Sweet Hope

I made this card for someone very special to me, who teaches me through her strength and faith. I am entering this card in two challenges this week.

Mojo Monday sketch~

and the "Anything Goes" challenge at Ribbon Carousel~

All products are Close To My Heart:

papers-silhouette, cherry-o, cardstock; creme brulee & smoothie

stamps-Treasures of the Heart, Universal Backgrounds

embellishments-smoothie button, color ready seam binding, baker's twine, black pearls

Inspiration on Heart 2 Heart

Here is this week's inspiration photo on Heart 2 Heart challenges. I like the calm neutral colors with just a splash of aqua blues! I was also intrigued by the framed chalkboard as you can see in the card I created.

I used the new colonial white die cut card. The stamp is from the Stella Workshop on the Go. The rug in the photo reminded me of the older Silhouette papers. {all product is CTMH}

To celebrate the end of February {the month of love} Heart 2 Heart wants to show their love to you! A surprise package of goodies will be heading to one lucky player, randomly chosen from ALL of the players in the month of February. The more you played along with the challenges, the more chances you have to win!

Be sure to get your entries added to the challenges by Saturday, Mar. 3rd at 10:00 pm EST to be eligible! This is also the final date to be eligible for February's Top Ten.

Be inspired by the Design Team's creations this week, and get your artwork posted soon!

March 2012 Constant Campaign: The Philosophy of Fun

Now is a great time for your customers to join Close To My Heart because when they sign up as a new Consultant between March 1–31, they’ll receive a FREE Cricut® Art Philosophy collection! The collection’s retail price of $99 adds incredible value to the New Consultant Kit and will give hours of creative fun with the included exclusive Cricut® cartridge, three coordinating My Acrylix® D-size stamp sets, and three sheets of matching Dimensional Elements shapes. Already own the collection? Your customers can always give the free one as a gift or choose to receive $100 in select product credit** instead. Now is the time to embrace the philosophy of fun—Consultant and Cricut® fun!

*Offer available March 1—31, 2012. No additional tax is charged on the Cricut® collection when ordered during enrollment.

**Additional requirements and limitations regarding the redemption and shipping of Select Product Credit apply. Select Product Credit is added to new Consultant account following approval of enrollment.

Please contact me for more information or if you have questions.

Smash Book Accessories

Yesterday I showed you my Smash Book using the My Creations Journal from Close To My Heart. Hopefully, you also got the chance to see the video of the Smash Book from K&Company. In the video you will notice they sell lots of coordinating products. So I headed back to my scraproom and created an assortment of coordinating embellishments using various stamps, some that have not seen ink in a couple of years! Take a look~

I {heart} Smash Book

Have you "smashed" yet? My daughter and I walked through a local scrapbooking store and saw the Smash Book from K&Company for the first time. Curious...We went home and researched on the Internet to find out what this smashing was all about. Curious yourself? Check out this video. {warning: the song is very catchy!}


Well, being a dedicated Close To My Heart gal, I was certain that I could create one of these books with the wonderful CTMH products. I happened to get one of these My Creations Journals before they retired. I like that it has a protected front cover and big spirals to allow pretty ribbons and expansion of pages.

I am entering this smash-tastic project in two challenges this week. First the Ribbon Carousel Challenge for it's colorful ribbon and sparkly swirls. I am also entering it in the Inspired By #11 Challenge. The colors of the photo are exactly what I was looking for. My little banner hangs cheerfully just as the frames in the photo as well!

This is the photo at Inspired By~

I love the idea of a Smash Book being sort-of whimsical and chaotic. It will contain a mish-mash of items and ideas and those will be written in my own handwriting which is pretty scary! What a fun journey this shall be!

I did break down and get the Smash pen. It's too cool not to use. It has a writing pen on one end while the other end has glue. I'm ready to smash anything in the book!! Awesome right!

Where's My Art?

I'm so excited! My artwork has been featured on Close To My Heart Founder, Jeanette Lynton's Blog today!! I submitted this Family Pocket Page a few weeks back. I wanted to share a little piece of my own personal scrapbook page. For the last 7 or so years I have been concluding my scrapbooks with a pocket page to hold all those precious photo's and handmade cards I receive over the Holiday's from family and friends. I know that they took time to make such wonderful cards and I want to cherish them forever. {you may recognize some of them!}


I also wanted to feature a fun technique that anyone can do. While the My Stickease makes embellishing your pages super easy, you can touch them up a bit with heat embossing. For this frame I simply removed it from the carrier sheet and place it on another blank carrier sheet. I stamped the family sentiment with Versa Mark Ink and sprinkled it with Olive Embossing Powder. I then carefully heated it to a shiny finish. It removes cleanly from the carrier sheet and retains its adhesive backing so you can easily adhere it to your project.

While most pages are two-sided in your album, you will have a single front page and single back page. So since my back page holds photo's and cards, what will my front page be? I like to make it an introduction page to what the album is all about. Because, my books are done for each year, I will usually do this cover page at the end of the year. Sounds strange right? The reason I do that is because I like to choose my favorite family photo or memory from the entire year and make it the cover page. Example: The year we moved to a new town, I made the cover page a picture of the family standing outside of our new home!

I've also made the beginning and ending pages relate to one another by using the same Florentine papers and My Stickease. The design of this page was also inspired by the cover of the Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book!

I'm thrilled that Jeanette and her team liked my idea and were inspired by my art. I hope that this is an idea that others will try in their own scrapbooks!

H2H Sketch Challenge {"cap" it off with some metal!}

It's a sketch challenge this week on Heart 2 Heart. But, there's a "twist"!! Add some metal on your project. Woo hoo! That sounds like fun!


Here is the sketch. As you can see I have turned it 90 degrees to fit my sentiment.


So many favorite new products on this card! The first item is the Cruisin' papers. A little bit masculine, but so cool and graphic! Another fave is the bottle cap. You'll see a little pic below on how I added it to my card. Lastly, the grey twine. Twine is all the trend and I'm thrilled that Close To My Heart has it. I hope they will carry it in more colors in the future! I've also brought in some oldies but goodies with a swirly stamp from Enjoy Life and a sentiment from Card Chatter Birthday. Along with the bottle cap as my "metal" item, I've also added some silver brads.

To get a secure placement on my card, I used layers of 3D foam tape under my bottle cap. It's not going anywhere! Ha, Ha!

Please visit the Heart 2 Heart Challenge Blog for lots of inspiration and please play along with this week's sketch!

Colorful Ribbon

Have you seen the color ready seam binding ribbon? What an innovative product! It's so easy to color and the results are stunning.

For these cards I simply sponged the ink directly onto the ribbon. I was worried that once it was inked I would have ink all over my fingers, but amazingly the ink absorbs well and my fingers were still clean!

This is the card I was telling you about earlier this week. My other creation to the Inspired By #10 challenge. You can see the inspiration photo and post here.

H2H {1,2,3} Challenge

This week on the Heart 2 Heart Blog we are challenged to create a project using~

1. stamp

2. different patterned papers

3. embellishments (can be same or different)

My {1} stamp is a small flower from the Card Word Puzzle stamp set. I used it multiple times on the half circle banner pieces to give them interest and texture.

The {2} patterned papers come from Lucy (floral pattern & giggle definition) and Cruisin' (gray cross hatched).

My {3} embellishments are the glitter buttons, pink sparkles inside the buttons and grey twine.

Take a closer look~


Please visit the Heart 2 Heart blog this week and play along!

Treats for your Sweets!

I made some little goodies for purchase at my last club meeting. These were all made using the AP Cricut cartridge. I also used this month's Stamp of the Month Thoughtful Tidings. Each were filled with delicious milk and dark chocolates. Take a closer look~


I love how the zebra striped Roxie papers jazz this little tote up! I also took some leftover plaid Roxie paper and ran it through my paper shredder to create "filler" for the inside.

This little stamp on the mini petal box is called Crafted with Love.

I also made some delicious sugar free chocolate cupcakes and banana nut muffins to feature the Enjoy stamp set.

This stamp set is perfect for personalizing your homemade goodies to give to family, friends or even at a bake sale!

Make something special for your loved ones today!

Inspired by #10

I had fun with the inspiration photo this week on Inspired By! Check it out~



I thought of a few directions I could interpret this photo {I actually made 2 cards} but this was my first thought. I love the colors, same as my wedding, so I did not alter that at all. I was also most intrigued by the umbrellas and knew I had a stamp in my collection that has not seen ink for some time. Here is what I created~

It would not be complete without some raindrops!

Perhaps I will get around to sharing the other card I created later in the week. In the meantime you should stop by the Inspired By blog and see the other entries and play along!

{all product is Close To My Heart}

Family Love

I wanted to share another favorite stamp set from the Spring/Summer Idea Book with you today. It's called Family Love {D1506}. This stamp set contains some great "family" sentiments, but it also has some smaller images that work perfectly for creating a textured background paper.

I chose just a few of the sentiments for these cards and you can see those smaller images stamped to create interesting background papers. My colors are Juniper, Goldrush, Cocoa, Kraft, Garden Green, Tulip and Colonial White.

I have also incorporated this stamp set for my own personal scrapbook pages. It's perfect for those family events captured within scrapbook pages. However, incorporating these heart felt sentiments in a card will be great for sending to loved ones; perhaps for Grandparents Day!