September Stamp of the Month

Be sure to pick up your new Close To My Heart Catalog which goes live tomorrow.  I just wonder how they can top the last one, and yet they do!  Below is the September Stamp of the Month artwork from the catalog.  Email me to get your copy of the new catalog!

Introducing Another Amazing CTMH Talent

I keep introducing you to some of the amazing Consultants that make up the sisterhood of Close To My Heart. Well, today I plan to introduce you to another talented sister--Lucy Marino. You can visit her blog here. Yesterday I gave you a sneak peak of our new Fall/Winter papers for 2009. Well, Lucy took it one step further.

Below you will see the matching flowers she crocheted with our floss. She used a size-7 hook with 6 strands of floss. We also found that if you used white, you could use reinker (about 4 drops) and alcohol (one capful) to color these little flowers if you only have white embroidery floss. Lucy did mention that if you have never crocheted, you might find this difficult to do. She did have some of her own patterns but did mention that she searched on the internet for free flower patterns to come up with her beautiful assortments!

Lucy's first post was with the new Twitterpated Paper Pack:

Below is the new Sweet Home Paper with another beautiful assortment for hand made crocheted matching flowers:

Lucy's Christmas flowers are the bomb when you see them with the new Jingle Papers!

And the last new papers and amazing flowers are the Grace Paper set!

We tried to talk Lucy into teaching us how to do this. But for those of you (like me) who may never get around to being able to create their own flowers may just have to settle for purchasing the white daisy Mini Medley Accents Collection and using reinkers and alcohol. Then again, maybe you could coax Lucy into creating you your own set! :-)

Here are a few links some of the consultants came up with for flower tutorials:

http://allcrafts.net/crochet/crochetflowers.htm

http://thehandmadedress.blogspot.com/2007/09/crochet-flower-tutorial.html

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pic+of+crochet+flowers#focal=a5b938f5cc1e2db555699e2fe793d267&furl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.freecraftunlimited.com%2fimages%2fflowers-crochet-figure1.jpg&FORM=IGRE1

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfaX4nYA45U&feature=related

Here's a Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sONRCluPj2A&feature=related

Happy Stamping, Scrapbooking and Crocheting!!

Aaron Brown's Mini Card Kit

This weekend we did a mini card kit--an idea brought to us by Aaron Brown, a Close To My Heart consultant. You can see her 3x3 Card Set and Template here: It was a fun get together!! Below are two of the different cards I made.

Below is another card set that I made using the colors on the new episode of CTMH TV called Sensational Simplicity which you can see here. The episode is 16 minutes long. Worth the time to watch!

Colors for card above is Blush, Sorbet, Garden Green and Cocoa. Have a terrific Monday!

CTMH 2010 Retired List

Close to My Heart just released the Retired List for 2010. The items on the list are available while supplies last until they are retired on December 31, 2009. To get your copy, click here and click on the blue icon "Fullscreen" to read the list or once you are in Full Screen, click on the download button to download the .pdf file.

Sympathy Swap

To me, the most difficult cards to create are Sympathy type cards. Usually it is because you may be too grieved to be creative. So, it is nice to have a few cards on hands. This was the card that I created for a Sympathy Swap using Sonata papers with the retired Natural's Cardstock, Hollyhock & Lilac Mist CS & EI, with the Friendship Blessing Stamp Set. I have a few from the swap that I may post later.

Distressing Tools Class

Have you ever wondered how to use all the tools in the Distressing Toolbox displayed on page 102 of the current catalog? You knew you wanted that darling little Toolbox but you were unsure how to use all the tools?

I decided that I would do a class for my customers that not only explained how to use these tools but they would carry away little techniques books showing the tools, instructions on how to use the tools, and any techniques associated with the tools. Yes, we will be creating a Stamping and Scrapbooking Technique Book as a reference.

Here are the pages (below) with the sample work we did in the class. You can download the document in .pdf or Microsoft Publish document here:

The page below will have an index tab on it.


We first took True Teal (my favorite of all CTMH colors (retired) and crinkled it, flattened it and then used the sanding block. Then we added the Desert Sand with sanding diagonally. Looks so cool in real life (and these colors are amazing together).

On Distressing paint, I've used the Ceramcoat with Petal re-inker on the smaller flower for a flat color and I've used Petal re-inker with Create-A-Color for a pearlized look on the larger flower. The "believe" is stamped with the Ceramcoat on black CS

The black texture tool was used on this as the background, sponged the chipboards with the sponge tool and stamped the bottom chipboard flower with SpotOn background set.

The background below is the sea sponge tool using the Cremacoat paint on Outdoor Denim CS.

It's Your Day - August Stamp of the Month Standing Swap

All of these are created with Animal Cookies Papers and Colors. Thought you would enjoy seeing all of them. The first 3 were sent by Laura Buckley. I'm not sure if Laura did all of these herself or she was also sending someone else's. First card is standard size.

Did you notice that this is a holder for a Hershey's Candy Bar?

This is an 8x31/2.

Although this looks bigger it is 2x3 card

The following is a standard size card done by Joe Ann Balles

Below is a 5x7 and I'm pretty sure this was Diane, our Hostess' card.

This is a 4.5x4.5 card (below).

Celina Little is the author of the this little 3x2 inch card.

This is my August SOTM which is a 5x7 size card