Say Hello To Watercolors

Close To My Heart is offering a brand new gorgeous palette of watercolors, brushes and paper to their fabulous line of products. Watercolors have fast become a trend in scrapbooking and card making lately. The colors are rich in tone and the brushes are of high quality. The watercolor paper provides the perfect base to your master piece.

At my recent Open House I spoiled my best customers with a preview of not only the new watercolor products, but also this month's Hello, Life! promotion! We made a clean and simple card using an ombre coloring technique, a little bit of some La Vie En Rose black & white papers and finally we did some stamping with the new Hello, Life! cardmaking stamp set. We had a lot of fun painting and stamping!

The ladies picked any color from the palette that they wanted to paint with. I then paired it to one of CTMH exclusive ink pads for the stamping portion.

Here is a closer look at a card done with Thistle ink and a matching purple paint!

I love when a simple project comes together beautifully and is fun to create!

You can see and purchase any of these new items now online! Happy painting! :)

The Wedding

The youngest of my Brother-in-Law's was married yesterday evening. He is the baby of 11 children and the last to be wed! It was a beautiful wedding filled with surprises and personal touches. I made them a card based on the wedding colors of slate gray and coral orange. I used the Stickease from the For Always paper kit and added some stunning ribbon and sweet little orange flowers. Simple yet elegant!

{The wedding party}



Blue Baby Buggy

Playing along with Dynamic Duos challenge today! It's a Blue and Black duo. I chose Close To My Heart's Pacifica blue color and some black and white patterned papers from Teresa Collins. The challenge also had a dessert option of a kid theme. I just so happened to need a baby shower card and let's face it babies all grow up to be kids!! {tee-hee}

Hooray For You!

Imagine that you took a bright, colorful Birthday card and edited it to be black and white! That was the feeling I got when I created this card for the Dynamic Duos challenge. The bold colors and simple theme makes this card great for any guy! It's also very graphic and actually has lots of shine in person. I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. I was not sure that the medallion at the top would work, but it eventually grew on me!

Up close you can really see the shimmer of the Dream Pop paper available May 1st for National Scrapbooking Month!

New Idea Book and more Open House Artwork

The new Spring 2013 Idea Book goes live today...hooray! I have some more artwork to share with you and of course you can browse the book for many more ideas and inspiration! Just click on the book in the right hand column to view it.

Some of the new items you will find in this book are~

~7 brand new paper collections
~7 workshop on the go's, canvas art kit and 2 cardmaking kits
~2 textile collections with 6 different fabric patterns
~brand new My Creations items; muslin draw string bags, clear treat tubes, clear pillow boxes, 6x6 display canvas, paper pouches and kraft containers.
~5x7 hinged display tray
~glitter paper
~new embellishments such as epoxy bubbles, glitter gems, fabric & acrylic flowers, pennants, pinwheels and fabric buttons {just to name a few}
~plus, many new MyAcrylix stamp sets and page after page of gorgeous artwork!

One of my favorite new paper's is the For Always collection. The black and white is so stunning and so versatile. I used one of the display trays at my Open House to show off these beautiful prints. I love that you can pop in color and change the look! {can you find the new fabric?}

I have yet to add some family photographs, but you can see that they will be nicely spread out between the decorated boxes. One big photo will go here.

I love the trend of chevron lately, it's so cool!

I pulled out some older stamp sets to complete my tray. They were perfect for my 'family at home' theme!

Look how gorgeous this new acrylic flower is! Paired with some velvet and lace against a floral background....ahhh, so pretty!

Would you believe that I still have more to show you from my Open House? Come on back to see it!
You can place an order for products featured in the new Idea Book starting today. Shop online here.

Life is Tweet

The beginning of the month is always so exciting! New stamps, new projects and fabulous promotions! On Mojo Monday this week it's a new sketch and contest. The design has lots of layers and the possibility of lots of embellishments.

The beginning of the month also means a new stamp at a discounted price. This month's Life is Tweet, is super cute and I adore the little birdie! When your order reaches $50 you can purchase this darling stamp for only $5.

Just a reminder that it's Stampaganza all month long too! Buy 2 stamps sets and get the 3rd of equal or lesser value for FREE!

I was playing around in Picasa with this card and what I ended up creating reminds me of this week's challenge on Heart 2 Heart. Now it's Black and white with a pop of color! If you have not played along yet this week, "pop" on over there!

Ready to go shopping for this super tweet stamp and many more! Click here.

Pop of Color

This week on Heart 2 Heart blog we are challenged to use black & white with a pop of just one other color! It is so hard to pick just one color from the fabulous selection that Close To My Heart offers. For this card I chose the color smoothie!

I am also entering this in the Ribbon Carousel's "Birthday Bash" challenge. {love the smoothie twine!}

Please visit the Heart 2 Heart blog this week for more inspiration and to play along!

The power of black and white photos

I wanted to share some pages I recently completed with black and white photos. I used the Perfect Day papers from the new Idea Book and several new embellishments also containing the new colors. I love this paper as it is, but the colors in my photos did not coordinate. Therefore I chose to print them in black and white. You really can't go wrong with the classic look of black and white photography. Now my eye is drawn to the gorgeous papers and the precious faces of my daughter with her darling cousins!