Valentine's Day Meets Feels Like Home

Of all the wonderful new products in Seasonal Expressions 1, Feels Like Home Paper Collection is my favorite to create with. The peony image is from the Watercolor Die-cuts that coordinate with this paper. I decided to create some fancy Valentine's Day cards and I love how this one turned out. Next week I'll share another card I made that I love even more so come back to check that one out, too.

Did you know we have a value pack of cards and envelopes? Well we do and it's a real bargain. Priced at $15.95 you get 50 white card bases and envelopes! That's only 32 cents per card to get you started. 

I colored the flowers with a water brush and ink from the lid of the stamp pad. This technique is one of my favorite ways to color images. I first brushed a layer of Sugarplum to get a light base. Then I went back and added a second layer concentrating on the lines of the image. The lines show you exactly where to put the shadows. Finally, I used the Sugarplum Shimmer Brush to add a shimmery layer on the shadows. I did the same things using Fern ink for the leaves but didn't add any shimmer. 

The circle was cut with a Thin Cut die and the lines on the background layers were also added with a Thin Cut die. 

By the way, my inspiration for this card came from a card in our Seasonal Expressions 1 catalog (click to view online). Take a look on page 77 and you'll see it on the bottom. I did make some a few little adjustments but otherwise just copied what I saw. Use those examples in the catalog to inspire or flat out copy! 

Feels Like Home Paper Pack

Feels Like Home Watercolor Die-cuts

Close To My Heart products

• Paper: Feels Like Home, Feels Like Home Watercolor Die-cuts
• Stamp Set: Wordfetti, Beloved Bouquet (retired)
• White Cards and Envelopes Value Pack
• Exclusive Inks: Sugarplum, Fern, Charcoal
• Thin Cut dies: Stitched Circles, Decorative Borders
• Tools: Water brush, Thin 3D Foam Tape
• Embellishments: Sugarplum Shimmer Brush, Silver Thread

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

I hope you liked my card. Have fun creating your own!

Michelle

#showandtellwithmichelle #cardmaking #ctmh

Something Fierce goes Feminine Layout

The Something Fierce paper collection has a nice variety of patterns and colors so you can easily create for both masculine and feminine projects making it very versatile!  One of my granddaughters has a birthday coming soon and she is all about the color pink. Here is my festive layout for her birthday.

The pattern is from our Make It from Your Heart Volume 3, page 14 how-to book. Once you have a plan the rest is all easy! With the cutting guides I soon had all the papers cuts and ready to go on the layout. I did some stamping and used the Stamp and Roll technique on the large balloon. First you ink the stamp then stamp on scrap paper. Without cleaning the stamp you roll the edge around on the stamp pad so you end up with a light and dark tone. Now stamp on your layout. Adding some sparkles was a good finishing touch!

Close To My Heart products

• Make It from Your Heart: Volume 3
• Paper Pack: Something Fierce
• Stamp Set: Something Fierce-Cardmaking
• Cardstock: Ballerina, Pewter
• Exclusive Inks: Raspberry, Carolina, Lemon, Charcoal
• Embellishments: Clear Sparkles, White Ribbon

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this layout and the new papers from Seasonal Expressions 1. Stop back often for more inspiration.

Michelle

#showandtellwithmichelle #ctmh #scrapbooking #seasonalexpressions1

Stuck On You Card ~ Color Dare #326

Open through Thursday Jan. 31st.

Our Color My Heart challenge to you this week is to use only Black and White with ONE other color of your choice. This should create a lot of very different looks and will be so much fun!

My color choice is Clover. It's a nice bright green and really pops with the black and white. The pattern paper is from our new Celebrate Mix-in pack. The pack is called Mix-in because you can mix in the papers with any of our other paper collections! The fun thing I did was to color the white ribbon with ink so it matched the color scheme. I simply took a sponge, rubbed it on the ink pad and then on the ribbon. It's that easy!

Close To My Heart products.

• Stamp Set: Sticky Notes
• White Cards and Envelopes Value Pack
• Paper Pack: Celebrate Mix-in
• Cardstock: White Daisy, Clover
• Exclusive Inks: Intense Black, Clover
• Thin Cuts: Circles, Stitches Circles, Ribbon (retired)
• Glitter Paper: White, Black
• Embellishments: White Ribbon, Clear Sparkles, Bitty Sparkles
• Sponge

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

What are you thinking would be a good color to go with black and white? We'd love to see what you create. You can make any paper craft and use any brand of ink you have. Full details are in the post on our Color My Heart home page. 

Michelle 

#ctmh #showandtellwithmichelle #cardmaking #colormyheart #colordare

How to Make New Friends!

January 17, 2019

How to Make New Friends… Out of Paper!

Papercrafting is best when you’re crafting with friends, but it can be tricky to work around conflicting schedules and long distances. If you find you aren’t able to see your friends quite as often as you’d like to, here’s an idea: Make some new ones!

…out of paper of course! While these fun paper dolls won’t be a complete substitute for real-life friends (you’ll want to keep those people around!), the Paper Pals collection gives you the tools to create a whole gang of perky, cheerful buddies who are always there for you and who would be glad to help in a variety of ways! They’ll help you accent a scrapbook layout, brighten a card with their smile, or just hang out and keep you company!

The collection includes four stamp sets with coordinating Thin Cuts shapes. Use the base set to start your Paper Pal, then decorate and accessorize using the boy and girl sets. Be sure to make your paper pal a pal of their own using the Paper Pal Pets set! Each of these sets is available individually, but they can also be purchased all together at a discount in the Paper Pal Bundle!

While the clothing items and accessories are packaged into “girl” and “boy” sets, most of the items can used on pals of either gender! The overalls pictured above are included on the “boy” set, but look perfectly feminine in this example. You have total control over the clothes based on your paper and ink choices.

Also, note the difference between the boy and girl hair styles: While the “boy” hair style sits on top of the head like any other paper shape, the “girl” style die cuts a slit that allows you to slide it over the head for a more lifelike look.

These Paper Pals are so much fun to play with that before long, we’re sure that your other friends will be begging you to invite them over to play, too! We hope that you’ll be a good friend and share your new pals with them. And don’t worry, you can always take satisfaction knowing that these Paper Pals were your friends first.

Click here to get your new friends!

Michelle

#closetomyheart #showandtellwithmichelle #paperpals

Tag, You're It! - CTMH Technique Blog Hop

Welcome to the first Technique Blog Hop of 2019! For January we're featuring Tags and the many ways you can make and use them on your projects!

If you've come from Miss Carrie’s Creations you're doing fine. Just click the link in each post to go to the next blog in the hop.

I had a lot of fun making this layout using papers from the I Heart Us Collection. Lagoon is one of my favorite colors and I wanted to go more to the masculine side of things although this would still work for a girl, too. For the striped paper I cut out the section of colors I wanted from page. that set the tone for the rest of the page. It's a very easy page since I used a pattern from our How-to Book called Make It fromYour Heart Vol. 3. One of the stamp sets is our Operation Smile set. With each purchase of this stamp set Close to My Heart donates $7 to Operation Smile, a non-profit organization that provides surgeries for children with cleft lips and palates.

Close To My Heart products

• Paper: I Heart Us
• Make It from Your Heart Volume 3 Pattern 4
• Stamp Sets: Be Yourself, Custom Tags
• Cardstock: Lagoon, Sweet Leaf, White Daisy
• Thin Cuts: Fancy Tags
• Exclusive Inks: Bluebird
• Embellishments: White Ribbon, Clear Sparkles, Bitty Sparkles
• Thin 3D Foam Tape

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

Now it's time to see what great ideas Michelle Johns has to share with us. Have a fun time hopping!

Michelle 

#showandtellwithmichelle #techniquehop #scrapbooking #ctmh 

I Heart Us paper pack

Be Yourself--Operation Smile Set

Custom Tags stamp set

Fancy Tags--Thin Cuts

Seasonal Expressions 1 Blog Hop

January means we have a new Idea Book! Seasonal Expressions 1 went live on January 1st and will go through April 30th. So let's get to the blog hop and show you a ton of fun and creative ideas! If you've come from the blog of Miss Carrie's Creations you're doing fine. Just click the link in each post to hop to the next blog.

There are so many exciting products in this new book it was hard to know where to start. Soon it became obvious to me that the Feels Like Home paper collection and Budding Peony stamp set with Thin Cuts were my favorite and that's what I wanted to share. See photos at end of post.

I used the Make It from Your Heart how-to book for a pattern and the rest just fell into place with that starting point. The design of the flowers made me think watercolors. Our new watercolor pencils are so creamy and smooth. After  stamping in Archival Ink on Watercolor paper then coloring I used a water brush to gently blend the colors. In the flower centers I used some of the Black Shimmer Brush. I used Thin 3D Foam Tape under the flower on the left page so there would be room to slip a photo under the flower later on. 

Close To My Heart products

• Make It from Your Heart Book, Volume 1, page 22
• Paper Pack: Feels Like Home
• Stamp Set: Budding Peony
• Cardstock: White Daisy, Fern, Sugarplum, Mink
• Specialty Paper: Watercolor Paper
• Exclusive Inks: Archival Black, Sugarplum, Fern
• Tools: Watercolor Pencils, Water Brush, Thin 3D Foam Tape, Black Shimmer Brush
• Embellishments: Clear Sparkles, Sugarplum Glitter Gems

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

Are you ready for some more great ideas? Of course you are! Hop over to see what Debi McBain has created to share with us. Enjoy!

Michelle

#showandtellwithmichelle #SeasonalExpression1 #CTMH #scrapbooking

Butterfly Layout ~ Color Dare #325

Open through January 24, 2019

This color palette is one you'll find in our The Love of Color book. There are 3, 4 and 5 color ideas for each of the colors in our Close To My Heart palette. You can use any brand of colors you have as long as you make sure it's as close a match as possible.

These are some of my favorite colors and I ended up using all of them except Silver. I also used a pattern from our Make It from Your Heart how-to book. So before I even got busy making the layout I already had the colors and pattern decided on and that makes it so easy! I just followed the cutting guide and placement of the papers. I stamped the images and added some embellishments. Some of the butterflies are popped up with foam tape and all the butterflies have shimmer brushed on them. 

I'm very pleased with the results and can't wait to add photos!

Close To My Heart products.

• Paper Pack: Feels Like Home
• Stamp Sets: Dandelion Wishes, Butterfly Friendship + Thin Cuts
• Make It from Your Heart Book: Volume 3
• Cardstock: Heather, Peacock, Glacier
• Specialty Paper: Sugarplum Glitter paper
• Thin Cuts: Decorative Borders, Happy (retired)
• Exclusive Inks: Peacock, Eggplant, Glacier, Sugarplum
• Embellishments: clear Sparkles, Sugarplum Shimmer Brush
• Tools: Thin 3D Foam Tape

Let's go shopping!

If you need a consultant I'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to BE a consultant I can help with that, too.

I hope this has inspired you to join in the fun at Color My Heart Color Dare. Create any paper craft using at least 3 colors from the palette above. Full details and the link are on our home page.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back often for more creative ideas!
Michelle

#colordare #colormyheart #colormyheartcolordare #showandtellwithmichelle #ctmh #scrapbooking

Dandelion Wishes

Butterfly Friendship + Thin Cuts

Feels Like Home Paper Pack