Friendship Bouquet Card

Well I've finally stepped away from the Dotty paper!!! (but rest assured it will likely reappear in future posts!!!)

I was inspired by a couple of challenges this week, the Heart 2 Heart challenge to use distressing and the Mojo Monday sketch. So I'm entering this card in both challenges!

I love distressing and don't do it often enough, but the May Stamp of the month --Friendship Bouquet was calling out to me to be used in combination with some distressing. So I got busy....I used my edge distresser on all pieces of paper--some a little more than others. I also usesd my spray pen with water and pearl paint to spritz the piece of Olive cardstock then proceeded to crumple it up in a ball, then flatten it out again. I then got out my sponge dauber and cocoa ink and inked all the edges as well as some of the spots on the olive cardstock.

I stamped the image directly on the Colonial white cardstock in cocoa ink. I then got another piece of CW cardstock and applied versa mark then cocoa ink onto the stamp (without cleaning the stamp between the 2 inks) and stamped the image, covered it in clear embossing powder, tapped off the excess then heat set it.
Using my blending pen and the honey ink pad I coloured in the flower, then used the cocoa to colour the center. I love that with the blending pen and my ink pad, I can colour in an image without having to have all the markers to match my pads, simply squeeze the ink pad together when closed, and some of the ink transfers to the lid, so that when you open the stamp pad, you simply pick up the ink with the blending pen!

I was really happy with the way this card turned out, and I know I will be getting lots of use out of this stamp set!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Supplies used:
-Stella Papper pack
-Olive, Colonial white and Honey cardstock
-Friendship Bouquet--May SOTM
-Cocoa ink pad
-Honey ink pad
-versa mark pad
-clear embossing powder
-blending pen
-edge distresser
-3D foam tape

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

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

Baby Shower gift.

 My cousin and his wife are having a baby!! So we had a baby shower to go to, and I wanted to make some of the items for theirr gift. So I started with this card. It was lifted from a fellow CTMH consultant Lorrinda H. and you can visit her blog here. I used the new CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge to cut the shapes that I used for the drawer fronts, added some colonial white brads as the drawer pulls and used some 3D foam tape to pop open the 3rd drawer, so that it looked like the blanket was hanging out of the drawer. Using my blending pen and ink pads I coloured in my stamped images. All the drawer pieces were sponged with garden green around the edges to give definition to the layers.

I matted a piece of patterned paper from the Elemental paper pack, with colonial white cardstock, and used scissors to cut the fringe on the blanket.

 The next item was a paint can that I covered in more pattern paper from Elemental. I can't give credit for this idea to any one person as I have seen many of them on different blogs and boards, and I don't know who the original creator was. I wasn't sure I'd like this paper pack, but after working with it, it's so versatile, and the colours were perfect for my project. Again I was able to use the Art Philosophy Cartridge to cut out the tags and flowers as well as the boarder on the bottom of the can, that I then painted with Create-a-shade Pearl Paint to give it a softer look.

The ribbons on the handle were a bit of a challenge as I didn't have the colours I needed to match the paper. So I called on my creative side to make do with what I had. I took some grosgrain and twill ribbon in colonial white and sponged them in Garden green and Creme Brulee. I really like the way they turned out--and it was so easy to do. I'm thinking that if I just make sure to have enough colonial white grosgrain on hand and then I'll always be able to make whatever colour of ribbon I need!



  And lastly I chose to include in the package some Thank you cards. Also using that so versatile AP cartridge to cut out the card bases and tags, then using a non CTMH stamp (GASP!) I stamped the bunny and used my blender pen to colour it in. I even use the heart cutout from the tag, inside the card.

Did 15 of those little suckers!!!! Bundled them all up together along with some receiving blankets and onesies in the tin and VIOLA! I was ready with my gift.



Supplies used (CTMH unless otherwise noted)

-Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge

-creme brulee cardstock

-olive cardstock

-colonial white cardstock

-Elemental paper pack

-colonial white brads

-green button assortment

-assorted ribbons (some non-CTMH)

-paint can (available at paint stores)

-Limited Edition Stamp set -Sept 2011 SOTM

-Share the magic stamp set -Oct 2010 SOTM

-For Every Occasion stamp set

-baby stamps non-CTMH--but that bunny was just toooo cute!

-ink pads-creme brulee, garden green, olive, desert sand

-blending pen

-sponge daubers

-3D foam tape

-and of course Liquid Glass to hold it all together. Love this stuff!

The new CTMH Ruler!

Have you seen this baby yet?

Even if you had noticed it in the new Idea book--bet you didn't quite get what was so special about this simple little (well not so little measuring in at a full 14") clear ruler. It has 2 rows of holes in it--evenly spaced as well as a red guide line for a zig zag pattern--to assist us sewing challenged scrapers. I just had to have this one, and as soon as it came in I got right down to playing.......
here's the layout I used it on....

Note the evenly spaced stitches on the sorbet cardstock strips, as well as the zig zag stitching where the pattern paper lays. The layout is still waiting for my daughter to let me know some of the things she liked best about going to camp so that I can finish the journaling on this layout! ( I need to work on taking more time to make sure that my layouts are straight before I take my pics--sorry I will get better at this)

 Here's a great close up of some of the stitching on the layout as well as some of the terrific flowers that I cut out with the new exclusive CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge, and then stamped using Hooray Bouquet stamp set D1491.

The supplies used in this layout are;
Elemental Paper pack
Olive cardstock
Desert Sand cardstock
Colonial white cardstock
Sorbet cardstock
Sorbet ink pad
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge
Colonial white embroidery floss
colonial white brads
Canvas badge button
Red assortment buttons
Hooray Bouquet stamp set
You & Me stamp set

All of these products and more are available exclusively through Close to My Heart, and as an independent consultant I would be happy to help you get these products at a discount or even for FREE. Feel free to contact me at scrapnyapwithcarolyn@gmail.com to find out how.