CTMH Sneak Peek

Made this card last night at CTMH Leadership Convention in Long Beach, CA. This is a new paperpack from CTMH called, "Twitterpated" (Colors: Chocolate, Crystal Blue, Sorbet and Sweet Leaf). At the create & take last night we were given 3 hours of "playtime" to work with this new kit. We used a new stamp set called, "Hello There" (hedgehog, mushrooms, branch and 3 sentiments), dimensional elements that coordinate with the set, and lots of other goodies! I also made a 2-page layout. It was a fun night. Looking forward to todays announcements and the new catalog!!

Color Challenge

Just a quick post today. Thought I'd make a card before I leave for a couple of days. Participated in Dawn McVey's Color Challenge, but also challenged myself to NOT use a flower. This was tough! The colors scream floral, but I am pleased with how it turned out.

I stamped the polka dots on white cs with Clear Ink and embossed with clear powder. Been seeing a lot of this lately and wanted to try it - so cool! I also added sparkles to the Cranberry CS strip just for a little bling. Thanks, Dawn, for the inspiration!

Here are the specs:

Stamps: CTMH Damask Tiles and Annotations, PTI Polka Dot Basics

Cardstock: CTMH White Daisy and Cranberry, Bazzill coral colored - don't know the name - in my stash

Inks: CTMH Clear, Cranberry, Sweet Leaf

Accessories: CTMH Button, Sparkles

Other: Grosgrain ribbon, embroidery floss

You Make Us Smile

I think I mentioned once before that I LOVE polka dots and Damask Tiles! Once again I am using it in a layout of my daughter, Nicole. (These pictures were taken in August of 2005 - I don't scrap in order, I scrap what inspires me) She is "one of a kind", and we love who she is. These pictures are typical of her - you can't help but smile!

These pages are a 9x9 size. (This is the size album I do for each of my kids, and a 12x12 for the family album.) I thought the pictures could stand alone so I kept the layout pretty simple. I stamped a few rows of polka dots right onto the kraft cardstock. I used one of the Damask Tiles to stamp the strip of cardstock with Sunflower Ink. I added a little more detail by handstitching the zigzag with 3 strands of white embroidery floss. I accented with a red button I had been saving and another punched flower on the opposite page to provide balance.

Here are the specs:

Stamps: PTI Polka Dot Basics, CTMH Damask Tiles and Frame of Mind

Cardstock: Bazzill Kraft, CTMH Textured White Daisy

Inks: CTMH Sunflower

Accessories: CTMH Dimensional Elements Simple Alphabet, CTMH Large Brad in Sunflower, Button

Other: Embroidery Floss

Apron Inspiration

So, I was shopping yesterday at Pier 1 Imports and saw this adorable apron. It was tiered with golden yellow damask, brown and white polka dots, and a floral pattern with pinks, oranges, yellows, and browns. I knew I had to try to duplicate it. It's definately a little busy for my typical card style so I decided not to put a focal image on this first card. I think it turned out looking very similar to the apron I saw. The main stamp set used to create the floral pattern was CTMH Cottage Floral.

I kept this next card even simpler. I used the polka dot and damask patterns for the background and used the Cottage Floral as a focal image. I think they look very "Anthropologie". What do you think?

Here are the specs:

Stamps: CTMH Cottage Floral, Damask Tiles, Annotations (thank you), Cirle Around, Serendipity and leaves from Key To My Heart, PTI Polka Dot Basics and Mega Mixed Messages (thanks)

Cardstock: CTMH Colonial White, Cocoa and Sorbet

Inks: CTMH Creme Brulee, Cocoa, Blush, Sorbet and Colonial White

Accessories: PTI Ribbon

Tools: Martha Stewart Tag Punch and Ek Success Scalloped Border Punch

Tulips

I LOVE tulips! Maybe it's my dutch heritage?? Regardless, I think they are the most beautiful flower. If I get tulips for any occasion - you have won me over. Anyhow, this is the reason I purchased the Vintage Picnic from Papertrey Ink. Such a cute set! I made this card for a special friend who shares my love of tulips. I made the notebook paper by punching the edge with the EK Success Edge Punch, then drawing two pink vertical lines with a ruler and marker. I stamped the horizontal lines with the journaling stamp from Noteworthy.



Here are the specs:
Stamps: PTI Vintage Picnic and Polka Dot Basics, CTMH Noteworthy
Cardstock: CTMH Black, White Daisy, Blush
Inks: CTMH Black, Blush, White Daisy and Topiary
Accessories: PTI Ribbon in New Leaf
Tools: Marvy Uchida Oval and Scalloped Oval punches, EK Success Edge Punch

Everyday is a gift!

I decided to participate in another Rasberry Suite Color Challenge. The most challenging part was photographing the card. It was hard to get the ribbon to "show its true colors". Decided not to fuss with it anymore and just post. The ribbon is the same color as the flowers (CTMH Watermelon). The colors actually look great in person - a fun combo! I also was able to play with my new PTI stamps - their sentiments are second to none!

Here are the specs:
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Polka Dot Basics, Vintage Picnic and sentiment from Everyday Button Bits
Cardstock: CTMH Colonial White, Sweet Leaf and Vineyard Berry
Inks: CTMH Vineyard Berry, Watermelon, Sweet Leaf and Colonial White
Accessories: Ribbon (unknown)
Tools: Marvy Uchida Oval and Scalloped Oval Punches

Book Box

I made this book box for my mom's birthday. She is an avid reader, and I'm trying to convince my dad that he needs to buy her a Kindle (a digital book reader). My sisters and I are giving her an amazon.com gift certificate so she can either purchase e-books or standard books for her enjoyment. Anyhow, I made this book box to house the gift certificate. I thought it turned out very realistic looking. She'll think it's clever! I don't have a template for it, I just created, measured, cut and scored as I went. I was pleased with how it turned out so I thought I would share.

I assembled the outer book part first and heat embossed the spine and cover with gold embossing powder. After figuring out the measurements of the box I stamped lines on the outer edges to make it look like pages. The front reads: "birthday wishes" (it's kind of hard to read in the pictures. Sorry about that!)

Supplies:

Stamps: CTMH Journaling Jots, Annotations and Boutique Borders, PTI Mega Mixed Messages, Anna Griffin Darcy Collection
Cardstock: PTI Kraft, CTMH Textured Duos in Chocolate and Colonial White
Inks: CTMH Clear and Desert Sand (for "pages")
Other: Gold embossing powder

Birthday Wishes

It's my Mom's birthday on Sunday, so I made this card for her using a fun color combo. I love how it turned out - hope she will, too.

Supplies:
Stamps: CTMH Cupcakes Sprinkle and Damask Tiles, Papertrey Ink Polka Dot Basics and Mega Mixed Messages
Cardstock: CTMH Colonial White, Blush and Tulip
Inks: CTMH Creme Brulee, Tulip and Blush
Accessories: Craft Buttons
Tools: EK Success Edge Punch, Marvy Scalloped Circle Punch

Celebrate 2

Here's the tweeked version of this Celebrate card. I am much happier with it. I handstitched with embroidery floss (3 strands) so it would stand out more. I layered the oval scallop with desert sand base and colonial white inside, and then added a ribbon behind the whole thing. I also used a smaller polka dot for the background. What do you think?



The supplies are listed below the original "Celebrate" post. Thanks for looking.

Celebrate

Happy Monday! Here's a card I worked on yesterday. I really wanted to use CTMH's Cupcake stamp set and my sewing machine. Not loving it for some reason, so I'm back to my studio today to tweek it. I'll post the "new" one later. Anyhow here are the specs:

Supplies:
Stamps: CTMH Cupcake Sprinkles, PTI Polka Dot Basics and Mega Mixed Messages
Cardstock: CTMH Baby Pink, Desert Sand and Colonial White
Inks: CTMH Blush and Desert Sand
Accessories: CTMH Just Blooms, CTMH Winter Cozy Brad Assortment
Tools: Martha Stewart Punch (small tag), EK Success Scalloped Border Punch and Marvy Scalloped Oval Punch

Wishing You Well

I'm back and glad to be home. We had a great week! After clean-up I went straight to my favorite blogs and saw that Nichole Heady was coming out with a new stamp set for PTI using buttons (so cute!). One of her cards is a topiary, so I thought, "I bet I could make that with CTMH stamps I already have!" I then went to Jeanette Lynton's blog to check out her Color Me Monday post and knew I had to incorporate that, too. This blogging world is so great for inspiration! Anyhow, this is what I came up with.


(I thought that the topiary needed a little stamp behind the buttons, so I scoured through all my sets to come up with circles just the right size for the buttons. It was a little extra effort, but so worth it!)

Specs:

Stamps: CTMH Argyle Backgrounds, Instrinsic Backgrounds, Classmate Alphabet (wishing you well), So Sweet Season (pot), Because I Love You (small circle), It's A Party (larger circle), and PTI Polka Dot Basics

Cardstock: CTMH Clover Meadow, Heavenly Blue and White Daisy, PTI Kraft

Inks: CTMH Topiary, Heavenly Blue, White Daisy, and Desert Sand

Accessories: CTMH Summer Craft Buttons, Waxy Flax, White Grosgrain Ribbon

With Sympathy

Let me start by saying, I do not have anyone in my life right now who has passed away. I am, however, always wishing I had some on hand when the need arises. So, as I was creating this card I browsed through PTI's Mega Mixed Messages (I love this set) and thought "With Sympathy" was the perfect style for the card. My inspiration for this was actually a new blouse I bought for myself - it is coral with brown polka dots. One thing you'll learn about me very quickly is that I LOVE polka dots, and I am addicted to the Damask Tiles stamp set from CTMH (came out in the spring catty). Anyways, nothing fancy here, but I am pleased with how it turned out.

Supplies:

Stamps: CTMH Damask Tiles (C1342), CTMH Argyle Background (D1325), Anna Griffin Darcy Collection (butterfly and frame), Papertrey Ink Mega Mixed Messages

Cardstock: CTMH Chocolate, Sorbet and Colonial White

Ink: CTMH Chocolate

Tools: EK Success Scallop Edge Punch

My Family

So here is my entire family at Lake Mohave (where we are this week). I am one of 3 girls. My family is the one on the left. My husband Bill and I, and my four kids: Seth, Chad, Nicole and Kate. Next to us is my older sister's family - she has 4 girls, then comes my Dad and Mom, and finally my younger sister - she has 3 boys. This picture was taken a couple of years ago, but I thought I'd share a little about our family traditions. Summer vacation in Lake Mohave is one of them - this is my 39th year going (I missed a year when my girls were born, so if you do the math, yes, I'm 40). Didn't want my new blog to go cold while I was away. Have a good week. (There is a card post coming soon!)

Celebrate Seven

I thought I'd post another example of the layouts I do for my kids. This is my second son's "Celebrate Seven" page I made for his 8th birthday. (He'll be turning 9 in August so I'll need to start working on his Celebrate Eight page soon!)What I love most about this layout is that I used only CS to create it (and stamps, of course). I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow, but I scheduled another card to post while I'm gone. See you in a week.



SUPPLIES: All CTMH
Stamps: Weathered Backgrounds (retired?), Simple Stiches, Building Block E-size Alpha.
Cardstock: Olive, Cocoa, Textured Duos Dutch Blue (backside)
Inks: New England Ivy, Cocoa, Dutch Blue

Celebrate Six

With my Child Development background, I learned that "it's the process, not the product". I whole-heartedly agree with this, to a point. I do so enjoy the process of scrapbooking. However, I needed to change something in order to stay somewhat current with the "product".

Since I have 4 children and am making albums for each of them, AND I am keeping a scrapbook for the family(which really means "Me"), I decided to only highlight a year for each child. Let me explain. For each child's birthday I create a page that celebrates their past year. One headshot, a birthday pic, activities pics, school/teacher pic... from the past year. I do a quick journal of their highlights for that year. That is all that will go in the family album. The rest of the album will highlight only activities, holidays and events that pertain to the whole family. Individual activities and events will go in the kids' albums. Make sense? I made this layout for my daughter, Kate's 7th birthday. (She is a twin, so her sister, Nicole has an identical layout, only with her pics). It celebrates her 6th year, hence the title "Celebrate Six".




This layout was inspired by Got Sketch? 40:



Supplies
Stamps: CTMH Happy Birthday (C1257), Technique Tuesday Main Street Lowercase, Anna Griffin Darcy Collection (Retro Background image on the yellow CS)
Paper: (Dutch Blue Stripe)CTMH Animal Cookies, (Red Polka Dot)Bo Bunny
Cardstock: CTMH White Daisy, CTMH Textured Duos in Sunflower (backside)
Inks: CTMH Honey, Tulip and Dutch Blue
Accessories: White Grosgrain ribbon, CTMH Summer Craft Buttons(Z1282)

EDITED NOTE: I handcut the yellow shape behind pic and under journaling. I have not taken the leap into the die cutting machines, yet. I'm waiting to see if CTMH comes out with one in the next catty. A couple of ideas to get the shape: 1) Buy a pre-printed die-cut from your local Scrapbook Store and save it to trace and cut 2)"eyeball" it (not my favorite) or 3) stamp a parenthesis from a stamp set to the back side and cut away (this is what I did using the parenthesis from Noteworthy). Hope that helps.

Wishing You Joy

So I decided to participate in Dawn McVey's color challenge for the first time! It was a challenge, but fun! I also incorporated Got Sketch? 83. Here is the challenge:



Here is the card I made:

I started by stamping Damask Tiles with Grey Wool ink onto Grey Flannel CS. I hand cut the "Parenthesis" shape to the bottom and then sanded the whole piece. I adhered it to a piece of Black CS, and punched the top edge. Next, I punched the flower out of Watermelon CS, stamped the polka dots with Cranberry ink, crumpled and sanded. I added a white Just Blooms and deep red button I had been saving for several years, and tied together with black floss. I hand cut some leaves from Topiary CS, folded and sanded. The rest of the assembly is pretty self-explanatory. The supplies are listed below.

Supplies:
Stamps: CTMH Damask Tiles(C1342), CTMH Argyle Backgrounds(D1325), PTI Heartfelt Basics
Cardstock: CTMH Black, White Daisy, Grey Flannel, Watermelon, Topiary
Ink: CTMH Grey Wool, Black, Cranberry
Accessories: CTMH White Just Blooms, Offray Blck Checked Ribbon, Misc. button, black floss
Tools: EK Success Edge Punch, Marvy Uchida Flower punch

Hello

Good Morning! I have lots to share today, so let's start with this first card:

I had leftover scraps from the Summertime Fun layout I posted a couple of days ago. Instead of trashing the scraps, I pieced them together to make this fun card. You can view the specs here. Enjoy!