Videos with CTMH

I have a couple new great Close to My Heart videos to share with you on wonderful ways to use the products and make the most out of your cards and scapbook pages.  

This one is Coordinate with Cricut:

How about this one, called Alcohol Marker Madness:

Here's another one with Carly about the Alcohol markers too:

There's one more I'm dying to share too but I can't seem to get it loaded for some reason.  As soon as I can get it up I'll so be on top of it and sharing it here.  I want to see it myself too so trust me, I'm working on it.  In the meantime, enjoy these, try them out, and let me know what you think!

Monday Stuff

I totally skipped last Monday...so I am just going to post it today.  I can do that, you know.  My blog, my rules...even if they don't make sense.  This certainly makes no sense.  So last week's Mojo Monday looked like this:

But, as usual, I rocked it my own way and decided to try out some birthday cards and came up with this design

Again, I continued on with my birthday theme and created a couple other cards and designed the ones to the right.------------->


I'm really excited also because I placed my first official order through Close to My Heart and it arrived the other day.  I'm so pumped to use all my new products!!  They're awesome!  Looky look at 'em! (think I could use more exclamation points?)

This is the new Halloween Workshop on the Go in the Moonlight pattern .  This great kit comes with: 
1- My Reflections Moonlight Paper Packet
1- My Acrylics Moonlight Workshop Stamp Set
2- Colonial White Cardstock Sheets
1- Sparkles Black and Grey Assortment
1- Haunted Assortment
1- Instructional Brochure

These are my great new stamps, including the adorable double stamp set that is part of the CTMH constant campaign for September.  Also, included is the 11piece October Stamp of the Month, Fall Favorites.  Last is the beautiful Love Blooms stamp set.  You have no idea how excited I am to use these new stamps on some cards and scrapbook pages!  That Love Blooms set is so awesome!

Last, I received another Workshop on the Go called Flirty.  This adorbs set includes:
1- My Reflections Flirty Paper Packet
1- My Acrylix Flirty Workshop Stamp Set
2- Colonial White Cardstock Sheets
1- Sparkles Clear Assortment
1-Flirty Complements Dimensional Elements
1-Instructional Brochure

So, there you have it.  I should be getting another shipment in again sometime very soon!  I need to start selling this stuff so I  can pay for my habit now.  :)

Worst Blogger Evah!

Okay, so I admit it!  I'm the world's worst blogger ever.  I'm not consistent, not on time even, and constantly think of things I want to write and blog about but then never actually seem to make the time to do it.  That, my friends, is called laziness.  

But, I did see this recently and it made me smile and I wanted to share it and make you, yes YOU, smile too!

That's all.  I didn't have anything else to say really.  Well, okay I do but I honestly just don't want to spend the time doing so.  Maybe tomorrow though.  I've got cards galore that I want to post up!  :)

Monday Madness

Once again Monday has come and gone and I had nothing up...get used to this my friends.  I did copy the Mojo Monday card design and make it though...it just didn't actually happen until Tuesday.  

Cute huh?  I was excited to do this one and am relatively pleased with how mine turned out.  My dots around the semi-circle aren't spaced quite right, but hey, I guess that's what makes it unique and homemade, right?  I'll just keep telling myself that anyhow.  It's also not quite as fancy either, but I still like the simplicity of it.

I don't know what it was with me on Tuesday, but I was determined to finish enough Thank You cards and Love cards for 3 people so I was on a roll.  I worked for several hours and ended up creating several more, using several sketches as my beginning inspiration from Mojo Monday.  

 Again, the Love cards were created using some great papers I found at Hobby Lobby from The Paper Studio.  I used stamps from My Acrylix sets Thoughtful Tidings, A Little Thanks, Perfect Fit-Frames Flare, Sweet Love, and two 

other sets from the Celebration collection.  Ink colors include Slate, Chocolate, and Tulip.  

The Thank You ones were made using an old paper pack from CTMH, from about 2010, I believe.  The same stamp sets and inks were used with these as well.  I also found some "bling" and red velour ribbon to add to some of them also.  Love the added touches it gives them!

I'm not sure what my next bunch of cards will be but I am getting excited to do them.  I'm hoping to create enough to give a mixed pack of them to my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and my mom for Christmas.  Hopefully they will enjoy using and giving them as I have in creating them.

One a quick and totally unrelated note, I am about done with my card display holder.  I took some pretty paper from Hobby Lobby's The Paper Studio and adhered it to the sides and them applied Modge Podge to it all.  I still need to work on my corners...not sure how to correct them yet though.  At least the 2012 GRAD part is covered though!

October Specials

I know you've been anxiously awaiting the October Close to My Heart special, so here it is.  October's Stamp of the Month is called A Very Merry Christmas and it features 8 lovely D-size clear My Acrylix stamps that will be perfect for creating those homemade Christmas cards, gift boxes, or scrapbook pages.  It can be all yours for as low as $5, with a qualifying $50 or more purchase.  What a deal!

Look at this beautiful scrapbook page created using this stamp set, along with some other great CTMH products.

1. S1210AMy Acrylix^® Very Merry Christmas
2. X7159BScholastic Paper Packet
3. 1245Olive Cardstock
4. Z1799Silver Shimmer Trim
5. Z1743Festive Velvet Rub-Ons
6. Z1754Sparkles Black & Grey Assortment
7. Z1790Cricut^® Artiste Collection

I'm really looking forward to receiving my own set so I can start making all of those fabulous Christmas cards I'll be handing out to the teachers at school, my neighbors, the mailman!

Dauber Dynamite

Finally, the last one (for now) is here!  This Dauber Dynamite video is just that:  totally dynamite!  Great, now I'm singing Tiao Cruz and probably will be for the remainder of my evening.  Well, if I'm gonna sing it I might as well "throw my hands up in the air sometimes, singing ay-oh, gotta leeet go!"

Forgot this one!

Eek, I forgot to post the first one in the episodes!  Here it is folks.

Spanning the Space

Okay, so I am playing catch up in the video department so you're going to be bombarded a bit until I'm caught up.  Deal with it.  This is another great video with Kristine and Monica at Close to My Heart.  They're such crafty gals!

Swipe Hype

Here's another great new stamping technique from Close To My Heart.  Watch the video and see what you can do for your next project!

I Need This Shirt

Don't you love when you come across something soooo cool and you just HAVE to have it?  I saw this shirt today and now I'm crushing on it so badly...I might cave in and purchase it for myself.

Isn't it the best?  I probably find it waaaay funnier than anyone else because I have a habit of telling people that they are (fill in the blank)-asauruses all the time!  Although, is that even how you spell "asaorus?" I thought it was "asaurus."  Oh well, I'll do it my way.  My daughter is Grumpasaurus, my hubby is often Poopasaurus (or Sir Poopsalot), my sons' are whatever pops up at the moment.

If you want one of these cool tees too, or want to browse the other mega-awesome scrappy designs, head on over to Two Chicks Designs.  They have a huge variety of witty tees, bags, aprons & other items with fun sayings, perfect for scrapbookers, quilters, photographers, moms, stampers, readers, and more!  If only I had an unlimited budget...

Monday Monday...It Slipped Away

You know that song Monday, Monday by the Mamas & the Papas? It might have been a great day to them, but for me it's the beginning of yet another crazy & hectic week so things don't always quite go as I plan for them to.  In fact, they rarely go as I plan, so it was inevitable that I'd forget to get on here on Monday and check out the new Mojo Monday, make the card that day, AND post about it.  That's just not likely to happen on this blog folks!  I got it done for this week, just not on time.  That's alright though...unless you're too uptight to deal with it, in which case I suggest finding another place to get your craft fix.  

So this week's design was a fun one in my opinion and I decided to start doing some pretty "I love you" type cards.  The design for Monday was this one, where you could make it as a circular card or a square card.  I went with the square since I'm still learning this whole card making process.  I think mine turned out pretty nicely too.

After that, I wanted to make a couple more so I went further into the archives (okay, not so far back) at Mojo Monday and found this cute design from August, 2012, and then tried my hand at it.

Another one I found and recreated in my own way is this one from April, 2012.  I'm not loving the big white stripe but I'm not sure what else to do to it.  I added a tiny stamp on it and that certainly helped a little bit...but I don't know.  What do you think?  I don't want it to be too busy but it just looks like it's missing something, you know?  Hmmm...

I'm hoping to create a couple more just to complete this collection.  All of these were done using paper from The Paper Studio at Hobby Lobby.  The stamps were Close to My Heart, Thoughtful Tidings and Petite Perks.  Ink colors used were also from CTMH in Chocolate and Tulip.  Ribbon is from an unknown location.  :(  Booo!  I hate when that happens.  I also added just a touch of CTMH's  Liquid Glass to two of them to give them just a little pop of detail to set them apart from others.  

I purchased some more paper when I was at Hobby Lobby to do some birthday cards and maybe some all purpose "just because" type cards too.  I can't wait to make some new designs with these pretty new papers!

Terrific Two Tone Stamps

I'm really loving these wonderful  My Acrylix stamps from Close to My Heart.  Here's a great video showing just one of the awesome things you can do with these fab stamps!  The sky's the limit!

And it's hard not to love these two ladies who appear in all of the videos too; they're so sweet and fun!  


The awesome Love Blooms stamp set featured in this video is definitely on my Wish List too.  There are just soooooo many possibilities with it!  I love the way it looks in these photos too, from 

http://stampcraftpin.blogspot.com/
http://stacysscrapcorner.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html
http://www.cookingwithcricut.com/2012/09/ctmh9812.html

Aren't the color combinations just gorgeous?  I am in love and I cannot wait to try some of them all on my own.  I'm not sure how pretty mine will turn out but I gotta try!

 Another great thing about this beautiful beautiful My Acrylix stamp set is that it goes perfectly with CTMH's new Flirty Paper Pack and Flirty Compliments Dimensional Elements.  Along with the stamps, I'm adding this to the top of that Wish List too!

Look It! Deals & More

Lookity look what I found! Yay!!  Remember how I was talking about wanting something to hold my cards to display, right?  Well, this is it!  Okay, okay, I KNOW it says "2012" and the other side actually says "GRAD" but that's a-ok with me because my little self is just going to find some cute scrapbook paper, cut it to size, Mod Podge it,  and voila--it will (hopefully) look great!  Oh, what's better is that it only cost $1.99 on clearance from Kohl's.  You just can't beat that!  I don't shop there often, but when I do, I love finding the all of the amazing clearance deals they always seem to have!  


I also found some Thank You cards on major markdown at JoAnn Fabrics and Craft Store for only $1.97 for a pack of 6.  They only had three packs so I picked up all of them; I figure for that price I could easily recover the front of them and use them for my own card designs.  Go me....go me...go me!  


I'm also really excited about another new blog and website I found earlier today.  Remember the Mojo Monday one I told you about, where you're given some awesome sketches of card design ideas?  Well, this one I discovered is similar except it has not only card design sketches, but also sketches for scapbook pages, tags, circular pages, and more!  The blog is called PageMaps and then the website also goes by the same name, PageMaps, but it's a little different.  Some of the great sketches look like this:

Isn't this just the cutest little card design?  There are so many things you could do with it too!  This was a September 2012 CardMap that I found on the website.






How about this awesome looking page layout for you scrappers out there?  It's actually a MiniMap from April, 2009, but you could definitely adapt it for a full size page.  I'm loving it completely!!  Like I said before, I'm not good at coming up with my own original ideas and there's NO SHAME in scraplifting!!  This is a perfect sketch for just that. 




Or, if you're in a super creative mood and you like to do those fun mini albums in unique shapes, there is a whole section full of sketches that are for rounded pages.  Who would've thunk it?  I like this one, which is a RoundMap from August, 2008.  





Oh, check these out; these are called TagMaps and they're adorable little gift tag sketches that you can make to put on gifts or you could even adapt them to maybe make bookmarks too!  I think this adorable TagMap from February, 2009 is perfect!





Finally, they have what would probably be considered the full page layout sketches, called SideMaps.  This one from January, 2009 is a simple layout but has tons of possibilities in the hands of a scrapper.


Something that I really like about this cool PageMaps site is that it shows tons of other versions of the same sketch, where other crafty people have submitted their own version of a particular sketch.  That just gives me even more ideas on things I can create.  Thanks PageMaps for such an awesome resource!  

It appears that there are often contests as well  It looks like we just missed this cool contest by a couple days but as soon as I see another one, I will most definitely post about it.  Then we can all enter.  Think you'll win?  I rarely win anything, but hey maybe I'll get lucky this time, right?   I wish you luck as well and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Well, I think that's all for today...my diarrhea of the mouth sometimes gets the better of me and I can't stop!  Yikes!  Until next time, friends...

My First Cards

I've created my first cards & I'm so excited!  They turned out pretty good too, if I do say so myself.  The problem I suffer from is that I can never *think* of exactly what to do, so I am a admitted scraplifter.  The cool part about this is that I found a fun blog, Mojo Monday that posts creative card design ideas every Monday.  They even encourage you to use their designs to create your own cards.  It's so neat to see how different people interpret the same design too!  

Last Monday's sketch was this one: 

Cute isn't it?  Well, unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to do something frilly around the edge of my circle so I don't think mine is quite as cute as it could be...but still, this is what I came up with:

Overall, I'm thrilled with how it turned out.  I wish my ink had gone on a little more smoothly and a little darker though.  Well, after finishing this one, I decided to do a few more using Mojo Monday as inspiration.  I just went back a couple sketches from previous Mondays and used those ideas too.  

I'm really digging on that pink colored one!  I think that's my fave of the group.  Now, I totally need something to display them on like a photo holder or something.  Any ideas?  Hmmm...



**All paper was from CTMH's Dotty for You paper pack.  Inks used include CTMH's Chocolate and Sweet Leaf.  Stamp include those from CTMH's My Acrylix Frames, Tags, Borders, and Petite Perks.

September CTMH Specials

As I mentioned before, I want to share with you all of the great stuff that Close To My Heart can offer you with my help.  September has a two great specials that I'm really excited about!  First off, to celebrate National Stamping Month CTMH is offering the awesome It's Your Day D-size double stamp set for only $5 when you spend a minimum of $35.  How great is that?  This cool set has over 50 stamps too!  This is available only until September 30, 2012 though so get yours now.

In addition to this fun stamp set, CTMH also has their normal monthly Stamp of the Month, called Fall Favorites for September.  This set has 11 great D-size stamps, all yours for only $5 with a $50 minimum purchase.  

I'm really looking forward to adding these both to my collection and seeing some of the Fall Favorites on my pumpkin patch pages!  

Then & Now

So I thought it would be fun to take a little look back at my old scrapbooks and see how far I've come.  Boy, have I come far!  I almost laugh now when I look back at some of my early stuff.  I guess it just shows you what practice can do, huh?  Here are a couple pages from one of my first books, my wedding album.

Check out the template traced & cut photos!  How about the fact that everything is hand written--I love it!  Sadly, my sons' albums weren't too much better...although I did discover a couple new techniques.

 I "love" how I used no background color at all.  What was I thinking?  Again, I used a lot of the template tracing & cutting for my photos.  Don't get me wrong, that can be useful, especially if you're trying to fit several photos onto one page.  In general though, I don't really like doing that any longer.  It takes too much time and besides, I had to then hand cut everything with scissors too.  Thankfully, by the time my daughter came into existence, I'd sharpened up my skills and decided to try to add more to my pages.

By this time, I was waaaaay into accessorizing my pages with as much as possible:  ribbons, gems, flowers, wooden letters, rub-ons, die cuts, etc.  Sometimes this was good...other times it was just too much!  Plus, it actually took a long time to complete a layout.  I just don't have that kind of time now for the most part.  

That's why I like Close To My Heart; they make it quick and easy to do my pages.  Their idea books are filled with themed page layouts, including all of the accessorizing products to re-create those pages.  There's NOTHING wrong with admitting to being a scraplifter.  In fact, CTMH wants you to take the images and ideas you see in their Idea books and make them your own, whether that be that you copy it completely or you take the idea and re-do it, just go with it!  Here's a recent layout of mine that I copied from an Idea Book.

I had to rework it a little bit to accommodate the pictures I wanted to include but it was a wonderful starting point to get started and a great way to help me figure out what colors and prints to put together, what inks would look best, and how to design everything.

Here's another recent layout, though I designed this layout myself.  Still, you can see how far I've come since the beginning.

Soon, I want to start including more stuff about CTMH and their products, monthly specials, stamps of the month and more.  I'm really excited.  Now keeping up the momentum is going to be it's own challenge.  That's a problem I have.

I also just started subscribing to this neat blog called Mojo Monday where each week there is basically a card making challenge.  They will post a design and then it's up to you to create it with paper, stamps, bling, and so forth.  I've seen some of the things that others have come up with too and it's very inspiring.  I would definitely like to start with this challenge and start posting my creations as I complete them.

That's all for tonight.  It's late and I'm going to relax.  Until then...

Oh Scrap...Here We Go!

Welcome, welcome, welcome to all!  I am leaping in here with a new blog (to add to the masses) mostly related to and revolving around my scrapbook addiction.  In the world of addictions, it's not a bad one to have honestly.  It could be much worse!  ;)

I have been making scrapbooks since I was very young.  I vividly remember my best friend and I making some in middle school/high school where we basically used bound books and taped memorabilia inside of it, like ticket stubs, friendship bracelets, dead dried flowers, pictures, notes from school, etc.  Looking back, they were quite crude scrapbooks compared to the gorgeous ones I see created daily now, but still it was a beginning place and where I started.

I started my first "nice" scrapbook in 2001, after I got married and was living in PA with my new hubby and without any family around.  It was a nice way to put together all of my new wedding photos and keep me busy at the same time.  Soon, I found myself with twin newborn babies and lots of photos!  I found a friend who was a consultant for a company that sold scrapbooking products and she got me hooked!  I soon began making beautiful books to preserve my babies' first year of life.  I loved that I could easily cut photos, add some stickers and pretty paper, and I'd have great pages!  

Somewhere along the line, I started a different style of preserving my photo memories and stopped using that particular company.  They were still good, but didn't quite have what I wanted for my pages any longer.  I started shopping local craft stores and the like for products to make my pages "pop."  I loved the effect, but lacked the amount of time, and patience, it often took to create the truly remarkable layouts I would see on the pages of magazines like Simple Scrapbooks, Scrapbooks Etc., and Creating Keepsakes, so I stopped.  I went on a scrapping hiatus because I just felt stuck and had no idea what to do.

After about a year, I realized that I was really missing my creative outlet.  Scrapping was the one time that I felt like I could sort of zone out the outside world and just create something for myself.  It didn't have to be perfect.  It didn't even have to be great.  As long as I was happy with it, I accomplished my goal.  Needless to say that was getting restless with no way to have that time and outlet I wanted and a year's worth of photos were sadly just sitting on my computer begging to be brought to life and preserved in an artful way.  I felt like I was being neglectful really.  Then, one day I went garage sale-ing and stopped in at a house and this woman had tons of hand made cards and some other scrapbook accessories out.  She also had a book out called Close To My Heart and I asked if I could take one.  Later, after pouring through page after page of not only gorgeous layouts that I loved, but ones that I thought I could actually recreate as well, I emailed this woman and found out a little more about the products and placed an order.

Well, long story short (yeah, I know I've already gone waaaay past that point!), I've now been friends with that same woman for about 5 or 6 years now and she even introduced me to the MOMS Club that I'm currently involved with too.  I've continued over the years to make purchases from her because I really like CTMH's products.  They're reasonably priced and have products themed in such a way that it makes putting a layout together very simple.  They also are big into the clear acrylic stamps too, which is something I've never really been into.  I'm trying though and learning so maybe it will happen.  I'm trying to embrace the stamping, so we shall see.  They have some awesome stamps though to be honest and some of the cards that people make with them are wonderful; I aspire to be able to make mine look half as nice!

So, I've taken a plunge and decided to be a Consultant with CTMH also.  Yes, yes, I know I'm already a consultant with Thirty-One Gifts but they don't conflict at all and in fact, I can use lots of my wonderful totes from 31 for my craft stuff!  It's really a win-win!  I don't know how aggressively I'm going to actually "sell" the scrapbook stuff; basically I just want the discount because I love the products and use them all the time anyway.  

I would really enjoy putting together some workshops though or crops where people could get together and work on pages they're doing, with or without CTMH products.  I'd like to have some supplies available to them though so that if they should need something, that I would have it available to them.  A consultant that I used a long time ago used to do that and I always loved it.  It was great because if I discovered I needed black card stock and didn't bring any along, I could just buy a single sheet from her she kept a tally going throughout the day and we just paid before we left.  She would often have other accessories available too.  I would really like to be able to provide that same thing to people that may come to work with me too.

My goal with this blog is simply to share the company specials with you, share my pages, and cards with you, and basically just communicate everything crafty and artsy dealing with CTMH and myself.  I hope you'll check in with me every now and again and find this interesting to read and view.  Hopefully you'll find some inspiration for your own pages and it will urge you to preserve your memories too!
~Mel