Jumping July

Happy July!

The busiest part of my work year is behind me… yayyyyy (Can you picture me flailing around like a happy Kermit the Frog? Lol) Now I can enjoy a little of summer.

In my crafting world… a lot of my Close to My Heart team mates are getting ready to head off to Convention in a week out in Anaheim. I am envious. Not because they are going to California, though I would love the chance to go to Disney, but because they are going to get to see the new catalog line first!!!! I’ll get to see it soon enough, but I can’t share it with you until September…

But, meanwhile, in the present time, July, there’s a new Stamp of the Month, and of course, a new promotion. And it’s really good, I have to say. The stamp of the month is called “Life is Wonderful”. It’s kind of geared towards scrapbooking, but when I played with it, I made cards. Lol. I just didn’t feel the scrapping vibe today.

The Month-long promotion is called “Jump on it July”. And you might really want to jump on it! During the month of July, when you purchase $25 (USD & CAD) in current, retail priced stamps, you qualify to receive either the July Stamp of the Month, Life is Wonderful, FREE, or any of the Hostess Rewards stamp sets featured in the Annual Inspirations 2014-2015 or Seasonal Expressions 2 for only $5 (USD & CAD)!

This is such a great time to build up your stamp library, and get hold of one of those hostess sets that you may have been longing for, but felt were out of reach.

So, on to the cards:

The first two I used the SoTM primarily, then I started branching off with the hostess stamps. I will list the supplies of each. Some things are not available however, as they were from the Deal of the Day box I got a couple months ago.

I decided to try the chalkboard look with the SotM, since I hadn't used my White Daisy Ink pad much. I chose to use a dark blue card stock that came to hand, I don’t think it’s CTMH (I recently came across a pile of office supply cardstock samples in my cupboard), but Outdoor Denim would work beautifully, I used a White Daisy card base. I used Outdoor Denim Exclusive Ink for the Wonderful, on White Daisy cardstock, and popped that out with foam dots. I had some of this curly-cue shimmer trim from some dollar-store haul that I thought would go well with the ‘Wonderful’, so I used that along the side (it did not peel off the plastic easily, I do not recommend it). Finished with three silver sequins to balance the bling on the other side. I thought this might be a good announcement card.

I made the next card using papers from the Jackson paper pack, Lagoon and Colonial White cardstock, and Lagoon, Black and Desert Sand Exclusive Inks. This is a more masculine card, so I kept embellishment to a minimum, using a metal badge button that came in my Deal of the Day. I used the Hostess set ‘A Thing Well Done’ as well as the SotM ‘Life is Wonderful’. Inside, I used the Congratulations stamp from the hostess set. A great Graduation, promotion, or even retirement card.

For this card I used the Hostess stamp, 'Exotic Flower', I just love this stamp. When I got it, I was inspired to pull out some old kaleidoscope ink pads that I had tucked away in my cupboard forever. I played around with them every which way I could think of with this stamp, creating some lovely effects (as shown by the assorted examples included in the picture).

For this card, I pulled out one of the pre-stamped ones that coordinated with Lagoon cardstock. Because of the size of the stamp, I felt it should go on a square card.  I used the curlicue corners from the SotM ‘Life is Wonderful’ as accents, and grabbed the saying from the Hostess set ‘Tagged With Love’. I popped that up with foam tape. Finally I added a crystal flower to the middle (another embellishment from the Deal of the Day box). There’s no sentiment inside, but I repeated a couple of the corner curlicues.

I hope you like these cards, please leave me a comment. You can get most of the supplies to make these cards by following the links listed, or this link to my OBA. If you have any questions, leave me a comment or send me an email and I will answer as soon as possible.

I’ll be making more cards and layouts using other Hostess sets soon, so check back again, or follow me to get notifications. Thanks for reading!