Surf's Up!

Close To My Heart has produced a series of videos to help get the most out of the Artbooking Cricut Cartridge. Here is a video highlighting the school themed keys.

Look Whoo's 1

I'm still using the Babycakes paper and Artbooking Cricut Cartridge. I tried out the new Circle Spin Cards to make this adorable card for my nephew's first birthday. The Circe Spin Cards are great fun to work with. The cardbase has a square window cut out of the front with a two sided circle suspended on a string in the center of the square cut out. You can decorate both sides of the circle and when you open it, the circle can swing to show either side. On my card, I put a picture of my nephew (the birthday boy) on one side and the darling owl made from the Artbooking cartridge on the other side. I used a scallop circle punch to cut out his picture. The "Look Whoo's" is cut from the Artbooking cartridge, but I cut off the word "Here" that is part of the image. I used a "1" dimensional element and covered it in bronze shimmer trim. I added other embellishments from the Babycakes Stickease to finish it off.

My Godson

This page is made with the Babycakes Workshop on the Go kit.

I also used the Pennant Alphabet to stamp the letters in Godson.

Look Whoo's Here

When I looked through the new Artbooking cricut cartridge, I knew I wanted to make a page with the cute owl and this title. The Babycakes paper is perfect for this. Luckily I had these marvelous pictures of my niece with her newborn - I love these pictures and have been holding them for a year, waiting for the right inspiration. The page design is from Make it From Your Heart, Volume 1 As for the google eyes, I probably use them far too much in my work - but they are so fun and perfect on this owl! Other embellishments used are from: Babycakes Complements Babycakes Assortment Bronze shimmer trim

Tips for using Ribbons

I love some of the tips for using ribbons that are shown in this video! I especially like the way she uses Olive ink to change the color of the slate ribbon. You can find a selection of ribbons and other embellishments on my website here.

New Idea Book - Ready for you to get your hands on it!

The new Close To My Heart Idea Book is ready for me to ship to you! You can't order new items until August 1, but you can start planning right away. If you place an order here, I will send you the current and the new idea book along with a coupon good for $5 off your first order of $25 or more. If you are local (Bristow / Manassas area), email me at scrapsweetie@gmail.com and I will deliver it to you.

Storage Heaven

I am in love with these storage containers! The last crop I went to, I was able to scrap for two days with just one of these containers and a shoulder bag! If you would like one, you can order it from my website here.

Creatively Cricut

This is a great video chock full of tips and tricks for using the Cricut. I love my Artiste cartridge!

Happy Easter Peeps!

I'm smiling and happy making some Easter cards today with My Peeps (B1402) Stamp Set from Close to My Heart. These stamps are soooooo cute! Tip for the day: When you have a stamp that you just LOVE, stamp a whole sheet of the image. Then months later, you can just cut out the image, color and add so easily to a scrapbook page or a card. I no longer have this stamp set, but came across a sheet of stamped bunnies just at the right time.

Close to My Heart now has coordinating fabric available for two of the paper kits: For Always and Chantilly. This is beautiful and fun to play with. This video shows you some ideas for using the fabric, using Liquid Glass - without even sewing!

Monogram Stamps in Every Letter

One great stamp to invest in is a monogram stamp - they only cost $2.95 and you should definitely have one with your initial! The video below shows several ways to use this stamp.

Birthday Explosion Card

This idea was inspired & copied from Tiffany McCloskey's card (see post below).

Mostly everything here was made using the Cricut Artiste Cartridge. The explosion box (pg. 48) is cut at 3 1/4" from Vanilla Cream cardstock. I covered the sides on the inside and out with paper from the Veranda design.

The doilies -one under the cake and one on top of box (page 80) were cut at 3" from Veranda paper. The cake was made by cutting two circles (page 48) one at 3" and one at 2.5", cutting one inch wide bands to make the sides of the cake and wrapping them in a circle. The pieces were all cut from Veranda paper.

The icing design on the cake was made using Liquid Applique.

The roses on the sides were stamped with the Happy Valentines Stamp set, embossed with black embossing powder, then colored in with markers.

"Birthday girl" (pg 69) was cut at 2 1/4" from Vanilla Cream and sponged with Honey Ink. The rosettes on the top of the box and on the cake were made using various flower cuts on page 54. They are cut from Vanilla Cream cardstock, sponged with Honey Ink. The ribbon is Creme Brulee. An adhesive sparkle dots the "i"

Cricut Fun

I love this 3d card that Tiffany made with Cricut Artiste Cartridge! I may try one of my own.

Mary Gunn FUNN: Which Downton Abbey Character?

I Love this quiz that Mary Gunn made up. Unfortunately I am Carson - maybe I need to loosen up a bit!

Mary Gunn FUNN: Which Downton Abbey Character?

Learn a few new stamping tricks from this video that shows off ways to get different colors out of one stamp pad. You can see all the different colors of stamp pads available from Close to My Heart at this website.

Just Blooms Flowers on Sale

When you are shopping for Close To My Heart products, be sure to check the "While Supplies Last" link for some great deals.

These Just Blooms flowers are just $1.70 right now!

Favorite New Stamp

Finally, after about 5 months with no crafting, I played with the "Happy Valentine's" stamp set today.  I think this is my new favorite.

I stamped the rose images on white card stock using the versamark ink, then colored using markers and  cut out the images. Fun and beautiful! Now I'm ready to make some cards and a scrapbook page.

You can get this stamp for just $5 (with additional purchases) through the end of January by clicking here.