Tuesday, February 28, 2017

March Bells & Whistles, Head of the Class

As much as I try to schedule things far in advance so that everyone else can make plans, sometimes things come up to interfere.  My Bells and Whistles class is one of these.  The plan was for these classes to take place the last Friday evening of every month.  Well, February's got cancelled and I'm going to have to move March's to March 10th, 7pm-9pm.  I hope, that things calm down in the future, and I can go back to our regularly scheduled program.  Thank you for being patient in the meantime. 


Bells & Whistles class are by RSVP only.  If you don't tell me you are coming, I won't make up the kit.  Love the kit, but can't make the class?  RSVP and tell me you'll pick it up, and I'll stamp the set for you during class.  You can assemble it at  your convenience. 



March's Bells & Whistle Class if a school days page.  Ever have one of those certificate awards?  This is the page to display it!  It's designed to hold one certificate, one horizontal 4X6, one 3X3 and one wallet school photo.  The certificate area can be modified to hold a class photo instead.  Art work is another option.
I wanted to include some ribbons the school issued, and used the space for the 4X6 to display these.  There are lots of options in this layout to include memorabilia you want to preserve - just bring it with you when you come.


The Bells & Whistle workshop is $10.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Hello Lovely, the Rest of the Kit

Well, it's the end of the month, and time for the end of a kit.  It's a real shame when we look at our stash and just say "I have so much STUFF".  I don't think we could do without it; you need a certain supply level in order to have what you need, when you need it.  But I also know that I am not going to mix and match my wonderful CTMH kits.  So when I complete projects with all the leftover pieces of a kit, that's one less stack of supplies, and puts me closer to completed projects.  I have two D ring binders of completed pages, waiting on the perfect pictures to show up.  This process works for me, and when those pictures are printed, making it a completed work of art is a snap.



This is what I was left with of the Hello Lovely Workshop Your Way, after I finished the layouts and cards shown in the instruction set. It's not a lot, no full pages and lots of PML cards.






I am also a big advocate of using what you have.  We buy all these great stamps, then use them for the advertised sampled, but what then?  They shouldn't just sit in the box!  As a consultant, sometimes I worry that it's unfair of me to post a sample with a product you can no longer buy.  I hope that if you love something, you buy it and add it to your stock.  CTMH's marketing philosophy is to give you more options, and updates frequently.  You have 4 months to get what you like, then they give you new options.  If I use something retired, like this swan stamp, that you don't have, you can probably find another stamp set you love in your stash to pull out and use instead.

So back to what I did with the scraps from the Hello Lovely kit.  I loved the two tone Sorbet PML cards, but the colors just didn't go with my pages, in my color challenged mind.  But they made two of this great card.  The sentiment is from one of the stamp sets that come with the Flower Market Cricut cartridge.  Building from the bottom, that's a PML card, stamped the cattails, zip strip, swan, sentiment.  And when you have scraps of zip strips, you can add one to the bottom of the interior of the card for an extra touch.  The swans were stamped first and second generation in Sorbet.










Next is another PML card.  These said Best Day, in between the flowers.  I simply cut the Best Day out, trimmed the PML to fit my card and stamped a sentiment in the middle.  Then I took the clear shimmer brush and added sparkle to the flowers.




Next card - more PMLs!  This one took a little more time.  The green background is a PML card with more words I didn't want on there.  I matted it with Glacier paper, then covered the words with scrap strips and a leftover piece of zip strip  The flowers are from another PML card, where I fussy cut the bouquet.  There is a small strip of glitter paper in there, and again, I shined up the flowers with the clear shimmer pen.



Now cards aren't the only thing  you can get from scraps.  I usually start with laying all the stuff out on the table (like the first picture), then seeing what I can make pages with.  Anything I can't gets moved into a card.   I really liked the way this layout turned out.  You have to add cardstock when you do the pages, for this one it was two daisy white and one champagne.  This layout is simple - two zip strips across the top, a row of PML cards and scraps, another line of zip strips and a row of the blush shimmer ribbon.  Before placing all that down, I kept with the art deco style and stamped some loops on the bottom in Champagne (another retired and favorite stamp set).  The words are from the Hello Lovely scrapbooking stamp set, in Desert Sand.  The mats are in Champagne; one 5X7, two 4X6 and 3 3X3.  Oh, and a few of the new gold gems.  So, this makes layout number #4 from the kit.
 


And here is layout #5!  Just simple 2X2 squares along the top, a 1/4" strip of sea glass glitter paper below that, then space for 6 4X6 vertical photos across the DLO, then another strip of sea glass glitter paper.  The title will go at the bottom of the page, once the right pictures come along. The embellishments at the top are from a cricut cartridge - background in sea glass, top in white, then covered with clear Glitz. Yep, I still have some of that in my supply stash. You could also cut the top layer from white glitter paper for the same effect.


And that concludes this episode of Hello Lovely!  Tune in again, as we start Dreamin' Big!





















Friday, February 24, 2017

March Card Class, Dreamin' Big

March card class is on Thursday the 9th, from 5:30pm until 7:30pm.  It doesn't take two hours to complete the cards, but the window is open that long for you to drop by when it best works for you.

We'll be making 3 cards, straight from the Dreamin' Big kit instructions.  Join me to get some hands on time with the Dreamin' Big stamp set and dies.  Cost is $3.  We'll be using the rock and roll method to stamp, but other than that, it's a simple class to create a few thinking of you cards.

Please RSVP if you are attending.









Thursday, February 9, 2017

Consultant Option



New Consultants who join Close To My Heart in February will get the February, March, and April Stamp of the Month sets for FREE! That’s an additional $53.85 in retail value added to the already incredible value of the New Consultant Kit!
For our former Close To My Heart Consultants, we will also offer a lower-priced, no-kit enrollment option that will allow former Consultants to sign up for just $50! They will still receive $50 in Select Product Credit to spend on products of their choice, meaning they basically get to sign up for free! PLUS they’ll get the February, March, and April Stamp of the Month sets for FREE!

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Building a Tower

I am hearing a lot of positive feed back on the new ink pads.  The open easily and completely, with a magnetic closure, instead of the pop and twist.  While I did add a black to my collection, I will probably only build a complete set as the old colors retire and the new ones come in. They are priced at $8 each. I can say that so far, I am happy with the Workspace Wonder stamp pad stack ($10).  I only have the two, but they are very durable plastic and stack together nicely. In the catalog, it appears that the name is not on the side of the ink pad, but it is.


Monday, February 6, 2017

Chocolate!

What scrap day is complete with out a little chocolate!  For those of  you locals that don't already know, there is a Russell Stover's outlet in Athens.  This outlet has all the  traditional candies you can find in your local stores for about the same price, but it also has the seconds or bloopers that are much cheaper - 3lbs for the price of 1lb.  And some out of season candy, like these gems for just $.10 each.  I've lived in Madison for 5 years, and only went in for the first time in January.  Maybe that's a good thing considering how much of it I've eaten since then!


Friday, February 3, 2017

Scrubbing It Clean

I love our new scrubber.  I guess it's not really new anymore, it's been around for 2 or 3 years I think.  The scrubber is $13 and the Spritz cleaner is $5 (big bottle refill - $11.50)



A couple of handy tips:
  • Rinse your scrubber out occasionally.  The ink does transfer from the stamps to the scrubber, but it will stay with the scrubber until it's cleaned.  Just occasionally works, depending on your use level.  I do it about once a month.
  • After cleaning your stamps, stamp the cleaned stamp on a piece of paper.  This will  help remove any cleaner.  When you let the cleaner dry on the stamp, it can affect how well the stamp picks up ink next time you go to use it.
For a long time, I cleaned my stamps with wet wipes.  That works great, until your wet wipe dries out a bit and you get a fuzzy layer on your stamp.  This scrubber gets rid of that fuzz layer lickety split.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Background Cuts Please and Make it Super Sized!

 
Today I have a few tips about Cricut mats.

  • I buy the 12X24 mats, when they are on sale, and cut them in half.  24" is way longer than I need, but the price is much cheaper to make your own 12X12's from the 12X24 size.
  • When using the cut in half mat, sometimes you need to flip the mat around, to use the less used, more sticky side.  Remember to drop your paper down one inch when rotating your cut mat.  The machine needs that first inch just to hold the mat.  Don't worry about the paper not sticking to that final inch of the mat.  I haven't ever found this to be an issue.
  • The CTMH Cricut cartridges have some great full page backgrounds for your 12X12 layouts.  Many times, it won't cut a shape larger than 10 3/4" or 11", and you might want to cover a bit more of your 12" layout.  Try telling the Cricut that you have a 12X24" mat.  It will still only allow you to get 12" wide, but usually I can get the cut a bit bigger with this minor fudge.  It will cut off the page just a bit, but that might be okay, depending on your purpose.

These are cuts I did from the Art Philosophy cartridge as the page kit for the Fundamentals retreat (in 9 days!).  Telling the machine I was using a 12X12 would only allow a 10 3/4" shape. Telling the machine it was 12X24 and I got 11 1/4 " shape.  It helped fill my page top to bottom.  Left to right, I already wanted the off the page effect, and actually cut a little more off the side than the machine did.