A Sneaky Little Preview

I have been struggling to sleep ever since returning from the Close To My Heart Annual Convention in the USA. I was so inspired by my fellow consultants and now have millions & millions of ideas buzzing around in my head! I've also found it difficult to contain my excitement about all the new products being released on the 1st August - and today that excitement has burst it's bubble LOL! - well just enough to give you a "sneak peek" of some of my favourites - old & new combined together.

I'm a huge fan of the Picture My Life Scrapbooking Program a product jam packed with 122 double sided cards in 2 sizes -  3" x 4" and 4" x 6" and while they are a fabulous embellishment for this slip in style of album making, I also LOVE creating cards with them - even altering the size to showcase a particular design element or sentiment...but my biggest "Ah Hah" moment at Convention was when the amazing Extravaganza Teachers suggested altering the My Crush Books and treating the pages as decorative papers....Oh My! a whole new world suddenly appeared. This card uses papers from one of our original Crush Books and one of the new ones, to be released in just 4 short days!! I love how well they co-ordinate together. I'm a "tool collector" and as you can see I used my trusty Corner Rounder and Scallop Border Punch to create this card...and I am thrilled to say "watch this space" as I will have 2 new Border Punches to introduce to you in the coming days....they make very cool borders too!!....and how sweet are the metal flowers I used to embellish this card?? - I can see plenty of these flowers coming my way in future orders!! Stay tuned for further information on these ( and so much more!! ) in the coming days....and remember time has almost run-out to order your favourite products from the Feb - July 2014 Ideas Book, if there is anything you can't live without?? - you are best to visit my Online Shop Today!!
 

July Stamp of the Month

Time is running out to purchase this month's fun, funky and very frivolous Stamp of the Month set called Circus Alphabet...and you can add it to your stamp collection for only $5 with a purchase of $75 or more from my Online Shop. Simply tally up your purchases in the shopping cart and you will be prompted to add it when you check out - how easy is that??

It comes as no secret that I love to colour in... place some water colour pencils, alcohol markers or ink & a paintbrush in my hand and I retreat off into my "happy place". That being said, I knew my crafty friends would predict that I would be stamping and colouring to my heart's content with this stamp set...and they would have been correct. This is such a fun set to add colour and life to, but like all Close To My Heart stamp sets they offer so much more versatility than you initially see...and sometimes keeping things really simple with a little black ink can have just as much impact as a whole palette of colour. I decided to go down this path and create a simple but classy card of love with this month's Stamp of the Month - I still kept a bit of predictability about myself and reached for some lovely tones of pink to piece it all together.

I photographed this card with a flash so that I could highlight the "glossy accents" in the Paper Fundamentals Assortment - love, love, love this paper pack 20 double-sided 12 x 12 sheets - one side has a high gloss resist pattern and the other a great matt finish. You might also notice a fine strip of black glitter paper? this is from the Black & Grey Glitter pack - be sure to check out all Close To My Heart's Speciality Papers there is certainly something there for everyone. Another of my favourite products ( & quite possibly my all time favourite ) is the Micro-Tip Scissors and they came in very handy for cutting the leaf shapes from the Ariana Complements - the leaves added a nice bit of dimension to my card and were the perfect compliment for the flowers. The flowers and heart shapes were all cut from the Cricut Artiste Collection and if you are a fan of our Cricut collections - I will have a nice surprise for you next month...make sure you stay tuned! The faux stitching was created using the Black Marvy Pen and I think it was just the right finishing touch.

A number of the products used to create this card will be retiring over the next couple of weeks. This is the list that will be going, going, gone!! If your favourites are on this list??.... stock-up while you can, with an order at my  Online Shop...remember all orders totalling $75 or more will qualify you to purchase the Circus Alphabet for only $5. If you have questions regarding this list, please email  me ...lotfam@iinet.net.au.... happy to help.