December Stamp of the Month

While everyone is unwinding after the Christmas celebrations and getting ready to welcome in a New Year, I thought it was a good time to remind you that there is only 5 days left to purchase the December Stamp of the Month from Close To My Heart. If you are paper crafting over the holiday break you might want this stamp set?! - it can only be ordered this month and won't be available again!!....place your order today in my online shop - you won't want to miss out!

I have seen some gorgeous projects made with this stamp set....tags for gift boxes of luxury soaps, cute scrapbook pages with children enjoying delicious little treats and cards expressing love and thinking of you sentiments. It is such a versatile stamp set with options for lots of different themes...and as such I decided to use the sentiments for some Get Well cards that I hope will put a smile on the face of the recipients!

The cute Nurse images were coloured in with my Copic Markers - the first card uses "Nurse Nora" from C.C.Designs and the second is "Sparkle Nurse" by Saturated Canary - I love how well my Sparkle & Shine Paper Pack co-ordinated with the coloured image it certainly proves you should never limit the use of any product to the theme it was intended for!! If you have favourite papers in the Close To My Heart product collection be sure to check out the Retiring Items listed in my Online Store. Many will no longer be available in the coming weeks and I certainly would not like you disappointed to find your "favourites" end up sold out!

There is also only a few days left to leave a comment on my blog post from the 3rd December or send your friends to "like" my Facebook page to be in the running for some fun stamping prizes.

I hope you continue to enjoy the Festive Season and I look forward to sharing more paper craft projects with you in 2014!
 

A Tiny Touch of Ink

My Craft/Happy room has been full of activity over the past couple of weeks and especially over the weekend while I put the finishing touches to my Christmas Craft Projects! While we have now, officially commenced the countdown to Christmas I'm not as organised, as I would like to be. December is also full of birthday celebrations for my extended family and this year we have had milestone 80th & 21st birthdays to celebrate. My Close To My Heart Cricut Collections have become my best friends as  I work my way through lots of card projects - they certainly make any art work shine with so many fabulous and versatile shapes - would you believe there are 2100 images spread across the 3 different collections??!! absolutely amazing!! and I recommend them as a "must have" for any paper crafter.
This Birthday card was created with my Cricut Cartridges - no stamping - no ink - just lots of pretty paper...

...being a "pink" girl... I LOVE the Chantilly Paper Pack it is one of my favourites. However, it is soon to be amongst the products retiring from the Close To My Heart range. If you haven't added it to you paper collection yet?! - then I suggest you pop on over to my Online Shop and place an order before it is no longer available...and while you are there, you might like to check out the complete list of Retiring Items...just in case there is anything else you may have missed out on!

I thought today I would also share a Christmas Card I made using a snow flake embellishment cut from the Cricut Artbooking Collection - this collection is like magic - you simply take a piece of paper, push a button and out comes a fun accent to add to your project ...what an easy, quick way to produce a card?! -  gotta love that!! All I needed to do then was cut my card base, add a tiny touch of ink to distress my paper edges & snow flake embellishment, stamp a little sentiment and my card was done!

If Paper Craft is your thing!? - then be sure to keep an eye on my Online Shop.... National Papercrafting Month is coming in January 2014  and I will have lots of fun projects and products that will have you on "Cloud Nine" - stay tuned for a "sneak peek"

Christmas Treats

I know I have already posted this week but I did say I would be back with a little surprise! For those of you who have attended the "Come Create with Chris" events over the past few months you will remember me making the promise that I would share the instructions for the Toblerone Chocolate Wrap?!.....well today is the day - Ta Da!! I have finally updated my instructions.

This is a super easy peasy papercraft project and simply perfect for this time of year, especially when you are looking for little gifts to give your work colleagues, trinkets for Church fetes or something the kids can make for Teacher gifts.

I have just made a nice little bundle of these to use as place settings on our Christmas Dinner table. I found some really gorgeous decorative borders in the Artbooking Cricut Collection from Close To My Heart that I used to decorate them with. I then trimmed the edges of these borders with the Sparkle & Shine Washi Tape - it has to be one of my favourite products from this year's Holiday From The Heart Gift Guide .....if you haven't seen all the wonderful goodies in this gift guide then head on over to my Online Store and check them out!

 

I have also put the Washi Tape to good use when making decorative toppers for bags of chocolate treats - again, super easy to make up and the little jumping Santa from the Santa Claus stamp set is such a cute stamp to add that finishing touch....and while I am in the gift giving mood... I thought I might give away one of the Santa Claus stamp sets to the next person who places a $100 order through my Online Shop - then you too, can create your own gift projects this Christmas... and as the saying goes "you have to be in it to win it"!!

 

...and don't forget my previous giveaway - leave a comment under my  Cards for all Occasions post from Tuesday 3rd December and I will send you 2  card kits....everything pre-cut just waiting for you to assemble.

 

Happy Christmas Crafting!

 

Cards For All Occasions

Goodness me! - I didn't realise it has been so long since I last updated my blog...not really sure I have an excuse, except that I have been crafting up a storm in preparation for Christmas and some milestone Birthday celebrations in my extended family. I have also been busy with Card making classes and organising the first of my Card Kit Collections to hit the post before the holiday season really kicks in! With so many stamping projects on the go, it was difficult to choose something to share with you today but I settled on a couple of pretty cards suitable for any occasion and a preview of some of the Christmas cards I have been working on.

The ladies that attended my card making classes last week made some awesome versions of these pretty rose cards...we spent the class learning about all the different ways you can make "unique one of a kind backgrounds" for your images using Close To My Heart exclusive inks and acrylic blocks - it was lots of fun getting inky and seeing what we could produce :)

I've been making a series of different Christmas Cards this year....and you all know how much I love colouring with alcohol makers!!!... the moment I first saw the cute Christmas Village Stamp Set I knew I was going to spend some quiet time colouring with my markers. Although it is summer at this time of year, I still love snow themed scenes of Christmas and one day I do hope to celebrate a White Christmas!! I wasn't sure how I was going to create the snow and I tossed a few ideas around but ended up deciding to colour in the outline of the snow with my Sky coloured marker... then using the Blending Maker saturate some of the sky colour out of the cardstock. I think it worked a treat.

 

 

I am in the process of putting together my class schedule for 2014 and if you would like to host a gathering with your family and friends at my house or yours I would love to hear from you...just send a message to lotfam@iinet.net.au and we will lock in a date before my calendar starts to fill up. You can also send me an "expression of interest" message if you would like to be kept up to date with my Card Kit Collections - next year I plan on having a kit ready to send out to you every month. Here is a "sneak peek" of what a kit looks like - all materials and full colour instructions included...you just stamp with your choice of Close To My Heart stamps from my suggested list.

 

 

I have 2 of these kits ready to send out to a  reader of my blog...my gift to you this Christmas......if you would like to be the lucky recipient? just leave a comment on my blog and I will choose someone at random to receive the kits in the mail next week. This giveaway is only open to Australian residents.

 

Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner and my last blog post for 2013....it just might contain a little surprise too?