Giveaway!!

*Giveaway*

 

Hello friends!

It is time for my first giveaway! I have two great prizes for one lucky winner: Newsprint rub-ons and Quick Cards Butterfly stamp.

 

 

 

The Newsprint rub-ons include lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation. I did a demo of my daughter's nickname and added a pearl on the "i" for added embellishment. The quick cards Butterfly is such a great stamp for a thank you card, thinking of you card, or a just because. It also makes a great addition to any scrapbook page, especially about Love.  In my next blog post I will show you some great techniques to take this stamp to the next level.

To win these just follow the directions below. It is up to you how many entries you get!

This one way to thank you for following my blog!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spring Project: Gift Box

Hello Friends!

This week I participated in a Designer Challenge by My Creative Time. The challenge was to create something spring related using one of their die cuts. I will also highlight base and shade stamping technique and how to make the 3D paper flowers. I created something that can be used as a gift box or for Spring decor. Here is my project. I think it came out so cute!

 

I used the Milk Carton and the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge from Close To My Heart. The stitched doily die and the tag from the Chunky Jar Accessories from My Creative Time.

 

I cut the yellow flower at 3 3/4", the blue flowers at 3" and the leaves were stamped using the March Stamp of the Month from CTMH.

 

To make the 3D flowers insert the flower cut into the slot of the large end of the quilling tool. Then roll the tool counter clockwise and as you roll keep the paper tight.

Once you get to the end it should look like this. Place glue or a glue dot in the center of the base flower. Then pinch up the sides and you will have the perfect 3D paper flower. To decorate the flowers you can insert a gem brad or a pearl embellishment.

 

I wanted to add some leaves to the flowers so I used the March SOTM. This technique is called Base and Shade stamping. First you want to stamp the base image in a lighter color and then stamp the detail image with darker color. I used Sweet Leaf for the base and Garden Green for the detail stamp. Next I cut them out using micro scissors.

I added flowers, leaves, a wooden butterfly and the tag to the stitched doily. I stamped Celebrate on the tag, attached it using a foundry pin and stuck the pin into the foam tape I used to attach one of the blue flowers. I cut a strip of green polka dot paper at 2 1/4" and wrapped it around the milk carton. It isn't long enough to cover the entire carton but the doily covers it perfectly!

 

Thanks for reading!

www.styleavenuestudios.com

 

Like what you see? Shop with me here=> Emily's Close To My Heart Shop

 

Remember you can get the March Stamp of the Month for only $5 with a qualifying order of $50.

 



My 5 Favorite Products: Spring Summer 2013 Idea Book

Hello Fellow Crafters!
As some of you may know I am a Close To My Heart Independent Consultant. I love this company and most importantly I love their products. Consistently my customers ask me what my favorite products are so I decided to post my list. Our Idea Books are published twice a year, Spring/Summer covering February through July and Fall/Winter covering August through January.

Here is the first post in the series My 5 Favorite Products from our Spring/Summer 2013 Idea Book. I limited myself to 5, even though it is really difficult to do so, because I needed to draw the line somewhere! Or the list would be, "One of each, Please!" The Spring/Summer 2013 Idea Book is full of fabulous products, but here are the ones I am really smitten with:

Chantilly Paper Packet X7163B $9.95
Irresistibles Frames Z1843  $3.95
Large Container Z1834  $22.95
Textiles (both Chantilly and For Always) Z1819, Z1820 $8.95
Frame Flair Stamp Set  D1546  $17.95

I just had my second child, a baby girl named Evelyn. I plan on using the Chantilly paper, textiles and the Frame Flair stamps in her baby book. I am so excited to get started! 

Chantilly Paper Packet

I am not wild about pink. I am not much of a girly girl. I am not wild about florals and stuff like that. However, I am pretty amazed at how I was drawn to this paper pack! I just love it! I love that there is a mixture of yellows, blues, and greens among all the pink. I love the birds and the paisleys. So I can't imagine a better use than my daughter's baby book. 

Irrestitable Frames

The best part about these frames is that you can ink them up with whatever color ink you want! You can see here in the picture I used the outside frame and inked it in Sunset and then I used the center for an embellishment by using a complementary color, Twilight, to the Chantilly paper pack.  I also added a fabric button and a wood swirl embellishment. I will use these both on a page later on. The frames come with three different embossed patterns (Herringbone, angled stripe, and a polka dot) as well as square and rounded shapes.The embossed pattern resists color, therefore, the pattern will appear white while the rest of the frame will take on the color of ink. They are versatile, inexpensive and can interest to any page!

Large Container

The Large container was such a pleasant surprise for me. It is so much bigger than I expected. It can hold up to 40 CTMH stamp sets or you can use it for a mixture of things. Use one side for stamp sets and the other for tools and products. It will be so useful for me to take to my gatherings and crops!

Textiles: Chantilly and For Always

The textiles are just so cool! I love the black and white because of its versatility and the Chantilly because it matches my favorite paper pack. I plan on using these for cards and for interesting effects on my scrapbook pages. Look for future projects incorporating the fabric! These are something I highly recommend trying out!

Frame Flair Stamp Set


There are so many amazing stamp sets to choose from. However, I chose this one because every time I opened the Idea Book I would say, "That is so pretty!" Since I was drawn to it over and over again I just had to have it. I plan on using these in a variety of ways: Baby Book, gift tags, and as an embellishment on my baby announcements. The best part of this stamp set is that all four images can be cut out using our Art Philosophy Cartridge and be embellished with a variety of stamped sentiments or images.

What are your favorite items so far and what are you planning to make with them? Please comment and let me know!

If you are interested in any of these products or would like to check out our Idea Book for other amazing products click HERE to visit my website!

Thanks for reading!! Please leave a comment about your favorite new or old CTMH product!
Have a great day! Happy Crafting

Emily

Project Series: Mini Album

Project Series

Mini Album

Demonstrating Techniques Using CTMH Products and Stamps

The purpose of this post is to show you a project I created and at the same time use it to teach various techniques and highlight Close To My Heart products.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series:

• Part 1: Front and Back Cover
• Part 2: Pages 2 & 3
• Part 3: Pages 4 & 5
• Part 4: Pages 6 & 7
• Part 5: Pages 8 & 9
• Part 6: Pages 10 & 11

This is a mini-album I made for my son Wyatt. He is 23 months old, but he is already a world traveler. My husband and I love to travel and we want to pass on that love to our children. Wyatt has already gone on one trip to North Carolina at 13 months old and another trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when he was 18 months. So my concept for this mini-album is a travel log. I will detail the dates and the location of the trips along with his favorite things about the vacations.  It is not meant to be a photo album, but more of a journal of all the places we have been. Some day he can look back at a lifetime of memories in one single album. It can also serve as something for Show and Tell at school one day.

This mini-album is a chipboard album from Close To My Heart (CTMH). It is called the All-Sorts album (discontinued) because each page, except the front and back cover, are all different designs. Since this is a travel log, I wanted to use the postage stamp design as my front cover. Remember this is your album, so rearrange the pages as you see fit! Our Artiste Cricut cartridge can cut out album pages.



Front Cover

For this album I used the CTMH paper pack Typeset (discontinued). On the front cover I attached the lined paper from the pack using our glue pen and then inked around the edges with a sponge and the Cocoa ink pad. Next I planned the title (my son’s initials are WOW) and I used the Token Alphabet stamp set to stamp out his initials using the coordinating color Indian Corn Blue. I used his first passport photo and framed it with another sticker frame. Then I finished embellishing my page by drawing lines around the paper framing the postage stamp design. 


** Trick: Keep the holes that you punch out of the albums pages and ink them with a coordinating color. I used two that I inked in blue for a simple embellishment to my page.

Back Cover

I wanted a more simple design on the back cover, plus I thought this would be a great place to write a personal note to my son when the album is complete. I used a border element from the paper packet along the top edge and used left over coordinating paper to cover the page. I inked all the edges of the paper to give each piece more depth. Next, I used a “handmade by” stamp in the bottom corner and stamped MOM using our typeset stamp set.

Please check out the rest of the blogs about this mini-album series for more awesome techniques to use on your next project!

Shop with me HERE! 

Organization Tip: Embossing Folders

As a self proclaimed hoarder of all things craft related (tools, paper, ribbon, Cricut cartridges and so on) my craft room can get a little chaotic! So I am dedicating a few posts to organization. Here are a few strategies I have implemented and hope you find useful. You are welcome to adapt them to fit your style. If you do, please leave a comment on how it was adapted!

This strategy is for my embossing folders. I created a fan of embossing samples because I thought it would be easier to flip through than to look at all of the individual folders.

I decided to use kraft paper thinking that embossing it will be more visable than on white cardstock. Plus, since I have this hanging up in my craft room and I am always handling it, the kraft paper is less likely to look dingy after awhile. I cut a 8 1/2"x 11" page in quarters and then embossed each quarter with a different embossing folder. I hole punched them in the upper left corner and connected them with a binder ring. Then I organized them on the binder ring by dots, lines, swirls and such. You can take it a step further by adding a numbered tag to each one and then adding the same numbered tag to the embossing folder. I am planning to take that next step as my stash is continually growing.

I hope this tip was helpful! Please comment and let me know. I would love to hear about how you organize your embossing folders.

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http://emily.ctmh.com
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