Ariana Bendy Fold Card

Here is one of the three cards I designed for my May Hostess Club. I used a combination of Close to my Heart stamps and Ariana paper pack, the cricut Artiste cartridge, dies and punches. The stamp set was a Hostess Only set form the Fall/Winter catalog. 

This card is called a Bendy Fold card and is the easiest card in the world to make in spite of how advanced  it looks.  The tabs on the bendy fold parts actually come out of the slots and the card folds flat for sending. 

The card is a standard size card,  and mails in a regular A2 envelope. However, if you want to make your embellishments to extend past the top and sides of the card, it can be mailed in a 5"x7" envelope. 

The base of the card is cut 5.5 x 4.25. Cut two of these. The first one is for the base of your card. The second one is cut into two strips which can be any width to fit into your design. Mine were cut at 2.75 x 1.5.

Score  the short end of each of the strips at 1/2" then turn and score the other short ends at 1/4". On the 1/4" sides, you will cut your tabs just to the 1/4" mark.  Bend at the 1/2" marks and add redline or score tape to the 1/2" portion. Adhere the bigger strip to the left side and the skinnier one to the right side of your base card.

I decorated my base card with pieces of Ariana paper cut slightly smaller then the base pieces. I adhered them to the base before cutting the slits.

My slits were cut with an Exacto knife at 4" on the base from the fold on the left. The other slit is cut into the wider flab, 2" from the fold on the left.  However, you can make these slits at other measurements, such as, if you want sharper bends. There are so many variations of this card.

Joyful Stars May Blog Hop

Welcome to the Joyful Stars May Blog Hop. This hop features Close to my Heart Products by 12 fabulous and talented Consultants.

If you've come here from Helen's Blog you're on the right track. If you just happened upon my blog, that's fine, just continue from here and when you get back to me, you know you've seen them all.

Please leave us a little lovin' in our comments. We Love hearing from you and keeps us motivated! *Ü*

My card today was one my club made last month for Mother's Day. 
It uses the Ariana paper pack, the Mother's Day Stamp Set and Love Doily Stamp.

Now hop on over to Nickie's Blog for more fabulous artwork!

Joyful Stars April Blog Hop

Welcome to the Joyful Stars April Blog Hop. This hop features Close to my Heart Products by 11 fabulous and talented Consultants.

If you've come here from Crystals' Blog you're on the right track. If you just happened upon my blog, that's fine, just continue from here and when you get back to me, you know you've seen them all.

Please leave us a little lovin' in our comments. We Love hearing from you. *Ü*

My card today uses the Give a Lift Stamp set along with the Balloon Ride Paper Pack. This is the second of three cards for my April Card Club. My original idea for this card was to have the Balloon very dimensional. However, I'm only three weeks out from a total knee replacement and have no desire to do what I wanted. So, this is as good as it gets!!!

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

Joyful Wishes - Easter Card

Here is the third and last card for my Card Club this month. 

I used the New Exclusive 5" X 7' Damask Embossing folder from Close to my Heart. I was able to leave un-embossed area at the bottom of the card, without leaving an impression line, like happens with a traditional embossing folder. The CTMH folder has a 4 1/4" slot at the top to slide your paper through. Thus leaving a blank area. These folders can make a continuous embossed paper as long as you desire.
After embossing, I sanded it lightly to add more dimension.

I stamped the sentiment from a fabulous set called Greatest Love. I stamped it with Versa Mark Ink and used White Embossing Powder and heated it.

I stamped the stamp "Joyful Wishes" with Gypsy ink. Colored some areas with pear and buttercup markers and added Martha Stewart glitter to the flowers.

Joyful Stars March Blog Hop

Welcome to the Joyful Stars March Blog Hop. This hop features Close to my Heart Products by 11 fabulous and talented Consultants.

If you've come here from Joyce's Blog you're on the right track. If you just happened upon my blog, that's fine, just continue from here and when you get back to me, you know you've seen them all.

Please leave us a little lovin' in our comments. We Love hearing from you. *Ü*

My card today was made using the Skylark Workshop on the Go Scrapbooking Kit.

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

Some Bunny

Well, today is the first day of Lent, which means Spring is just around the corner and it's time to start thinking about Easter. This is the first of three cards for my March Card class. 

With this card, I'm teaching how to use the new Embossing folders that Close to my Heart now carries. These folders are so unique because you can now emboss a continuous piece of paper 4 1/8" wide and any length due to the slit at the top of the folder. This is ideal for adding texture to scrapbook pages as well as large cards. The folder themselves are 5"x7".  The one I used is called Quatrefoil.

I embossed Pear Cardstock with the Quatrefoil embossing folder then wiped the pear ink pad over it. This was then mounted on Topiary CS. 

The stamp set is a special Hostess only stamp set called Some Bunny. It was stamped with black Memento ink and colored with water color pencils and a Blender Pen.

The scalloped Circle was cut with the CTMH exclusive cricut cartridge, Art Philosophy. The stamp matches the cut.

The inspiration for this card actually started with a sketch challenge from Catch the Bug.

Other Challenges for this card:

Card Mania - Use a sentiment

Craft Dee BowZ - Handmade bow

Crafty Boots - Green

Created With Love - Think Spring

Fabulous Cricut - Pick a Holiday (Art Philosophy)

Kaboodle Doodles - Use Embossing

Love To Scrap - Make own Background

Stamp and Create - Ready for Spring

Love You Beary Much

Earlier this week, My granddaughter Mya, wanted to make Valentines for her 1st grade class mates. It was hard to find stamps that I thought were appropriate for little kids. So I dug through my 17 years of CTMH stamps and found this oldie but goodie.  We thought it might be nice to add a little candy to it. However, none of the stores in our area had Valentine Hershy kisses left on the shelves. When it comes to candy, I don't think the kids will even notice what color they are.

Digging through my stash is so much fun. I found pink staples from many years ago. Matched up perfectly with the paper.

After School on Wednesday, Mya stamped all of the Bears and Hearts. I cut everything out for her and finished them so she could take them to school. Then the snow storm came. No school yesterday nor today. Then off on Presidents day on Monday. So, I guess they have to wait until Tuesday. 

Challenges with this card:
The Stamping Boutique - Valentine
Totally Paper Crafts - Valentine
Crafty Little Fairies - Teddies

Joyful Stars February Blog Hop

Welcome to the Joyful Stars February Blog Hop. This hop features Close to my Heart Products by 8 fabulous and talented Consultants.

If you've come here from Cindy's Blog you're on the right track. If you just happened upon my blog, that's fine, just continue from here and when you get back to me, you know you've seen them all.

Please leave us a little lovin' in our comments. We Love hearing from you. *Ü*

My card today uses The Ariana Workshop of the Go stamp set and Paper along with For My Friend stamp.

This is the last of three cards my card class will be making this month. All three cards are using the Ariana paper pack along with various stamps. 

Inks used are Crystal Blue, Blush, Olive and Hollyhock. The three crystals were clear and I used the CTMH Hollyhock Alcohol marker to color them.

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

This card was inspired by a sketch from Sweet Sketch Wednesday.

Sweet Moments

Here is the second card for my February Card class. I used another older stamp set that I hadn't used before. It's called Sweet Moments. When I found this in my stamp box, I couldn't believe I never used it before. It is such a BEAUTIFUL set. I'm so glad CTMH has not retired this set yet. 

This month I am featuring the Ariana Paper Pack. This stamp set goes beautiful with this paper. 

I wanted to teach my class how to make their own background paper. So, using the stamps only, I stamped with Hollyhock Ink onto Hollyhock Cardstock. 

The white lace is actually one of the stamps inked with the VersaMark and then coated with white embossing powder and heated. I also dod the same thing with the Cameo. That is white embossing bowder on the Olive cardstock.

The Blush cardstock in the background is dry embossed with a dot embossing folder. For the month of Februsaary only......Buy two packs of cardstock of your choice and choose any embossing folder for FREE. There are five to choose from. Damask, Quatrefoil, Chevron, Dot, and Stripe.

In The Moment Flair

Here is my first card for my card class this month. I have this problem where I buy too many stamp sets with each new Close to my Heart catalog and don't get around to using them within that 6 months. So here I am using a stamp set from the fall/winter catalog. This stamp set is called In The Moment Flair.

I teamed this set up with a new paper pack called Ariana. There are so many beautiful paper packs in the new Spring.Summer CTMH catalog and this is ONE of my favorites.

I wanted to teach my class this month how to use the Stitch Guide Ruler and then how to stitch. The swirl at the bottom right was made using the guide and pink Embroidery Floss.  

The Happy Birthday is from Joyful Birthday stamp set. The "i" in Birthday is dotted with a Flamingo Dot.

Colors are Blush and Olive. I just love this color combination.

The inspiration for this card started with a sketch challenge from I (heart) card Sketches.