Studio J is live!

Close To My Heart's online design software, Studio J™, is live! Studio J™ can help you create 2-page layouts faster, simpler and easier -- saving you time and money! The software is free, you can create an account to start designing complete layouts in minutes. You can create as many layouts as you'd like, with no charge until you decide to print out your layouts.

I tried Studio J™ for the first time earlier, and I created a great soccer spread of Delaney's first Spring 2010 tournament. I've shared it before, but I'll share it again:



For more information, there is a flyer on Studio J™ for you to check out, and you can also start playing around with Studio J™ today on my website! Simply create an account (at no charge) to start designing your digital layouts!

Why Studio J™?

• It's a FREE service - no sign up fees, no digital kits or software to buy! You pay for nothing for using the software, you only pay when you order your layouts (and there are great bonuses for doing those in multiples too).
• It helps you create beautiful layouts: faster, simpler & easier!
• If you've been designated the official scrapbooker of your entire extended family - this is perfect for you! You create the layout once, and then simply print out as many as you need for everyone to receive their own copy. There is no need to recreate the exact layout multiple times!
• There are some fun adjustments you can make digitally, that are simply impossible to do normally, such as resize stickers to any size you want and color embellishments to any color in the kit.
• There are extra scrapbooking kits to select from on Studio J™ including exclusive kits only available through Studio J™ as well as a few retired sets! Woo-hoo!

Try it out today and let me know all about it! :-)

Dani

New Challenge: Card with a Speech Bubble

Moxie Fab's new challenge was creating a project with a Speech Bubble in their April 7, 2010 post. Since we have an entire stamp set devoted to cute little speech bubbles, I had to try this one too. :-) Using our stamp set D1405 Leave Your Mark, I created this card:



I kept it to a black/white card with a splash of color with Sunny Yellow. The background was stamped with C1342 Damask Tiles, which turned out so pretty I thought. I'll definitely be using that for a background again. Then the lady, dress and sentiment was from D1349 Be Yourself. I love this stamp set - so much fun to play with. It was an old Stamp of the Month special, that is coming BACK in our upcoming Summer 2010 Idea Book. So if you missed it the first time around, it will be available again next month. Then I added some stitching, a flower, and some sparkles for a bit of bling. Voila! Here's my cute speech bubble card!

Enjoy!
Dani

Paper Piecing: Love This Technique!

Keeping up with one of my favorite blogs, I caught Moxie Fab's Picking Up the Pieces Challenge in their March 25, 2010 post. I love paper piecing, so I definitely had to try this one. I think it's because I'm a bit lazy with coloring at times, and this gives me glorious color and texture in a quick and easy way. :-) So here's my challenge entry:



I pulled some scraps from the Daydream paper pack and had fun with it! I cut out a strip from the striped paper and made "grass" on the bottom of the card. I stamped the umbrella and rubber boots from the Springtime stamp set in some fun patterns and pieced them together. I stamped the sun and sentiment with hearts from the ADORABLE Over the Rainbow stamp set - a new set coming in our Summer 2010 Idea Book. I attached the umbrella, boots and sun with 3-D Foam Tape for some dimension. And last, but not least, I used some Bitty Sparkles to dress up the umbrella, sun & sentiment. I have a rough time photographing sparkles and glitter -- but they look so cute IRL! I think if you click on the image to see it in more detail, you can at least see them better.

This is my first card made with some new Summer products! Now off to play with some more!!!

Dani

Flower Pot artwork - April's Stamp of the Month!

I love this month's stamp of the month: Flower Pot! I had so much fun messing around with it -- I finally had to make myself put it away as I have many other projects to try to accomplish. :-)



This is the first one I made, making a "window" through the window of the stamp in the card. I used paper from the Moon Doogie pack, with the colors Cranberry, Sorbet & New England Ivy. When you open the card, you see this:

Sometimes a classic, simple card is all you need. For this one I stamped the flowers and then made a mask before stamping the pot -- so the flowers would appear to be overlapping the flower pot. Then I colored the entire image with our watercolor pencils. They blend so well, it looks very pretty. You should be able to click on this (and most images) to see a better-resolution image.

I was playing around with the small floral image, and it lends itself to creating a border beautifully -- even around a circle! Try to do THAT with a wooden stamp! I did have to mask the ending again, so that the frame seemed endless. Then I colored in the stamped border with markers coordinating with the paper I chose from the Boom-Di-Ada pack.

For some reason, the window image is so much fun to play with. I added some mini-brads to the shutters this time, and put some "drapes" behind the window with ribbon. It turned out so cute - love it! The sentiment is from Welcome Home and the papers are from the Sarsaparilla pack.

For this last card, I colored in the images with the watercolor pencils - making an impromptu color palette on some cardstock and pulling the colors with our blending pen. It gives such a soft and pretty effect and makes it easy to blend colors. The sentiment is from Buttoned Together with papers from the Veranda paper pack.



Okay, no more time for playing with this set now! I need to move on to the next project. Hopfully more to come soon!

Dani