Retiring Soon!

Close To My Heart has put out the list of items to retire on August 1st. There are some great stamp sets listed and many cool products. Don't miss the opportunity to purchase these items before they go. Especially if you have been thinking about some of the Cricut collections! Yes, that's true, here are the collections going away!

Art Philosophy

Artfully Sent

Artiste

Do you love dry embossing? Guess what...they are retiring!

All of the thick twines and shimmer trim are going away too!

Plus, many home decor items like the chalkboard, shadow boxes and hinge trays!

Here is a list of all the stamps sets retiring and other products retiring. You can order with me directly or shop online!

Spring Wreaths in Many Colors

This past weekend I held my Spring Wreath Workshop. I had a total of four attendees, but Oh! Man, you should have seen all our stuff spread out across two rooms! We had Cricuts chirping, flowers being assembled and hot glue guns galore. Just about every outlet was filled! In the end the ladies created the most lovely spring wreaths in an assortment of colors. You can see my original sample wreath here.

This first wreath has yellow and dark blue flowers~

This next one has yellow with slate gray and just a pop of smoothie pink~

Look how pretty the smoothie, black and beige flowers look together~

Finally, this wreath is for the fans of purple with just a bit of black & white pattern. Gorgeous~

To think that all of these wreaths were inspired by the cover of the Annual Inspirations Idea Book. What will inspire you today?

Artbooking Luminaries

Are you looking for something special to add to your Holiday décor? Perhaps the center of your Thanksgiving table? The project I taught yesterday is the perfect item! A fall luminary created on the Cricut machine with the newest Artbooking cartridge. Using a layover cut from one of the mini book designs I was able to create a four sided luminary box. It was decorated with some fall leaves and just a touch of glitter! It's simple and gorgeous!

Just for fun I experimented with creating a Christmas version. This time I used half of an overlay from a 12x12 scrapbook page and closed it around the back creating a sphere. I also backed it with some vellum giving it a stained glass effect. You could easily color the vellum to create a more colorful stain glass too! Just a simple poinsettia cut from the Artiste cartridge and leaves from Art Philosophy. {sharing the cartridge love!!}

 

{P.S. I only use battery operated candles in my paper luminaries!}

What's Your Favorite Color?

Today is my last day to be a Guest Designer on Heart 2 Heart Challenges! :( I enjoyed playing along with them this month and look forward to new challenges next month.

This week H2H wants to color you happy! We were asked to create a project using our favorite CTMH color. To be honest there are a couple colors that really make me "happy"! I know it's a favorite color when I find that I am constantly re-stocking cardstock or my ink pad starts going dry.

I created this fantastic flip album to celebrate things that make my heart happy and of course it incudes my favorite colors. It's really hard to choose just one color, so I give you my top 3!

3. When I'm looking for a happy color, I think of yellow. Not a blinding, sunny yellow, rather a soft, creamy yellow. My third favorite color is Crème Brulee.

2. I love my pinks, but mostly a strong, bright pink. I especially love to mix it in with black, gray or white. I have a small collection of running shoes all in this color combination! My pink pick and second favorite color is Cotton Candy!

1. Finally, my number one pick is everywhere in home décor, jewelry and fashion trends lately. My daughter and I fight over who gets to buy the blouse, shorts or sandals in this color. Some stores refer to it as turquoise, teal or tropical breeze. In my CTMH world it's Lagoon and I love it!

 I popped a little Pear green in there too! That would be a 4th favorite color and rounds out my primary colors!!

This flip album idea came from a video posted by Heidi Swapp. I found the basic supplies I needed to create my own from Walmart.

It all starts with a simple clear acrylic standing frame. Mine is only 7x5, but you could make it larger if you wish. A piece of texture paper quickly dresses up the background. I chose some chevron For Always papers.

The next item was a little tricky! I needed to find binder rings that were on a bracket so that they would be able to mount to the frame. I was fairly certain that these are not sold individually and I would really need to be on the hunt for something I could tear apart. I just so happened to find these little index card binders in a plastic folder. I was able to pop the binder piece out of the folder and hot glue it onto the face of my frame.

All I had left to do is add fancy Cricut cut pages. So far I only have 4 pages created, but you can see that I have plenty room left on my ring to add more pages.

 

 

So what's your favorite color? Can you pick just one? Submit your favorite color project on Heart 2 Heart this week.



The Swing Card

Having some fun with the Swing cards on the Artiste Cricut cartridge! Just press the 'S' key!!

 

This was a class that I taught earlier this week. Did you know there are 9 different swing cards that can be cut on the Artiste Cricut cartridge? In addition there are multiple shapes in the center of the card that can be cut on either the Artiste or Art Philosophy cartridges. With all the coordinating stamps for each shape you can make dozens of unique, interactive cards!

 

Go ahead and hit the 'S' key! Your going to love playing with these cards!

Christmas Treats & Jingle Banner

Not only did we exchange Christmas cards and mini mystery gifts this past weekend, but we also shared some treats and created a Jingle banner! What can I say, when I throw a party, it's a good time!

Our project was a beautiful Jingle banner similar to one that I made last year for my mom. I love the unexpected color combination, the great big snowflakes and the silver bells that actually jingle at the bottom.

I am also entering my banner in the Heart 2 Heart Christmas challenge this week! Be sure to stop by their blog for Christmas inspiration!

Every time I walk by this banner I start singing the Frank Sinatra song! {I love those J-I-N-G-L-E bells, oh those Holiday J-I-N-G-L-E bells!}

Up close you can see there is also some sparkle and glitter on the entire tag! So many of the shapes were cut using the Art Philosophy cartridge.

 

After we created our projects we had time to indulge in some sweet treats. For my treat I wanted to showcase the cricut cartridge fry box. It's the perfect size for a Ghirardelli square!

One of the ladies made these darling chocolate trees, filled with nuggets and kisses. Are they just the cutest!! I almost don't want to eat the chocolate inside!!

Snowmen 3D tags

Heart 2 Heart Challenges blog is all about Christmas creations this week. This is the second Christmas challenge this year! The designers have come up with some wonderful projects this week, you will have to stop by and see their art! For my project today I was inspired by some tags I saw on the Papertrey Ink blog made my Heather Nichols. Instead of a flat tag though, I thought how cool it would be to add some CTMH treat cups for a 3D effect! Now these cute little snowmen are in a winter wonderland!

The ornament was cut on the Art Philosophy cartridge in Kraft paper. I then embossed them with a variety of embossing folders. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the snowmen are colored in, glittered, and have snowflakes surrounding them within the treat cup.

When my daughter saw them she said, "Mom, after you use them as a tag, you could put them on the tree as an ornament!", and I was like... "Yeah, that's what I totally was thinking!!" {tee-hee} Goodness do I love that little girl, she's my biggest fan!

Perfect Fit Holiday Cards

I love when you find a group of items that all work really well together. The cards I'm sharing today is a "perfect" example of those products. The Perfect Fit Frames MyAcrylix stamp {D1527} works well with the Perfect Fit Halloween stamp {B1413} and the Perfect Fit Holidays stamp {B1412}. Plus, all the shapes contained on these stamps can be cut easily on the Close To My Heart Art Philosophy and Artiste cartridges.

Halloween~

Holiday~

 

 

Perfect match wouldn't you say! Card designs were inspired by the new Make It from Your Heart How-to Book. These stamps, how-to books and cartridges can be ordered here.