October SOTM Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Close To My Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop for October!

All artwork on the hop will feature October's SOTM, "Holiday Warmth" a set of 13 stamps! If you have come here from {Carla's blog} you are on the right path!

This month we have over 60 CTMH Consultants sharing their SOTM creations, and other great CTMH artwork. Hopping along is fun and simple to do - just click the link at the end of each blogger's post to move to the next one! If you get lost or a link doesn't work just go back to {Jena's blog} and click on the links in her post. Here we go!

My creation was inspired by a FABULOUSLY ARTSY tutorial by CTMH's own Tresa Black!  She's an amazing artist, a savvy business woman,  and I'm proud to call her my friend.  You can see this tutorial {here} on youtube.  I plan to use these treat holders as one of my card class cards this month.  You can see my other two cards from my class by checking back in tomorrow.

Treat Holder:

back side of the treat holder:

Treat holder partially open:

Treat holder all the way open - the tab inside pulls the candy up! 

 These can hold fun size chocolate bars too!  :)

I used the snowflake stamps from "Holiday Warmth" and the sentiment.  Papers are from Twitterpated and CTMH Moonstruck cardstock.  I used Moonstruck and Heavenly blue ink.  Blue CTMH grosgrain ribbon is now retired.

To do the awesome outline stamp for each of my snowflakes, I just used the BACK SIDE of each of the snowflake stamps.  I stamped those in heavenly blue, and then cleaned the stamp, flipped it over to use it normally and stamped in moonstruck.

Here is a second treat holder I made using the new "Beware" Halloween stamps.  My class members will get to choose which holder they want to make, as not everyone celebrates Halloween.

I hope you enjoyed my preview of the October Stamp of the Month!   Remember, the SOTM is only available until October 31st, so contact your CTMH Consultant (or Me!) to order this stamp set for $22.95, or get it at a discount with qualifying orders, or for FREE with a $100 order!

Thanks for stopping by! Now "hop" on over to {Deb's blog} to check out her SOTM creations and continue the hop.

Baby Socks

Our good friends the Popiches just welcomed their second son into the world on Sunday morning.  To celebrate Micah's arrival I knit him these baby socks.  :)  The yarn is ToFutsies and I used size 2 needles, and a very basic leg down sock pattern.

I have many more knitting creations to share this week.  It's craft fair time, so I've been a knitting and scrapping fool - trying to complete enough projects to sell!  If you see anything you like, I'm happy to fill orders through my blog.

More Thank You Cards

Sorry to not post in a while.  I have a goal of posting EVERY day this week!  YAY!

This weekend was awesome.  My garage sale on Saturday was absolutely spectacular.  We made over a thousand dollars and moved along SO much stuff!  Thank you to everyone who came out.  I still have some stamp sets for sale if anyone is interested.  Please email me at nonapearl@firebin.net and I can send you a list of what is available.  (CTMH consultants: these are listed on the BB so please look there.)

Here is a little art to share.  :)  I used that cute photo of Ruby in her flower hat, and made these cards to send out as thank you's.  Aren't they just so fun?!  I used the new kit from Shabby Princess - "An Affair To Remember".  LOVE IT!

Big Crafter's Garage Sale!!!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry I've been MIA this week.  Dave's on a business trip, so it's just me and the girls.  Add to that I'm getting ready for a HUGE Paper Crafter's garage sale this Saturday.

Anyone in the greater Seattle area that wants to come send me an email and I'll give you my address.  (nonapearl@myctmh.com)

I've got over 100 stamp sets, cardstock and patterned paper, cards, pre-made scrapbook layouts, completed mini albums, 12x12 and 9x9 albums, storage items, punches, embellishments, stickers, rub-ons and more!  And we have a whole table of $1 items!!!

The sale goes from 9 am - 3 pm and is Saturday only!  Rain or Shine we'll be selling our goodies at unbelievable prices.  Hope you can make it out!

Baby Shower

I don't have a lot of time to post, but I had to share this picture!  My wonderful friends from church threw us a baby shower this weekend, and this hat was just one of the many adorable gifts we received.  Doesn't Ruby look glamorous!  :)

To everyone that came, thank you so, so much!  We had a wonderful time and you made us feel so special.

Cupcakes!

I've been working hard to get ready for my upcoming craft fair in November.

Yesterday I made cupcake photo holders!  Each one is a little different, but they all are deliciously cute.  My goal is to make another 12 before the big day.  Hopefully they will be big sellers!

Here's a close up look at each one.  :)

Simple Thank Yous

We were blessed by so many family members and friends with meals, and with gifts for Ruby and Sammie when we came home.  I needed a bunch of thank you cards, and of course I wanted them to be hand made and cute.  But I also needed them to be quick and easy.

This is the design I came up with and it took less than an hour to make 20!  I just love that little onesie stamp from the Baby Steps stamp set, and the rest of the set is also very cute.  Check out the cupcake!  Oh - and the clothesline too!  Darling!  :)

There is a shower planned for us this weekend, so I think I'll make another set today during Sammie's quiet time.  Maybe I'll do the next set in purple instead of pink.

Supplies all CTMH (except markers):
Blush and Hollyhock CS, Pink RicRac Ribbon, "Baby Steps" stamps, "Thank You" stamps, staples, Black Ink,  Copic markers for coloring.

Upcoming Christmas Card Workshops

It's that time of year again!  Christmas Card Workshop time.

Last week, my sweet husband gave me a few evenings sans children to fully get into a "creative zone", and do some serious design work.  At first I found the new CTMH paper packets challenging to work with.  But then the ideas started rolling, and I was able to come up with these great cards.  I'm extremely pleased with how they turned out, and I hope my customers will be as well.  To see a closer view of the cards, click on the photo.

Since adding a second child to our family, my papercrafting motto has become more and more in line with CTMH's - "faster, simpler, and easier".  People want the homemade look, but don't want to spend hours and hours on super detailed cards.  So, I've replaced my typical 25 cards/5 each of 5 designs workshop with a 24 cards/8 each of 3 designs workshop.  Also, the embellishing is minimal (but elegant), and the stamping, while prevalent, is not challenging.

I hope that if you are in the greater Seattle area, you will consider attending one of my Christmas Card workshops (dates TBA soon), or even consider having a private Christmas Card workshop with a group of your friends! Private workshops are great because you can chat and share snacks while working, but also I'll be rewarding the group "organizer" with the hostess rewards for the workshop supply costs!  That is a minimum of $25 in free goodies - possibly more!  Email me (nonapearl@myctmh.com) if you'd like more information on a private workshop, or to RSVP for one of my regular Christmas Card workshops.

If you are not in the Seattle area, consider purchasing a set of 24 pre-made cards!  The cost is just $30 plus shipping, and you'll get that great hand-crafted look without the time/energy of making them yourself.  (nonapearl@myctmh.com)

A New Look!

Hi Everyone!

You may notice a little something different around here! Yup! I finally got around to posting my new header. :) Isn't it so cute? I just love my girls. And the knitting additions are something that I've been wanting to add for a long time. Seemed appropriate as the knitting often hijacks my paper crafting posts (sometimes for weeks on end).

I'll be making a few more changes, but they may or may not be super noticeable. Props to you if you can spot them.

Off to do a bit more work. No - 40 pages didn't happen yesterday (I ran out of pictures!). But 25 pages did. And I'm officially done with 2008. Whew!

Now to work on 2009. Do you ever feel like *not* taking your camera places because you know that it will mean more pages to scrap? I've had a few weeks like that lately. But then I feel bad about not having as many pictures of Ruby as I do of Sammie. And I really, really, really don't want to be one of those parents that has 10,000 pictures of baby #1 and 100 pictures of baby #2. So, I'll try and post some new baby pics soon. Because I do have them. Because I did take my camera with me after all.

Some Serious Scrappin'

This weekend is BUSY! Dave's got a brew day going all day with his buddies - his first homebrew since graduation (and plenty more days to come I've been assured!). So my mom and I and the girls are going to spend the day together. We plan to shop and craft. My mom is working on her soap that she sells at our annual craft fair. I think this is her 12th year of making soap! I plan to pick up the photos I prepped last night and do some serious scrapbooking.

I took a big pile of level 1 kits, and some pre-scrapped pages I did last year, and just started figuring out photos to go on them. I used photoshop to resize and edit them, and now I just have to slap them on the pages and add some embellishments! My goal (cross your fingers for me) is to complete 40 (yes FORTY) pages today!!! Best of all, that completes 2008 for me, so I'll have caught up to the current year. That feels fabulous. I'll post my actual results tomorrow.

To get started this morning, I also whipped out a digi page. This first page was one taught by Jessica Sprague in her "Now We're Rocking" digi class, and it needed a companion page. So I went back to the same papers and embellishments and created the scavenger hunt page. :)

To finish off the weekend, we've got church tomorrow morning, and then I'm teaching my first of 3 card classes (and I still need to finish prep for that!). Wish me luck. It's a busy, busy (but productive) day. :)

Sweet! 100K!!!

I cannot believe it, but in the next day or so my blog will hit 100,000 views!

WOW!!!!

All I can say is that I'm humbled and pretty darn amazed that ya'll keep coming back, day after day. :) And I also think I need to get busy and start posting daily again... (blush).

To say thank you, I've got some blog candy for EVERYONE! :) I don't think it is fair to only award one person when you all read my blog every day, so as a special treat I'm going to post my September Christmas Photo Card Template. I'll be giving this to all my card class attendees in Sept. This template gives cutting directions for making 24 of these cute photo cards, and includes a shopping list as well. Here is a quick view.



A few notes about the card. To make the snowflake dimensionals sparkly, cover them with the bonding memories glue, then sprinkle prisma glitter over the top. Tap off the excess and then spray a light coat of aerosol hairspray (I used suave). This keeps the glitter from flaking off. Also, you will need to order the Jingle Level 2 paper pack in place of the "patterned paper" listed, or use your own patterned paper of choice. To make the swirl, I took a fiskars tearing ruler and traced the curvy line on the backside of the paper, then cut it out. You could also freehand this or make a template out of cardboard.

NOTE: THIS DOWNLOAD IS NOW EXPIRED.  THANKS!

September Card Class Cards

Here are my other 2 cards I'm teaching at my card class this month! They both feature all new CTMH product!

The first card shows off the new Jingle papers, and the new snowflake "flurry" dimensional elements. I covered this one with bonding memories glue, then coated it with our prisma glitter. After that I lightly sprayed it with suave aerosol hairspray. Now the glitter doesn't flake off, but it is still brilliant and sparkly! :)

I wanted to show a simple photo card that could be easily repeated at home if my customers wanted to use this as their Christmas card. All attendees will receive a cutting diagram and shopping list to make 24 of these cards!

This second card is very simple, but a great friendship card (the inside says "you're special"). I used the Sweet Home papers and the new Childhood Portrait stamps (love these!)