CEUs and Crafty Shopping

Today and tomorrow I am off to the Creating Keepsake Convention for some Creative Education Units (CEUs). Yes ladies, even the teacher gets taught! I registered for various classes on some of the latest crafting techniques and there are several that I am particularly looking forward to. Today's agenda includes a class on making an acrylic album, working with Flower Soft and my favorite, Nestabilities dies. Tomorrow focuses on cardmaking and stamping. In between classes, my friends and I have of course scheduled time to shop. A big thank goes to my husband who will be single parent for the next two days so I can go have fun, er, I mean work.

UPDATE: During the Flower Soft class I actually won a prize! I received the new Polar White flower soft which has specks of white glitter. I was so excited I nearly fell out of my chair. I already have a project in mind and I will be hunting down the Flower Soft lady later today for more product. Visited the Spellbinder booth for more dies. The lady was kind enough to show me the new ones being presented at CHA and gave a coupon for the new releases for an awesome discount. (Okay...I admit...there may be a tiny problem here.)

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

As you are reading this, one of the biggest trade shows in the crafting industry is going on in Orlando, Florida... The Craft and Hobby Association Summer Convention and Trade Show (affectionately known as CHA). Want to know what's going on at CHA? Here's a link to the Craft Critique website with some valuable insight to the techniques and new products being demo'd. I don't know about you, but I can't wait until the convention is over and the new products hit the shelves.

Butterflies

I love summer because my daughter is home and we get to play with with new crafting techniques and have fun creating. This week we discovered alcohol inks and started making backgrounds and I have to say she mixes colors I would never think would go together and gets some incredible results.

The butterflies were created by blending alcohol inks onto glossy cardstock and then using a Martha Stewart punch for the butterfly image. I used a nestabilities die for the frame and the sentiment is from the Be Yourself stamp set which was the CTMH May Stamp of the Month.

Can you believe another month has almost finished? That's good news because with a new month, comes a new stamp set and of course a new Blog Hop! Are you wondering what this picture is? Then join me on August 1 for the the It's You Day Stamp of the Month Blog Hop and you will find out. At last count, we have 65 consultants sychnronizing their blogs for this month's Hop so mark your calendars because you won't want to miss all that creativity! The links to last month's Hop are still active and can be found HERE.

Sketch 97 - Mojo Monday

For this week's sketch I went with a green and brown color combination which is one of my favorites. The Emporium paper pack from CTMH is perfect for this. For the embellishment, I used a 1" circle punch to punch out the pattern on one of the B&T papers and then put one of the Designer Brads through the center as you can see in the picture below.



To create the shine on my image, I first stamped the flowers in Sunny Yellow and then reinked the stamp with Perfect Media and stamped over the image (which is really easy to do since the stamps are acrylic), and then applied my Perfect Pearls. This gives the image a gorgeous sheen which I tried to capture in the picture below.


CTMH Products
Cardstock – Colonial White, Cocoa, Sweet Leaf
B&T – Emporium
Ink – Sweet Leaf, Cocoa, Sunny Yellow
Stamp Sets – Delight in Everything, Say It In Style
Designer Brads

Other
Perfect Pearls
Nestabilities Dies
EK Success oval punch and corner punch

Totally Tutorials

Very exciting news! My tutorial on making paper roses made it onto this really awesome blog that posts tutorials on how to make anything and everything you can possibly imagine. It's called Totally Tutorials and you can check out the blog HERE. A big thank you goes out to my daughter who was a big help in making the tutorial which you can see HERE.

Just Because Stationery Set

Here's another template with a set of six (6) cards and envelopes ready for gift giving. I know it's only July, but the holidays will be here before you know it and I am looking forward to the new Close to My Heart Fall Idea Book and the new papers so I can make some of these for my upcoming craft fairs. This particular set is a hostess gift for an upcoming gathering. It uses the Emporium Creative Basics B&T papers, and the June Word Puzzle and Whooo Loves You stamp sets.

Home Sweet Home

You may remember a card I did a while back called the Flower Pot Card which was all the rage. You can see it in an earlier post HERE. This is a new take on that card which is perfect for someone moving into a new house. A gift card fits nicely on the insert with a removeable glue dot. This is also ideal as an invitation for a housewarming or other event.

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Colonial White, Tulip
B&T – Perfect Day
Stamp Set – For Every Occasion
Ink - Black

Other
Martha Stewart picket fence border punch
EK Success scallop border punch
Copper brad
White soufflé pen

Sketch 96 - Mojo Monday

For this week's sketch I used Perfect Day B&T to create a 6x6 card. I used pencil to lightly color the butterfly but otherwise wanted to stay with a monochromatic theme. Be sure to check out the other wonderful creations at the Mojo Monday blog.

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Colonial White, Juniper
B&T – Perfect Day
Ink – Juniper, Black
Stamp Sets – Butterfly Wings, Classmate Alphabet

Other
Martha Stewart herringbone ribbon (Cloud)
Nestabilities dies

Summer Reading

In an effort to encourage some Summer reading, my daughter and I made bookmarks. She made hers as a gift for my father's birthday and I made mine for her. We used the Tim Holtz line of Distress Inks from Ranger to make the backgrounds. Oh what fun! We then embossed the image on the bottom right corner using Walnut Stain Distress EP and the butterflies were stamped with Perfect Pearls. The picture doesn't show it but the Perfect Pearls makes the butterflies shimmer. The sentiment was stamped in CTMH black. The stamp set is one of the Tim Holtz Visual Artistry sets. We then laminated them, punched holes and put eyelets in for the ribbon. Super fun project.

This time I won't make you guess who did which one - my daughter's is on the left and mine is on the right.

Anniversary

I made this card for my mother-in-law's anniversary. I sponged Chocolate ink around all the edges and also around the dies to give them more dimension. The template for this card can be found HERE.

CTMH
Cardstock – Blush, Chocolate, Vanilla Cream
B&T - That’s Amore
Ink – Cocoa, Blush, Chocolate
Stamp Set – Love Language, Say it in Style
Nature’s Ambience rub-ons (chocolate)

Other
Nestabilities dies
Shimmery satin ribbon

She's Irresisitible

A big "Thank You" to everyone who participated in this week's poll where you were asked to look at two card fronts and decide which one was done by a "professional" crafter. You can see both card fronts in this post HERE. The results are in:

21% chose Card A (Mommy)

50% chose Card B (Daughter)

28% said they were both awesome

which means that in this instance, the majority chose my daughter's card. YEAH! As you can imagine, she is just thrilled. She hasn't decided what she is going to do with her card front yet but I have made mine into a simple birthday card ready for giving.

Simply Hard to Resist

Card A

Card B

Yesterday my daughter and I got out her white crayon and tried a technique I have been wanting to try for awhile now - crayon resist. We each made a card front and then she wanted to know which one I liked best. I thought for a first time effort, they both turned out pretty good but we wanted to see if you can tell which one of us did which card front (any guesses on who came up with this idea). If you wouldn't mind taking our little poll on the sidebar we would really appreciate it. The poll closes Thursday at midnight and on Friday I will post who created each card front.

CTMH Products
Stamp Set - Delight in Everything

OtherMustard Stazon, Teal Blue Stazon, Black Stazon, white glossy cardstock, adhesive crystals, white Crayola crayon

Here's My Mojo

Every Monday, a sketch is posted on this blog and reader's are asked to create a card based on the sketch. Well this week, I broke down and decided to give it a try. The first picture is the sketch and the second is the card I came up with. I used my favorite paper pack, Emporium. I made the flowers using a set of cuttlebug dies I got at the local craft store in the clearance section. Once the flower shapes were cut from the Baby Pink and Blush cardstock, I spritzed them with water, crumpled them, opened them up and allowed them to dry. Once dried, I sponged them with Distress Ink Tattered Rose and Worn Lipstick to achieve the color I wanted. I really like these new Distress Inks and am collecting all the colors.

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Baby Pink, Blush, Cocoa, Colonial White, Olive
B&T – Emporium
Stamp Set - Tender Tags
Ink – Cocoa, Chocolate

Other
Ribbon
Adhesive pearls
EK Success fern punch and border punch, Marvy Uchida tag punches, Nestabilities dies, Cuttlebug dies
Distress Inks – Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick

Technique – sponginging edges

Paper Roses - Tutorial

This is one of the first cards I ever made. My daughter and I would spend hours making these little roses so I solicited her assistance in making this tutorial. They are very simple to make and precision is really not required.

First cut a square. The bigger the square, the bigger the rose. The one pictured here is 2 inches. Then draw a spiral on the square as shown in Figure 1. The tighter the spiral the fuller the rose. Be sure your lines are faint. I made the lines dark for purposes of the picture.

Cut along lines of your spiral. My daughter cut outside the lines for illustration purposes on this one (she wanted me to be sure and tell you that she does know how to cut on the lines).

Then start rolling the paper from the outside toward the center. Roll very tightly. I use an embossing tool to start the rolling process.

When you get to the end, let the roll unravel a bit to form the rose and add a glue to the bottom to hold it together and viola! You have your rose which you can then attach to your card front or wherever.

Variations:
Ink the edges before you roll to add dimension. Add glue to edges of rolled rose and dip in glitter. Emboss edges of rolled rose.

CTMH Products
Cardstock –White, Daisy, Juniper, Tulip
Ink – Juniper, Tulip
Stamp Sets – Playful Flourishes, Blooming Flourishes

Other
Birthday Sentiment from Inkandinkado stamp set

Happy 4th of July

Please remember all our service men and women, here and overseas, on this day who work so hard for our independence, democracy and freedom.

One of a Kind Delightful Dozen Box

This is the One of a Kind Delightful Dozen Box template inspired by the cards I made for my "Big Sis". She was a dear friend to my mom, who introduced us several years ago, and she has become a cherished friend to me as well. She saw the card I made and dedicated to my mom HERE with the May Stamp of the Month, Be Yourself, and asked me to make her a dozen which I did. I then made this box, which I call the Delightful Dozen Box, to hold the 12 cards and envelopes. You can see another version of this box HERE. She picked it up today, so as promised I am posting the pictures.

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Colonial White, Black, Cranberry
Ink – Black
Stamp Sets – Be Yourself (May SOTM)

Other
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder
White ribbon
Red crysrals

Happy Birthday Beautiful Friend

This is a card I made for a very good friend. She has helped me through a lot this year and she is a great enabler when it comes to Michael's and AC Moore (local craft stores for those of you not from around here). I made this card quite some time ago and was very happy with how it turned out. I had it displayed in my craft room and would hide it every time she came over. But of course, on her birthday, I forgot to give it to her. Well I finally dropped it off so I can now post it. At least I didn't lose it (I've done that before).

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Blush, Sweet Leaf, Black, Colonial White
Ink – Blush, Sweet Leaf, Black
Stamp Set – You Are Beautiful, For Every Occasion
Prisma glitter

Other
Green crystals
Nestabilities dies
EK Success scallop border punch

You've Got Flair - July Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Welcome to the You've Got Flair Blog Hop! This month we have 43 Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using July's Stamp of the Month 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! If you have come here from Jen Rubio's Blog you are on the right path! If this is your first stop, you may want to go back to Jena Devries's Blog and start from the beginning!

This month I opted for a 3D project. This is what I call the Bijou Box. It has 3 little boxes inside that can hold small pieces of candy or jewelry. The outer box is made from one piece of cardstock and on the inside boxes are 3 simple origami folded boxes. It is a smaller version of the more complex box we made last year which can be seen HERE. I embossed the image from You've Got Flair in black embossing powder and as you can see, it compliments the Silhouette B&T very nicely.

CTMH Products
Cardstock – Black, Colonial White
B&T – Silhouette
Stamp Set – You’ve Got Flair (July SOTM)
Black Embossing Powder
Foundry Bookplates
Just Blooms White Daisy

Other
Black ribbon
Red crystals
EK Success corner, border, and circle punches


Now hop on over to Laurie Newton's Blog to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to see some great crafting and other fun ideas! Remember, the You've Got Flair stamp set is only available until July 31st! Contact your CTMH Consultant to see how you can get this stamp set at a discount or even free! The following is a complete list of the blogs participating in this month's blog hop:

Jena Devries
Wendy Kessler
Sherry Thompson
Dawn Heuft
Brae Montgomery
Melissa Laverty
Karen Norman
Deb Young
Adeline E Brill
Tammy Lea Pinchard
Jen Rubio
Cibele Glazer
Laurie R Newton
Kami Welter
Helen Onulak
Sarita Schraeder
Chris Shouse
Paige Dolecki
Dawn Ross
Jamia Bankhead
Nona Davenport
Haley Dyer
Misty Jackson
Jennifer Patrick
Carla Ironside
Jody Gustafson
Heather Painchaud
Julia Menssen
Lori Miller
Pamela O'Connor
Reba Poquette
Anne Beck
Shallon Pelletier
Caren Goldsein
Jan Moxey
Kristie Horness-Herdener
Alanna Moses
Leslie Markland
Barbara Otten
Traci Godbee
Jill Lucas
Amy McVey
Laurie Levnik