Life in Pictures Layout

My daughter, her hubby, and three teen and tween boys came to our rural home today to help pick up sticks, clear the fence line, and mow. There is always a LOT of work that needs to be done and the only good thing about the ailments of old age is that family realizes you can't do it all alone and comes to visit more often to help.

I showed my 40 year-old daughter these photos of her 20 year-old self and she laughed that she still has that dress and it still fits her size 2 self after 5 pregnancies including 2 sets of full-term, full-sized twins. I'd always loved the photos but hadn't scrapbooked them because I wanted subtle, neutral background papers. After they left I paired the photos with some papers on the table by my desk. The soft colors of  some Charlotte papers worked perfectly with the challenge at 613 Avenue Create - use neutral colors (with black or light pink for accents).  There is a subtle rose pattern on the white background. I used a couple of accents from the Charlotte complements and the black patterned background paper is from La Vie en Rose.

All of the stamps are from CTMH Life in Pictures. My hubby is such a camera buff these are perfect for our family. I know he took the photos above with one of his medium format cameras because of their size, but I didn't include the stamped image of one on this layout.  The two smaller cameras are darker because I used black embossing powder when I stamped them.  I have quite a few more planned with these stamps. I thought they went well with the Cricut Artbooking title I gave this layout. (The circle was cut at 8.5" using Cricut Artiste.)

Thank you for visiting.

I'm sharing this layout with the following challenges;

613 Avenue Create #170 - neutral colors.
Craft for the Craic - April anything but a card
Crafty Calendar April Challenge - anything goes
Jo's Scrap Shack Funday Friday#133 - anything goes
PDE Linky Party #118 - anything goes
Simply Papercraft #27 - anything goes

The Real Beauty of Easter

The real beauty of Easter is knowing that you are loved so much by someone else that He would volunteer to take your punishment for all the wrongs you'd ever done in life by giving up His own life, dying in your place.  His death was cruel, traumatic, and ugly, but His love for doing it is beautiful, so we tend to make our Easter cards beautiful. This card is made in gratitude of Christ's beautiful love for me, for you, and for the world (Path of Positivity Challenge - Beauty).

I made the cross by cutting a border strip into two pieces and lining it with gold glitter paper to make the cross. I stamped the sentiment: You are Loved from the stamp set Your Own Kind of Wonderful.

The soft colors come from the Charlotte paper pack and the leafy branches are from Charlotte complements chipboard. The gold heart is one of my favorites from Treasured Puffies.  They have shine, dimension, but are fairly soft so shouldn't affect mailing.  The Whisper thick twine is also soft for mailing. The Cricut cut is from page 70 of Art Philosophy, If you use Cricut Explore, the image code is #M413F5.

Thank you for visiting! May God bless you and your loved ones this Easter with the overwhelming realization of how very much you are loved by Christ the Lord!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
All Sorts #355 - Easter
Bitten by the Bug 2 - Spring flings and Easter things
Crafting with Dragonflies #53 - Easter
Crafty Cardmakers #160 - Easter
D.L.Art Thankful Thursday #176 - Easter
Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #262 - Easter
Jo's Scrap Shack #130 - Happy Easter
Path of Positivity Challenge - Beauty
Where the HeART is Challenge 7 - Easter/anything goes
Word Art Wednesday #222/223 - anything uplifting

February Stamp of the Month - Balloon Animals

I'm excited to welcome you to the February Stamp of the month blog hop using the Balloon Animals stamp set.  If you have come here from Helen's Blog, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way all around.  If you get lost along the way, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants on Melinda’s Blog.

I hope you'll enjoy the many 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! 

I chose to make the balloon animals on my cards pastel colors, mostly matching the papers from the Penelope paper pack, with the addition of a bit of Pixie and Thistle cardstock from the Whimsy cardstock pack. I made birthday cards with those papers, the  Balloon Animals stamp set,  and the Cricut. If you have the Cricut Explore, and the Artfully Sent and Artistry cartridges, you can use my cut files here to make your own cards. If you don't have either of those cartridges and would like to get them, you can use the links here.  All of the cards are 5.5" x 4.25."

I made these cards for my youngest granddaughter to give when she's invited to a birthday party. My daughter said she's to the parties of boys in her class, but so far only made this first one for a young boy.

I backed the Cricut cut mat with Honey striped paper.  Before adhering, I put pencil dots in the corners of the stars and traced the confetti swirls. Then I covered only swirl lines with the Pear striped washi tape that comes in the Limeade set of tape, avoiding the star markings. I erased the light pencil dots that marked the stars and adhered the Honey strip. The entire mat was pop dotted onto one of the Crystal Blue papers in the Penelope pack using Thin 3-D Foam Tape.  The balloon animals were stamped with Crystal Blue, Honey, and Pear inks and cut out. They were pop dotted with regular 3-D Foam Tape.  I added  a few Blue Dot and Green Triangle Enamel and Glitter Duos.
I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Little Red Wagon #326 - birthday
Mod Squad Challenge - masculine birthday
The Male Room #27 - babies and little boys

Here are two cards I made for little girl birthdays:

 I stamped the giraffe using Sorbet ink and added sparkles and a Pixie Extra Thick Twine bow to the stars tag.

I embossed the Thistle panel on this card using the Confetti Stars embossing folder, then I lightly sanded the stars only using a sanding block. This is what I love about the CTMH cardstock with the white core. With only light pressure using medium grain the block keeps me from sanding the recessed surface. The elephant was stamped with Pixie ink and the monkey with Thistle. I decided to add a little bling using black glitter paper, black an gold ribbon, and gold sequins.

Thank you for visiting. Now you're ready to go back to the beginning if you didn't start there. Visit Catherine's blog.

Charlotte Card and Scrapbook Workshop

 I'd like to invite you to our blog hop on Sunday showing lots of ideas for using the Charlotte paper pack and Easter themed projects. You can find my post here on Sunday.

In addition, Close To My Heart has a new type of workshop designed to help you use up most of your paper pack. It's called Workshops Your Way. I wanted my workshop ladies and blog visitors to know that the one we're doing in February is the Charlotte Workshop Your Way. After making 3 layouts and a double-page pocket layout I made 9 cards sampled here, 3 each of 3 designs:

The next two cards show how subtle the large whisper rose pattern was on the card on the right. I accidentally thought it was supposed to be left white when I made the first one on the left. 

Here are the three scrapbook layouts for this workshop. You can find the cutting guides and directions on line here.

If you do pocket scrapbooking, here is the sample layout. When I made mine, I chose photos first, then I chose the cards that fit my leftover pockets.

Thank you for visiting! Please come back tomorrow for a preview card for Sunday's blog hop!