Colour your World with Friendship

The Paper Doll Stamp Set was one of my very first Close To My Heart purchases and has been one of my most used stamp sets.....I could hardly contain my excitement when the co-ordinating set Shreddin' the Slopes was released this month and I knew instantly that combined together they would form a beautiful bond of friendship!! The images also pair very well with our new range of ShinHan Markers which also includes Skin Tones... that make your character images come to life!

 Colours Used:
Cherry Pink, Tender Pink, Barley Beige, Pastel Peach, Clay, Peacock Green, Turquoise Blue, Bronze and Mahogany

 

The pink and blue tones of markers I used are a perfect match for the colour palette featured in the pages/paper of the My Crush - In the Pink Book and I used the adorable patterns in this book to create my Friendship Card. The turquoise coloured gems are actually the Clear Sparkles coloured with the Peacock Green ShinHan Marker ... love how applying a little colour to embellishments can add the perfect finishing touch to my projects.

I also used my black Marvy Journalling Pen  and Watercolour Pencils to scribble a bit of definition into the hair of the dolls...it just adds a bit more realism into the images.

The sentiment for this card was created by once again combining 2 different product ranges - the pink stickers spelling out "Sweet Friend" come from the My Crush - In the Pink Assortment and the stamped sentiment is one of four found in the stamp set You Mean the World to Me. This stamp set is the ideal companion for the Cut Above Collections and if you haven't seen these card and gift making kits? - check them out here.

If you would like to see more of the new products released this month or would like to add some Paper Dolls to you collection?....simply visit my Online Shop - remember if your purchase totals $75 or more you are also eligible to purchase the $27 Stamp of the Month for only $5  - super value :)

Fun & Rewards for Crafty Chicks

This is my 150th blog post - how cool is that?? I hope you have enjoyed following my "Creative Capers". I have certainly enjoyed sharing my creative journey with you...it has been a lot of fun giving you a little insight into my life and my love of all things crafty. However, the best part of my blogging experience has been meeting new friends - fellow bloggers, craft enthusiasts, lovely customers and a great network of crafting buddies in my personal Close To My Heart consultant team.

 

If you would like to come "play" with me in real life you will find it is just as rewarding. Host a papercraft class/gathering with your friends and you are eligible to purchase some wonderful stamp sets at discount prices...and even earn free product - click here for all the details! This card uses one of my favourite Hostess Rewards stamp sets..."Better with a Friend - D1607" - another great set for colouring with the fabulous ShinHan Markers. The fine bullet tip is perfect for these images, it makes it so easy to colour those smaller more intricate areas.

 

Colours Used:

Cherry Pink, Tender Pink, Marigold, Pastel Green, Leaf Green, Cerulean Blue

 

These colours co-ordinate beautifully with the Brushed My Reflections Collection...the leaves were fussy cut from the pretty floral printed paper in this collection, using my ever faithful Micro-Tip Scissors. I also used the tip of the scissors to remove the silver centre from the Metal Flowers, which I then substituted with Gold Bling Gems for a little extra sparkle.

 

 

If you love paper crafting and sharing your creativity with others - you may like to consider becoming a Close To My Heart Consultant - and enrich your crafting passion with lots of Fun, Friendship and Awesome Rewards....two start-up kits are available for you to choose from and whatever path you decide to take, please know I am here to help you every step of the way.

 

Whether you want to be a self-funded hobbyist, consumer consultant, club co-ordinator, digital scrapbook consultant, or even a career builder, there is a place for you on my team of Crafty Chicks!

Benefits of Being a Consultant:

• 22% discount on all CTMH products.
• Potential to earn FREE products with every order
• You can be your own hostess.
• Preview and order new products before they are released.
• Access to an exclusive consultant website - containing artwork, creative insider kits, tutorials, business ideas and more.
• The opportunity to earn your $130 kit fee back in your first 3 months.
• Free on-line training program with creative, personal and business classes.
• Opportunity to attend corporate sponsored events and earn an all expenses paid holiday (every year!)
• Free online shop/website
• An opportunity to purchase a Cricut Machine and/or Cuttlebug at a discount price.

Benefits of Joining My Team:

• One-on-one mentoring that includes product marketing, blog set-up etc
• Access to an exclusive facebook group for team members only.
• Card/Project Kits & Handouts – free & exclusive to my team members.
• Card Swaps, Awards & Incentives throughout the year designed for team members only.
• To be a part of “Chris's Crafty Chicks” an Australian wide team of creative and inspiring artists.
• and so much more…

Click here to order your kit choice and join in the FUN!
Do you have questions?  E-mail me for more information - lotfam@iinet.net.au

Colouring Fun

One of the most exciting new product lines added to the Close To My Heart crafting range is the ShinHan Touch Twin Markers. There is something very therapeutic about colouring in your stamped images - it is also a perfect way to spend a rainy winter day. Twenty-four carefully selected colours are featured in the range -  rich vibrant colours that match beautifully with Close To My Heart's colour palette...which of course takes the guess work out of colour co-ordinating your projects.

I like to colour in a small circular motion rather than taking the linear approach, it gives a much more even coverage of ink leaving you with a smooth professional finish. However, if you want to add a textured look to your coloured image try experimenting with the ShinHan Touch Twin Colourless Blender. A fun thing to do is to desaturate your colouring using a pointillism type technique which is basically "dotting" away colour. I used this technique to give my Koala image on this card a more "fluffy" appearance.

Colours Used:
Warm Grey #7, Warm Gray #4, Clay, Tender Pink, Cherry Pink

I enjoyed experimenting with lots of different tools and materials when piecing together this card. I created a decorative strip by combining the Chevron Border Punch with the Scallop Border Punch and highlighting the perforations with Silver Shimmer Trim. The large scallop circle was cut on my Cricut machine using one of the 700 shapes found on the Art Philosophy Cartridge. The spotted "bluegum" coloured border was cut from a page taken out of the My Crush - In The Pink Book and when I stamped on it with the leaf image from the A Budding Friendship D1602 stamp set it made perfect gum leaves. The lovely pink & white metal flowers come from the Brushed Assortment and I see a lot of these being added to my future orders - you can add them to yours too, by clicking here. Again, I reached for my trusty Marvy Uchida LePen to add some faux stitching. A touch of stitching takes away the harsh edges and gives definition to cardstock shapes.

If you would like to learn more about colouring with the ShinHan Touch Twin Markers, creating gorgeous projects with the wonderful Close To My Heart product range or becoming a Consultant.... contact me today at lotfam@iinet.net.au or visit my website - I'd love to "Show You How"!

Easy Peasy - Stamp of the Month Card

Today I wanted to show you the versatility of this month's Stamp of the Month - it is not all about cute Owl images and Halloween themes! As many of you know I am a flower making addict LOL! and instantly I saw petal, leaf and flower shapes in many of the images showcased in this stamp set. Highlight these images with the new Brushed Paper Pack and you have a totally different themed card. This card was "super easy"  to create I simply followed one of my favourite sketches ( you will find it here ). I then added some random stamping in Hollyhock Ink to my Hollyhock Cardstock for a lovely tone on tone look, a sweet sentiment from the A Budding Friendship stamp set and a little paper piecing and the card was done! - Easy Peasy!!

The paper pieced flower was created by stamping 8 petal/wing shapes from the What A Hoot stamp set in Black Ink onto a small piece of pink patterned paper, taken from a page in the My Crush - In the Pink Book - each petal was then fussy cut using my "all time favourite"  Micro-Tip Scissors then arranged into a flower shape and adhered to the card base. The centre of the flower and the leaves were cut from the images in the large floral design paper in the Brushed Paper Pack - I love the primitive hand-painted look of this paper. I then did some faux stitching using the Marvy Fine Tip Pen just to add that finishing touch.

If you would like to create your own floral embellishments with this stamp set? - simply place a $75 order in my Online Shop and you can purchase this set for just $5 - absolutely amazing value for money - this set contains 17 different images with a variety of applications!

 

What a Hoot! - Totally Awesome New Products

Today is the day Close To My Heart release their new Annual Inspirations Idea Book/Catalogue and My Oh My!! is it jammed packed with the yummiest most awesome products you have ever seen!! I have been waiting for this day with so much excitement & anticipation and I can't wait to share all this goodness with you here on my blog - you will need to log in regularly to see the multitude of ideas and products I have to show you....yes!! I have so much to "show & tell" that I will be posting 3-4 times a week instead of the regular once a week you have been use to!!...be sure to check back so you don't miss a thing. If you head on over to my Facebook Page and share the link I have 3 hard copies of the Idea Book to give away! OR you can simply view an online copy here!

Now with all this yumminess where do I start? I thought the best place to start would be by showing you this month's Stamp of the Month - What a Hoot!  - remember with a $75 purchase, from me personally or in my Online Shop - the Stamp of the Month  can be yours for just $5 ( a huge saving of $22 )...and who doesn't want to add this cute Owl set to their collection?! It is such a "hoot" and so much fun to play with.

It is a perfect stamp set for Paper Piecing and Colouring techniques and I love that the cute owl character can be customised to suit any theme with a variety of wings, eyes and little hats that come included in the stamp set. I used many of the new products released today to create this card, including one of our new ink and cardstock colours called Flaxen, a new Triangle Border Punch and the lovely ShinHan Markers . The extra "Congratulations" sentiment comes from one of my favourite new Aussie Stamp Sets Cute Koalas - D1642 - stay tuned for more ideas using this set very soon!!

I decided to paper piece a second Owl image from this month's Stamp of the Month - I used another of the new ink & cardstock colours called Pixie  - love, love, love!!! and some papers ( pages taken ) from the  My Crush Books along with Kraft Cardstock - same stamp set but such a different looking card...experimenting with colour can bring amazing results.

If you would like to see more of the new products released today - click on the "New Products" tab in my Online Shop and take a peek - if you would like more information about anything you see or would like to place an order or even become a consultant and join my team of Crafty Chicks - please don't hesitate to send me a message at lotfam@iinet.net.au I am happy to help your creative journey any way I can.


 

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.