Sneak Peeks of our Spring/Summer 2014 Catalog...

Hey There! I am so pleased to be able to show you some sneak peeks of some of the *new products* coming in our 2014 Spring/Summer Idea Book & Catalog! It's a rare occasion for Customers and Consultants to be getting an early look at any future catalog products so I'm thrilled to be able to show you these now!

Avonlea

I mentioned earlier this week that Close To My Heart will be releasing our own version of this popular Multi-Pocket/Multi-Photo Scrapbooking system. Our new Picture My Life™ Scrapbooking Program is going to simplify your memory keeping while at the same time offer you some variety in your albums. If you still LOVE playing with paper and glue like I do, that's great, but if in addition to playing with paper and glue you want some help getting MORE done in less time...then I hope you'll consider letting me help you! 

As you will see, we are going to be offering cards from two of our previous paper collections, four from our current paper collections and we will have two more from our new paper collections in the upcoming catalog (not yet released...it's a surprise!)

What will be included in our Picture My Life™ Scrapbooking Program?

Each individual program features a unique 12 x 12 cover page, 122 double-sided, designed cards plus 10 unique Memory Protectors™ to hold creative combinations of these cards and your own photos. You get 44 – 4" × 6" cards (2 each of 22 designs) which come in 14 vertical and 8 horizontal designs. You also get 78 – 3" × 4" cards (3 each of 26 designs) which come in 10 vertical designs and 16 horizontal designs.

Babycakes

Chantilly

How is the Picture My Life™ scrapbooking program intended to be used?

The product was designed to fill the 10 included Memory Protectors™ following a guideline of 50% photos to 50% cards (which will give you several different card options leftover to give you choice as you create your custom layout.) However, it’s just a fun and versatile product—you can use it any way you wish! If you use a higher ratio of photos, you can purchase additional Memory Protectors™ separately (all styles sold separately as well as part of the scrapbooking program); you can mix and match cards from different programs, and you can absolutely mix Picture My Life™ with classic 12" × 12" layouts, including those from Workshops on the Go™ and coordinating My Reflections™ paper packets.

Later Sk8r

Who should be using this new Picture My Life™ scrapbooking program?

Anyone who wants to preserve and showcase their photos beautifully, but may not be as interested in creativity or hands-on crafting. This style of memory keeping will help young moms, teens, and those of you with limited time or creative aspirations to organize dozens of photos quickly, easily, and with fast journaling options. The product is intended to be affordable, fast, and "individual," meaning it does not require group/club/workshop time to complete or extensive instruction to understand. It is intentionally intuitive.

For those of you who love Workshops on the Go™, how-to patterns, and hands-on creativity, we strongly encourage you to continue on with this memory-keeping style that you know! You may wish to purchase Picture My Life™ as a way to EXTEND your hand-crafted layouts or Workshops on the Go™ projects. You might choose to scrapbook your favorite photos from an event, but then use Picture My Life™ for all the other photos from that event.

Laughing Lola

Surf's Up

So how are they different from Becky Higgins' Project Life? 

Well the most obvious answer to that is that we are working with the design elements from our paper collections! Our embellishments AND stamps will work hand in hand with the Picture My Life™ scrapbooking program. Our cards are printed on the same Background & Texture weight cardstock which is heavier than similar programs on the market. Our 12" X 12" cover page will give your albums a unique, finished look and our Memory Protectors™remain the same heavy-weight, durable material you’ve come to depend on to protect your photos—absolutely the industry standard!

How can I get one of these Picture My Life™ Scrapbooking Program's for FREE?

Join my Team!!! If you sign up between November 1 and December 15, 2013, and you submit qualifying minimum personal sales, you will receive one of your choice of the incredible new Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs! You will also become the newest member of the Close To My Heart family!

Please message me if you have ANY questions about this new product line or about joining my team. Remember that 'you are usually your best customer' when considering becoming a Consultant and that you get a discount/commission every time you order for yourself or your friends and family!

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by!

you ready for another one?

Ok well here we are already with our Sizzlin' Summer sketch #7 from Scrapbook Challenges! Have you been playing along? I'd love to hear from you if you have been!

I knew I wanted to use some baseball photos for this sketch...after trimming them to 3½" X 5" I sanded the edges...laid the photos on some black cardstock and then thought...now what?!!!

So I sat and thought about a title...the sketch has a big one along the left hand side...I don't always care to follow the sketch exactly but in this case I thought I'd like to play with my Silhouette! It's been ages since I used it and the #1 reason I bought it was so that I could cut really cool downloaded images and words and...you get the idea!

So I played with the phrase 'take me out to the ball game'...used my 'too much paper!' font, 'ariel black' font and 'huntson' font that were on my computer, fiddled with various sizes and welded the letters together so that it would print nicely! I am still learning the Silhouette machine but it's been easy enough to figure out so far :)

The only patterned paper I've used on this layout is to cut the title! I am amazed that I was able to just leave it alone...simple enough in theory but hard for me to just let it be plain'ish...if you know me at all you would be amazed with me too!!! I have several stickers left over from my Simple Stories 24/seven collection so they made adding little finishing touches to this layout crazy fast! Of course the best part of this layout is the story...I LOVE baseball...just sayin'

Enjoy the sketch and I hope you have some luck getting a little scrappy time for yourself this month! Thanks so much for stoppin' in here and checkin' me out ;)

PS. Do you sense a little cheeky'ness? not sure whats come over me...must be this late night scrapbooking!

Fast and easy sketch

Good morning!

I've got a super fast and easy sketch here courtesy of Scrapbook Challenges and I was able to fire off one more layout in Olivia's Travel Album, so I'm that much closer to getting her up to date...with the help of some Project Life sleeves...she will just need to add some journalling to the pages I've done and onto the note cards and she'll have a completed album from her travels so far!

This page was fun to do because of the silly photos of her and her gal pal posing with the giant stuffed bears in the Calgary Airport...she had a couple hour layover, waiting to continue onto Quebec for her school trip to begin!

I had lots of fun designing the title to cut from my newly purchased Silhouette...it is fun trying to figure out new tech'y things like melding words to cut all as one!

I used the stickers from this Simple Stories paper line and just popped them up onto 3D foam tape for the airplane and then carefully cut out the scrap/negative off the sticker sheet to get the outline you see on the top of the layout...a little fussy, but I was happy with the way it turned out! Note: I used my little Xyron to adhere the tiny letters, makes it less messy to turn these guys into stickers and easier to position them :)

You could easily get the same look by using different alphabets to create your title and cut arrow shapes from patterned paper to mimic the sketch if you wanted :) Have a great Monday and thanks so much for taking the time to stop in here :)

I've done the single of this sketch but you could have fun with the double too!

WOW, hello again!!!

Ok, so I've been seriously MIA...I'm sure its because school has started and my eldest, Olivia, is now off in Prince George at University...(sad face)...and I'm trying to get into some sort of routine...I think I could be sad and maybe a little depressed that my kids are growing up so darn fast and if I sit still and do 'nothing'...maybe it won't happen????

Well that's my take on it anyways...so scrapbooking has been lacking and my Mojo has been hiding lately...only coming out when it must...like today!

Here is my take on this weeks Lets Scrap sketch...these are photos from a couple years ago when Matthew went with his Grade 7 class to Camp! Jaime (hubby) went also as a chaperone and had this group of boys in his cabin...I'm sure there were more stories than the ones I heard, but I hope to do a companion page with a journalling pocket so Matthew can re-tell them for future reference :)

Now when you buy these paper collections with fun papers like these, sometimes it is difficult to actually 'use' them! This weeks sketch just happened to work well with the photos I had printed already, the chipboard embellishments worked well too! Which was a very good thing because with my Mojo missing lately, this layout didn't give me too much trouble!

You can just barely see the texture in these papers, but this little owl and branch were a great addition to the layout and just goes to show you if you hang onto something long enough, you can find a use for it!!! teehee...maybe not words to live by...but it worked here!

It's blurry but you can see the new CTMH burlap ribbon I've used and I LOVE IT...just sayin'...and of course my CTMH cork alphabets...we better keep these guys for a while longer because they are my go-to alphas :)

Now here's this week's sketch...check out the Lets Scrap site for more examples using this sketch and to perhaps get some scrapbooking done!

3..2..1...go!

OK, this one is great...nice and easy if you are a single pager or in the mood for a single pager...also a great sketch this week if you have a stash of paper left over...

I opened my Disney Album, which I might add is a work in progress...I get bored easily and like to scrap what moves me...I found these pics printed out already and luckily printed in a 3X4 format so it was easy to crop them down to the 3X2 in this sketch...mind you I only had three mini pics printed so I used them...

I had two sheets of patterned paper in the sleeve in my album with these photos...obviously I bought them with the intention to scrap these photos, so it made short work to throw this layout together with this perfect sketch!

The reverse of the red PP was filled with these road signs...so they came in perfectly to fussy cut and create the embellishments with!

 Here's the double page sketch for this week...another great one for those photos you just can't leave behind...9 photos! Wow!!!

Have fun with this one...use up those scraps and left over bits...

more from my 20 Layouts Class

Hello!

I have been showing you some of the layouts that I've completed from the 20 Layouts class that was offered at Cherish the Thought and taught by Jennifer Edwardson...well here's another one!

Super basic design concept and it uses up your photos and scraps of papers...these are 1½" squares and the photos are popped with 3D foam tape and all edges have been sanded. 

I''ve dug into my stash and used up some very old papers, 'Moondoggie' and the fantastic stamp set that went so well with this paper...even though the papers are discontinued, the stamp set is still very versatile and I'm glad to have kept it this long! 

In addition to rummaging through my old stash from years past...I also got using up some of the 'Newsprint' rub-ons...there are sooooo many letters in this pack for just $8.95 that it was a great investment as it will take a while to run out of letters :)

I've popped up the flowers and found one of the old journalling spots that was with this kit...talk about a hoarder...gotta get this stuff used up! Still need to add some journalling but other than that, this one is done!

Thanks for visiting today...Happy Scrapin'

Easy Peasy, lemon squeezy!!!

Well with the start of Baseball season in my household, comes the effort to try to get some of the past Baseball events scrapped! I've created three layouts already this month and have another one today...I've used the RHS of a Let's Scrap sketch and some left over bits from the papers I've been trying to use up! Seeing as I am trying to use up these papers, I've been working to get my son's 2009 baseball year scrapped with all of the same papers...and I am going to literally use up every last scrap!

Easy Peasy, lemon squeezy!!! That's what I say about this one...using bits and pieces from this left over paper...and an old alphabet that didn't have enough letters to spell 'Champions' like I had originally planned so I can up with NO.1 instead...but that was a problem too because I didn't have anymore N's...so I just flipped a U over to make a lowercase looking N instead :)

Now if you look carefully, you'll see a super cool effect going on in these letters, but as you'll see from the photo below, they didn't start out that way...by means of an accident, I tried inking the glossy red letters with my CTMH black ink and then quickly figured out that the ink was going to just rub off! So I wiped it off with my finger because that was close and after a minute discovered that my ink has somehow seeped through some hair thin cracks I guess in these letters...so, taking that look and continuing to rub ink into these letters gave me this really cool crackled effect! Just going to show you that there are no mistakes in scrapbooking just undiscovered coolness!!!

Thanks for stopping in today and Happy Scrappin' !!!

Quick and Easy layout!

March challenges are all around me!!! Now I'd like to share those with all of you...hopefully you can play along this month!

Here is the H2H Scrapbooking challenge for February, I know it's March now, but what better way to showcase some Love...use this layout sketch to get 7 photos onto one page and use this heart as a fantastic background for your love of something :)

and this is what I did with this layout sketch :)

Products Used: CTMH Lagoon CS (giant heart), Magnifique PP, Grey Wool CS (scalloped border), Eclectic Alphabet inked with Lagoon ink, sewing machine and misc ribbons

As you can see I've matted my photos on white paper, but for a great tip, use printer paper instead of card stock as it is so much lighter and you really only need the white to off set your photos and create separation between them. 

I wanted to add a splash of colour! this striped ribbon from my bucket of ribbons worked great to do just that, I also wanted some more white and this unusual ribbon/yarn type thing was what I liked...it made me feel like it was mirroring the splash of water in the photos :)

If you like the simplicity of this layout then grab a couple scraps of paper and two sheets of cardstock and get going! This was super duper easy and fast...I just cut my heart out with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge (heart1) at 10½" and away I went!