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!

It's March! Time to "Choose Happy"!

March first! And we’re still up to our eyeballs in snow! (ok, not really that much, but some days it feels like it.) Today, in the Close to My Heart year, marks the day that the new Stamp of the Month becomes available! This month’s offering is called “Choose Happy” and it’s spring-y and precious. 

See how you can get this stamp set for only $5!

At first glance it looks a bit girly, with several curlicue frames, but don’t be fooled! There’s a great all-around useful wood-tone squared one as well for the less frilly folk in your lives. I did my best to show them up in playful, "everybody" ways. I've only played with it with cards so far, as you can see below. I have been helping my daughter get some work done by hanging out and being a helpful grandma while dad is at work in the evenings. Yeah, like hanging out with my only grandchild is Such a hardship… not… lol. Anyway… I do plan to do more with this set soon, in the meantime, check out what I did so far:

The one on the right uses the Hopscotch papers, the Choose Happy Stamp of the Month set, and the Cuddly Salutations hostess stamp set. I used a Shin Han Touch marker to fill in the cutie pie chick to coordinate with the B&T paper. I finished it off with some Gold Shimmer Trim and a couple of Gold Sequins. (Materials used: Exclusive inks in Black and Desert Sand, Shin Han Touch alcohol marker in Light Orange; Hopscotch paper pack, Colonial Whitecardstock, Gold Shimmer Trim, Gold Sequins.)

The card on the left uses the two borders from the Choose Happy set, along with one of the frames and two of the sayings. I also used a saying from the Just to Say stamp set that comes with the Artfully Sent CricutCollection. I finished it off very simply with just a couple pieces of Teal Shimmer Trim. I thought this would make a simple anniversary card. If you look closely, you can see that I used the doodle stamps to border the inside. The next picture shows how the inside looks. (Materials used: Exclusive inks in Black,Lagoon and Sorbet, Black and Daisy White cardstock, Teal Shimmer Trim.)*

*(The white and black shapes I had on hand and just happened to fit nicely. They are cut from the Art Philosophy Cricut Collection. The square frames from the Choose Happy set will fit comfortably on a 2.25 inch square.) 

I have to confess, I am a paper hoarder. Yep, I just love the pretty patterns and when I see it, I imagine all the ways I am going to create with it; but once I get my hands on it, I just can't bear to cut into it. Or if I have more than one sheet of it, I can't bear to cut into the last sheet of it. But I was forever stumbling with coordinating patterns, and ended up using only one pattern per card, and sometimes I felt the colors didn't quite go together. Plus card-stock, and paper are different thicknesses... urgh.

When I joined Close to My Heart, I found to my delight that the company had put together packs with coordinating colors, taking the guesswork out of what went with what. Then they added coordinating additional elements like stickers, gems, ribbon and twine, sequins etc.

But back to my paper hoarding.... I was looking through my stash today, and realized that I have bought several paper packs that CTMH took out of the catalog at the end of last summer. lol And I want to cut into them. But I also really want to play with the new ones and post cards for you all to see. There is not enough time in my days to do all that. So the older stuff is going to have to wait, at least until my next vacation.

I finished up my 15 cards out of the Hopscotch paper pack. I have lots of Hopscotch paper left, I could make at least 15 more cards.

Here are a few of the variations that I came up with as I played with the 15 I did finish:

I did a little paper piecing on the birthday card in the middle back. The little speech bubble on the elephant card is also cut out and pieced over the frame, slightly popped out for just a hint of dimension. It's hard to tell in these photos, I might have to take some close ups and add them later. I did get a little too crazy with the background stamping in one of the foreground cards, that one didn't quite turn out as I'd imagined, but it's a good example of what can go awry. I should have turned over the B&T paper, but I'd already put adhesive on it before I realized it. So I just made the best of it. I'll probably keep that one as an example (of what not to do).

In addition to using the same supplies I listed below, I also used the stamp set Lifting Spirits and the Hostess reward set Cuddly Salutations.