O Christmas Tree

Here is one of the cards that my November Club made. 
The background was made using the snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folder. The trees were made from two half circles of Pear & Partridge Papers folded into a tree. 
I took clear sparkles and colored them with a deep red Copic marker. I didn't have the CTMH alcohol marker needed to get the color I wanted.
The sentiment is from an old retired CTMH set.

Angelic Blessings Christmas Card

I fell in love with this Close to my Heart stamp set at first sight. It has so many possibilities.
My card started out being a Sympathy Card but it ended up a Christmas Card.

I started out with a sketch from My Time Made Easy.

The Angel is from a set called Angelic Blessings and the sentiment is from Card Chatter Christmas. Colors used are Sky and Gypsy.

I added some clear glitter from MS to the Angel wings and clouds. The Spellbinders dies was cut out and MS purple Glitter glue applied to the edging.  The Memory Box Dies Cut in the upper right corner was layered with prisma glitter.

I hand stitched around the card with white embroidery floss in just a regular straight stitch. I LOVE hand stitching. It's my therapy

Other Challenges for this card:
2 Sisters - Pastel Christmas
Kraftin Kimmie - Make own background
Sweet Stampin - All that Glitters
The Crafty Pad - Anything Goes
Gingerloft - No Coloring
Pile it on  - Make it sparkle
Sentimental Sunday - Dimension
Great Impressions - Holiday
Created With Love - Christmas with NO red or green

Tips and tricks with Studio J

Even though Studio J^® is fast and easy to use, it is helpful to know some great tricks that can make customizing your layouts even more exciting. Here are some Studio J tricks straight from our professional Close To My Heart artists:

1. Customize your background and texture paper. You can change the color and intensity of the background and texture paper included in whichever kit you choose. Simply select the piece of background and texture paper, change the color in the color selection tool, and increase or decrease the intensity of the color in that same popup box.

2. Crop My Stickease^® quotes, titles, and tags. The cropping feature on the My Stickease images allows you to select a section of a quote, title, or tag to use as a border or other embellishment.

3. Create a customized My Stickease image. If you have a specific image in mind to use as an embellishment on your page, you can create a customized My Stickease to fit your theme perfectly. Simply add a text box, photo hanger, ribbon, ribbon slides, and Stickease to create the little suitcase! So easy! Be sure to crop or send elements behind other elements when necessary, and add several elements together for a unique look!

4. Select more than one element at a time. If you want to move several elements of your layout at once, simply click and drag your mouse around the elements you would like to select. Let’s take buttons, for example. After the buttons have been selected, you can click the icons in the popup box to choose to align the buttons vertically or horizontally if you desire.

5. Make faux washi tape with vellum text boxes. To create the look of a piece of clear washi tape, make a small rectangular text box, filled with vellum background (this is the default color for text boxes). You can make the tape strips as large or small as you want, or even layer them for more emphasis.

6. Stretch one photo across multiple photo wells. If you have fewer photos than photo wells, instead of deleting the excess wells, try scaling the picture to a larger size and then copying the picture to other photo wells and matching the photos up until they align with an almost seamless image. This trick works best with photo wells that are adjacent to each other.

7. Create ruffled ribbon. Select “Ribbons” in the drop-down menu under the Embellishments toolset. Choose ribbon tab and rotate the tab so that it is vertical on the page. Then layer several tabs on top of one another, sending every other one to the back to create a ruffled look.

8. Create a jagged border with text boxes. You can create a jagged border simply by rotating multiple text boxes about 45 degrees and making them the same color as the background. Put these boxes on top of a long, rectangular box of another color, and you’ve got a jagged border!

9. Change the background of your layout. Sometimes you may like the photo and journal arrangement in a layout, and yet want to change the background colors. Because photos sit on top of everything else, this is easy to do. Simply pull a journaling box over the space you want for a different background and fill it with a color from the color selection tool or a patterned paper from the Papers toolset. Then, send it backwards until the photo wells are on top of your new background.

Bonus Trick! Use keyboard keys to make embellishments. Did you know that some of the best tools for creating custom embellishments are the basic keys on your keyboard? It’s as simple as typing into a journaling box with no background color. Use periods to make a polka dot pattern, angle brackets to create a trendy Chevron look, overlapping pound signs to make burlap, question marks to make rope, and so much more!

October is the perfect month to give these Studio J hints a go because for every 9 layouts you create, you’ll get a 10th layout for FREE!

October SOTM meets La Belle Vie

Here is the third and last card for my October classes. 

I LOVE the La Belle Vie paper pack and just had to make a Christmas Card with it. I tried to keep it simple because it is a class card. But OH, the possibilities of this paper and this stamp set.

The glittery strip at the bottom  is from the CTMH Silver Shimmer Trim.

I cut the ornament using the NEW Cricut Cartridge "Artiste", and stamped with the coordinating ornament stamp. I added a small piece of the silver Shimmer trim to the hanger portion of the ornament. 

I just happened to have a roll of this mauve ribbon in my stash that seems to match perfectly in real life. Looks awful in the picture though.  

October SOTM Mitten Card

Here is the second card for my classes this month using the October SOTM, Very Merry Christmas

This card was made using retired "Lucky" Paper along with some Pacifica Cardstock that I used an embossing folder on and then sanded. 

The mittens were stamped with Sky ink, cut out  and sponged with Pacifica. I applied liquid applique to the tops and puffed it with my heat gun. I then added glitter for extra sparkle.

The tag the mittens are layered on was cut using the NEW Artiste Cricut cartridge then used a snowflake embossing folder and sponged the edges with sky ink.

October SOTM Gift Tag

I just thought I needed to throw a gift tag in the mix of cards for my classes.
I thought this just turned out so cute. I think I need to make a bunch of these for my daughter. She has a habit of calling me at night saying she needs tags by the morning. I guess that's my fault for falsely passing myself off as Super Mom when she was younger. 

Here is a cute gift tag made using the October Stamp of the Month, Very Merry Christmas. I cut both layers with the Cricut Artiste Cartridge.  I attached the two parts together only at the top and stamped the to: & from: on the inside. 
I also used the NEW CTMH Cranberry Alcohol Ink Marker to color in the red on the tree.

Inside

October SOTM - Money or Gift Card Holder

I'm a little late getting my October workshop cards posted, but here they are. The first one is a Money or Gift card holder. I posted one for the blog hop, however, I threw that together in a hurry and wasn't 100% pleased with it. So, here is the one I'm using for my classes this month.

The card, ornaments and tags were all cut form the NEW Close to my Heart exclusive Cricut cartridge, Artiste. The paper pack I used is called Pear & Partridge. The stamp set is called Very Merry Christmas. The Bakers Twine is from the Harvest Assortment. The Close to my Heart twine is thicker and a much better quality then any other I have tried previously. It's beautiful to work with.

Inside

A Very Merry Christmas - October SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to the Close to my Heart, October Stamp of the Month (SOTM) Blog Hop. This month's stamp set is called A Very Merry Christmas. It has so many possibilities. Unfortunately, I just returned home from a two week vacation and totally forgot about this hop. So, I literally threw this together in the past three hours. I guess that's a good thing to show how easy this set is to use. However, it's time to post and I just realized that I forgot the Glitter. What's a Christmas card without glitter!!! You'll just have to imagine the ornaments glittery.

If you've come here from Kathleen's blog, then you're on the right path. If you just happened upon my blog, then you can continue along with this hop from here and when you return back here, you know you've seen them all.

My card today is actually a gift card holder cut from the CTMH exclusive newest Cricut Cartridge called "Artiste"This cuts everything out for you that all you have to do is fold it where shown. The paper I used is from the Pear and Partridge Paper Pack. The tag and the ornaments were all cut from the same Cricut cartridge. I first stamped the Don't Open image on the tag. After cutting a bunch of ornaments, I used the ends of the Don't open stamp and stamped it on the ornaments. One in Cranberry and the other in Olive.
I then turn another ornament the opposite way and stamped the tree on it. All were mounted with foam tape. Bakers Twine - Harvest Collection, was used for the bow and ornament hangers. The Bling at the top is from the Bouquet Assortment.

Now hop on over to Allisa's Blog and see what fabulous eye candy she has for you.

Here is the entire stamp set.

Fall Favorites - Club Card 3

Here is the 3rd and final card for my club this month. 
I used a paper from the Flirty Paper pack for this card. 

The inspiration started with a sketch from I Spy Sketch challenge blog.

The pumpkins were colored with water color pencils and a water brush. This time I stamped them with Tuxedo Black Ink. 
I then stamped images from a set called Simple Memories with Versa Mark stamp pad and used white embossing powder. 

I tied it all up with Bakers Twine.

Other challenges for this card:
Fab n' Funky - Colors of Autumn

Fall Favorites - Club card 2

Here is my second card my club is making this month. 

This card uses the paper from the Pear and Partridge paper pack. I love when I can use Christmas paper for more then Christmas.

The Happy Thanksgiving mat was cut from the NEW CTMH exclusive Cricut Cartridge "Artiste".  The Thanksgiving  is from the Abundance Stamp Set. I then second generationed the pumpkins from the September Stamp of the Month and edge sponged with Gold Rush ink. Isn't this a great stamp set. And it can be yours for only $5.00 with an additional $50 purchase.

The border was stamped with Memento brown ink and colored with water color pencils and a water brush.

I'll post the 3rd card for my class as soon as I get the picture taken.