He Counts the Stars

A number of challenges, like Path of Positivity, are about making cards with BLUES.  It makes me think of the sky.  I live on a farm, far enough from city lights that you can see so many more stars where we live. My photographer hubby likes to visit National Parks even farther from city lights. He'll get up hours before dawn after the moon sets to photograph the night sky and show star movement across the sky. When you ponder how many stars there are, it's almost incomprehensible. When I read this verse, I was amazed to think God could count all those stars and had a name for each one. How amazing He is, in so many ways. He cares about even the tiniest details, including those that are important to us. 

I chose some of my older CTMH paper from Stardust to go with this PTI verse.

I'm also sharing this scripture card with Word Art Wednesday #316-317.

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Be sure to visit my blog tomorrow night or Wednesday morning for our blog hop with 20 bloggers showing ideas for using new products from the new Seasonal Expressions 1 catalog. 

Using that paper inspired me to make a couple of birthday cards for boys using this paper and my older star stamp sets.

I used three retired CTMH stamp sets, Reach for the Stars, Shining Star, and Wishing Star.

I typed my own sentiment for the front and the inside. I've included a jpg at the bottom of this post of the front and inside sentiments that you can click on and save if you need a sentiment like this for an out-of-space birthday card.  I printed it on a 6.5" x 4.5" cardstock piece and cut off the top words.

I'm sharing the birthday cards with the following challenges:

Brown Sugar #274 - Birthdays

Stamps & Fun = Creativity #315 - Use Stamps

Dragonfly Journeys #109 - Birthdays

Dream Valley #170 - anything goes

Seize the Birthday - anything goes that's birthday

Love You Always Card with Color Dare #252

This week's Color Dare is to use Emerald, Sea Glass, Raspberry, White Daisy, Black and the option of Silver. 

I used this week's sketch from Atlantic Hearts Challenge:

I used patterned papers from the Adventure Paper Fundamentals pack that is about to retire at the end of this month, Black papers from the Uptown Fundamentals and from Some Kinda' Wonderful, as well as White Daisy, Emerald, and Sea Glass cardstocks. I will miss Sea Glass when it retires this month! I added silver glitter paper, silver sequins, Emerald ribbon, White Shimmer Trim, and Black enamel dots on the Cricut cut wreath. The black and white baker's twine is long retired along with the sentiment from the Sending Smiles Cricut  Bundle. The Hearts embossing folder and Hearts Thin Cuts dies that I used are also retired.

Thank you for visiting! May you spread lots of love with your crafting!

Merry Christmas with City Sidewalks

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

Mojo Monday 473 Christmas Joy

I've been absent too long creating for our community's craft fair, then recuperating afterwards! This was the 25th craft fair and so many craft-loving people came! Now I'm having to make Christmas cards like crazy because we had to fill our card rack four times. The second day I had to take cards I'd planned on keeping because we sold so many this year. This is the first year I wondered what to do at the end of the first day when our tables and racks looked half-empty. I'd prayed that God would bless the sales because the proceeds were going to Him and an area charity. Sales were beyond my imagination. I may show photos of our booth later.

Here is this week's Mojo Monday card using CTMH City Sidewalks paper. I usually find it more difficult to know how to use paper with a scene, but the square in this sketch gave me a chance to use it. The holly was cut using Cricut City Sidewalks. The "slit" was filled with green glitter glue and the berries were coated with a little Liquid Glass. I love using the Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder that CTMH sells!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Bitten By the Bug2 - Nature/Christmas - my holly from Cricut City Sidewalks.
Mojo Monday #473 - sketch

To make Christmas cards more quickly I've made several from each pack of paper using simple designs, duplicated stamped parts like the "JOY" on the first card assembly-line fashion, and printed multiple inside sentiments I keep on my computer or stamped the same sentiment inside multiple times.

 Here's another one using the same gold-embossed sentiment and some older CTMH White Pines paper begging to be used up!

Here's another using the same White Pines background with some strips of Frosted and a snowflake cut using Cricut Flower Market: I'm sharing it with Heart to Heart Challenge - Christmas but no Red or Green. How about blue, white and chocolate?

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever use up the Christmas paper packs I've hoarded over the years!  May God bless you as you craft and bless others with your own cards!

CTMH Flirty Layout

Here is the fourth layout that we did for the CTMH Flirty Paper Pack. This one is not in the Idea Book or the Workshop kit. It's one we made at Convention this summer, but it seemed to be everyone's favorite at our workshop because of the fun little circle embellishments. Because I used their suggested title, The Story of Us, I included photos from our honeymoon up to the present.  The colors of these papers are perfect for fall photos. (As usual, I didn't journal until after I took this photo.) Here's the left page:

Right page:

To make the circle embellishment, you stack two 1.25" circles from the same double-sided paper. I cut a square of heavy cardstock or light tagboard that is just less than one inch both ways. You set that square in the middle of the stack and fold down the four sides of the top circle. Remove the square and adhere the two circles together.

We stamped the roses and leaves and colored them with blender pens and ink or the new alcohol ink markers. We stamped the title and either Cricut letters or chipboard letters for "US." They were inked with Slate ink to show the houndstooth resist pattern.

Of course the most important part of the layout is the series of photos of Bill and I over the years.  I hope this will inspire you to record those special times with someone you love. May God bless you as you preserve and share those loving memories.

Mojo Monday #252 with Cricut Artiste and Clementine

I love to make cards to say the important things to friends in a memorable way. Maybe because I was a teacher or the fact that I'm a Christian, I've always believed we should see the best in a person and encourage them to be the best they can be. The sentiment I chose to say this comes with the new Cricut Artiste cartridge. It has three D-sized stamp sets and 3 sets of matching chipboard shapes. You can cut an image - the stamp set tells which page and what size to cut it. Then you can stamp it and even mount it on the chipboard for added dimension if desired. Of course, with 700 images, there's not chipboard for every shape. But I used three shapes - the star and two different kinds of circles for this week's Mojo Monday challenge sketch.

I thought the Clementine paper reminded me of the County Fair my daughter would enter each summer, so I chose the burlap ribbon and the circle elements she used to get on her blue ribbons. I distressed some of the papers with my new Saddle ink and left the star and larger circle with their light edge for contrast. The large flower was cut from the patterned paper. I used

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Mojo Monday #252 Round or Square challenge - 5" Square
Paper Playtime Challenge #80 - Anything Goes
The Paper Players Challenge #105 - Tic Tac Toe - I did circles, blue, floral (but also did dry embossing, scalloped punch, and ribbon)

5" Square Card Recipe:
Paper - Close To My Heart - "Clementine" paper pack, Twilight, Colonial White cardstock
Stamps - Cricut Artiste set
Inks - CTMH Saddle, Creme Brulee, Sorbet
Accents - CTMH retired button, Sorbet waxy flax, Burlap Ribbon
Tools - CTMH Cricut Artiste,  scalloped punch, Cuttlebug embossing folder, pop dots

 

Freshly Made Christmas in July with Cricut Artiste

I stayed up late making this card so that I could pray and hope we would really get rain tonight. It's been many weeks of extreme heat and no rain here. I was finally rewarded with the happy sounds of thunder. I'm hoping that the light shower will continue through the night. In my heart I'm singing "There shall be showers of blessings. . ."

Here's another Christmas card using a shape from the new Close To My Heart Cricut Artiste cartridge that will be available for purchase August 1st. This one uses the Freshly Made Sketch #45 and the challenge at Holly Jolly Christmas to use non-traditional colors. I was also inspired by the Christmas challenge #101 at 2 Sisters Challenge Blog to use an animal on the card. The sketch and Clean and Simple emphasis of the Freshly Made challenges made this card a quick and easy card!

The Cricut shape behind the bird is from Artiste, page 67 "M", Accent 3 shift, cut at 2.5" Real Dial size. If you don't use Real Dial size you get a tiny shape meant to be the embellishment on a 2.5" card. I love this new cartridge, so I intend to keep introducing some of its 700 shapes. If you're interested in getting your own cartridge, you'll be able to find it on August 1st using the Shop with Me button on the side.

Close To My Heart is introducing some new colors of cardstock in their paper packs that will be unique only to that paper pack. The ones I used come from the Flirty pack and are called Flirty Raspberry and Flirty Yellow, definitely not typical Christmas colors. I combined them with silver trim and lightly retraced the tops and left sides of the dove and the letters with a glitter gel pen.

Challenges for this card:
2 Sisters Challenge #101 - Christmas in July, optional twist - use an animal image
Freshly Made Sketch #45
Holly Jolly Christmas - Use non-traditional colors

4.25" x 5.5" Christmas Card Recipe:
Papers - Close To My Heart "Flirty" paper pack (coming Aug. 1st)
Stamps - CTMH "Blessings of Peace" (coming Aug. 1st)
Inks - black, Garden Green marker
Accents - CTMH Silver trim; glitter gel pen

Christmas in July with Cricut Artiste

I'm not sure how I could think about Christmas today when it's well over 100 degrees outside - again. Maybe it's wishful thinking for cooler weather combined with all the wonderful challenges to make cards for Christmas in July.  I'm in favor of celebrating the gift of Christ every day of the year!

It seemed like Christmas when the Fed Ex man delivered boxes of new Close To My Heart products a few days ago. I had to go out of town to babysit grandchildren for a few days, so I was excited to open packages and plan projects when I got home.  My favorite is the Cricut Artiste that will go on sale on my business website beginning August 1st.  Until then, I'll be making some projects to show different things you can do with the 700 images on the cartridge.  Here's a Christmas card that uses the decorative hexagon cut in black as the base for the large circle in Mojo Monday's sketch for this week.

The decorative hexagon is Accent 3 on page 80, the "Merry Christmas" key.

I used CTMH Pear and Partridge paper pack and a wreath, branch, and sentiment from a new CTMH stamp set called "Merry & Bright," which will also be released August 1st. I stamped the wreath on Colonial White cardstock with Olive ink, then colored it with the Copic green marker and cranberry CTMH dye ink marker. Thanks to the encouragement from Creative Belli blog to use old, forgotten supplies, I used a scrap of thin satin ribbon and one of red organdy that I'd hoarded for quite a few years. The organdy was just big enough to make a bow.

Challenges for this card:

Mojo Monday 251 - sketch

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - wreaths

Creative Belli Challenge #148 - Christmas in July

Lexi's Creations #70 - Christmas in July

Quirky Crafts Challenge #15 - Christmas in July

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

One more card today. I used a green glittered scrap I had on my table with music from My Mind's Eye that has the tune and words for "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." I'm trying to learn how to make Clean and Simple cards so I made this for Less Is More. It was quick and easy, the tag is the sentiment and it has a button, ribbon, twine embellishment. There is lots of subtle white space with the music being so pale. The tag was one from CTMH that had Christmas melodies. The background of the card was embossed with a 5' x 7" Cuttlebug embossing folder.

I also used twine to tie on the tag and to tie a bow in the button that goes around the organdy ribbon. I love the look of elegance mixed with the fine twine. This was for the challenge at the Ribbon Carousel Challenge 32. 

Autumn Cards using Verve patterns

I had made these cards for the month of October, but didn't get them posted when I was sick. Verve has a weekly challenge on Splitcoast Stampers each month. It's called Viva La Verve. I made multiples of each card so I could sell some in the two craft fairs I participated in. Here is the Christmas card I made for week 1. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder turned sideways to make the snowy frame and a Martha Stewart border punch that I inked. The stamp set is from CTMH.

 I love using the autumn colors so here's the resulting combination. I added a little "pink" to the color combo of some of the cards. Here is Week 2. The stamp sets, ink, Sunset dotted paper, Blush pink cardstock,  and ribbon are all CTMH.

Here's the card for week 3. All of the materials are from Close To My Heart. The papers are from the CTMH Roxie packet. The Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge helped me cut out the stamped shape that goes with the sentiment. It's hard to see, but the black and softie cardstock strip is pleated on the right with sparkles on the pleats. There is also a large sparkle inside the ribbon flower.

The next card for the week 4 design has an embossed circle. The sentiment, flower, and corduroy brad inside the flower are from CTMH.

The last card was for October's Week 5. It uses Basic Grey paper. The stamp set, buttons and flower are CTMH. The black fiber is actually crochet thread. I like the stiffer quality because it helps me thread the buttons more easily and shows up really well. The oval and frame are both cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge. That is my absolute favorite cartridge because of the 700 different shapes.

Just Us Girls Sketch- Anniversary Card

I wanted happy, warm colors for this anniversary card so it would reflect the happiness I'm wishing my dear friend Marilyn and her husband. I'm love the silhouette of the couple holding hands because it really does portray the idea of Togetherness expressed in the sentiment. I used the design from Just Us Girls Sketch 104.

To add extra dimension, I pop dotted the bottom of the tulip diamond patterned paper, pleated the velvet corduroy ribbon, and added jute to my large cocoa button.

Together 6.5" x 5" card materials:

Paper - Elemental (sorbet background pattern), retiredVeranda (creme brulee pattern), retired Perfect Day (tulip, sorbet mat, cocoa cs)

Stamp - Bliss (CTMH Summer 2011 Workshops on the Go)

Inks - Creme Brulee, Cocoa

Accessories - Spring Blossom flowers, ribbon- CTMH cocoa collection, buttons - CTMH basic assortment, waxy flax, jute, Cream lace (KaiserCraft)

Dreamin' Card Challenge

Today I chose the Cr84FN Color Challenge to make this card. I used their three colors, orange, yellow, and brown. The Dreamin' paper pack has those colors, along with Dutch Blue. I chose the simple design from Taylored Expressions challenge 147. Here's the color and pattern inspiration:

I also challenged myself to see how many cards I could get from the Dreamin' paper pack for a fall card workshop just adding card bases and using extra cardstock from my scraps or retired paper. Here's the first result. All supplies used were Close To My Heart. The Sentiment says: Just wanted you to know . . . You are in my prayers.

Card Size - 4.25" x 5.5"
Paper - Dreamin', Cocoa, Sunset, and Buttercup CS
Stamps - Unscripted, Card Chatter-Sympathy
Inks - Cocoa, Autumn Terracotta, Sunflower
Accessories - Honey Mini-Medley Accents, Sunflower organdy (retired)

MOJO Monday 208 Birthday Card

This 6" x 6"card is for my dear friend, Cherlyn, who celebrated her birthday yesterday. She shared her card-making passion with me when she worked at The Paperie Place. We scrapbook together on Tuesdays, so hopefully she'll receive this tomorrow. I love this belated birthday sentiment. The inside reads: "I'm just extending the CELEBRATION."

I used the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the leaves at 1.75" and decorative frame and base at 1.25". The paper was from a CTMH pack called Olivia, with some added Barn Red and Ponderosa Pine. The mocha pearls and retired Barn Red organdy helped finish the card.

Catching up on Mojo Monday

Jen is so dear to me, always bringing new friends to our scrapbook club. She has a real passion for scrapbooking and celebrating the lives of her family and friends. I made this card for her anniversary this weekend. This pattern is Mojo 200. I used background patterned paper I received from a weekend crop at Scrapbook Generations in Springfield, MO. The cardstock, blue dotted paper, stamps (Bliss and retired daisy) and ink are CTMH. The gingham ribbon is also retired. The Sky, Indian Corn Blue, Outdoor Denim, and Sunkiss Yellow colors look great together.

July was a busy month with family celebrations, taking grandkids swimming on hot days, and scrapbooking those memories (and forgetting to blog). However, there was one week in which four people I knew died. The funerals were celebrations of their lives, but I was hoping to send comfort to my friends and relations by giving them heartfelt messages in cards I made.

Here's one I made for Becky when her dad died.

I was glad to use the Hope stamp set as a reminder that we have this hope to see our loved ones again in eternity.  I used the MOJO 199 pattern from July to create the front. I also used Basic Grey paper and CTMH cardstock, stamps, and ink.

Studio J Adds Stitches

Studio J helped me scrapbook these photos of my grandson's Kindergarten Graduation in record time. I loved the school-themed papers and stickease. Then, to make it even better, yesterday I received a memo describing the new feature of stitching on layouts. I made the layout so quickly, I didn't dwell on the fine details of the stitching. I just did the obvious--changed thread color (60 different colors!), changed orientation, rotating them from vertical to horizontal, and moved them to different positions. There are also stitched shapes you can try out. This new feature will certainly tempt me to try Studio J layouts even more.

Father's Day 2011

How amazing it is to have a husband who loves to travel and to plan awesome photo trips suddenly decide he'd rather build an insulated pole barn this summer instead of traveling. This do-it-yourself guy just erected the poles and used the tractor to lift the 100 lb. trusses. In his mind I'm sure he's focusing on the end result- having a warm place in the winter to build his next car project - a T-Bucket street rod. In honor of this man and his car passion, I made this Father's Day card:

Close To My Heart materials used: Paper--Colonial White, Bamboo, Cocoa, Black, and Husk CS, Passages (map) BT; Inks--Desert Sand, Cocoa, Brown Bag, Black; Stamps--C1454 Horizons (car, suitcase, sentiment), D1468 On This Day (ticket), D1357 Post Card Travel Series (stamps, postal designs), Noted Backgrounds (script); Accessories--Z1146Pewter Designer Brads, basting string