Friendshiop Bouquet May SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to the Close to my Heart, May Stamp of the Month Blog Hop.

If you've come here from Lori's Blog, then you are on the right path. If you've just happened upon my blog, you can just continue on from here by clicking on the next blog at the end of this post. You will eventually return back here and get to see all of the gorgeous artwork being featured on this hop using this fabulous stamp set.
The stamp of the month stamp set this month is called Friendship Bouquet and it's absolutely gorgeous with so many possibilities for any type of paper crafting. You can get your own set for just $5 with an additional $50 purchase.

My card is made using the Colonial White Tri-fold Card. I topped it off with  the Dotty for you Paper pack which you can get for only $5 with an additional $35 purchase. 
This means you can get both the stamp of the month AND the Dotty for you papers for $10 (a $37.90 value) with an additional $50 purchase.

My sunflowers were colored using a blender pen and the sunset, brownbag and creme brule ink pads. 
The butterfly was cut from the Dotty for you Paper Pack and then I added waxy flax to the center that had a cross stitch in it to make it more dimensional

I also used the sunset bakers twine in the Paradise Assortment.
The button and brads are form the Sunset Mini Medley Accents Collection.

The Cheer Up sentiment is from the 4 My Friend stamp set.

Now hop on over to Angel's Blog to see her beautiful artwork.

April Workshop Cards

Happy Spring! I hope you all got your taxes done and can now relax and have some crafting fun. Life had gotten in my way of creating lately and am trying to play catchup.

Here are the three cards that my card class and club made this month. The inspiration for this card originally came from the BB with a tweek or two of my own. The stamp set is called "A Tree".

This next card is called a Spring-Up card. It lies flat for sending and then when you sit it up, it springs up just as you see it here. The Stamp sets used are "Quick Cards Butterfly" and "Card Word Puzzle". I also used Pemberly papers and Pacifica Ink.

My last card was made with the stamp set from the Pemberly Workshop on the Go. This is such a great stamp set. I wanted to make a nice clean card so I stamped the background with black ink. The flower was made using the CTMH exclusive Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge in three different sizes, then I stamped one of the flowers in the stamp set on each cutout flower and mounted together. A half pearl and some prisma glitter on the dragonfly finished off the card.

Lovely Lily - March Club Card #2

Today I'm featuring card #2 of my March Club cards. Card #1 is here if you missed it.

I made a monochromatic card using the CTMH Lovely Lily stamp set. My cardstock papers used are Vanilla cream, Kraft and Bamboo.

I stamped the focal point Lily with Desert Sand Ink onto vanilla cream cardstock. Then I used the sam stamp and stamped around the base of the vanilla cream card base using Bamboo ink. The Butterfly was stamped the same way. I cuttlebugged the bamboo cardstock layer.
The frame and butterfly were cut using the CTMH exclusive Cricut Cartridge "Art Philosophy". I used Mocha opaques on the butterfly and Natural Hemp tied around the frame.

Other challenges for this card:
Frosted Designs - Kraft Paper

Potential - March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Well, another month has rolled around and it's time for the Close to my Heart March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop. This month's stamp set is called Potential.

If you've come here from Annette's Blog, you are on the right path. If you just happened upon my blog, you can just continue from here because it just goes in a complete circle.

For my card, I used the Elemental Paper Pack in the colors of Olive and Sorbet.
The three layers of circles and the butterfly were all cut out using the Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge. 
I cut a piece of our white bakers Twine and ran it through the Sorbet Ink Pad to make it match.
I cut the "is possible" from the stamp and curved it on the block under the word "Anything".  I also added a bit of hand stitching around the sentiment with matching embroidery floss.

You can pick up this stamp set one of two ways.
You can buy it outright for $17.95 or, the best value is to place a $50 order and get it for only $5.00. 
This stamp set is only available until March 31, 2012. Visit my website to order.

Now hop on over to Amy's Blog and see what fabulous artwork she has to show you.

The sketch that inspired this card is from Inspirational Card Sketches

Card Word Puzzle.

Here is a card I made for my dh for valentines day. I thought I posted this a few weeks ago but now I don't see it. I really love how this card turned out so I thought I'd post it again.

I used the Sonoma Paper pack from CTMH along with the Card Word Puzzle stamp set. I also used the December Stamp of the Month called Mad about you.

The dioly in the background was made using the Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge. The white strip on the left side was done with a MS punch.

Revision on yesterday's layout

Yesterday I posted two pages of a new layout. However, I didn't like the right page. But, as sometimes happens, the more I look at a project I don't like, it sometime looks better after a while. But, not this time. The more I looked at the right page, the more I HATED it. So, I removed the embellishment I had in the center and replaced it with a pewter  frame. Now, I like it a lot better. I can't say I LOVE it, but it's better then yesterday. I'm thinking it's the pictures I used that is throwing it off. There is too much black. But, I couldn't have told the story of the lanterns without the night sky.

Mya's 5th Birthday

Left Page

Right Page

Here is a layout I made with pictures from my granddaughter's 5th Birthday. I don't do much traditional scrapbooking since Studio J, digital scrapbooking came into my life. However, I had some new papers, rub-ons and the lace Bohemian Embellishments to play with and decided to go traditionalThe New Lucy Papers and coordinating Rub ons are Fabulous. Unfortunately, I had an accident with the ."Love this Smile" Rub-on and had to reprint the photo and then printed that message on the computer.
I used the pink flowers form The Bitty Buds Assortment for the center of the lace embellishments on the right page. as well as the flowers from the Heirloom Assortment on both pages.
My granddaughter LOVES all of the Princesses, but Rapunzel is her favorite. Well, this year anyway. So she had a full blown "Tangled" Birthday Party. She's all decked out in her Rapunzel dress along with the braided hair.
Oh yeah, can't forget about the Pewter Frame,, ribbon slide and photo corners.

Now that I mentioned all I used for this layout, I'm starting to wonder if I didn't over-do it a little. I sometimes don't know when to stop adding things.


Her mommy even found some lanterns that we sent up into the evening sky to celebrate her birthday, just like in "Tangled". It was a very windy night and they were so hard to light with a typical lighter so Andrea used a propane torch to light them. The pictures on the right page shows what they looked like. They burn for about 7 minutes, which is plenty of time for them to fly far away. They don't come back down until the fire goes out but by that time, they are miles away. I wonder what the people that found them in their yards the next day thought.

Birthday Blast - Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge

I made this card for a birthday party we went to today. I almost forgot to post it here so I can enter it in the Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge.

I used the Close to my Heart Stamp Set called Birthday Blast. The papers are form the retired paper pack called Mayberry.

Just for You - February Workshop Card 3

Here is the third and last card for my February call and workshop.

I did a faux stitching technique on three sides of the card. It doesn't show up very well on the photo.

I used the "Just for you" stamp set for the flower and the "Just a Number" set for the Birthday Greeting.

I also used the same "Stella" paper pack. The flourish and base for the Birthday Greetings was cut from the Close to my Heart  exclusive Cricut cartridge, "Art Philosophy".

I embellished the card using a Pewter Badge Button for the center of the flower, tiny blue sparkles in the flower and brown self adhesive Opague gems

Thoughtful Tidings - Card 2 of my Workshop cards

Here is my second card for this month's workshops.

I used Thoughtful Tidings, which if the February Stamp of the Month. This set is only available until February 29th. The cost is only $17.95, however, you can get it for only $5.00 with an additional $50 purchase.

The other stamp set used is "Just for You", used for the flowers and leaves.  The stem pf the flowers was cut from the Cricut cartridge "Art Philosophy", exclusive to Close to my Heart. This cartridge consists of 700 different images.

I also used the Stella Paper Pack for this card. Of course I needed to add some bling so I added two of the NEW Glitter Buttons and then topped each one with a blue Sparkle.

The Butterfly is wood. It's from the NEW Color-Ready Accents, "Garden Wooden Shapes". This collection has 24 stampable laser cut wooden shapes. I stamped the butterfly using one of the flower petals and Lagoon ink. I then added three adhesived Bitty Opaques Pearls.

I tied it all together with a Garden Green Grosgrain bow.