Crafty Goodness!!

It has been a gorgeous Sunday. I went to Tulsa, OK last night for a friend's birthday. Woke up to a whole latta rain. We got some sushi, went thrifting and then I grabbed an ice cream sundae and listened to Kings of Leon on the drive home. This week is looking to be a busy one with a CTMH unit meeting Monday night...swap club on Tuesday night, dinner with girlfriends on Wednesday night and a school program on Thursday night. I probably won't have time for a lot of craftiness, but I hope to photograph some of the seriously awesome thrift store finds I got today. I thought I would prepare one big crafty post tonight for you too! Hope you find some inspiration here.

These cards are for my card swap on Tuesday night. The theme is spring. I did a bunch of coloring with my blender pen on the cute little animals. This stamp set, 'Love You Forever' by CTMH is definitely a favorite!




The following cards are from a workshop I taught last week. I used the designs directly from the suggested card layouts in the kit. I didn't really alter them at all, except for this first one...the ribbon is a little different. The rest are exactly from the Felicity Collection project sheet. Easy, beautiful and fun. I have tons of the paper left over too!!






These last few images are for my workshop next month. The projects include a kids joke book, a Lullaby CD sleeve, a Treat Box and a kraft gift bag.


I found a video on how to make the treat box here.


The knock-knock joke book idea is from PaperTray Ink, completely reprintable at home!




The lullaby CD sleeve is also from Papertray Ink. I simplified mine so that it could just be a card for a new baby....It doesn't have to hold a CD. To see their entire list of hand made gift ideas (many with printables), click here.




And this decorated kraft bag is just a little something I came up with. I think it is cute and could be modified easily for a Valentines treat bag or a Halloween treat bag just by changing the colors!


Since I will be gone for a whole week next month, I thought it would be a good idea to get as much done for my next workshop as possible! I have the supplies cut, scored and sorted for each of the 4 projects to accommodate 10 people. Let's just hope I have that many sign up!

Thanks for reading!

Valentine Fever

I have been making Valentines like crazy.

I am really into simple cards.
I should probably make more cards with silly sayings...but that isn't really my reason for making cards....
I like good design and a pretty color scheme.

These cards were really easy to make using scraps of paper.

Above: All close to my heart...Below: same design with some Hambly!

A lot of the stamps I have been using came from the dollar stamp bin...and I tried to use a lot of punches this year!

This design is super simple to create over and over again.
All of these cards are going to a local hospital for Valentines Day.
I tried to make them non-gender specific....I guess men are used to getting pink/red Valentines??

Check back later this week to see the cards that I am sending to Winter for her St. Jude's card drive.
I hope to get them in the mail early this week...just waiting on the sun to shine so I can get a good picture of my last batch!

Thanks for reading!!

{More} Christmas Cards!!

You may have spotted a silver or gold hedgehog over on my Christmas card post a couple of weeks ago. I decided that the best way to showcase all the cards would be to put them into a grid, but here are a few extra cards I have made since then. Obviously, I am loving hedgehogs at the moment. Here is a cute silver one! I made him with silver embossing powder and paired it up with some awesome Hambly overlay action.


And I just love having lime green, magenta, and turquoise on my cards!!




Some images may be (c) Close to My Heart.

Christmas Cards 2009

I've been very, very busy.....and still more to make! I love Christmas!!


Stamped images (c) Close to My Heart.

Christmas Cards Part 1

When it comes to creating Christmas cards I like to start early in the year. I have been making my own cards for about 4 years. This year I started earlier than ever. I don't like to make every card the same, although sometimes I will make 5 or more of the same style. I intend to make around 100 cards this year. I have most of them bases assembled and now I am working on the stamping and embellishing. Yahoo!

I made these cards a couple of weeks ago. Sorry for the 'spring-ish' background paper...it was just something I grabbed...and then I realized it wasn't super Christmas-y...All well....I wanted to post some simple Christmas cards today. I used Jingle paper, a couple of my favorite stamp sets and I played around with some glitter and rhinestones!

Enjoy!







All images are (c) Close to My Heart.

Halloween Cards!!

Alright! Some major craftigoodness going on right here. I got shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifome new supplies! Yahoo!! Including this super cute stamp set, Merry Monsters. I love the little monsters on this set, they are sooo cute! It is my first real Halloween stamp set from CTMH. I do have some owls, but nothing like this. On Tuesday, I had some time so I decided to make some little Halloween cards using colors from 10/5/2009.


I don't have any CTMH Halloween paper so this was the perfect solution. I love color inspiration challenges!! I did some paper piecing for the monsters and some random stamping for the EEK!. The boo! is stamped in black stazon. I just love these little cards, I made 10 of them! Took a while to cut out all the little monsters, but it felt good to create something so cute! Enjoy!



Some images may be (c) Close to my Heart!

Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge #52

YAY! I am super excited to play along this week with the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge Blog! I remember the very first Cinema Saturday creative challenge. It has been a great year.

This week's movie is very funny (and a little bit sad too!). MRS. DOUBTFIRE!! Yay!! The challenge this week is to create something with a pocket on it.


I decided to take one of my altered photo albums and add a pocket to the front to transform it into a fantastic little recipe book. I am pretty happy with it. In the movie, Robbin Williams dresses like a woman and accidentally catches his boobs on fire...that is totally something I would do in the kitchen.... ;=0 I probably shouldn't be passing on cooking advice to others, but I like easy meals and I know one or two that could help out a newly married couple....






I have been collecting little 'cooking' papers and stickers so it was great to finally use them. I created a title page with stickers and some paper piercing. I have been in a bit of a creative rut lately so it was nice to force myself to get this done. I can't wait to fill it up with some sweet recipes and give it to a friend for a wedding gift!

Happy World Card Making Day

Yay!! Today is 'World Card Making Day!!"

It has been a busy week! Whew! I thought I would've had time to make some cards this week, but every time I walk into my craft room, I just look around and sigh. It is such a pit at the moment. It is completely unorganized after the Christmas Card workshop last Monday, Friday crop and 2 home gatherings last week! I just haven't had time to get everything sorted out and put back in its home. I hope to do that at some point this weekend.

Maybe tonight I can sit down and clean for an hour and then make stuff for a few hours after that. I am baking up some cinnamon rolls for a brunch/meeting with area art teachers...then I have a photo shoot this afternoon with a friend. I have lots of crafty ideas and I need to get them done before October totally hits me with craziness.

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of the Christmas Card sets I made for my Etsy shop. I made these way back in July, but I wanted to wait until a little closer to Christmas before putting them in the shop.

Set #1
Set of 6 standard-sized Christmas cards with envelopes. The cards are hand-stamped and embossed.
The envelopes have matching stamping and the paper on the front of the card is embossed with some glitter. Only 6$





Set # 2
Set of 6 standard-sized Christmas cards with envelopes. The cards are hand-stamped and embossed. The gorgeous snowflake stamp is Close to My Heart.

The envelopes have matching stamping and the inside of the card says 'Merry Christmas.'





Set #3
Set of 6 standard-sized Christmas cards with envelopes. The cards are hand-stamped and embossed. The gorgeous heat-embosed snowflake stamp motif is Close to My Heart. The green embossed paper is Martha Stewart.

The envelopes have matching stamping and the inside of the card says 'Merry Christmas.'








Each set comes with matching envelopes and features hand embossing, an interior greeting and free envelope seals!





If you are interested in picking up a set for yourself or as a gift for Christmas, check out my Etsy shop!

Some images may be (c) Close to My Heart.

Okay. It is time for a give away! It has been awhile since I gave anything away at this blog. So here goes. I have one more set of 6 cards. I haven't posted these in my shop yet so I will give you a chance to win them. Now, you don't have to use them as your own Christmas cards this year, but you could give them as a gift if you would like!

All you have to do is visit my Etsy shop and leave me a comment on THIS blog post by 10:00 p.m. Sunday October 2nd. (Also, please add my shop as a favorite if you are also on Etsy!) I will select a winner from the comments and email you with information about the card set. Here is a picture of what you will be getting:

Set of 6 Christmas cards with envelopes. Each card is tied with beautiful SU! ribbon and is hand stamped with "Merry Christmas". The corner design is (c) Close to My Heart and has been chalked with a light tan color!

Happy World Card Making Day everyone!!