Saturday, November 5, 2016

Christmas-It's Starting!

The Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge this week inspired a Christmas card from me using the City Sidewalks papers from Close To My Heart.



Using zip strips from the papers and washi tapes makes for an easy and festive background. 

Here are the City Sidewalks X7213B papers with the 1/2" zip strips and PML cards:
The City Sidewalks kit G1114 has the papers plus many embellishments including:  
  • Washi tape
  • Stickers
  • Die cuts
  • Red Gems
It's everything you need to make several layouts, cards or anything Christmas!
The sentiment is one of our M stamps that I just love. They are short and sweet and can go into your permanent collection of stamps that can be used for years on cards, tags, envelopes, presents, your name it! Merry Christmas M1148 The swirl is a separate stamp from the sentiment. I just happen to love swirls and curly cues!!

 

CTMH also has a Cricut City Sidewalks Digital Collection Z4017 that is available till December 31st. Get it while you can!

Here's a description:


  • Dress up your artwork in holiday style with the festive images from this mini digital Cricut® collection. We've designed this collection to work with our City Sidewalks paper packet (X7213B), so you can complete Christmas projects in less time. The fun and playful images are sure to have you singing your way through all your Christmas crafting!

30 complete images, including titles, photo frames, borders, card sentiments, card overlays, and other cheery Christmas designs.*
Only available for use with Cricut Explore™ and Cricut Explore Air™
We have many other wonderful Christmas papers, stamps, embossing folders, and thin cuts available for your enjoyment!!

You can look at all the wonderful ideas from the Holiday Expressions catalog that is here until December 31st.

Please stop by and shop.

XOXO
Dots

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Snowflakes for a Christmas Card

My Mojo Monday muse:

My Third Muse (definition:  a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. noun: muse; plural noun: muses)

Here is My Card:




How I created this card:

My brain immediately went to my new Snowflake Thin Cuts for the circles on the sketch. So with snowflakes came the idea of having a a snowfall in the background. I pulled out my Confetti Embossing Folder. The whisper cardstock reminded me of the gray ski that happens when there is a heavy snow storm. The white daisy cardstock needed a little something against the whisper so I cut a snowflake shadow using Glacier cardstock. I also used Glacier for the sentiment "Let the magic of Christmas warm your heart." This stamp was a Stamp of the Month. The star was from the set also. I used Versamark and Silver embossing powder on the star, sentiment and the small snowflake. Of course the powder is melted using the craft heater. It's so fun to emboss and watch the image turn SHINY. I love shiny...just saying ;-) 




My Supply List:


The Woodland Wishes Thin Cuts bundle is a new item. You save yourself time from the "fussy cutting" and have a perfect stamp image for your oh so easy cuts. You do have to have a die cut press. I have a Cuttlebug which is a little workhorse. We have other bundles available. These can be found on the Tools portion of my website. 

XOXO
Dots


A Drapery Fold Thanksgiving Card

Another muse for card making comes for the blog called:

My Second Muse (definition:  a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. noun: muse; plural noun: muses)


They offer a new challenge every Tuesday and their new challenge is Nature or Fall Colors. How can you not love that. Those are my favorite colors and my favorite time of year. Of course, I live in Texas and the weather is not very cooperative. We've been at least 15 degrees above normal. Made for an easy Halloween for the little ones though.

Here is my card:


Here is my Supply List:

Here is a How To:


  • To make the drape I cut a 3" strip of the paper of my choice. 
  • I cut off 1/2" of the 12" side. 
  • On my cutting tool, I placed the paper long ways at the 3" mark and using the scoring tool, I made the first score. 
  • I then continued to score at 4'', 6", 7", 9", 10". 
  • I secured the folds with my bone folder and tape runner.

The Pumpkin was cut at 2" using the Artbooking Cricut cartridge and stamped with the Autumn Wishes stamp.

I'm excited about sending the cards to my family! The value pack of cards is $14.95 not including tax and shipping. With 50 each cards and envelopes making the cards is so inexpensive, ~$0.30, compared to the $6 cards I've seen.

XOXO
Dots

Are you Getting Ready for the Season? Here are Some Card Ideas for You!

Happy November 1st! 

I've been inspired by the muses to put together cards for the Fall season and the upcoming Christmas season.

My First Muse (definition:  a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. noun: muse; plural noun: muses)

I don't know that I would call myself an artist but Close To My Heart helps me look good!

Color My Heart Color Dare presented us with a autumn pallet:


Nice colors to work with for the season, to be sure. I used a very cute stamp that coordinates with the Cricut Artbooking cartridge to make for a very easy pumpkin cutout.

The result is an autumn card that will get sent as a Thanksgiving card.


Supplies to make the card:
The card is 4 1/4 x 5 1/2. I covered it in black cardstock which I keep on hand in a good quantity. Our cardstock comes in 24 sheet packages. I love having supplies at hand so I can create when I get motivated. 

XOXO
Dots

Monday, September 12, 2016

It's Rustic and Sea Glass and I'm So Very Happy!

So is everyone seeing the color sea glass everywhere?

Close To My Heart is always on trend. I've said that before and yet every time I see a color or design I get so excited. Last night I was watching TV and a commercial came on with a Mother and young son grocery shopping in the cereal aisle. The boy looks at an elderly gentleman with an unusual face and the boy says "I like your face!" I turned to hubby and said CTMH has a stamp with that phrase. I say that because when CTMH gave out that stamp to all the consultants at convention, I thought it was an unusual thing to say. The more I think about it, I think it's such a sweet thing to say to someone. Your face is yours and yours alone (except for identical twins and even they have differences). 

Here's the stamp Love Your Face B1541:
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Back to Sea Glass and Rustic


These pages are basically from pages 26 and 29 in the Annual Inspirations. 
The cuts are very simple:
OUR HOME page 

So Very Happy page




XOXO
Dots

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Random Stamping For Fun

It's all random!
This card is challenges from Between The Folds and Color My Heart Color Dare.

Random stamping isn't difficult but sometimes it is hard to get looking "right".
Here is my random stamping. I used 1st and second generation stamping. That just means I stamped an image then stamped again elsewhere without re-inking.

So the trick to random stamping is to make triangles with your stamp. Stamp off the edges to make the image flow. After you think you are finished, look at it and fill in some white areas with a small stamp if you wish. Practice and it will make sense.

 
BTF Challenges      Colormyheartcolordare.blogspot.com 
Between The Folds offers a challenge.  

       

  • I had fun with a cute little stamp Hi Friend.

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The flower background is on a 3 3/4 x 5" white daisy cardstock adhered onto a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 piece of black cardstock. This was then adhered to a white daisy card from our White Daisy Card and Envelope Value pack.

I'm totally getting into the Autumn look, yay!!

Thanks for stopping by!


XOXODots

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Thankful to Have You in My Life

I am so ready for Fall, aren't you? 
I took inspiration from Mojo Monday sketch 464 to use our new wood-look Fundamental Rustic papers and one of our new colors Tangerine, which is perfect for this pumpkin. I love the burlap string ribbon that goes with the Rustic Fundamental papers. It's perfect with an "outdoorsy" pumpkin. You see, if you are not from Texas, it can be very hot here during the summer months, which can include May and September. When folks in the northern states hibernate in the winter, Texans hibernate in the summer. Fall, pumpkins, these are cool words to me in Texas. I'm ready for cool!! I'm ready for outside!! So here is my cute little pumpkin from the September stamp of the month.



Inside


  

Here is my supply list to make this card:
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You can add embellishments of your choice. Mine are from my discontinued stash.

Thanks for joining me!


XOXO Dots

Monday, September 5, 2016

You Make My Heart Happy

Happy Labor Day!! 

My son Phillip picked our Labor Day feast. We had brats, baked beans, potato salad, corn bread...too much food for 3 of us but it was yummy!!

My labor today is as labor of love. I'm using the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge 176 sketch this week. 

    
         

I decided to use the Whimsy Fundamental papers from Close To My Heart. The pink papers and pink ink are Pixie, the leaves are stamped in Pear.

Outside


Inside

Here's my supply list to make this card:



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Thanks for stopping by!




XOXO
Dots