Teacher Gifts (with Dotty of course!)

I just love how my exclusive Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge makes whipping up some little teacher gifts soooo easy! (Don't know if I've mentioned before how in LOVE I am with this cartridge **sheepish grin**) Seriously though, when I realized that it was Teacher Appreciation week, and mentioned it to my daughter, and we came up with a plan, we were able to pump these babies out in record time!!

The pillow box contains a bag of microwave popcorn, and I'd love to give credit to someone for the poem, but it's been around for a while and I can't quite track down where it originated from. This gift was for her regular classroom teacher, who is diabetic, so the popcorn was a great alternative to the chocolates in the next group!

These next little gifts were for her extra teachers....music, french, drama...so we made 3 of these and  filled them with mini chocolate bars!

 The matchbook cards with Tea bags were for all the other teachers in the school (luckily it's a small school) we were on a roll and didn't want to leave anyone out, so we pumped out 20 of these guys in under an hour! Again super easy with the cartridge and coordinating stamp sets--just set my cricut to cut the desired shape 20x at the size that's conveniently located on the stamp carrier sheet, then did the same thing for the background tag increasing the size by 1/4".

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies used;
Dotty paper pack
White daisy cardstock
Sweet leaf ink pad
Sunset ink pad
Thoughtful Tidings stamp set (Feb 2012 SOTM)
Art Philosophy exclusive  stamp set and cartridge

I'm Sew Happy....with Dotty!

Thought I'd share with you this quick card I made. OK making the flower not so quick....but once it was done everything else came together supper fast.

This is also my entry into Heart 2 Hearts April Showers bring May flowers challenge this week.

What made this card soooo simple is the CTMH exclusive Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, the card base, the sweet leaf dotty paper and all the flowers were cut using the cartridge! I'll also note that the Sweet Leaf stitched grosgrain ribbon made gathering the ribbon easy because the stitching is already in the ribbon, just grab the white stitching and pull the ribbon back.

Directions for making the flower:
Cut 4 flowers at 2", and a 5th flower at 2 1/4" (or really whatever sizes you want, but the 5th one needs to be 1/4" bigger than the other 4.
Using the Clear ruler, and a craft knife I cut 3 of the 2" flowers into 6 pieces, between the petals. The 4th one I kept whole and used as a base to glue the other 6 pieces too. This was my solution after trying unsuccessfully to glue the 6 individual pieces directly onto the bigger flower--I kept getting a gap between the last 2 petals!)
I then used the ruler with the hole guide, and my paper piercer to make the guide holes for the stitching. Then stitch away!
Add something to the middle of the flower--I found this necessary (although I would have done it anyways just to finish off the flower) simply because you sew through the middle hole so often that it's a little unsightly!

Supplies used:
-Dotty for You paper pack
-Colonial White cardstock
-Green button assortment
-Sweet leaf ink pad
-Sweet leaf embroidery floss (retired)
-Simple Stitches stamp set (retired)
-2 sided tape to hold the ribbon down
-AP cricut cartridge
-ruler

Canada Day with Dotty

The May promotion at CTMH is a Dotty Paper Pack for only $5 when you order $35 in product. I've been playing with mine, and will have lots more to show you in future posts. I've had these pictures printed since last fall and was hitting a road block every time I pulled them out to scrap them! I was cruisin some of my favourite challenge blogs yesterday and was hit with the inspiration I needed to complete this layout! Thanks to Cheryl over at Heart 2 Heart, with her April layout sketch, I was able to put this together in no time!



 Pulled out my Canadian Celebration stamp set and the AP cricut cartridge, to make the layered stars--the cartridge makes it so quick and easy! Also added in some of the new Bakers Twine. I can see getting allot of mileage with all the choices of colours in this new set!

 I had a few photos of the kids with sparklers, that weren't the greatest shots but I still wanted to include them on the layout--so I made a little interactive piece that I will have sit outside the page protector so anyone going through the album can simply untie the bakers twine and view the rest of the photo's. The trick to cutting the page protector, is to use a hole punch at both ends of your slit, to prevent the protector from ripping.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies used:
-Dotty paper pack
-Tulip cardstock
-White daisy cardstock
-Tulip ink pad
-bakers twine
-Canadian Celebration stamp set
-Art Philosophy cartridge

Lace & Pearls OR Bling???

I designed these 2 cards using the Mojo Monday sketch#236 and an idea from Tamra Pope  for the beautiful flowers created using the exclusive CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. Go check out her blog (by clicking on her name) for a fantastic tutorial!! I couldn't decide between going with pearls and lace, which I thought went well with the Lucy paper pack, or the full out BLING (and I love bling!) so I made one of each....both from the same paper pack. How versatile is that!

This is also my entry for the Great Impressions Lots of Flowers challenge.

So here's the Pearls and Lace.....

Here's a close up of the flower--isn't that fantastic! There's 5 different layers to this baby!

And now for the Bling!

On both cards I used the coordinating ink on the dry embossed cardstock to better highlight the embossing. I had a hard time putting the sparkle flourish on the "bling" card--not that it's hard to use, the "hard" part was in using it on something I'm going to give away. I love these sparkles, luckily I know where I can get more!
These are going to make terrific Mothers Day cards!

Supply list:
-Lucy paper pack
-Opaques Gems- pearl
-lace ribbon (non CTMH)
-blush ink pad
-Sparkle flourish
-Bling brads
-grey wool ink pad
-Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge
-Flourish embossing plate (non CTMH)

Christmas....in April????

Yes I'm a little out of season on this one. It was actually my club layout from Dec, but I didn't have a picture to go on it when I did the layout....and I'm a little anal about making sure that I get pictures on my layouts before posting it!!!! Luckily, my sister took the perfect picture of our dad on Christmas Eve, sitting on Santa's knee. He lost his wife last year, so we haven't seen him smiling much, so this full out laugh was a welcome site!

This layout was inspired by Merilee Restucci. You can click on her name to go to her blog, she shared the template with consultants a few years ago, but her blog doesn't seem to be updated any longer, so I'm not sure she's even active anymore.

I used the exclusive CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to cut out all the holly leaves for the layout, then gave them a quick spray with pearl paint and water in the spray pen, just for a little glimmer! Also used the cartridge for the bracket and then clear embossed the flourish on it. The paper is from the retired Mistletoe collection from 2010. I do plan to do a 2nd page to go with this layout--maybe by next Christmas I'll have that done!!!

Thanks for looking!

supplies used:
- Mistletoe paper pack (retired)
-new england ivy cardstock
-garden green cardstock
-sweet leaf cardstock
-cranberry cardstock
-chocolate cardstock -red buttons
-cranberry grosgrain ribbon
-Love Life stamp set
-versa mark
-clear embossing powder
-Martha Stewart punch  

Card class at Scraptopia March 30th.

Hello ladies, I wanted to share with you the cards that I (with the creative contribution of my dear friend Karen) have created to teach as the card class at Scraptopia next weekend. The cost of the class is $5. So if you are attending Scraptopia and would like to participate in the card class please e-mail me at scrapnyapwithcarolyn@gmail.com to sign up.

Mothers Day card

 Fathers Day card

 Generic/friend card

 Also be sure to take a look at the Footloose layout  here, which is the other class option for Scraptopia.

Thanks for stopping by.
Carolyn

Florentine Paper Pack

Today I have my version of the layout on pg 50 of the current CTMH Idea Book using the new Florentine paper pack.

It's also my submission for the Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesday #35 challenge.

These papers just called to me for a wedding picture, and this candid shot I took of my cousin Craig and his new wife Melissa at their wedding reception was just the one! Their eyes and the twilight papers are a perfect match!
The double row of hand stitching around the boarder was made so much easier with the CTMH ruler, which comes with 2 rows of guide holes to help me keep my stitches evenly spaced. And what would a wedding layout be without some bling!! So I had to get in the Bling buttons, as well as the new Bitty opaque pearls, which come with an adhesive back, sooo much easier (can you imagine trying to glue these little suckers down!)

I even added a few pearls to the body of the butterflies of the new Garden Wooden Shapes (it was a wedding after all--couldn't send them naked!) I layered a couple of the lace flowers, then a flower button, and finished it off with a bling button. It's a pretty thick layer, but it's all held together with liquid glass, so I know it isn't going anywhere. You can't really tell in these shots but I also used the liquid glass to highlight the ring of hearts between the mini pearls, it adds some beautiful dimension. Peaking out from beneath the lace flowers and under the corner of the picture is one of the new sparkle flourishes, then topped it off with a branch of leaves also from the Garden Wooden shapes collection.

The edges of all the papers were distressed and then inked in desert sand using my sponge dauber. The title was cut using the exclusive CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, and then inked as well.

Supplies used

-Florentine paper pack

-Bitty Pearl opaques

-sparkle flourish

-Bohemian Assortment (lace flowers)

-garden wooden shapes

-Bling buttons

-Blue button assortment

-colonial white embroidery floss

-desert sand ink

-liquid glass

-Art Philosophy cartridge

-ruler

-edge distresser 

-sponge dauber

Growing Up!

Here's a layout I did for the start of the new school year of my son. It's a milestone year, just starting grade 9, and the growth spurt he has been going through is unlike anything I could have imagined!!!! In one year he has added almost a full 8inches to his height, and 3 shoe sizes!!! Yikes, glad I only have one boy. Can't even guess what my brother and his wife spend in groceries with 3 boys, all within 3 years of age.

Christmas Cards & Tags

I will again be a vendor at Scraptopia in beautiful Muskoka on Nov 18-20th this fall. I decided to do something a little different and designed a card class and a tag class to be offered on the weekend. There will be 3 cards to make, using a variety of techniques and products. The cost for this mini card class is $5. All you need to bring is your adhesive, everything else you need will be supplied.

The Tag class will consist of 5 tags, and the cost for this class will be $3.

If you are attending Scraptopia on Nov 18-20th and would like to do either of these classes please send me an e-mail at , scrapnyapwithcarolyn@gmail.com to let me know you are interested so that I can come prepared.

Thanks for stopping by to visit.

Art Philosophy cheat sheet.

One of my fellow CTMH consultants, Lucy Kelleher, created a cheat sheet of sorts for the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. The stamp sets that coordinate with the cartridge convienently come with the size that you need to cut the shape, right on the carrier sheet of the stamp set, but you still have to hunt through the booklet to find the correct shape to cut. With over 700 images on this cartridge, it can be a little challenging. So if you are interested in her cheat sheet, please visit her blog by clicking here and she has the link to the Google doc for you to download. Thanks so much Lucy!

a GRAND thing

I was inspired by another challenge over at Frosted Designs. It was actually a very simple challenge, to use fancy trim on your project. So I opened my bin of ribbons and trims and dug some out. I knew as soon as I read the challenge that I wanted to use this amazing pink rose ribbon from Close to My Heart, but I couldn't very well just put that on a page. So I dove into the "pile" (if you are unsure what the pile is, please refer to the post from Thurs Oct 13th), boy that pile hasn't seen this much attention in a long time!!! And I love that I am getting some more older photos scrapped, along with using up some of my stash! This pic was from a photo shoot that my Mom wanted done with all the grandkids. What an experience! considering there was 10 of them and at the time of the picture they ranged in age from 1 to 11yrs old, it got accomplished is a very short time. My 2 are the little girl on Papa's lap and the boy standing between Grandma and Papa.

The paper is the new Roxie paper pack. I used my beloved Art Philosophy cartridge to cut out the tag and it's envelope, which is actually a card on the cartridge that I cut bigger than the tag so that I could seal up the bottom and side--you can't really tell in these photos but the card front is the square that you see but the back flap actually has a top the same as the tag. I love this cartridge!!!!

 Added in some hidden journaling....and with that penmanship it should be hidden--I may have to remake this tag on the computer!

Also used some of the new Designer brads and the frame, ribbon slide and photo corners are from the Pewter mini medley collection.

Here's the ribbon that started it all, isn't it gorgeous! I added one of the bling buttons to the center, who doesn't love a little bling? unfortunately I think the bling was throwing off my camera and this picture isn't totally in focus. 

Thanks for stopping by to have a look.

Supply list

Roxie paper pack

Pink ribbon collection

Designer brads

Bling buttons

Pewter mini medley

bamboo ink

A Typeface alphabet stamp set



Love this Blog!!!

Have you checked out Jeanette Lynton's blog? She is the Founder & CEO of Close To My Heart, and is quite a remarkable woman. For the month of October she is posting a project a day highlighting the exclusive CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. Day one's project is pictured below and is just stunning. To visit her site simple click her name up above that is underlined. 

Oh, and have a GREAT weekend!