Coming soon: January Inspirations!

There are only a few more days to take advantage of December's "Plenty for Twenty" promotion. If you haven't received your FREE D-size stamp set, make sure to get your online order of $20 or more placed on my MyCTMH website by December 31st!



Starting January, we have a spectacular promotion: January Inspirations! This is our special crossover promotion that is giving us a sneak peek at our great upcoming Spring/Summer 2011 products coming in February. If you'd like to check out the brochure, please click here. (Please be patient, it's a larger pdf than I normally post.) You can get amazing deals on new stamp sets and the January Stamp of the Month when you purchase the new Wings Workshops on the Go kit!

If you've never purchased one of our Workshops on the Go kits yet, this is the time to try them! All of our Workshops on the Go kits come with paper, accessories, and an exclusive stamp set designed specifically for the workshop projects. During the month of January, when you purchase a Wings Workshop on the Go kit, you can get:

• The stamp sets featured in the Inspirations brochure at a deep discount
• The January Stamp of the Month set at a substantial discount or even FREE!

We have a gorgeous January Stamp of the Month set:



It is important to note that the discount for the January Stamp of the Month isn't tied to your overall subtotal, as the stamp of the months normally are. The discount for the January Stamp of the Month is earned by purchasing the Wings Workshop Kit plus 1 or more different items from the January Inspirations brochure. You can earn it from 25% off up to even FREE, depending on your order. Click here for the flyer for the January Stamp of the Month set.

Each Workshop on the Go kits also come complete with a full-color How-To Guide for BOTH scrapbooking and card making projects! Here is a picture of the Wings Workshop on the Go Guide.

One side has Scrapbooking project instructions,



while the other side has the Card Making project instructions.



Also, to celebrate January being National Papercrafting Month, your purchase of the Wings Workshop on the Go kit includes an exclusive additional project instruction guide to help you make a darling My Creations banner!

This is one of my favorite new products! I can't wait to decorate up some banners of my own!

With all these fun new products, some of which you can get with amazing discounts depending on your order, the hard part will be deciding which ones to order!

Have a wonderful New Year!!!

Dani

The 12 Days of Christmas Specials!

The 12 Days of Christmas Specials started yesterday! We're going to have fun with a different special every day until Christmas Eve. You can participate in one or all of the specials, but you'll have to let me know THAT day if you want the special (via phone or email).

At the end of The 12 Days of Christmas Specials, I will total your entire order for you. If there are enough orders for Hostess Rewards, I will also draw for Hostess Goodies. If your name is drawn, you'll have until Wednesday, December 29th to let me know what you want for your goodies in order to get everyone's orders placed in a timely manner.

Don't forget to check your email (if you're not on my email list and would like to be, just let me know) or this blog to see what the daily 12 Days of Christmas Special is!!!

Today's special: Friday, December 24th - last day of specials!

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Dani

Exciting Stuff Heading Our Way!

This month's special is a really easy one that is hard to beat! With Plenty for Twenty, you only have to place an online order of $20 or more to receive a FREE D-sized stamp set! Can't beat that! Check out all the details and place your order today!

And to some exciting new changes and product heading our way...

Starting with our very next Idea Book, Close To My Heart will be switching to bi-annual catalogs! What will this mean?

• The new Idea Book release dates have changed: Spring/Summer Idea Books will be live February 1-July 31 and Autumn/Winter Idea Books will be August 1-January 31!
• With a February release date for the upcoming 2001 Spring/Summer Issue, our current Autumn/Winter Idea Book will be extended to January 31, 2011!
• We will have eight (yes, count them - eight!) new paper kits in each new Idea Book!
• We will have more advance notice on products which will retired, hopefully giving everyone plenty of time to stock up on needed products!
• We will still have a January Stamp of the Month! Here is a sneak peek:
  
  
• We're going to have an awesome promotion in honor of National Papercrafting Month, starting January 1, 2011 -- more details to come.
• The Idea Books will be filled with more art, more products, and more inspiration!

Are you as excited as I am? Here are a few more upcoming tidbits to peek at:







I can't WAIT! Can you? Also, coming back again due to popular demand: The Twelve Days of Christmas Special! Starting Monday, December 13th... more details to come!

Dani

Close To My Heart on Facebook!

Did you know that Close To My Heart has a Facebook presence? At the time of my writing this blog entry, they have 23,392 fans! I, of course, am one of those 23 thousand plus fans. :-) They also run fun contests periodically, where you can enter a comment, a picture of art, etc. and win FREE CTMH products! How neat is that? So, if you aren't a fan yet, I'd say definitely head on over to Facebook and become a fan of Close To My Heart. This contest is, "Write a blog post on your personal or business blog about your favorite Close To My Heart product." You simply need to post a link on their page by midnight tonight, and you could be randomly chosen to win $50 in Close To My Heart product. Not too shabby!

I decided that my post needed to be about something that I use ALL the time: our acrylic blocks. I know it sounds lame, but I was trying to decide what I use more than anything else! I love the fact that I can see exactly where I want to stamp. I've kept a few of my golden oldie woodie stamps because I liked the image or sentiment, and I RARELY find myself getting them out. I was making a lot of cute "bee" cards (since my son's elementary school mascot is a bee), and I pulled out some old wooden stamps with adorable bee images or sentiments. I just have to say that stamping with wood again is sooooooo tedious! I am so happy that I can use Close To My Heart's phenomenal acrylic stamps and blocks the majority of the time.

I also like to use the acrylic blocks to flatten my brads down completely, so they lay down nicely in my scrapbooks or cards. Another great way to use them is having one of the larger blocks out to temporarily store the stamps I'm not using (but will likely use again) so I don't lose them -- especially the smaller stamps. And something that you simply can NOT do with wood stamps too, is load up a variety of stamps on a larger block to make your own image and easily and quickly stamp multiple stamps at once. This can be a great time-saver! I've used non-Close To My Heart blocks before, and I can definitely say that the comfort grips on our Close To My Heart blocks make stamping so much more comfortable -- especially after a lot of stamping! I also have multiple quantities of many of our block sizes, not only to make it easier at CTMH events, but also to make it easier for my personal stamping. It's so much nicer not having to switch out an image every single time I need a 2" block, since I have several available. I just can't say enough about our acrylic blocks!

Dani

New Art to Share and the Open House Grand Prize Winner!

It was great seeing everyone at the Open House; there were a few of you I hadn't seen in quite a while! Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting! The Autumn Winter 2010 Idea Book is filled with fun new stuff, so there was a lot of great art, projects and ideas to share. I shared in an earlier post our wonderfully spooky Stamp of the Month set Thriller, and a card created with it, as well as one of our make-n-takes using that same set. Now I'll share the rest of the art on display for those of you who were unable to attend.

I'll first start with the other make-n-take that we had. I went with the upcoming holidays this time around, in addition to Halloween, we had a Christmas card.



This card was using the brand new stamp set Nature's Gift and Noted Backgrounds with the color scheme of Chocolate, Cranberry, Desert Sand and White Daisy. Simply adding some decorative punched circles on your card is a great way to use up those leftover paper scraps!

Next I'll share some cards made with the new My Reflections paper packets from this Idea Book.



This card is made with our gorgeous new Magnifique My Reflections kit papers, with two new stamp sets -- Captured Moments and Ice Crystals. It's always hard to capture in a picture, but I also used some Prisma Glitter on the letters and snowflakes. It does look so pretty, but I hate how I seem to be sparkly for the rest of the day. :-)



This card is made with our new Mistletoe My Reflection kit papers as well as our fun new Opaques embellishments -- I used the Mocha color set on this card. I also used the stamp set Captured Moments again, stamping it in Bamboo ink and then coloring over the image with our Watercolor Pencils. I didn't realize how much I used that stamp set, I guess I really liked it!



This card is made with our stunning new Olivia My Reflections kit papers as well as our fun new circle cards. The new stamp sets used are The Present, Harmony and Harvest Home. I colored the bird & bird nest with our watercolor pencils, cut them out and attached them to the card with our 3-D tape for dimension. Then I added a variety of embellishments to complete the card, including our new colored Sparkles (from the blue and green assortment) and our new Foundry Flourishes Assortment. I love the new circle cards; it's a fresh new way to make cards!



Speaking of circle cards, here's another take on them with the adorable new Hooligans kit papers. I created a silly monster card, using nothing other than the papers in the kit. I simply cut out some fun designs from the prints and paper pieced this little guy together.

Next I'll be sharing a card made with each of the upcoming new Stamp of the Month sets in the Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book. We've already seen some art for September's Thriller set, so I'll start with October's set. Remember, each Stamp of the Month set is only available for that month. You can purchase it at regular price or with a minimum qualifying purchase you can get it at a great discount or even FREE!



This card is made with October's Stamp of the Month, Share the Magic. It has a color scheme of Bamboo, Cranberry, Garden Green, New England Ivy & Desert Sand. I wanted to give it a more elegant feel, so I paper pieced the art with the Mistletoe patterned papers. The finishing touch was some Bitty Sparkles for some bling!

This card is made with November's Stamp of the Month, A Little Thanks. This set has 16 stamps in it, so you can eloquently show your thanks with anything you create. I kept this one really basic, but even with minimal embellishments it still looks great! I selected some scraps of patterned paper from three different My Reflection kits for the stripes on the end: Olivia, Splendor and Magnifique. I also used some sweet little buttons from our new Mini-Medley Accents Collections in three of our new colors: Lagoon, Pear & Sunset. I absolutely love the clean & graphic style, but sometimes I have a hard time pulling it off.



I've got a great little anniversary or Valentine's card for my hubby next time! This card is made with December's Stamp of the Month, Amore. I didn't even use ANY patterned papers this time. This card is all decorated with cardstock and stamping! The color scheme is a fun one with Creme Brulee, Smoothie, White Daisy, Blush and Petal. I used some leftover strips of cardstock and created my own striped paper effect, stamping with the long border of hearts. Then I embellished the card up with some stitching, ribbon, pretty pins & opaques. It's so much fun to play around with CTMH's exclusive line of colors and come up with unique color schemes.

And finally, it's time to unveil the grand prize winner of the Autumn Winter Open House:

(* drum roll *) And the winner is: Laura D!!! Congratulations, Laura! Sometimes you just never know which way the odds will roll, as Laura only had one ticket in for the drawing. :-)

If you still don't have your copy of the Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book, make sure to get in touch with me and get your copy.

Dani

Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book House - this Saturday, September 11th!

Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book Open House
Saturday, September 11th from 9am - 2pm!

Here are some sneak peeks from the Idea Book:




There will be:

• New product and artwork on display
• Two FREE make-n-take products, here's one using September's Stamp of the Month set Thriller:
  
  
  We'll learn a fun technique with chalks and the VersaMark Ink Pad:
  
  
  


• Open house-only specials (draw for FREE shipping, 10-30% off your order, FREE product, and more!)
  
• Party & sign-up specials, including an exciting Incentive to host a Gathering (a way to start out with $100 in Hostess Rewards before your guests even make their FREE project)
  
• Door prizes & Grand Prize - the Grand Prize is valued at over $85*! Check out all you can win:
  
  
  Three stamp sets, a 9x9 accordion album, and a variety of embellishments!
  
• A small selection of products, ready to take home immediately - including: stamp sets, ribbon, mini-albums, embellishments, and more! They are all reduced in price somewhat, from simply tax and s/h free to larger discounts. Each item is individually priced.
  
• Light snacks and refreshments


• Studio J now has membership benefits available and much more! Make sure to check out the samples at the Open House if you haven't seen them yet.
  
  
  

I can't wait to see everyone Saturday!

Dani

It's live today, September 1st - the new Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book!

It's official! The new Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book is live today! Woo-hoo! You can see the new Idea Book online on my website, simply click on "Idea Book Autumn/Winter 2010" and you can browse through every page online. You can also come to the upcoming Open House on Saturday, September 11th -- check out new products and art, make a couple of make-n-takes, and get your own copy -- details in previous post. Or if you simply can't wait until then, give me a call and swing by and pick up a copy early. :-)

This month's stamp of the month set is Thriller (set of 9). It's an awesome set celebrating Halloween and everything spooky:


Here is a card I made with this set. The colors are Twilight, Black, Vineyard Berry and Bamboo. I wanted it to feel a little "grungy", so I added a lot of texture and distressing throughout. I crumpled paper, swiped ink directly sometimes, utilized our sponges and texture tools -- and just had fun with it! I'm also using some of our beautiful new embellishments, Opaques. They come in three color schemes: Pearl, Mocha and Licorice. For this project, I used the darker color in the Mocha set.

Everyone who has seen this set so far wants it -- how about you? Is it a "must have" too? LOL It would also go great with our new Reflections set Hooligans! Here is a fun card I made with those new papers. Colors are Black with the new Gypsy, Pear, Lagoon and Sunset (love those new names and colors). I also used a new stamp set Captured Moments for the awesome Halloween silhouette in the left-hand corner with some more fun new embellishments!

Don't forget the ongoing Triple Play special too! With a $25 purchase in stamps, you can get the special for just $15 -- or with a $40 purchase in stamps, you can get it for only $5! Make sure to check out all the other ways you can take advantage of this special.

I can't wait until you see everything! Hope to see you at the Open House. :-)

Dani

Save the Date: Saturday, September 11th!

Come join us at an Open House Celebration for the new Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book:

Saturday, September 11th from 9am - 2pm!


There will be:

• New product and artwork on display
• Free make-n-take projects
• Open House-only specials
• Party & sign-up specials
• Door prizes & grand prize basket
• Light snacks and refreshments

More information to come!

New and exciting changes coming to Close To My Heart, Retired List and more!

Close To My Heart just had their convention a few weeks ago, and I am so happy to announce that Close To My Heart is gearing us up for some wonderful new products, art and ideas! While I was unfortunately unable to attend this year, I’ve been living vicariously through the bulletin board, Facebook and Twitters keeping on top of all the exciting announcements. The new Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book will be here on September 1, 2010, and I can’t WAIT to show it to you. However until it arrives, we still have a lot of fun things to announce to help us get ready for that fabulous new product line! I have a link to the Retired List in this post, it is a pdf which can be read with the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you have any problems accessing the file -- simply let me know, and I’ll do my best to help you get it in a format you can read.

One of the big changes is we’re switching our Idea Books from the current Tri-Annual format (three books a year: Spring, Summer & Autumn/Winter) to a Semi-Annual format (two books a year: Spring/Summer & Autumn/Winter). In order to help make this change easier, Close To My Heart released its Retired List a little earlier this year to allow everyone the opportunity to purchase those “oldies but goodies” products while you still can! If there is a paper packet or certain embellishment you need to finish up a project, that you’ve always loved but never gotten around to ordering yet, that is the perfect match to a project you want to do… whatever projects are on your list -- now is the time to order them! Items are available on a “while supplies last” status -- they will not be restocking items that they will no longer be carrying! This is your last chance to get some of these products you’ve been eyeing, before they are gone for good! The best chance to ensure that you can get what you want is to order right away, because many of the products on the Retired List tend to go quickly once it is released.

So with all those wonderful products to look forward to, we need to bid farewell to some older products to make room! To help isolate some of the important product changes, I’m highlighting the major products for you to check out:

• New Summer Colors! Our Summer line of colors was updated with 8 new colors! In order to bring you these fabulous new colors (Gypsy, Pacifica, Sunset, Cotton Candy, Lagoon, Pear, Sky & Smoothie -- don’t they just sound luscious?), we have 8 colors on the retired list: Clover Meadow, Hydrangea, Orange, Star Spangled Blue, Bubblegum, Citrus Leaf, Ocean and Watermelon. If you need more cardstock, inks, markers or reinkers in these colors -- now is the time to stock up before they are all gone.
  
• New Faux Leather Albums! Close To My Heart is updating our albums to a gorgeous, faux leather -- so exquisite! Which means we need to say bye bye to all our linen, simulated and real leather albums -- definitely need to plan ahead and ensure you order what you need while they are still available. Based on prior experiences with retired products of this nature, they tend to run out of these VERY QUICKLY. Also the 9x9 and 6x6 album sizes are currently not available in the new Faux Leather albums -- waaaah! -- hopefully that will change in upcoming books, but you also need to stock up on accessories for those sizes. If you need additional albums, 6x6 or 9x9 Memory Protectors or spine expanders -- stock up now while you can.
  
• New Embellishments Galore! We are getting in some of the trendiest, simply stupendous embellishments you’ve ever seen, but to make room -- once again, some of the other products need to go. Make sure to see which brads, buttons, dimensional elements, rub-ons, ribbons and more are on the Retired List. Make sure to order any embellishments that you need while they are still available!
  
• New and more Paper Packets! There are some fabulous new printed paper collections complete with awe-inspiring artwork, coordinating stamps and inspiring techniques coming our way! They’re going to be introducing more new products, artwork and techniques with each Semi-Annual Idea Book, which sounds stupendous! But in order to facilitate this, we have A LOT of paper packets going bye bye. Whew! It is the most paper packets we’ve had retiring at once EVER before. This is another product that seems to run out quickly, so take the time to check out everything on the list and ensure you order the paper you want while it is still available!
  
• And much more! This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of everything that is on the retired list. There are many other items on the list such as card kits, stamps, stickers and more -- so make sure to check everything out. I just didn’t want anyone to be taken by surprise with some of the more unique changes coming up this time around. Make sure you have everything you need to finish up any current and upcoming projects just the way you want to, so you can soon say HELLO to even more fabulous and beautiful products! :-)

Close To My Heart’s upcoming special: $2, $4, $6, for 8… It’s You We Appreciate is perfect to help us get some amazing deals at more than 50% off on select My Stickease Assortments, Level 1 Kits and Level 2 Paper Packets. Click here for a listing of what products will be available for the sale, while supplies last. So for 8 days, August 4 through August 11, you can take advantage of phenomenal deals while stocking up at the same time. These deals are only available through my online website, which allows them to update their inventory in real-time -- ensuring what you see, is what you will get! So starting Wednesday, August 4th, make sure to head on over to my website and take advantage of these amazing deals.

If you are interested in my very own Retired Items sale, please contact me, and I'll send the information out to you right away.

Here's to a fond farewell to retiring products, knowing that we'll soon say a happy hello to even more fabulous, beautiful choices!

Dani

Long time no post -- but still creating!!!

I did finally get through my HUGE pile of mending/altering, so I'm quite happy to say that I'm all caught up on my sewing projects right now. Whew! We've been doing a lot of purging/cleaning/organizing through the house, and the Monica in me has been ecstatic. It has transferred to my creative space, and I've been finishing up projects and cleaning/organizing here in my scrapbook room too! But I've still been getting a lot of creative projects done in the process.

Project #1:
I'm embarrassed to say that I purchased these fun photo holders back when we initially remodeled the scrapbook room. YIKES! I finally sat down and printed out some fun and meaningful photos and went to town putting these together. I'm so happy with how they turned out! These are now decorative accents in my scrapbook room!






Project #2:
When my BFF RuthAnn came up to visit recently, she helped me work on some bulletin boards for the kiddos that I had been wanting to get finished. I have had one of the bulletin boards forever (I originally got it to match the toy room which had a farm theme - before we switched it to the soccer room. Sad, huh?), and I just bought the other one to decorate up for Kyle's room. Sorry for the bad pictures, I should have thought to take a picture before putting them up on the wall. Kyle's especially is bad, because it is in his little "cubby" area underneath his bed and behind his desk (he has an all-in-one desk/bed unit) -- and I didn't even have enough room to get a straight shot of it.






Project #3:
I've been trying to organize and clean up my scrapbook room. Since I've cut back my business a lot, I decided it was time to go through and utilize all the leftover project packets that I still had from gatherings, workshops and open houses. I've made over 100 cards so far!!! Crazy, huh? Here is a quick snapshot of most of the cards I've made to date, and I have quite a few still to get through. When I've had multiples of cards, I've tried to stamp different sentiments on them so that I would have more variety to use later. It's been a lot of fun just grabbing a packet where the card is already designed and pieces cut and going to town! :-)

Project #4:
At least this is one project that I can honestly say wasn't procrastinated on. Delaney found out she won a Chicago Fire coloring contest earlier this month. We took pictures and told about it on our family blog on 7/12/10. Since part of her prize package was a nice Chicago Fire poster, and they also sent back her picture signed by one of the players -- we decided to make showcase it in her room. I purchased an inexpensive poster frame and created this for her:



She loves it, now we just need to get Kenny to hang it up!

Project #5:
I have been wanting to play with some Flower Soft forever, but I just haven't really been anywhere to purchase any yet. Then when we were in Indianapolis this past soccer season for one of Delaney's soccer tournaments, Kenny was nice and took me to Archiver's who is now carrying flower soft. So I picked up several colors, and I FINALLY just got around to playing with it. It is soooooo beautiful! I remember back when this stamp set was the April stamp of the month, a fellow consultant had made a pretty topiary card. I can't remember who it was, but I did remember how pretty it was. I messed around and came up with this card, which I thought turned out so nice:

Project #6:
Delaney and I even had fun with our toenails! HA! :-) You didn't know that could be a creative project, did you? Last week, I painted my toenails with a leopard-print design while Delaney voted for polka dots. I told Delaney next time to pick colors that were more different so her polka dots would show up better:







We found a fun YouTube video that explained how to do the leopard print design, and there are quite a few videos of other ones. Maybe we'll get brave and try another.

So I'm still creating, we're just enjoying our summer too much that seems to be flying by too quickly. I'll try to post more when I can. LOL

Dani

My latest woo-hoo's! Yeah!

Close To My Heart had recently revamped their internal "Make It From Your Heart" contest for consultants. Now they have the contest tied in with releases of new Idea Books, and I sent in entries for the first one: the Summer 2010 contest. I am excited to say that two of my entries placed! The winning artwork has been posted on the Close To My Heart website, you can see it here: Summer 2010 Contest Winners. I had previously posted the cards in an earlier post sharing new artwork. I placed under the "My Reflections Passages" category:



And I also placed under the "My Acrylix Something Splendid August Stamp of the Month" category:



Thanks for looking!

Dani

Long time, no post!

It's been busy, busy, busy! I have still been doing some creative stuff, but I simply haven't had time to post anything. With the end of school combined with a lot of away soccer tournaments, free time was at a premium.

Here are a couple of the projects that I've been doing -- better late than never, right? First, I got the awesome new Go-To Sketches book by Paper Crafts. And I also got the coordinating Card Companion kit by Doodlebug Design to make 18 of the cards shown throughout the book. So I've been making one or a few cards here and there when I found an opportunity until I finally finished all 18 of them:

Sorry for the nasty pics, I just snapped quick ones on my craft table. The cards turned out really cute! If you prefer step-by-step directions, with clear instructions on putting everything together -- this is definitely not for you. :-) You are given a pack of supplies, you have the pictures shown of the finished cards in the book -- and that is just about it. In addition, you also have to cut out every single printed embellishment provided, nothing is die-cut.

There are more than enough supplies provided though, I have a lot of scraps -- more than enough to make more cards:

I have cardstock, patterned paper, templates, and even embellishments leftover. I did decide a few times to add my own sentiments and accents here and there from my stash, so not all of mine are EXACTLY as originally shown too. It's all going into a bag to work on later, as I have a lot of other projects to get to now.

I've also been working on a project for Delaney's soccer team. I decided to make a digital print this time around instead of a mini scrapbook, as I knew we were cramped for time and I could easily make one for everyone on the team a lot quicker. Here is Delaney's version:

I thought they turned out really nice. Now we just need to find a frame and a spot in the soccer room to hang up Dee's new picture.

Now, I'm afraid I have some hemming and altering to do. I'd rather be papercrafting, so hopefully it won't take too long!

Dani