Welcome to the March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

Welcome to the March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop.  This month I am following Teresa Scriven's Blog.   We have almost 60 Close to My Heart Consultants participating in this month’s Stamp of the Month Blog Hop and I am so excited that you are visiting my blog.  If you like what you see, I would love it if you would hit the follow button on the right side of my blog!
                                                                                                                
The March Stamp of the Month is entitled Floral Happiness (Set of 16). Here is a picture of this stamp set:

First of all, may I say that this stamp set is not my cup of tea.  I know that I cannot like every stamp set that Close to My Heart makes.  I like almost all of them, but I just do not like flat flowers.  That's it.  I have put it out there.  I repeat ...... I do not like flat flowers!

I love 3D flowers with lots of bling that stand out on my artwork.  The more texture, dimension, and bling the better.  I find it harder to work with flat images that I cannot build up.  

So, what to do?  I pulled out my handy embossing gun, Versamark, and clear embossing powder and stamped my flowers.  I do like the 2 step stamped images.  No coloring is needed.  I stamped the colored part of the rose in Sunset Ink and then the detailed part in Ruby Ink.  Then I took the stamp that is the colored part of the rose and stamped it with Versamark Ink and sprinkled on some Close to My Heart clear embossing powder.  

After heating the powder, I took out my sponges and set to work.  First I sponged with Buttercup Ink, then Blush, Hollyhock and a bit of Ruby around the edges.  With the Buttercup Ink I covered the entire piece of White Daisy cardstock.  With the Blush Ink, I sponged over most of the Buttercup Ink.  I did not go in quite so far with the Hollyhock Ink and the Ruby was just around the edges.

Here is my card:

The card base is made of Smoothie cardstock and I dry embossed random lines onto the bottom 3 inches of my card and then sanded them.  The glittery trim is cut with the Close to My Heart Cricut Artiste, page 47, at 1 inch.  Love it , Love it, Love it!  I mounted the White Daisy sponged panel onto a rectangle of our Black Glitter Paper.  I could not decide which of the adorable sentiments from this stamp set to use so I used them all!

Inside you can see another rose and then a strip of our Black Shimmer trim to finish off this card.  Hope you like it!

List of Supplies
Smoothie Cardstock (X5763)
White Daisy Cardstock (1385)
Floral Happiness Stamp Set (S1303)
Brown & Tan Glitter Paper (Z1830)
Black & Grey Glitter Paper (Z1829)
Black Glitter Trim (Z1809)
Sponges (Z697)
Cricut Artiste (Z1790)
Black Ink (Z2105)
Ruby Ink (Z2170)
Sunset Ink (Z2191)
Hollyhock Ink (Z2128)
Blush Ink (Z2106)
Buttercup Ink (Z2110)
Versamark (Z891)
Clear Embossing Powder (Z821)
Craft Heater (Z555)

The next stop on the blog hop is the Fabulous Haley Dyer's Blog.

The Floral Happiness stamp set can be purchased for $17.95 or you can even get it for only $5 between March 1 – March 31, 2013. You can purchase this stamp set on my website.  

Clean and Simple with H2H

This week's challenge at Heart 2 Heart Challenges is to make a CAS (Clean and Simple) artwork.

I have such a hard time with this style that at one point I took a class on making a Clean and Simple card.  What I learned was that you needed to have a focal point with a portion of the card left blank.  I found that I needed to develop an "eye" for this style of card in order to design in this style.

I was going to stamp all of these elements straight onto the White Daisy card stock,but I just couldn't resist using my Close to My Heart Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge (Z1686) to cut out a few images from the cutest stamp set Close to My Heart has EVER offered:  Girls Rock (C1538).

And then I just had to use some of our Silver Glitz Glitter Gel (Z1482) to give the sentiment some pizzaz.  Here is my card for this week's challenge.

See the cute blinged up clothespin?  I used one of our Mini Clothes Pins (Z1815) and added some Pink Sparkles (Z1326) to make a cute birthday card for my teenaged granddaughter.  I just know that she is going to love it!

So now it is your turn!  Show us what you can do with our Clean and Simple challenge..    Please go to  heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com and post a link to your project.  

Here are a few rules:  

*Our challenges are open to everyone!
*To enter, follow the challenge of the week and post your results to your personal blog or other online gallery.
*Be sure to go here and direct link to your challenge post so we can see your artwork! 
*In order to enter a challenge, you must use Close To My Heart products but your project does not have to be 100% CTMH.
*If you use something from another company, please consider including details in your project's description.
* You MUST mention H2H challenges in your blog post (and a link back to us would be appreciated).
*Spread the word about our challenge blog by including our badge on your blog.
*Most importantly, have fun creating - the Close To My Heart way!
Note: Any entries not following the above rules are subject to having their link removed.

Join Me on the Spring/Summer Catalog New Product Blog Hop

Have you seen the new 2013 Close to My Heart Spring/Summer Catalog?

I am really loving the papers, embellishments, and artwork in the new catalog.  We have a group of 35 Close to My Heart Consultants who have worked hard to show you their artwork made with products from our new catalog.

Our blog hop is a circular hop.  You will see artwork at each blog and then be directed to the next blog with a link to that blog.  Just click on that link!   Hope you enjoy it and get some ideas of what you can do with our new line of papers, embellishments, inks and stamp sets.

This month I am the next stop after Mary Eisen's Blog. Welcome to my blog and I am glad that you are here!

Life is hopping in the Everitt household and I have not had much time to craft, but I got my mojo on with Valentine's Day and two grandchildren now living in my house and needing Valentine Day's cards for their class.  I follow tons of other artist's blogs and found some incredibly cute Valentine Lollipop Holders that I was aching to make.  I thought I have pinned them to my Pinterest Board, but when I went to look at them, found that I had not.  So I googled Valentine Lollipop Holders and this is what I came up with.

I have used a variety of our new papers.  The holder on the left is from our new Claire Paper Pack (X7166B) while the one on the right is from our new For Always Paper Pack (X7165B).

These two holders are both made with the Chantilly Paper Pack (X7163B).  Aren't the springlike colors gorgeous?

And the lollipop holder on the left is showcasing the Tommy Paper Pack (X7169B).  Can you tell I am loving the For Always Paper Pack?  It goes with almost any coordinating color as evidenced by the Ruby Red Cardstock and heart.

For the holder on the left, I paired a different patterned paper from For Always with Pear Cardstock.  The holder on the right has another one of our pretty patterned papers from Chantilly.

Look at the cute nautical patterned paper from Tommy on the left!

And more Tommy on the right.  I hadn't noticed that I had photographed the same holders twice.  I am a terribly procrastinator and did not realize how long it would take me to make 50 of these holders.  My husband was even helping me towards the end  I cute out a square of White Daisy Cardstock and had the kids write the To and From and the names and then adhered it to the back of the holder.  I used Sweet Tart Suckers and adhered them to the top of the front of the holder with red lined tape.

Here are the paper cutting instructions for the Lollipop Holders:
Cardstock - 2 1/4" x 6 1/2", score at 2 1/2" and 4 "
Patterned Paper - 2 1/4" x 2"
Scalloped  Square: 2.5"  (Art Philosophy, )
Square:  2" (Art Philosophy )
Heart: .8" (Artiste, pg 51, Shift )

The hearts are cut with White Daisy Cardstock and then stamped with our coordinating pigment inks.  I used the For Always Cardmaking Workshop Stamp Set (C1547), but I must confess to cheating.  I was not having good luck in lining up the heart to get an all over stamp despite decreasing the size of the heart with my Gypsy.  So I pulled out the solid hexagon shape from Honeycomb (C1537), inked it up and it worked great!

Here is a terrific video on how to make these holders.  The video will show you how to assemble these holders.  

If you would like to buy these products or would just like to browse in my Close to My Heart online store, just click here.  

Thank you so much for visiting my blog.  Now it is time to go off to see what surprise Michelle John's Blog has in store for you!

Love is In the Air with Heart 2 Heart Challenges

Valentine's Day is this week and at Heart 2 Heart Challenges we are offering you a challenge that you will love!  Our challenge this week is to make a piece of art with the theme of Love is In the Air.

I decided to take this challenge literally and made a circle easel card using the stamp set, A1120 Quick Cards - Butterfly, along with Close to My Heart's new paper pack, For Always (X7165B).  Here is my card,

I wanted to make an elegant card and the For Always paper pack is perfect for this.  I used Slate cardstock as the contrasting color.  I wanted a little pop of color so I chose to bring in some pink in the form of the Pink Glitter Glitz (Z1770) and the Pink Glitter Gems (Z1807).

The fun thing about Easel Cards is that they open up!  They become miniature works of art as they open up and are balanced against the elevated strip/embellishment on the inside of the card.  I used one of the zip strips found at the top of Close to My Heart's patterned paper.  And then I added some more Pink Glitter Gems to glam it up a little.

Want to make an easel card of your own?  I found an awesome easel card tutorial at Splitcoaststampers.  I used the Close to My Heart Exclusive Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge to cut out the elements for my card.

White Daisy 3"

Black 3.5"

Slate 3.75"

Patterned Paper 5"

Slate 5.5""

Slate  Card   5"

So now it is your turn!  Show us what you can do with "Love is In the Air".    Please go to  heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com and post a link to your project.  

Here are a few rules:  

*Our challenges are open to everyone!
*To enter, follow the challenge of the week and post your results to your personal blog or other online gallery.
*Be sure to come back here and direct link to your challenge post so we can see your artwork! (You can see our sidebar for some simple instructions.)
*In order to enter a challenge, you must use Close To My Heart products but your project does not have to be 100% CTMH.
*If you use something from another company, please consider including details in your project's description.
* You MUST mention H2H challenges in your blog post (and a link back to us would be appreciated).
*Spread the word about our challenge blog by including our badge on your blog.
*Most importantly, have fun creating - the Close To My Heart way!
Note: Any entries not following the above rules are subject to having their link removed.