with the gold frame down, then stamp. Don't forget to erase the light pencil marks.

5. Finish folding and adhering the card sides and top according to the step-by-step assembly directions that are included in the entire kit as well as in the packet of extra card bases and envelopes.

To make the front:
I chose the 4" x 3" pocket card that is mostly white with a few evergreen trees and some glacier sky with snowflakes on top. I cut a house silhouette from Toffee cardstock using Cricut You Are Here, cutting off the chimney. To fit the space I allowed, I sized it 1.5" wide x 1.75" high. The "O" manger scene from the word NOEL was stamped with black on Glacier cardstock. I restamped the star with Versamark and gold embossed it with the medium sized star in the stamp set. I punched it out with a one inch circle punch. The pocket card is slightly smaller than the front panel card that comes with this card pack, so I gold embossed the star border that comes with the stamp set on each side. I tied the gold ribbon from the Basics ribbon pack. I replaced the small bottom strip that supports the front of the card with a strip of Glacier cardstock 5/8" x 3.75" and adhered the front according to directions. 

When you pull up the inside white panel the card front pops up . . .

 revealing the inside sentiment.

The card front stays standing. How cool is that!?!

Thank you for visiting! Now you're ready to move on to Miss Carrie's Creations to see her lovely artwork.

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps #152 - Christmas
A Snowflake's Promise Challenge #44 - anything goes
Heartful Stamping Challenge Sept.10-17 - anything goes with stamping
The Holly and Ivy Challenge #14 - anything Christmas goes

Lord Bless and Keep You Wild Sunflower Card

This week a sunflower farm in our area started allowing visitors. People come from all over, even other countries, to take photos of the acres of sunflowers. We have a smaller, wild variety that blooms along fence rows around our farm. I chose a flower stamp for this card that looks like our wild ones.

I needed more encouragement cards, so once I made this one that I liked, I made three more. I love the message of this new CTMH sentiment stamp set: May the Lord bless and keep you. I originally made it for one of our daughters to send to a sorority sister fighting cancer.

The sentiment has a small sprig of leaves on each side, so I enlarged it by stamping four more outline leaf sprigs from this month's stamp of the month that I colored with alcohol ink markers. Then I added two large leaf stamps under it from Falling for You-Cardmaking. The large flower came from Falling for You-Scrapbooking. The flower does have a matching die, but I fussy cut mine because I didn't want the white border this time.

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Dream Valley Challenge #162 - use a stamp or digi

Heartful Stamping Challenge Sept. 3-10 - anything goes with stamping
Hiding in My Craft Room Challenge #316 - Fall Colors
Scrap and Craft #7 - Colours of Autumn
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Stamp It
Word Art Wednesday #298-299 - anything goes, positive

Stamp sets used:

Falling for You - Scrapbooking

Falling for You - Cardmaking

God's Blessings

Feel So Blessed stamp of the month

Joy to the World PML Christmas Card

I woke up this morning doing a little mental math. There's about 60 days before I need a LOT of Christmas cards. I need to make two or three every day. So I pulled out my PML cards that Close To My Heart made for 6" x 4" or 4" x 3" pockets for scrapbooking. One of the sets had three of each card, so I pulled out one that said "Joy to the World" for this card because I thought it would go fairly well with a sketch from Christmas Card Throwdown that I wanted to use.

I scissor distressed the edges of the PML card so that it would contrast with the Kraft background.  To add a little more sparkle, I traced over the letters of JOY with a Sakura Gelly Roll pen:

The best thing about this card was how easy and quick it was to make three cards! I hope your holiday card-making is much more on track than mine!  Thank you for visiting!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

613 Avenue Create #201 - anything goes/ option distress it 

A Gem of a Challenge #202 - use Kraft cardstock

Christmas Card Throwdown - September-Sketch

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #349 - add some sparkle

Merry Monday #255 - JOY

Life is Tough Encouragement Cards

Life us full of ups and downs, some small and some catastrophically huge.  Here's a set of encouragement cards I made using Prickly Pear papers. When I was almost four years my family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. While driving there, my grandmother showed me a small cactus and told me to watch out, it had stickers that would hurt. Of course, I got stuck in less than five minutes. Just a little problem, but I thought the cactus on these papers could represent any sort of prickly problems. Since the cacti images are more whimsical than realistic, I thought the marker style sentiment fit perfectly. It's from the retired CTMH Sunshine on a Cloudy Day stamp set.

I made several of this card design and couldn't decide which encouragement verse to put inside, so I used this week's free word art scripture from Word Art Wednesday which was perfect for my intent and three different ones from the retired CTMH set, Look to the Light, some with the cactus from Prickly Pear - Cardmaking stamp set..

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

Dragonfly Dreams - Patterned Paper
Eclectic Ellapu September Challenge - Flora or Fauna/Nature
QKR Stampede Challenge - Wild West or anything goes
Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge #171 - Anything goes with ribbon
Word Art Wednesday #298-299 - anything goes

September SOTM Blog Hop - Feel So Blessed

Welcome to our CTMH Stamp of the Month blog hop! You're on the right path if you just came from Michele Rowley's blog. To see the entire list of participants, visit Melinda Everitt's blog here.

I chose to use the feather image and large sentiments for these cards. The first card has feathers stamped on both the lighter and darker shades of Nutmeg cardstock. The difference is subtle, but if you look carefully, you can see the one on the right is from the lighter back side of the paper. The paper rectangles are from the new Falling For You paper pack.

I wanted the second card to use the leaves and feather with the lovely quote:

I framed a strip of the paper with sticky notes, inked it with sponges using Goldrush and Fern inks, then stamped the outline leaf images while the sticky notes are still in place. Then I removed the sticky notes to stamp the feathers so that they would extend outside the inked strip. I added the Sweet Leaf dotted ribbon (from the Whimsy Ribbon Collection)  on the left. I decided to stamp the delicate leaves inside to adorn the sentiment that will be added later.

You can purchase the stamp of the month this month only from your consultant or here on my website.

Thank you for visiting! Now you're ready to go on to see Tracie Cassidy's artwork!