Monday, September 10, 2012

Pear & Partridge Swap Card

Hi there.  I'm finally getting around to taking some photos of some of my swap cards I made last month.  For this particular card I was assigned the CTMH stamp set called "Merry & Bright".


I'm a sucker for Christmas stamp sets, so this was a great addition to my collection.  I love all of the images and they match perfectly with our new paper pack called "Pear & Partridge".  It seems like Close To My Heart alternates between traditional and more modern Christmas paper packs each Winter and this year is back to a more traditional look with Cranberry Red and a darker New England Ivy Green.  I tend to lean towards the more modern colors and designs myself, but I do like a little bit of traditional as well.

Here is the card I created using "Merry & Bright":


Isn't that new Burlap Ribbon great?  I love it and I've used it with several of the new paper packs, it looks great with all of them so far.

For this swap we're supposed to use at least one technique as well.  I used a couple different techniques.  I did one called "rock n' roll" on the partridge.  First I stamped the bird in Cashmere ink, then I rolled just the top edge in Cranberry ink (while the Cashmere ink was still on there) and then stamped on the paper to get that color fade.

I also did some paper piecing on my card.  I'm a bit addicted to "fussy cutting", so I stamped my bird both on the card itself and on a separate piece of cardstock and then cut that one out by hand and adhered it over the image I stamped on the card already.  I also did the same thing with the Cranberry Red bow on the top of the wreath.

The last technique I did was just coloring with our new alcohol based markers.  I colored in those five little flowers on the wreath before I added a cute little sparkle to the center.  And if you haven't used an alcohol based marker before, you're gonna love it, the color goes down like butter and leaves no streaks - yay!

I had to duplicate this card 26 times, but it wasn't too bad.  The hand cutting of the partridge and bow were a little time consuming, but I did them while watching tv, so not a problem.  The other shapes were cut using one of our exclusive Cricut cartridges called "Art Philosophy", it does all the work for you.  :)

Here's a closer look at the paper piecing.  You can see I popped the partridge up with a little dimensional foam adhesive.


I also stamped a Christmas sentiment on the inside of the card and added another little bird down in the corner - easy peasy.


Here's a complete list of all items used to make this card.  You can click on each one to find the item on my website:


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you come back soon.  :)

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Humble Artist's Swap - August 2012

At the end of July, I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to join a card swap that I've been an admirer of for a long time.  It's called The Humble Artist's Swap.  It's a bi-monthly swap consisting of a group of approximately 10-12 CTMH consultants headed up by fellow consultant Nancy Ball.  (I have a list of all of the "HAS" swappers on my sidebar, so you can go check out all of their fabulous work as well.)

Nancy gives a set of guidelines each round and assigns 2 different groups of swappers (so you only have to make 5 or 6 cards total).  Now these guidelines are definitely a challenge and I was a little scared that I would miss something my first try, but I think I got all of the requirements into this card.


Here were the guidelines for August:
  • Minimum 8 layers
  • Use ONLY neutrals and one color
  • Use one stamp set with the word “Background” in it
  • Use one stamp set with the word “Borders” in it
  • Have at least 2 other different stamped images
  • Use at least 3 Art Philosophy shapes
  • Minimum 3 embellishments
  • Card must be at least 4 ¼ x 5 ½ 

Whew, crazy huh?  Here's what I came up with:


I was a little worried about all of the layers, but by my count I think I got them all in there.  I counted 9 layers on my card (not counting the card base) that all overlap at one point, right under the word "make" in my sentiment.  Here's how I counted my layers:


You must also use all Close to My Heart supplies and I managed to do that as well (although, by the time of this post one of the stamp sets has since retired.

Here's a complete list of supplies used (with links to my website where available):


This sketch I used was one I found on the mojo monday website.  It's #181 from 2011.


Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!


Sunday, September 2, 2012

Hi, my name is Kandi and I'm addicted to swaps.

Ha!  Yes, I'm still here, just been busy making lots of stuff in my "free" time.  Actually, August turned out to be a pretty busy month because I got a little crazy and overextended myself by signing up for 4 different swaps, all due within a couple weeks of each other.

In my evenings after work and on weekends (minus one, when we went camping), I've made a few items:

41 Board Titles
82 Greeting Cards
8 Single Page Layouts
8 3D Cricut Items
* Not to mention, a few other items for a Craft Show my friend Linda and I did in early August.

Whew!  I'm so glad to be done, finally.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I just have a hard time saying no.  I normally do 2 or 3 swaps when a new Idea Book comes out, but 2 new opportunities presented themselves to me this time around and I just had to go for it.  :)

Unfortunately I'm on a computer that doesn't have my current photos uploaded, so I will be back with photos of the various swap items soon.  I also hope to post some photos of other goings on from this Summer, now that it's almost over.

For now, enjoy the rest of your weekend.  I'm off to eat breakfast at my Mother-in-law's house - yum!

Ciao!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The New Autumn/Winter Idea Book has arrived!

If you'd like a copy of the new Autumn/Winter Idea Book, please contact me and I'll get one to you.  In the mean time, you can browse the catalog on line, just click on the image below.  As always, it's full of lots of fun new papers, stamps and accessories.  Enjoy!

* And if you just can't wait to place a order, you can shop HERE.  :)

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Join CTMH in August and get a *FREE Tote!


Have you ever thought about turning your hobby into a lucrative business? Or maybe just getting Close to my Heart products at a great discount for you and your friends? August is the PERFECT time to sign to up. Not only do we have a new $49 kit, but if you join my team in August, you can get this adorable exclusive tote bag for FREE (while supplies last)!  



You can choose to order the $49 New Consultant Essential Kit and get $130 worth of brand new CTMH products shown below! (Or choose the $99 Master kit and get $280 worth of new goodies!)



New $49 Essential Kit Contents: 
 
  • Read Me First Letter
  • 3 Fall/Winter 2012 Idea Books
  • 5 Hostess Order Forms
  • 5 Customer Order Forms
  • Close To My Heart Color Swatch
  • Autumn/Winter B&T Duos Sampler
  • Nature's Delight Petite Perks Stamp Set
  • G1045 Avonlea WOTG Kit
  • X7155C Avonlea Canvas Shapes
  • Z1322 My Creations Recipe Box
  • Z1777 Color Ready Canvas Alphabet
  • Z2111 Chocolate Ink Pad
  • Z2173 Slate Ink Pad
  • D1522 Glamour Lowercase Stamp Set
  • D1527 Perfect Fit Frames Stamp Set
  • Y1006 3" x3" Acrylic Block
  • Y1009 2" x 3 1/2" Acrylic Block
 Master Kit Contents: 
 
 Includes everything in the Essentials Kit, plus-
  •  7 additional Fall/Winter 2012 Idea Books
  •  25 You are Welcome Here Recruiting Brochures
  •  25 The Rewards Come Now Hostess Brochures
  •  5 Studio J Layouts (redeem within 3 months)
  •  5 Studio J Brochures
  •  20 additional Hostess Order Forms
  •  20 additional Customer Order Forms
  •  4 additional Petite Perks Nature's Delight Stamp Sets
  •  25 Cello Bags
  •  Z1782 My Acrylix Stamp Scrubber
  •  1778 My Acrylix Spritz Cleaner
  •  1512 Bonding Memories Glue
  •  Z697 Sponge
  •  Z679 Liquid Glass
  •  Z2434 Chocolate Inks Marker Set
  •  Z534 Micro Tip Scissors
The promotion starts at 9am (MT) on Wednesday, August 1st.

The tote is only available while supplies last, so sign up early to make sure you get yours before they are gone.

Have questions? Feel free to CONTACT ME.  If you're ready to sign up, use the quick and easy online form on my website HERE.  Don't forget to wait until August 1st if you want a chance to get that cute Damask bag.

*If you don't have a need for that cute bag, I'd like to offer to purchase it from you for $20.  Myself and a couple of my unit mates couldn't make it to Convention this year and missed our opportunity to get one for ourselves, so let me know if I can take it off your hands.  ;)  That would also make your consultant kit $20 cheaper once I pay you for the bag.  What a deal!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

"Just fluttering by to say... happy birthday to my dad..."

Ahh, I can't believe I've actually done posts for 4 days in-a-row!  It's been ages since that's happened.

First things first, I need to give a big shout out to my Dad and wish him a very Happy 65th Birthday today!!


Ha ha, what a goof!  He got a hold of Mateo's skateboard and helmet at Jaxon's last baseball game, lol.  I just love his sense of humor and I'm so glad that a little of it rubbed off on me.  :)

Okay, onto to the crafty stuff...

Well, here is my favorite card from my workshop last week.


I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it at first, but I knew I wanted to use this cute little stamp called "A Tree".  I love the "A" sized stamps, they're only $6.95 - you can't beat that price!  And I think it was very cute paired up with the Lucy paper pack.

I ended up stamping the Tree in Cocoa ink, then I stamped the tree top again in Sweet Leaf.  I cut out the tree top and glued it down.  I also stamped those tiny little butterflies (in Cotton Candy ink) and cut them out.  (Some of my workshop peeps weren't too happy about having to cut those out.  They are quite tiny.)  

The butterfly on the tree is popped up using a tiny foam dot.  Next we added my favorite Sweet Leaf stitched grosgrain ribbon.  (I hope this doesn't go away for a long time, I use it often.)  We tied a knot in the ribbon and stuck it with a Foundry Pin Clip.  Those are so fun because they have a little slot in the top to slide in a piece of paper (or even a photo if you're scrapbooking).  We stamped the sentiment on the reverse side of the floral Lucy paper and cut it to look like a little banner.  Next was some obligatory added sparkles and voila, the card front was done!

Back in February, at that crafty retreat I went to in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (Creative University), one of the classes was a scrapbooking class.  The instructor & fellow CTMH consultant (Michelle Nist) showed us how to do a pop-up on our layout, so I took that same idea and applied it to the inside of the card.


Isn't that fun??  I just loved that added surprise when the card was opened.  We left the inside of the card blank.  No, my name and blog address wasn't printed in there, lol.  The butterfly was really easy to cut out using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  I hadn't used my Cricut in years and now ever since I've had this cartridge, I use it all of the time.

Well, that's it for my "Summertime" themed cards.  I hope you found some inspiration.  I know I haven't posted many of my past workshop cards, so I'll do some digging, get some photos taken and hopefully you'll see some of those very soon.  Happy Summer!

Monday, July 2, 2012

Cue the Little Mermaid music... "Under the Sea"

Either that or the theme from "Foot loose".  What am I talking about you say?  Why this fun little card that we made in my workshop last week.


This card was designed by fellow consultant Sheila Bennett.  As some of you know, back in February I went with a few of my friends to a crafty retreat in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho called "Creative University".  This was my second year attending and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Anyhoo, back to the subject of the card.  At C.U. one of the things we got to do was participate in the "Card Cafe'".  There you could go on your own time and make up to 5 different greeting cards.  Each station had all of the supplies pre-cut and the directions spelled out for you.  This little card happened to be my favorite of the 5, so I just had to duplicate it.  I've been waiting all of these months for the right timing and this was it.

Sheila was the creator of all 5 cards in the Card Cafe' and I copied Sheila's card almost exactly.  The only thing I changed was the Birthday greeting and one of the cardstock colors.

This stamp set is called "Under the Sea" (hence the title of the post) and the paper pack used is called "Footloose" (hence my other musical reference, lol).  I also used the stamp set "Card Chatter - Birthday" for the sentiment.  I just love all of the sea life in this stamp set - so adorable.  I'll definitely have to make some other cards with it.

Here's a close up of the front flaps of the card opened up:


And here's a look at the inside of the card.  Helpful hint: if you happen to stamp your sentiment crooked (I'm not saying that's what I did, lol) you can create a little matted sentiment and put it right over the top of the crooked one.  What's that saying in the stamping world?  Oh yeah, there are no mistakes in stamping, only opportunities for embellishing.  ;)


Well, thanks again for stopping by.  Come back tomorrow to see the final card from the workshop.  It happens to be my favorite of the bunch. Ciao!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Aloha... another summertime card.

Aloha!  Here is another of the cards we made in last week's "Summertime" card workshop.  I just love the bright colors and beachy feel!


I got the idea for this card from one that I received in a card swap I participated in back in January.  The creator of the original card was a fellow consultant named Tracy Lunceford.  Unfortunately she doesn't have a blog, so I'll just have to give her credit here and say "Tracy, I just loved your card!".

Tracy's original design used the same papers, wooden shapes and sewing technique, but Tracy's card was a unique round'ish design cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  She also used a different alphabet font and had the word "Ahoy" embossed on her card - very cute!

I just loved the look of the hemp sewn onto her card so I had to give it a try as well.  I actually emailed Tracy to see if she had any tips for hand sewing with hemp and she suggested putting a little glue on the end of the hemp and kind of twisting it to a point.  I did that, let it dry and it worked like a charm.  Once again, "thanks Tracy!".

Here's a little close up of the sewing and the cool new Seaside Wooden shapes we used.  They're so lightweight, so that makes them nice to use on a card or a scrapbook layout.  They say you can stamp on them or ink them up, but for this card I just used them "au natural".  ;)


The supplies used on this card were:
Footloose Paper Pack (X7151B)
Smoothie cardstock (X5763)
Old World Alphabet (E1017)
Seaside Wooden Shapes (Z1693)
Hemp - Natural (Z280)

Thanks for stopping by!  Come back tomorrow for a look at card number 4.  :)

Saturday, June 30, 2012

A little birdie told me...

Two posts in one day, wait, what?  I just realized that I should have posted this card before I posted the American Celebration card because this little cutie uses the June Stamp of the Month "Life is Tweet".  This stamp set is only available during the month of June and today's the last day - yikes!

I originally made this card for my monthly CTMH unit swap, but I liked it so much that I thought I'd share it with my workshop peeps, so we made it there also.


Isn't that fun and bright?  I just love that little bird!  I didn't photograph the inside of the card, but it says "it's your birthday".

For this card we used the now retired "Dotty for You" papers, which I just can't get enough of.  I hope they bring them back at some point.  We also used the fun new Paradise Just Blooms paper flowers.  A button, sparkle and ribbon add the finishing touches.

You may remember from some of my previous posts that for our monthly unit swap we are all given a sketch to follow by that month's hostess.  This was the sketch for June:


If you have a hard time coming up with a card layout, sketches are a fun thing to try.  I use Mojo Monday a lot, but there are several others out there too. If you are interested in getting the June Stamp of the Month, you can do so by popping onto my website today and either purchase it outright for $17.95 or if you place an order of at least $50, you can get the Stamp of the Month for $5 - what a deal.  :)  Click HERE to get to my website.

Here are all of the images included in this fun stamp set:


Thank you as always for visiting my blog.  Enjoy your day!  And check back tomorrow for another card (no, I'm not going to do a 3rd post today).  ;)

American Celebration!

** Editing post to play along in the "Patriotism Challenge" on the Heart2Heart Challenges Blog.**  
It's a great site with lots of fun inspiration, check it out.  Funny thing is the last time I played along on one of their challenges was two years ago this same time of year and same theme.  My card ended up being one of the top 5 of the week back then.  Click HERE to see that card.

Happy Saturday to you!  I thought I'd share one of the cards we made in my latest card workshop this past week.  The theme this time around was "Summertime".  We made five fun, bright and sparkly cards.

This particular card was created in honor of the upcoming 4th of July holiday.  I love how it turned out.  I still haven't found my best setup for photographing my cards though (they always look better in person), but here it is.


Isn't that fun?  It's a larger card than we usually make, a 5x7.  We used the stamp set called "American Celebration" to random stamp the fireworks and the large star and banner in Cranberry & Moonstruck ink colors.  The star shape can be cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, although I cut mine by hand so it's do-able either way. The striped paper is from the Superhero paper pack.  It worked great for this card with the reds and blues. And of course we added lots of bling, larger sparkles in the centers of the large fireworks and bitty sparkles in the center of all of the small bursts. The Baker's Twine is a fun addition to any card. This particular color is not from Close to My Heart, it's from The Twinery and the color is "Denim". I must admit I'm a bit of a Baker's Twine hoarder, so I have oodles of colors.

Here's a bit of a close up of the card.  I was trying to show that the Star and the little "Celebrate" banner were both popped up.


Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed and I hope you have a great 4th of July holiday next week!  Check back tomorrow to see another of the cards we made.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Victory Criss-Cross Birthday Card

Hi y'all!  Yeah, I'm from Oregon, so I don't have an accent, but I think it would be fun to sometimes.  :)  I'm popping in to give a peek at another card we'll be making in my upcoming "mostly masculine" card workshop this weekend.  This is a Criss-Cross card w/ pull out insert.  I used the new "Victory" paper pack.  Isn't the plaid and camouflage fun?  I also used two different Stamp Sets: "Card Chatter - Birthday" and "Varsity Alphabet".


For my sample I stamped and cut out a number for a future birthday boy.  If my workshop attendees have a particular birthday in mind, they can do the same or they can change it up and put the word "Dad" or "Son" if it works for them.  We'll also be stamping directly on the twill ribbon.  I love to do this and unfortunately the twill is no longer in the catalog, but I've got lots in my stash, so we'll work on using it up. 

Thanks for looking!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Awesome proposal

This is already spreading like wildfire on the internet, but for anyone that hasn't seen it, wow, what a fun proposal from right here in Portland, OR.  I've never seen anything like it.  Enjoy!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Facebook is slowly killing my blog

I haven't always been the best at posting on my blog, but I can definitely tell when facebook began to rule my cyber world.  It's so easy to jump on there, especially on my phone, upload photos of the kids or projects I'm working on and my poor little blog has been suffering for it.

I think it's going to have to come down to me scheduling a certain time of the day/week/month (or whatever) to sit and write up some blog posts.  They do take a while sometimes, especially when uploading photos (because I have a bazillion still sitting on the camera), but I do enjoy keeping family & friends updated on what's going on.

I also like to be able to write more than a sentence or two like on a facebook status (I'm a little wordy if you haven't noticed).  So as of right now, I'm vowing to be a better blogger.  I'm still going to post a mix of my family and crafty stuff  (sorry Eggers).  I hope that the readers that are here for my family stuff can bare with me through the crafty stuff and vice versa.

So without further ado, here's a quick little crafty post:

I've mentioned in the past that my Close to My Heart unit has a monthly card swap between us unit mates.  One person is the hostess and picks out a sketch for us to follow and we take it from there.  We choose papers and embellishments and interpret the sketch to our liking.  Amy was the hostess last month and chose the sketch was from the Mojo Monday blog.  Each Monday they post a new sketch and you can play along and link a photo of your project to their post.  I've yet to work on a current sketch and be able to link mine, but I like the sketches anyhow.

Here is the sketch we followed:

  
Knowing that I would be doing a mostly "masculine" themed card workshop in May, I chose some more masculine colors and this is what I came up with:

Supplies used: 
Papers - Typeset, Footloose
Stamps - Blue Ribbon, Happy Birthday (retired)
Inks - Cocoa, Creme Brule, Vineyard Berry
Embellishments - Wooden button, Colonial White Waxy Flax, Twill Ribbon (retired)


What do you think?  I like a lot of dimension on my cards, so hence several embellishments.  This is one of the cards we'll be making at my workshops on Sunday, May 27th and Wednesday, May 30th.  Hopefully the attendees like it.  I need to start working on the rest of the cards.  I'll post them here as I complete each one.  Until we meet again...

Thursday, March 8, 2012

What is the French word for Pig?

I don't know what made me think of this yesterday, but as I was getting ready for work I had a flash back to the Summer of 1986. My parents and I were at the dinner table with our French exchange student, Philippe. I'm not sure what the main dish was that night, but I do know one of the sides was corn on the cob.

I remember Philippe's face as we all buttered & salted our corn and then picked it up and started eating it. He was bewildered. He kind of laughed and then told us that we were "savages". He told us that they don't eat corn like that in France, they eat it off the cob. Only pigs eat corn on the cob. He then went on to teach us a new word in French - "cochon" (pig), ha ha.



I often think of Philippe when I'm savagely eating my corn on the cob in the summer. :)

Philippe, if you're reading this, thank you for the laugh. Please give your lovely wife and two beautiful daughters a hug from me. I hope to meet them some day. :)

Saturday, February 4, 2012

It's swappin' time again...

no, not wife swapping, although that could be interesting. (Have you seen the new Celebrity Wife Swap show, I have to admit I've enjoyed a couple of the episodes.)

OK, enough of that, let's get to the reason I'm posting on here right now. I've been so bad about posting, so I'm just going to say my normal apologies and make my obligatory "I promise I'll start posting more often" statement and move on.

I'm supposed to be getting ready for a workshop I'm doing tomorrow afternoon, but while I'm thinking about it I thought I'd share a couple photos of some cards I just made for a swap I signed up for. The idea of this swap is to promote items in the new Idea Book, that just went live this week.

I'm participating in a couple of different swaps, but for this one I'm assigned a particular new paper pack to work with and a specific project. In this case I was assigned a 3x6 greeting card and the new paper pack called Cruisin'.

This is what I came up with.



Isn't he a cutie? I used the stamp set called "A Bowwow". I stamped him on one of the papers in the new Cruisin' paper pack, cut him out and glued him to my card front. I also stamped his little collar on a different paper from the pack, cut it out and glued it on. Some people think I'm crazy but I really find scissor cutting very relaxing. In case you're new to stamping, that's called "paper piecing" of which I'm a big fan. I also added one of the new little "gilttery buttons" to his collar with an added sparkle in the middle. Even dogs can use a little extra bling in their lives, right?

Here's a close up of the doggie and his collar.



I just love the argyle paper too. I wanted to use it as soon as I saw it in the Idea Book. So after a couple nights of cutting and gluing here are all 41 cards before being mailed to their destination.



Whew, that was a lot of work. And because I'm a glutton for punishment I signed up for two different spots in this swap, but since I'm supposed to be prepping for my card right now, I'd better stop and show you the other card tomorrow. It's almost midnight here, so I'm going to pop in a movie (I think it will be "You've Got Mail" this evening/morning) and I'll open a Mountain Dew (yes, I'm that healthy) and get to craftin'. Thanks for looking!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Randomness - Eyebrow Girl

This is totally random, but I just love this video and she's such a pretty girl, it's a bit mesmerizing. What does that little pink frame on my sidebar say? Yes, apparently I am the queen of Random, lol. Enjoy!