Stampaganza is back!

It's back, it's back -- everyone's favorite special... Stampaganza!  Buy two stamp sets and get one free in June!*  For every two My Acrylix stamp sets (sizes A, B, C, D, or E) you purchase at full retail price, you'll receive a third stamp set of your choice FREE* (of equal or lesser value) of up to $29.95 per set!
*Please see the flyer for all the specifics of the special.

This is a great time to get those stamp sets you've been wanting, host a gathering or even a book party to get the most bang for your buck!  And, of course, if your subtotal is over $50 you can also get June's adorable Stamp of the Month set Life is Tweet for only an additional $5!  I LOVE this stamp set.  I was going to make a couple of cards to share with you guys, but I was having so much fun with it that I ended up with four cards to share.  Enjoy!!!

Dani

Latest Project: Mother's Day Gift!

Here's a project that I finished not too long ago, but since it was a gift for my mom for Mother's Day... I couldn't share it until now!  My mom loves to play Scrabble or most any word game for that matter: Bananagrams, Perquackey, etc.... so I thought I'd make something for her with that theme in mind.  Using a garage-sale find Scrabble board (thanks to our friend Doug!), I created a wall-hanging.  I used an online crossword puzzle maker to create a puzzle with words describing my mom.  I made her do the crossword puzzle first, then gave her the finished piece.  :-)  I created all the flowers and leaves with the Close To My Heart's Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge to help decorate up the finished piece.  It was a lot of fun; I will have to play around with some more Scrabble art! 

  

If you've made anything with an old Scrabble board or pieces, I'd love to see them!

Dani
 

May's Stamp of the Month: Friendship Bouquet

It has been so crazy time-wise with the end of school coming up. The kids only have 13 more days of actual school left!!! Can you believe it? There have been a few days, where I wonder if we'll make it. :-)  But I finally sat down to make a few cards with this beautiful set.

The first card I messed around with some masking and stamped the entire background with flowers in Chocolate.  Yes, I started with a plain, white card base!  Then I just used our watercolor pencils, and slowly but surely colored it in.  I took my time and added more color a layer at a time.  Then the last thing I did, was add a few black dots in the center with a black marker.  It was fun, but took a while and my hand was cramping when I was finally finished.



This next card was my attempt to make it look more like a typical daisy.  I used patterned paper in the background of the flower, stamped the flower directly on it with Black ink, then stamped it again on White Daisy paper.  Then I carefully cut out just the flower part and attached it on top of the patterned paper stamp, after using a light blue coloring pencil for a few shadows.  Then after coloring the center and stem in, it was finished.  My card base was in a Goldrush color to match the center of the flower.  It really makes the white flower pop with the patterned paper in the background.



And the last card I was able to make, I decided to paper piece the flowers from the Footloose paper pack.  The only coloring I did here, was to use the Chocolate marker in the centers of the flowers.  I did have to fussy cut out the flowers, but the flowers look so pretty with the patterned paper.  Adding a small little mock-banner with the sentiment, then a few opaques, and viola -- it is finished.  Cute, simple and very quick -- especially compared with my first one which was all coloring!!!



I was having so much fun playing with the set, that I was wanting to mess around with it some more but unfortunately I ran out of time.  Off to the next project!

Dani

Dotty for You!

Starting Tuesday, April 17th -- let's celebrate National Scrapbooking Month with the exclusive, absolutely gorgeous Dotty for You paper packet. This paper packet is filled with trendy colors and stunning patterns. You will definitely not want to miss this special!



We have chevrons, stripes, butterflies and oh so much more -- and THAT is just on the front side. The back sides are a subtle tone-on-tone dotted pattern, just perfect to coordinate with all the front patterns. I thought they were beautiful when I saw the flyer, but in person, they are simply amazing.

I had a little bit of time to make a few cards, and I could hardly decide what patterns to use... I wanted to use them all!









I even played around with this month's stamp of the month set, You Are... with a couple of the cards. Aren't these fun? You can order online at any time or contact me for personalized service. Make sure to get your Dotty for You papers today, while you still can!

Dani

New Product Challenge: Adhesive Springs

My upline sent out a New Product Challenge to her 1st and 2nd downline. We were to use the new Adhesive Springs in a project, and she even kindly provided us some Adhesive Springs to use. I hadn't ordered those yet, so I was excited to see what they were like in person. I guess I was thinking they would be used kind of like the 3-D Foam Tape, but not really -- the spring can be pushed pretty darn flat. It will really 'pop' when a card is opened. So here's my answer to the challenge!

Front of the card:


Inside of the card:


I used patterned paper from the Footloose Paper Packet with the stamp sets A Rainbow (clouds), Just Chillin' (sun), and Card Chatter-Sympathy (sentiment). All the stamping was done in Desert Sand ink. I actually used some 3-D Foam Tape on the front to add some dimension to the clouds, but then on the inside I used an Adhesive Spring to make the sun really pop when the card is opened. Then I added some Blue & Green Sparkles for a touch of embellishments.

I thought it turned out pretty cute! What do you think? :-)

Dani

Convention 2012: Dallas, Texas!

I'm thrilled to share that I am teaching again at Extravaganza at convention this year. I just found out last week, and I don't even know what I am teaching yet. :-) This will be my tenth year with Close To My Heart, so I am really excited! It got me thinking, that the very first convention I ever attended was in Texas as well -- back in 2004. I was still nursing Kyle, so the whole family attended. I got out my album from that convention, and here is a picture of how little my kids were then:



Can we all say, "Aaaaaaaaaaaw!" It doesn't even seem possible that they were that little. Seriously! For comparison, check out this picture from Easter this year:



My kids are growing up too fast. :-(

Dani

 

March SOM: Potential

I finally found some time to make some art with March's gorgeous Stamp of the Month set: Potential. I had been saving some pictures from Pinterest where I simply loved the color combinations, and I got them out and made some cards with the pictures as inspiration.

My first card's colors were inspired by this picture:



My Close To My Heart colors were Sunset, Cranberry, Creme Brulee and Pacifica. I random stamped the flourish stamps in Cranberry on the Sunset cardstock. Then I stamped the larger circle design, Creme Brulee on Creme Brulee cardstock, cut it out and mounted it on Pacifica cardstock. Then I stamped the sentiment, "We're in this Together" on a strip of Cranberry cardstock, attached everything and added a couple of embellishments from the new Pacifica Mini-Medley Accents collection. They are definitely not colors I would have chosen to use together on my own, but I love how the card came together.



The second card's colors were inspired by this picture:



I used the Close To My Heart colors Grey Wool, Lagoon and Sunset. Using Grey Wool as my background, I stamped the larger circle design Lagoon on Lagoon cardstock and cut out, then the smaller circle design Sunset on Sunset cardstock and cut it out. I layered and attached them to the card, stamped the sentiment "Anything is Possible" in Grey Wool, and added the Grey Opaques and a butterfly sponged in Grey Wool from the Flutter Paper Shapes pack. Clean and simple, but so cute.




My next card's colors were inspired by this picture:



Aren't these colors just yummy together? I used Close To My Heart's Grey Wool, Cranberry, Buttercup and Sunflower. I stamped the large flourish on the bottom in Sunflower on Buttercup cardstock. Then I attached a strip of Grey Wool cardstock to the top and stamped the sentiment "We're in this Together" in Cranberry. My embellishments were some Cranberry ribbon and red Sparkles with some Sunflower sponged little flowers.



My last card's colors were inspired with this picture:



My Close To My Heart colors used were Outdoor Denim, White Daisy and Sunset. It's not hard to tell that orange is an "in" color, since I used Sunset on three of my four cards!!! Since I had gone with tone-on-tone stamping with the other circular designs, I decided to try to dress this one up more. I stamped the larger circular design on White Daisy in Sunse, cut it out and mounted it on some Outdoor Denim cardstock. Then using the Outdoor Denim marker, I added some outlining and little dots. I attached an Outdoor Denim print from the Victory Paper packet on the left side, with a small strip of Sunset cardstock on the right. I then stamped the sentiment "Anything is Possible" -- first masking "is Possible" and stamping "Anything" in Sunset, then masking "is Possible" and stamping "Anything" in Outdoor Denim on White Cardstock. My embellishments were an Outdoor Denim ribbon with Dark Blue Sparkles.



I think I need to save more awesome color combinations from Pinterest! I simply love how these cards turned out. :-)

Enjoy!
Dani

 

Playing Around with Trends!

I finally found some more time to play with my new stuff from the Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book! LOVE THEM! I was trying to play around with some of the trends I've been seeing around lately too.

Here's my take on the "rainbow" trend. I used the adorable butterfly from the new set A Garden (just one of several new A-size sets!), and the sentiment from March's upcoming Stamp of the Month set, Potential. I colored the edge of the butterflies' wings with the markers (left to right): Tulip, Sunset, Sunny Yellow, Pear, Sky, Gypsy and Cotton Candy. Then I filled in the inside of the butterflies' wings with small polka dogs made with our Black marker. Too cute! I loved how they turned out. The paper is a print from the new Stella paper packet, and I added some black polka dots to it as well to tie everything together.



Then I was playing around with some of the hot color trends. I am lovin' the yellow/grey combination right now. This card was one of the make-n-takes at the Open House, and everyone thought it was adorable. The colors are Grey Wool and Honey. I cut the cute little banner pieces with our Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, of course, and strung them on our brand new Baker's Twine -- the Grey Wool from the Neutral Assortment. I think our new Baker's Twine assortments are my favorite new embellishments! I used the sets Bingo Alphabet and the sentiment from A Tree along with Diverse Backgrounds. I used the polka dot pattern from Diverse Backgrounds to stamp the butterfly. The paper is a print from the new Pemberley Paper Packet.



Another color trend I played around with is the new brights, especially with orange! This one also is a take on the color block fad that is so hot right now. I used Sunset, Cotton Candy and Sunflower, and I must have selected a good combination as my daughter adored these colors (orange is her favorite color). I wanted chunky blocks with my color, and I used a sentiment from the upcoming July Stamp of the Month set, Live Out Loud. I added some bling with our Rhinestone designer brads and the new Sparkles Flourishes. I've used similar products from other companies to our Sparkles Flourishes before and some have been difficult to apply, keeping the shape. These went on so easy, and I had no problems keeping those beautiful graceful flourishes when attaching them to the card.



Another trend that is hot right now is mixing patterns! I personally, have always loved to do that anyway, so it was a lot of fun to put together this scrapbook page. I used a print each from the new paper packs Stella and Lucy as well as from the Typeset paper pack. I know many of you are scared to mix patterns (if they aren't already matched together in a paper pack), but don't be afraid to "mix things up" and grab different patterns from different packs! One of the main things to pay attention to is the scale of the pattern -- make sure that you are balancing out a large, bold pattern with a smaller print -- have some contrast. Here I chose my colors from the photo, but if you have an underlying color in all the patterns that will also help you blend your patterns together in a visually pleasing way. Trust me, it's fun! Make sure to try it. I went to town with a lot of embellishments on this page. The title is using the Eclectic Alphabet chipboard letters, with resist patterns on them! All I had to do was sponge on the Cotton Candy ink. Then I used some more Baker's Twine, sewing a border around the edge, this time with the Lagoon color from the Paradise Assortment. Then that led me to getting out the new Paradise Paper Flowers, which coordinated so well with everything else. Then to keep the embellishments from getting too visually overwhelming (and overshadowing the sweet photograph, which I did not want)... I kept all the remaining embellishments pewter-colored. I pulled some accents from our Pewter Mini-Medley Accents Collection, as well as using our Pin Clips and new Pewter Badge Buttons.



And, last but not least, I was so happy to see the map print in our new paper pack Cruisin'! I have seen so many cute projects with maps, that I knew I had to make something with that print. I ended up getting out a square frame that fit an 8"x8" design. Using sentiments from our new Adventure USA stamp set, more from the Cruisin' paper pack and an arrow from the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, I created an 8"x8" layout to fit behind the glass. I made sure to leave room for a regular 4"x6" photo. Then I used one of our new Binder Clips and hot glued it to the outside of the glass! Then, since it seems you can never have enough bling, I added a sparkle to the Binder Clip to tie it in with the sparkles in the layout. Now, I can easily switch out the photo in a snap so I can show our latest trip without having to take apart the entire frame. Nice, huh?



If you haven't yet gotten your new Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book, what are you waiting for? There is way too much in this one to miss out on, so make sure to contact me today. :-)

Dani

Open House!

An Open House Celebration
for the new Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book!
Saturday, February 11th -- 9:00am - 2:00pm



It's here, it's here -- our brand new Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book!

There will be:

•New product and artwork on display

•Free make-n-take projects, below is a picture of one project:



•A small selection of "take home today" products, specially priced

•Open House only specials

•Door Prizes & Grand Prize Basket

•Light snacks & refreshments

There are eight new gorgeous paper kits: Stella (shown on cover), Pemberly, Lucy, Victory, Footloose, Superhero, Florentine, and Cruisin'. There are a whoppin' forty-five brand new stamp sets, including 11 absolutely adorable A-size sets (they're only $6.95 each!). And the new embellishments are phenomenal, including some Baker's Twine (which I love!). This and so much more...

Make sure to stop by to get YOUR *FREE* Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book!!!

Dani

Fundraiser for the LAM Foundation!

As most of you already know, I was diagnosed with LAM a few years ago. It has been a bit of a roller coaster since then, but through it all, the LAM Foundation has always provided unmeasurable support and has been instrumental in their ongoing fight for a treatment and cure for LAM. UPDATE: I have extended the fundraiser for one more month! From January 1-29, 2012 From February 1-29, 2012, I am donating 20% of all sales from an online gathering to the LAM Foundation. Since this is an online gathering, it is easy for everyone to browse and purchase whatever they want and have it shipped directly to them.

Here is the link to a web page with all the details, where you can start shopping right away and even invite a friend: Fundraiser for the LAM Foundation.

I have also created a few cards to share for some ideas on what you could create, complete with a list of supplies (simply click on the image for more information). Each card has a basic version as well as a version with more of a creative kick. I hope you enjoy them!

























If you have any questions on how any of these cards were made, don't hesitate to ask. There are a few items which are retiring at the end of January, so make sure to order what you want while you can. I did update the supply lists to reflect what items did retire at the end of January. Again, please ask if you have any questions!!!

Dani

The 12 Days of Christmas Specials!

The 12 Days of Christmas Specials are in full swing! 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).

IMPORTANT: 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 Thursday, 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!!!

Twelfth Day of Christmas special: Saturday, December 24th!

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Dani

It's Christmas Gifts time!!!

We've been busy making some homemade Christmas gifts, which of course, I can't really share too much. However, we did give Kyle's librarian her gift already so I can share those! I help out at the library in the elementary, and one day I was helping her trim her tree and decorate a bit for Christmas. She didn't seem to have any ornaments that were for reading or books, so Kyle and I decided she needed some little "books" for her tree.







We ended up making her five little book ornaments. Kyle selected all the series to include: Harry Potter, Fablehaven, Redwall, Magic Tree House, and Percy Jackson. :-) They turned out so cute! They are a miniature book made from a small pad of sticky notes! Then I just raided my scrap paper drawer to decorate them up. If you'd like to make some mock little books, the directions I used can be found here. Here is a shot of the entire tree with our book ornaments on them.



I'll try to share some more as gifts are handed out to the recipients!

Dani