Open House Artwork!

Here's some art that was on display at the Open House if you weren't able to attend.  First, let me share the other make-n-take available.  It had two of brand new colors in it: Thistle and Canary.  Cute, sweet and simple -- just using strips of cardstock and stamping a butterfly.



I also used strips of cardstock in these cute little 3"x3" cards using one of the Hostess Sets. It is a great way to use up those leftover cardstock pieces:



I just loved this cute little hostess set.  I created a few more cards just playing around with it:



This one is also utilizing the new Paper Fundamentals patterns -- now available in all the color sets, not just Basic, this one is utilizing the Whimsy Assortment:





And here are a few more cards from the Brushed paper packet, it is currently my favorite new paper pack.  :-)







There is also a really cute hexagon set in the hostess sets.



And I just played with new colors, papers and sets to showcase:






 



 






And we have card kits again!  There are a few to pick from, I showcased the Cut Above Happy Birthday Card Kit and used it with the You Mean the World to Me stamp set.  Here is one of the cards:



I also unveiled a new kit: Birthday Scraps.  It is a new type of kit, where you use your own paper scraps to make the cards.  Simply purchase the B1419 Joyful Birthday stamp set, and you can get the Instruction Guide for only $5.00.  We all have leftover scraps to use and everyone needs more birthday cards, right?  This kit takes care of both -- make sure to order yours today!



Once I finalize all the Open House orders, I will also share the grand prize winner -- coming soon!

Dani
 

CTMH Open House 8/16/14, *this* Saturday 9-2pm

 
Open House – *this* Saturday, August 16th from 9am to 2pm! 



Come join us in celebrating the release of the brand new Annual Inspirations 2014 Idea Book! It went live on August 1, 2014. You can view it online right now and pick up your very own copy at the Open House. It is filled with fabulous products, breathtaking art, and entire new lines!

There will be two make-n-take cards available for you to make for free, one of which will be using the new Brushed papers:



A few exciting sneak peeks:

-Checking out all 12 stamp of the month sets at once!
-The new My Reflections paper kits: Chalk It Up, Scaredy Cat, Pathfinding, Yuletide Carol, Snowhaven, Confetti Wishes, Brushed, Wanderful, and Seaside.
-Brand new colors: Thistle, Glacier, Flaxen, Canary, and Pixie.
-New Embossing Folders: Arrow, Floral, Honeycomb, and Woodgrain.
-The popular Paper Fundamentals pack now comes in all the color groups, not just Basics.
-New glitter paper pack colors: Teal and Purple.
-Brand new card kits beautifully designed with available coordinating stamp sets.
-Fun new products such as:

New My Crush Books



New Card Kits



New Mini Stamp Sets

 

New Washi Tape and so much more!!! 



There will be several Open House only specials available: draw for your own special, a free stamp set* with a $50 subtotal, door prizes every hour, and Birthday Scrap Instructions free with the purchase of Joyful Birthday -- a new kit, specially designed to use your scrap stash and create 12 different birthday cards:



With each order at the Open House, you can also earn chances to win the Grand Prize (valued over $80) complete with stamp sets, a 5”x7” Hinged Display Frame, coordinating cardstock and papers, and embellishments:
 
 And, of course, everyone will be able to take home their very own *FREE* Annual Inspirations 2014 Idea Book – make sure to stop by and get yours!

Hope to see everyone!   
~Dani

August Stamp of the Month art: What a Hoot

The new Idea Book goes live today!  I have a few cards to share made with the August Stamp of the Month set: What a Hoot.  Afterwards, I'll share a few tidbits from the new Idea Book.  I have been having a blast creating new artwork, can't wait to share everything with you at the Open House.

This month's set is a cute one, What a Hoot.  This set has 17 stamps -- with adorable owls, sentiments and accessories to dress up your owls for the holiday. This first birthday card I used the new Seaside paper packet, with a hint of the new color Glacier.  I also used the background set Flight of the Arrows with Banner Wishes.



I also made a cute Halloween card using the new Yuletide Carol paper pack, along with the colors Gypsy and Sunset.  I dressed up my owl with bat wings and and a Halloween hat, even a mask!  :-)



And last, but not least, I made a Big Hug card using the new Seaside paper pack again.  The sentiment was from the set aptly named, Big Hug.  :-)



Such a sweet set!  Don't miss out, make sure to get your order in this month.

AND the new Idea Book goes live today, you can easily check it out online or get in touch with me to pick up your Idea Book or pick one up at the Open House.   Here are some exciting sneak peeks at what is inside:

-You can check out all 12 stamp of the month sets at once!
-New paper packs: Chalk It Up, Scaredy Cat, Pathfinding, Yuletide Carol, Snowhaven, Confetti -Wishes, Brushed, Wanderful, and Seaside.
-New colors: Thistle, Glacier, Flaxen, Canary, and Pixie.
-New embossing folders: Arrow, Floral, Honeycomb, and Woodgrain.
-The popular Paper fundamentals pack now comes in all the color groups, not just Basics.
-New glitter paper pack colors: Teal and Purple.
-Brand new card kits beautifully designed with available coordinating stamp sets.
-New Cricut cartridge: Artfully Set
-And much, much more!!!

I hope to see you all at the Open House!  Make sure to stop by and get your free Idea Book.  :-)

~Dani


 


 

July Stamp of the Month art: Circus Alphabet

I'm anxiously awaiting my new supplies so I can create some art for the Open House with brand new products from the upcoming Close To My Heart 2014 Annual Inspirations Idea Book.  Looks like my order may come in tomorrow - yeah!  I had to move the date of the Open House back a bit to Saturday, August 16th from 9am to 2pm.  Here is a sneak peek of the brand new cover:



A quick note, we are getting 5 new colors!  Woo-hoo!  Unfortunately, that means we have to say good-bye to some colors: Blush, Buttercup, Creme Brulee, Sky, and Twilight.  I always hate having to leave behind colors, but I definitely love getting new ones!

I found some time to whip out a few cards with July's Stamp of the Month set, Circus Alphabet.  It is a super cute alphabet, great for quick titles or sentiments.  For the BEE Yourself card, I used a couple of bee themed sets too: Honeycomb and Happy Hive. Playing around with colors, I ended up using Crystal Blue, Lagoon, Creme Brulee, Honey and Ruby. 



With the Thanks for the LIFT card, I used the Feathers and the In the Background set along with the quatrefoil print from the Basics Assortment Paper Fundamentals set.  Good news -- if you are a fan of this paper set, it now comes in Whimsy, Enchantment and Adventure colors too when the new Idea Book goes live.



Finally with the LOVE card, I stamped hearts from one of the stamp sets from the Cricut Art Philosophy cricut collection.  I also used the chevron print from the same Basics Assortment Paper Fundamentals set along with the colors Whisper, Hollyhock and Ruby.



Sweet, right?  Don't miss out on July's stamp of the month set, Circus Alphabet.  It's too cute to miss out on, make sure to get your order in this month.

Enjoy!
Dani

 

June Stamp of the Month art: Kaboom

And here I thought I'd have more time to be creative once summer hit. HA! What a fool am I! Delaney has had soccer practices starting up in the wee hours of the morning, Kyle has had theater camp this past week, and there is always something going on it seems like. Today was the first day that I had a chance to create anything since school was out. Sad, isn't it? Maybe it will get a little better at least?!?

 I did, however, LOVE this stamp set. It was so fun and easy to use, and it definitely does NOT have to be just used for fourth of July or firework themes. I made three cards, the first one was using the firework stamps, but instead of celebrating the fourth -- it is celebrating a friend.



The second card is all ready to celebrate!  I didn't even utilize any of the firework stamps this time.



And the last card is filled with fun, complete with bright colors and tickets to a real jubilee.



How cute are they?  I made these super quick while I was watching some more Sherlock Holmes.  :-)  If you haven't got your set yet, hurry!  Can you believe that it will be July soon?

Dani

Not Quite Christmas in July!

This is my last batch of cards I made for an earlier submission.  And, what seems like, the last time I had the opportunity to make some art too.  Between the end of school and all the subsequent activities and everything else, I haven't had any time to create.  (* sigh *)  Hopefully, I'll have some time here soon though.

These particular cards were made for a holiday edition.  You were supposed to use non-holiday products to create Christmas cards -- but you were allowed to use one holiday sentiment if you wanted.  I actually thought it was a lot of fun, trying to look at our stamps with a different eye and making holiday cards.

This first card was using the Fabulous You set, making the bird a Christmas-red cardinal and using traditional Christmas colors.



This next card is using the Distressed Backgrounds set, with some trendy colors and a more contemporary feel.



Then I was playing around with the Love Doily set, trying to see if I could make a poinsetta-like flower with the doily.  My first attempt was using darker colors with Kraft cardstock.  I even cut out a few leaves with the doily to finish the flower.



I then tried it again, using brighter more vibrant colors.



I love the cute Owls set, so I definitely wanted to try to see if I could turn a card I already created into a holiday card.  I changed out the colors and added a Santa hat, and I love how it turned out.



Since I was liking those colors so much, I pretty much used them again with a few changes.  This one was clean and simple, with a fancy sentiment creating the holiday card.  The large flourish was from the Swirls Around set. 



Then I thought it would be fun to use what would definitely not be normal Christmas colors.  I used the cute little Hello Blooms set, thinking that the musical flower may help lend to a holiday song.



And the last card I created was using the Honeycomb set, I went back to a traditional Christmas color scheme.  I was so happy with how this card came together, this set is so easy to use as a background for most anything.



How do you think I did?  None of the cards were selected for publication, but I loved how they all turned out.  I need to work on some thank you cards here next, if I ever get a chance to create again, that is.  :-)

Dani
 

More Call Out Cards: Stencils, Sketch, Stitches & Ampersands

Here are some more cards that I made for some of the recent Paper Craft call-outs that didn't make it.  I've been having a lot of fun with some of these.  The first couple of cards are using stencils:





Then I made a couple of cards to the sketch that they had provided in their September call-out:







I loved the stitching call out; I made a few cards to submit for that as well.  I always love how hand stitching looks, but it can be a bit time consuming at times.







And my favorite ones are the cards made with an ampersand as a focal point! Something that cracked me up with this call out, is that my kids had no idea what an ampersand was!  Yes, they knew that the symbol represented 'and' -- but they had no idea the symbol had a name itself.  :-)







I was really enjoying coming up with sentiments with 'and' in it.  I thought it was a great idea for cards. I can't wait to see the ones in the issue.  :-)

Dani

 

April's Stamp of the Month set: Balloon Talk and the Fox call out cards!

April's stamp of the month set, Balloon Talk, is so much fun -- filled with awesome little speech bubbles and messages.  With 24 stamps in the set, the possibilities are endless!  I had a lot of fun with this set with the fox call out a while back for Paper Crafts with the Wild About Love set.  

First, I made a cute little mini set of 3"x3" cards and a coordinating card holder.  The card holder was cut using the Cricut Artiste Collection:



I carefully cut out just the heads and tales of the foxes I wanted to use and strategically placed them behind each little speech bubble.  I used the beautiful patterned papers from the Paper Fundamentals Basics Assortment, along with the Cranberry Baker's Twine and Cranberry ink for each of the speech bubbles.  I kept the foxes colors neutral coordinating with the patterned paper, using Black, Slate, Chocolate, Saddle, Cashmere and Champagne.  I thought they turned out so cute!  :-)



Keeping with this same design, I made a regular sized card -- keeping it very clean and simple:



I thought it turned out okay, but maybe it was too simple?  So I tried it again, this time replacing the background with some patterned paper from the Ariana paper packet.  I liked this one better:



And here is another one that I was trying to mess around with some unique colors.  It is one that looks much better IRL, for some reason I couldn't quite get the colors to all look right in my picture:



Those were all the fox cards using April's stamp of the month set.  The rest are using a variety of other sets with the foxes.  This first one is using some patterned paper from the Lollydoodle paper packet, and the sentiment from the Laughing Lola Cardmaking WOTG kit stamp set.



Getting tired of all the fussy cutting I was doing for a while, I decided to go back to more simple again and just stamp directly on the cardstock.  I love all these colors together.



Something about the fox set, just lends itself to fussy cutting.  I went right back to cutting everything out again, except for the patterned background.  :-)



I really do love the Paper Fundamentals pack.  I love all the different patterns included, in all our basic colors -- you can use these neutral colors in anything! 



I love trying to mess around and play with new color schemes.  I also love the clean and simple look, but it is a hard one to achieve at times.



But sometimes, clean and simple just isn't enough.  Occasionally, it is fun to dress it up to the hilt.  :-)  I was utilizing the beautiful patterned paper in the Ariana paper packet again, as well as the Ariana Green cardstock. 



So, that's it!  Those were all the fox cards I submitted.  I was having too much fun making all of them, so I had to make myself stop to work on something else.  HA!

The only cards I have left from that call out are a few stencil cards and sketch cards.  I'll share those  next!

Enjoy!
~Dani