Matters of the Heart

A very good friend and customer of mine recently went through a life changing event. She had a stroke back in January and ended up having a triple bypass heart surgery.

I've been keeping in contact with her as much as possible, allowing her lots of time to recover. When I asked her how she felt a couple weeks after surgery, she mentioned that she really misses our craft classes and is way behind on her scrapbooking. I got to work right away creating a two-page layout for her to record this big event in her life.

 I apologize for the glare on the photo. I hope you'll understand the reason for it is that I decided to use a Picture My Life format on the right side. This way she only needs to pull out the cards to journal and can add any photo's she may have from the hospital or post surgery.

When I arrived to deliver the pages to her I held up a box of cheerios in front of them and joked that I brought a box of cereal to her, because they're heart healthy. Then I revealed the layout and I think she was much more pleased with that then the breakfast in a box! I'm certain she will enjoy the pages more and take time to journal when she fully regains her strength!

Take time to record all the memories of your life, you'll be glad you did!

April's Inspiration (and more calendar pages)

I have been working on the last few pages for a 12x12 calendar using the PML cards that were a part of the Live Your Day promotion in January. Inspiration struck one day while scrolling through my Instagram feed. Close To My Heart posted a page using the gorgeous Charlotte papers in a very visual graphic design. I just loved it and knew I wanted to recreate it for my April page using some Zoe papers. As it was starting to come together I quickly knew which photo to use as my son's Birthday is in April and this picture fit the sentiment on the Zoe complements. Take a look~

Here are all the pages laid out before I added photo's on them. Each month is very differently themed and designed.

 Just a few more pages I'd like to share with you~


The July page uses the new Regatta papers and the Beach Days stamp set. You may have noticed how much I've been using this stamp set, its really a fun set and the stamping is so easy as the images can be cut out on your Cricut!
This is my brother's family that we got to visit last summer in Lake Tahoe. Very fitting with the Regatta papers wouldn't you say?!!

The June page uses a rainbow assortment of the lovely fundamentals papers. It's bright and fun, but mostly I wanted to show you what you can essentially create with leftover strips of paper. Sometimes my 'scraps bag' tends to overflow, so I need to clean those out and use them up!

Here you can see that I used some of the strips showing the matte side and others have the shiny side showing.

If you would like to create your own 12x12 calendar its lots of fun and makes a great gift too! You can order the calendar online here.

Share the Love & Smile

Share the love this February by purchasing the exclusive My Acrylix^® Share the Love D-size stamp set. Filled with adorable icons and loveable sentiments, this stamp set will be a beautiful addition to your collection. Not only will you be getting a high-quality, swoon-worthy stamp set by taking part in this promotion, but Close To My Heart will also donate $7 USD of the proceeds from this stamp set to Operation Smile™, an amazing organization that provides surgeries to repair cleft lips and palates for children all over the world! Check out CTMH social media channels all month long to see this stamp set in action, search hashtag #ctmhsharethelove to help bring attention to a wonderful and worthy cause.

I'm still incorporating last month's promotion, Live Your Day PML cards into a calendar project. I combined both the promotions for my January page.

You can purchase this stamp set only in the month of February. However, you can contribute to Operation Smile by purchasing the Animal Greeting stamp set featured on the back cover of the Idea Book also. Visit my website for more details.

Live Your Day Calendar Page ~ August has ABC's

National Papercrafting Month is almost over! If you want the exclusive Live Your Day Picture My Life collection you will need to order before this Sunday!

You may recall that I decided to pull all the month cards from the collection to create a traditional 12x12 calendar. I was working on the August page last night and incorporated the ABC challenge on Heart 2 Heart Challenges Blog. August is typically the month that we all head back to school. Even if you don't still attend school I think its important that we never stop learning. Here is the page I created for this challenge~

A close up of each square random stamped with a different letter of the alphabet. The top title for my page was cut on the Cricut using the Artistry cartridge. The bottom portion of my title was stamped from the same alphabet stamp that I used on the 3x3 squares. The black and white really pops with the primary colors.

Perhaps you'll be inspired to create your own calendar, but you need to purchase the Live Your Day PML set soon!

Live Your Day 12x12 Calendar

Did you know that January is National Papercrafting Month? I shared with you earlier this month how Close To My Heart is celebrating with the Live Your Day Picture My Life pocket scrapbooking cards. They are perfect for adding to your Everyday Life planner, however they can be used in many more applications.

It occurred to me this past weekend how perfect these cards would be to add to a 12x12 calendar. The collection contains a black and white card for every month. They can be displayed vertical or horizontal making them perfect for many layout options. I pulled out all the monthly cards for the group and a 12x12 My Creations calendar I have been saving.

Strangely I started with a page for March. Typically I would have gone in order, but I felt like I had my idea for this month and just went with it. {I'm learning to let my sparks of ideas & passion for creativity override my O.C.D.!}

I pulled some older papers and stamps for this page, but added in some newer La Vie En Rose papers. I love the graphic black & white with pops of color!

As I was looking at my new paper collections, I came across the Penelope papers featured in the current Seasonal Expressions 1 book. I wanted to use these papers in my calendar also and thought that they would be wonderful for the month of September! This layout was inspired by one in the book. I loved the use of bright vivid yellow papers and the watercoloring on the center white cardstock. I finished this page with just a bit of embellishments from the Penelope collection and of course the Live Your Day September card.

These are just a couple pages of the calendar to give you an idea of how you can use these cards. Keep in mind that they are only available this month. Click on the Current Specials tab at the top for more information or go online here.