By the Numbers Challenge

I thought I'd share a layout with you today that I did last week for one of the June Challenges over at Scrapbook Challenges...this one was called 'By the Number's' and our challenge was to create a layout using only two sheets of patterned paper, one of them had to have numbers on it...the other rule was to use an actual number in the title!

This photo was taken at our friend's house, Olivia was pretending to play this guitar...my kids all love to pose for the camera...one of the best things they've learnt from their mother :)

It was definitely a challenge for me to only use two different sheets of patterned paper...I took that rule literally and used the back of one of the sheets...I also was able to use some border stickers to help embellish as well as my stash of misc. flowers, buttons and punches...

Layering up different pieces from your stash can result in some very unique embellishments...remember to have fun in the end, playing with challenges can really get you creating and maybe even doing some work that you wouldn't naturally do on your own!

Thanks for stopping in today and I really hope you check out some of the new challenges this July at the SC site...they are due at the end of this month and usually come with RAK from the host of each challenge :) Have fun!!!

Check out this video to see how easy it is to use our new Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to amp-up any of your current layout or card projects...

I am still waiting for the Purolator Dude to deliver my order of new CTMH stash from our soon to be 'live' Autumn/Winter 2011 Catalog! stay tuned for some CTMH artwork coming soon!!!

Memory Makers Sketch and Colour challenge

Becky Higgins from PageMaps is supplying another fabulous sketch for this month's challenge at Memory Makers magazine site...scroll down to see my take and why not give it a try yourself!

Here's the site link to  COLOURlovers (highly addictive if you love color) 

Design Team News

"Congratulations!!!! You have been selected to be on the Let’s Scrap Design Team!!"

Just got the news last week...I've been invited to join the August-November term on the LET'S SCRAP Design Team! I am super excited to share my creations with you weekly and super excited to be a part of this fantastic site...everyone there is so friendly and all their challenges and inspirational groups are where it's at!

WOOOHOOO!!

This is the sketch for this last Wednesday in July...sketch# 7-27-11

thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful day :)

CTMH partners with Cricut!!!!!

Oh my word! That's all I can say...so I need to be honest with all of you...I really thought that CTMH needed to get into punches or die-cuts or ??? the only way to stay a cut above (pun intended) from some of these other companies...especially SU! we needed to get in on this as we all love our die-cuts...


When I saw the release of the new catalog when I got home from the Harry Potter mid-night show this morning...I was stunned, shouldn't have been though because I know I joined the leading Scrapbook/Stamping company out there ;)


Thrilled is one word...there are 700 images; fonts, shapes, 3D items loaded into this new Cricut Art Philosophy Collection...they have literally paired two fabulous things...stamping and die-cutting...they have created stamp sets that you can use on their own if you choose to hand cut some of the images out or pair your Cricut and stamp on the images after you cut them!


Have a look at this new video featuring SOME of what's included in this new cartridge:




I've added it already to my cart! (cause I can pre-order product prior to August 1st...benefits of being a Consultant!) NOTE: I don't even have a Cricut! oops, guess I'll be knocking on my Bestie's door to borrow her machine ;) Have a great weekend and stay tuned for more news about what's coming next...

Busy little CHOPPING beaver

That's the title of my latest layout using another one of Let's Scrap sketches! This one looks nice and easy but it did take me some time :) You know how I labour over the placement of brads and buttons...well this one has hand gathered grosgrain ribbon (CTMH), felt machine stitched onto the LO and strategically placed embellies, do-dads and what-nots...tee hee

I can tell you one thing...it was super fun to use up this paper and chipboard bits from years ago! Scrappin' with old stash really gives you a sense of accomplishment...this stash was a MUST buy a couple years ago from Micheal's...luckily I split the stash with my friend so I only have one sheet of each PP from an extremely large Stack and some of the chipboard embellies.

Here's the Let's Scrap sketch for this week:

and here's my Cabin'ing LO...I call it Cabin'ing because we used to camp (the traditional version with tents) but luckily we all prefer Cabin'ing now ;) here my daughter is showing us that you can still look gorgeous while chopping wood and making a fire...she's a natural...look at that FAB fire :)

take some time to head on over to Let's Scrap for this week's sketch challenge, my fellow Close To My Heart consultant, Andrea Green, is supplying the prize! Stop by her Blog for some more inspiration...

CTMH BlogHop featuring the July SOTM

Welcome to the Close to My Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop for July. In Canada, we are featuring the stamp set "Canadian Celebration".

I had a lot of fun working on this project for the first official Hop with our Yahoo CTMH bloghop Group started by Diana Soling. This is a group for everyone that loves inspiration! All CTMH consultants, customers and friends are welcome to join.

Now this month we have a variety of artwork featuring our CTMH stamp of the Month, both the Canadian & American versions of this stamp AND artwork highlighting a picnic or party theme...so you will have loads of summertime inspiration as you Hop Along!!!

If you've come here from Kathleen's Blog, you are on the right path. If this is your first stop on the hop, that will work too (just keep hopping till you get back here again). 

To continue along the hop, just follow the link at the end of each post to go to the next site. We hope that following the hop will give you lots of inspiration and ideas for using this month's stamp sets, along with inspiring you with your summertime creations. I hope you enjoy all the many fabulous CTMH products you'll see in each post! 

Every year here in Canada, we celebrate Canada Day with a parade and fun times at our local Rotary Stadium...and of course top it all off with some fireworks...for the past few years my daughter has danced in the parade and this year I got to enjoy sitting on the side lines to watch it...I thought it might be fun to play with this Canadian Celebration stamp set on my Canada Day layout...

I admit that at first glance this layout is a bit overwhelming...well for me anyways...but I love how it turned out...and of course I love all of these CTMH products...click on each image for a larger view if you'd like

my title is made from our Irresistibles Eclectic Chipboard Die-Cuts inked in Cranberry. This layout was created with our Fanfare paper collection featuring our Cranberry and Pacifica colours. The little stars are punched from the Cranberry cardstock.

of course with most parades, you take plenty of photos...I was no exception there so I decided to print out a couple photos I wasn't going to feature in this layout and instead use my star punch on them...this way I've got a little taste of the image and I've created an embellishment in the process...two birds with one stone I say :)

the Canadian Flag stamp worked perfect for this space and I really like the star explosion as well, even if it was a little more challenging trimming it out...

I couldn't resist having a little play on words here...I've been told that I say it ALOT...being Canadian, I guess that's ok...I used some of our Oxford Colour-Ready Alphabets and stamped some of the fireworks in Cranberry ink...notice my star punched from one of my photos too!? The layout design is courtesy of Let's Scrap, the inspirational sketch site...look for sketch tag 7-6-11

I hope you've enjoyed your visit here and that you find loads of inspiration as you hop along to Lela's Blog...remember that this 'Canadian Celebration' stamp set is available from your CTMH Consultant for the month of July only!

Heart 2 Heart - the Close To My Heart Challenge Blog

Ok...seeing as I love Close to my Heart...why not throw a CTMH Challenge out there with a fantastic challenge Blog. Heart 2 Heart is the place to come to see all things Close To My Heart...

What inspires you about the photo? The fact that there are three panels? The colors? The items? The shapes? The flowers? 

Take some inspiration from the photo and turn it into artwork that you create. Want to see how the photo inspired the DT at Heart 2 Heart? Click here to see their creations

Memory Makers Sketch and Colour Challenge

Good Morning! I finished this layout off last night but wanted to wait for some bright light to take a picture of it. I loved the sketch from PageMaps and the colours look great together. I had to improvise with the photo size because I already had the photos waiting to be scrapped in 4x6...so instead I cropped them to 3¼ x 4½ which left less white space, but I still like how it all turned out!

Here's the sketch again:

and here's the colour challenge: 

and here's my take on both:

Memory Makers Sketch and Colour Challenge

Happy Monday! I wanted to post a couple different challenges for this week...the first one is from Memory Makers and I like it because I have been a Page Maps fan for years and I LOVE colour! So why not play along with me this week and pull out some of those papers and photos that I know you've got tucked away...

Here's the awesome PageMaps sketch by Becky Fleck:

and here's the colour challenge offered by Memory Makers:

Put them together and this is what I got...oops...nothing yet! still working on it...stay tuned...

Now how about you?

More challenges for Mojo Monday

It's Monday and time for me to play a little Mojo Monday with this week's sketch...seeing as I need a little motivation for card creation...this is a great place for me to stop by...here's what they've got for us today:

oops, probably should actually add the sketch...sorry about that :)

Let's Scrap challenge 6-29-11

 Another layout using a sketch from this past week's  Let's Scrap challenge sketch...I decided to use the rest of the pictures I had from our Mini-Golf excursion back in 2005 and some more of the same paper so they will flow nicely when they make it into an album :) Here's Wednesday's sketch from last week, why not give it a go for yourself!.....

On my layout, I cropped down some of my 4x6's into 2x3's and stacked them on the left page...so instead of seven images from the sketch, I've used nine! Had some fun too with my journalling and my October Afternoon alphabet stickers...

I'm really loving my star punch (Marvy) and star die from Sizzix these days. I'm also digging into my stash of paper before the new CTMH catalog comes mid-July...I'm sure when that arrives I'll be knee deep in 8 new Workshop on the Go kits...madly creating for my next session of Workshops starting in September...stay tuned for more scrappin' TFSB